-141 BC- So, Emperor Wǔ (age 15) was now the ruler of the Hàn Empire!
-He was born in 156 BC as Prince Liú Chè, the son of Emperor Jǐng and Empress Wáng (AKA Lady Wáng, etc.) in Cháng'ān (capital of the Hàn Empire, modern-day Xī'ān, Shǎnxī Province).
-According to legend, while she was pregnant Empress Wáng had had a dream in which a sun had fallen into her belly or something, which of course was an omen that this child was destined for greatness!
-It was obvious that Emperor Jǐng had chosen Prince Liú Chè as his favorite son; for example, by the age of three he was already named prince of Jāodōng.
-Anyway, a bunch of family drama happened between the time of his birth and his enthronement, but we covered most of that in the last post so don't worry about it too much.
-Emperor Wǔ's style of rule was quite different than that of both his father and grandfather (who were largely "hands off" (wú wéi) in this respect, heavily influenced by Taoism).
-While wú wéi had worked really well in terms of rejuvenating the empire's economy (which had gotten really fucked up during the Chǔ-Hàn Contention) due to the dynasty's 1-2 punch of government decentralization and economic freedom, but at the same time this (just like in the past with the Zhōu dynasty) gave vassal kings/princes too much power which of course ended up destabilizing the region.
-To make matters worse, nepotism/corruption had infiltrated the government at all levels which resulted in a ruling class (made up of Liú clan members and their extended family (I'm pretty sure, at least for the most part)) that held themselves above the law (which was just there to control the peasants, of course).
-For example, one of the first reforms Emperor Wǔ attempted to make upon his enthronement was to change the Hàn dynasty's embarrassing héqīn policy which up till that point had been how they had been attempting to placate the Xiōngnú, but obviously it wasn't working out too well since the Xiōngnú would benefit greatly from the héqīn system but then just invade Hàn territory anyway.
-However, attempting to change this official policy (among many others) proved to be much harder than the emperor had anticipated, as he (of course) began to clash with the Hàn dynasty "deep state" of entrenched government officials, courtiers, nobility, and even his grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Dòu (AKA Dòu Yīfáng, Empress Xiàowén (previously), etc.)), who was still a hardcore Taoist (even though Emperor Wǔ seemed to be drawn towards Confucianism way more than Taoism).
-For example, when two of the emperor's advisers began to urge him to stop listening to Grand Empress Dowager Dòu, she had the two advisers arrested, tried for corruption (ironic...), and then forced to commit suicide, in addition to some other shady stuff.
-To make matters more complicated, Emperor Wǔ and Empress Chén (his cousin!) were unable to produce any sons. In addition to this, the empress had forbidden the emperor to have any concubines (ha!), so he wasn't able to have any sons that could serve as heirs that way, either!
-Soon, the emperor's political opponents began using this as an excuse to claim that he wasn't prepared enough or even suitable as ruler of the empire and shit like that.
-Apparently, even Grand Empress Dowager Dòu was plotting his removal, hoping to replace him with uncle Liú Ān (a grandson of Emperor Gāozǔ), vassal king of Huáinán (and apparently the inventor of soy milk and/or tofu! haha) and hardcore Taoist.
-Realizing that he was very short on allies in the court, the emperor desperately reached out to his mother-in-law, Princess Liú Piáo.
-Unfortunately, Princess Liú just ended up taking advantage of the emperor and his compromised position, so this resulted in an absolutely desperate Emperor Wǔ going to his mother, Empress Dowager Wáng, in order to try and have her get the grand empress dowager to be more reasonable. However, his mom just advised him to just buck up and do his best to weather the storm...after all, Grand Empress Dowager Dòu was getting pretty old at this point and probably wouldn't be living for too much longer.
-Emperor Wǔ, realizing that he really didn't have much of a choice otherwise, decided to heed his mother's advice (although the grand empress dowager would continue to live for another few years! Doh (or Dòu :p))! During this time he just went on hunting and sightseeing trips and shit like that, while at the same time doing his best to shore up as much support as he could manage.
-Anyway, it didn't take too long for the emperor to figure out that the key source of his opposition was from the Three Lords and Nine Ministers (Sān Gōng Jiǔ Qīng), the government's central administrative system which had been introduced during the Qín dynasty and was composed of:
-Three Lords:
-Grand Chancellor (or Prime Minister)
-Imperial Secretary
-Grand Commandant
-Nine Ministers:
-Minister of Ceremonies
-Supervisor of Attendants
-Commandant of the Guards
-Minister of Coachmen
-Commandant of Justice
-Grand Herald
-Director the Imperial Clan
-Grand Minister of Agriculture
-Small Treasurer (haha)
-However, it's worth noting that the Three Lords and Nine Ministers weren't necessarily against the emperor himself per se, they were just extremely conservative and anti-reform.
-Realizing this, Emperor Wǔ knew that he would have to work around the TLNM (instead of through), so he began to appoint commoners to mid-level positions in the government, banking on the idea that they would be high enough in level to have a significant influence on government administration but at the same time be low enough to be relatively anonymous as well.
-This group of officials were loyal to the emperor because he was the source of their power (since the bottom line was that they were still commoners), and Emperor Wǔ dubbed these loyalists his "insider court" (nèi cháo).
-In addition to this insider court, the emperor also made a huge push to have scholars and other intellectuals from commoner backgrounds to seek government positions (in order to off-balance the Liú clan's stranglehold on power).
-138 BC- war breaks out between the independent (I think?) vassal kingdoms of Mǐnyuè (AKA Mân Việt (in Vietnamese)) and Ōuyuè (AKA Dōng'ōu (or Âu Việt (in Vietnamese))) to the south, as the former invaded the latter.
-These "-yuè" kingdoms were actually made up of ethnically non-Chinese indigenous people who were the ancestors of the Vietnamese (and maybe other Southeast Asian peoples, idk), although the Chinese had always just referred to these people as the Yuè people/tribes (AKA Bǎiyuè, Hundred Yuè, or Việt (in Vietnamese)).
-Of course, this is starting to get into controversial territory because China has always claimed that these Yuè/Việt kingdoms were Chinese, but Vietnam has always claimed that these were actually Vietnamese people, so that's important to keep in mind.
-Dōng'ōu called on the Hàn dynasty for help, and after some debate Emperor Wǔ agreed that the best course of action was to send reinforcements (led by an official named Yán Zhù) to help defend Mǐnyuè. However, there was one problem- Emperor Wǔ didn't actually possess the authority to dispatch troops since he wasn't in possession of the tiger tally (hǔ fú), a bronze (previously jade) artifact/token whose possessor indicated the authority to mobilize armies (the way it had been since perhaps as early as the Warring States period, if not earlier); instead, it was actually Grand Empress Dowager Dòu who had the tiger tally.
-Grand Empress Dowager Dòu didn't give a fuck about defending Ōuyuè, which she probably considered to be a backwater and unworthy of imperial attention in the first place.
-So, the emperor and Yán Zhù decided to circumvent this technicality by just ignoring it! When Yán Zhù arrived at the Kuàijī Commandery (near Ōuyuè) to mobilize the navy there, the local commander refused to follow Yán Zhù's orders because Yán Zhù didn't have the tiger tally... so Yán Zhù simply had the commander executed! Obviously, that got people moving, and it didn't take long for the armies of Mǐnyuè to abort their attempted invasion of Ōuyuè.
-This was significant not necessarily because of what happened with Mǐnyuè backing down, but instead because it was obvious that Emperor Wǔ had realized that he was no longer beholden to the traditional laws which restricted his authority (such as only being able to command the armies if you possessed the tiger tally (which is obviously a little silly)), and that imperial decree could potentially supersede all other checks on his power.
-Later in 138 BC- Emperor Wǔ's concubine, Weì Zǐfū, became pregnant with his first child (which was important because up until that point he wasn't able to have any kids!).
-It's also worth noting that, as stated above, Empress Chén had forbidden Emperor Wǔ to have any concubines, but I guess after years of sexual frustration and the inability to have kids with the empress (which of course his political opponents had used to attack his legitimacy as ruler) the emperor had had enough and finally brought a concubine (a dancing girl he met at a party) back to the palace, which I'm sure pissed off Empress Chén to no end.
-135 BC- Grand Empress Dowager Dòu finally dies.
-Soon after her death, Emperor Wǔ realized that he had full control of the government and used this as an opportunity to declare an end to all of the Taoist influence on public policy, with Confucianism becoming the new official ideology of the state.
-It was around this time that Emperor Wǔ decided to expand his empire in all directions (except for the sea to the east), starting with the invasion of Mǐnyuè in the south!
-This was triggered by Mǐnyuè invading another state, this time Nányuè (located directly to the south of the Hàn Empire).
-Nányuè had just enthroned a new king, Zhào Miè (AKA Triệu Mạt (in Vietnamese)), and I guess Mǐnyuè decided to take advantage of the new king's presumed inexperience by invading.
-So, Emperor Wǔ sent an amphibious force by sea to attack Mǐnyuè, which (once again) ended up freaking out Mǐnyuè to the point where its elites/nobility (led by the king's younger brother, Zōu Yúshàn) had Mǐnyuè's king (unclear as to what his name actually was/is) arrested and executed, with his decapitated head sent to the Hàn army as a peace offering. This worked, of course, but this time the Hàn dynasty decided to cripple Mǐnyuè by dividing it in half; its western half would still go by the name "Mǐnyuè" (and be controlled by the Hàn dynasty through a puppet king, Zōu Chǒu (grandson of the founder (I think) of the Mǐnyuè kingdom)), but its eastern half would be merged with Ōuyuè (I guess?).
-Of course, nobody in Mǐnyuè recognized King Zōu Chǒu's authority since they knew he was a puppet king, so he was immediately toppled by Zōu Yúshàn who just crowned himself king of Mǐnyuè at that point (since he was probably so tired of initiating coups!).
-Meanwhile, tensions were finally coming to a head between the Hàn dynasty and the Xiōngnú Empire, as it was obvious that the latter were still constantly invading the former's lands despite the héqīn policy. Emperor Wǔ had finally had enough.
-The emperor sent the court official Zhāng Qiān (along with Gānfù, a Xiōngnú POW who would serve as Zhāng Qiān's guide and translator) as an imperial envoy to find the mysterious Yuèzhī (AKA the Tocharians/Tokharians (although this is controversial so maybe they weren't the same) according to the Greeks) people, pastoral nomads whom up till that point had been living to the west of the Hàn Empire but had recently pushed out (around modern-day Tajikistan) by the Xiōngnú.
-This region formerly occupied by the Yuèzhī was important to the Hàn dynasty because it was essential for trade, and it now being occupied by the Xiōngnú was a huge problem for the empire. Emperor Wǔ's plan was for Zhāng Qiān to try and entice the Yuèzhī to help the Hàn dynasty fight off the Xiōngnú from the region so that the Yuèzhī could re-occupy it (I'm presuming that they would be living under the Hàn dynasty, however).
-Of course, upon entering Xiōngnú territory it didn't take long for Zhāng Qiān and his entourage to get captured (haha what were they thinking??) and enslaved.
-During his time as a slave Zhāng Qiān (among other things, I'm sure) befriended a local Xiōngnú leader, married a Xiōngnú woman, and even had a son with his wife, too, but after 10 years (!!) he was finally able to escape (along with Gānfù and his family) to territory occupied by the Yuèzhī (arriving in 129 BC).
-Fun fact- during their flight from the Xiōngnú, Zhāng Qiān and his crew passed through Dàyuān (AKA Tà-yuān; apparently it literally means "Great Ionians" (!)), an ancient kingdom located in modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan; Dàyuān's people were actually the descendants of Greek colonists whom had occupied the region during the conquests of Alexander the Great and were described by the Hàn as having "Caucasian" features and being of a similar culture to that of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (an ancient Hellenistic kingdom located in parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, northern Pakistan, and Kazakhstan (with whom the Chinese had made contact with as early as the Qín dynasty in 220 BC, if not earlier (who referred to this region (Bactria) as Dàxià))).
-Unfortunately for Zhāng Qiān, his quest was in vain- the Yuèzhī seemed to have already gotten used to their situation and acclimated to their new home, so they expressed zero interest in getting into a military alliance with the Hàn dynasty against the Xiōngnú (who were probably also the most dangerous dudes in the region whom you absolutely did not want to fuck with haha). So, Zhāng Qiān just ended up staying with the Yuèzhī for about a year, during which he documented their culture and lifestyle.
-Anyway, to return home Zhāng Qiān decided on taking a different route (presumably so that he wouldn't just end up getting captured again by the Xiōngnú), but of course he just ended up getting captured again by the Xiōngnú (doh!!) except this time he was only enslaved for like two years.
-Zhāng Qiān managed to escape and finally return home to Cháng'ān in 126 BC, whereupon his journeys were recorded and documented by the emperor and various other Hàn scholars, and Zhāng Qiān himself was rewarded lavishly and promoted with a new position in the imperial court.
-Besides Dàyuān and the Yuèzhī, Zhāng Qiān also documented his encounters with many other ancient cultures/kingdoms occupying modern-day Central Asia during that time, including Kāngjū (AKA Sogdia or Sogdiana (probably), an Iranian people) and Dàxià (Bactria (see above)). In addition to the places he visited, he also recorded information about other cultures/kingdoms he learned about, including Shēndú (probably referring to the region of Sindh and most likely occupied by an Indo-Greek kingdom which had inherited the name), Anxī (the Parthians), Tiáozhī (the Seleucids), and the pastoral nomads of Yǎncài (nomads of "the Vast Steppe" (around the Túrkistan Region of Kazakhstan).
-Zhāng Qiān would actually return to the West once again in 119 BC, this time to make contact with the Wūsūn people (presumably to establish a (relatively) safe trade route with the Parthian Empire), steppe nomads whom had clashed with with both the Yuèzhī and Xiōngnú (among others, I'm sure) in the past.
-His journey seemed to go well, and he returned to Cháng'ān in 115 BC having successfully established diplomatic ties between the Hàn dynasty and the Wūsūn.
-Zhāng Qiān finally died in 113 BC. His routes to/from the Hàn Empire would roughly lay the blueprint for what would become the Silk Road soon after this time.
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