-117 BC- Emperor Wǔ has the wrongfully-convicted Minister of Agriculture executed. The minister had been "perceived" by the emperor (or maybe the emperor just hated him and wanted an excuse to have him killed, idk) to oppose a plan to effectively extort double tributes out of princes and marquesses, which I guess the emperor was all for and the minister's opposition pissed him off. This resulted in all of his courtiers to become scared of experiencing the temperamental emperor's wrath, so they just became yes-men and stopped giving him any sort of meaningful criticism or advice.
-It seemed as if Emperor Wǔ was letting all of his newfound power go to his head, and was beginning to turn into a huge asshole.
-Anyway, as the Hàn dynasty drove out the Xiōngnú from the Héxī Corridor Emperor Wǔ began to once again eye the southern vassal kingdoms of Mǐnyuè (AKA Mân Việt (unclear as to what "Mân" means here...maybe "Skirt"?)), Nányuè (AKA Nam Việt ("South Việt")), and Diān (AKA Điền quốc) (but Ōuyuè (AKA Dōng'ōu, Dōngyuè, or Âu Việt ("East Việt")) isn't included now because they'd been incorporated into the Hàn dynasty in 138 BC).
-For a long time Emperor Wǔ just didn't have the resources to do this since he had been fighting the Xiōngnú Empire for so long with such a massive campaign. However, now that that was over with he must have realized that he was on a roll and began to eye the southern vassal kingdoms (as they were rich in resources and would only require some dumb excuse in order to be invaded)...
-112 BC- OK so a bit of some backstory- at this time the ruler of Nányuè/Nam Việt was Zhào Xīng (AKA Zhào Āi Wáng, Triệu Hưng, and Triệu Ai Vương). He was the kingdom's fourth king and up till that point all of Nányuè's kings were descended from their first king Zhào Tuó (Triệu Đà in Vietnamese, and considered by the Vietnamese to be the founder of the Vietnamese Triệu dynasty), a general of the Qín dynasty under King Zhèng/Qín Shǐ Huáng whom had been conquering various lands originally belonging to the Bǎiyuè (Bách Việt (maybe "Hundred Việt" in English?)) people; after the collapse of the Qín dynasty, General Zhào Tuó (whom had already been consolidating power down there anyway) ended up just saying "fuck it" and just decided to stay in the region and declare himself sovereign king of the brand-new kingdom of Nányuè in 221 BC (and during a spat with the Hàn dynasty in 185 BC he actually went so far as to name himself "Emperor Wǔ" ("the Martial Emperor", same name as Emperor Wǔ of the Hàn dynasty haha although Zhào Tuó had the name first so maybe Emperor Wǔ of Hàn copied)) also . SO, although at this point King Zhào Xīng was perhaps of mixed descent (Hàn and Yuè/Việt), his mother, Empress Dowager Jiū, was Hàn Chinese (apparently from Hándān (modern-day Héběi Province)), and it was the she that was calling all the shots in Nányuè during this time. Anyway, because Empress Dowager Jiū was Hàn Chinese and seeing that the Hàn dynasty was exploding in power and seemingly expanding in all directions she began to make preparations for Nányuè to merge with the Hàn Empire (which King Zhào Xīng was also down with as well, apparently). However, these plans were thwarted when Nányuè's powerful prime minister Lǚ Jiā (who, according to Vietnamese legend was a member of the native Luòyuè / Lạc Việt clan, so this would help explain maybe why Lǚ Jiā opposed merging with the Hàn dynasty) and some other government ministers started a coup which dragged on for months before Emperor Wǔ finally heard about the situation down there.
-Emperor Wǔ decided to send a small force (2000 men) led by General Hán Qiānqiū down to Nányuè in order to restore order. However, upon crossing the Hàn-Nányuè border both Empress Dowager Jiū, King Zhào Xīng, and various Hàn emissaries (among others, I'm sure) were murdered by Prime Minister Lǚ Jiā and his followers (and Zhào Xīng's brother, Zhào Jiàndé (Triệu Kiến Đức), was declared the new king by the prime minster).
-Anyway, it wasn't long before Hán Qiānqiū and his small army were attacked and defeated by Nányuè forces, so Emperor Wǔ then decided to pull out all the stops by unleashing a massive force of 100,000 soldiers to invade Nányuè!
-By the end of 111 BC, Nányuè had been completely conquered and incorporated into the Hàn Empire (divided into 10 prefectures).
-Both Mǐnyuè and Ōuyuè were Emperor Wǔ's next targets, and they knew it, too, so they decided to strike first and attacked the invading Hán forces who were still in the area, which of course resulted in the immediate complete invasion of both Mǐnyuè and Ōuyuè by the Hán dynasty (which didn't take long to successfully complete).
-109 BC- the Hàn dynasty annexes the kingdom of Diān (located in modern-day Yúnnán Province; inhabited by the indigenous Diān people but was established as a kingdom by a renegade Chǔ general after Chǔ fell to Qín in 221 BC), which apparently was welcomed by Diān's king since he probably felt like his kingdom was trapped between the Hàn behemoth and dangerous barbarians.
-After annexing Diān, Emperor Wǔ's next decided to expand his empire into the Korean peninsula by conquering the ancient kingdom of Joseon (or Gojoseon ("Old Joseon" or "Ancient Joseon") as its known today).
-It's possible that he did this because he feared of an alliance between Gojoseon and the Xiōngnú Empire.
-Although Gojoseon had already been there for like 2000 years (!) or so, it seemed to have really come to imperial Chinese attention due to Gojoseon throne being usurped by the Yān (Eighteen Kingdoms) general Wèi Mǎn (or "Wi Man" in Korean) in 194 BC after fleeing Yān after it was conquered by Hàn.
-Apparently, the Hàn dynasty had been cool with Gojosen after this just as long as they allowed for communication (and maybe trade?) with the state of Jin (located in approximately modern-day South Korea) to pass through unmolested. However, in 109 BC Gojoseon (at this time ruled by Wèi Mǎn's grandson, King Ugeo (or "Yòuqú" in Chinese I guess?)) decided to cancel this agreement for whatever reason and then on his way back home the Hàn emissary killed his Gojoseon escort at the border, which of course resulted in King Ugeo sending out a force into Hàn territory to arrest the emissary
-Obviously, this really ended up pissing off Emperor Wǔ, so he used this lame excuse to invade (with a force of about 50,000 men on land as well as some navy in a two-pronged assault).
-Although Gojoseon was successful in fighting off the Hàn forces for about a year, eventually King Ugeo was assassinated and government ministers began defecting to the Hàn side which resulted in the fall of Gojoseon in 108 BC. Annexed, it was divided by the Hàn dynasty into four commanderies (which would last for the next four centuries!).
-Next, in the west Emperor Wǔ conquered the small Indo-European Tocharian (AKA Tokharian) kingdoms/city-states of Krorän (or "Lóulán" in Chinese) and Jūshī (AKA Gūshī) and then focused on invading enough Xiōngnú territory in order to establish a (relatively) secure trade route with the Hellenistic kingdom of Dàyuān (AKA Tà-yuān or Dàwān (literally "Great Ionians/Greeks"); located in the modern-day Fergana Region, Uzbekistan) and other Western kingdoms.
-105 BC- Emperor Wǔ forges a military alliance against the Xiōngnú with the powerful, semi-nomadic, Indo-Aryan/Indo-Scythian Wūsūn steppe tribes and sends out Hàn emissaries to the Parthian Empire, the Seleucid Empire, and others.
-104 BC- Emperor Wǔ invades Dàyuān (this would come to be known as The War of the Heavenly Horses (AKA the Hàn-Dàyuān War)).
-Emperor Wǔ's excuse this time for invasion was because apparently Dàyuān had promised to sell the Hàn dynasty some of their horses (which were considered to be the best in the world by everyone around during this time and also were desperately needed by the Hàn dynasty in their ongoing battles against the Xiōngnú Empire since so many of their horses had died during these wars (estimated to be about 80% of all of the Hàn's horses in the last campaign!)) but then reneged on their offer at the last minute.
-During these negotiations between the Hàn dynasty and Dàyuān it seems like things may have gotten hostile as the Hàn emissary ended up getting murdered and his gold confiscated.
-In retaliation, Emperor Wǔ sent an army led by General Lí Guǎnglì (brother of the emperor's favorite concubine/wife/consort, Lady Lǐ (AKA Lǐ Fūren)) to crush Dàyuān. However, on their way there... they got lost (doh!) and ended up wandering around the Taklamakan Desert for wayyy too long fighting with local city-states along the way as their supplies ran out and the soldiers started to die.
-By the time they were actually nearing Dàyuān's capital city "Ershi" (modern-day Khujand, Tajikistan) they had simply lost too many men to invade; because of this, General Lí decided to just give up and go back home.
-102 BC- General Lí arrives back home in Cháng'ān and tells Emperor Wǔ what happened. Not wanting to lose face, the emperor decides to just try and invade Dàyuān again, but this time with a much larger force!
-This was a more successful expedition (most of the city-states along the way gave the army whatever they wanted in order to avoid a fight), although half of General Lí's army died along the way, but after reaching Ershi the Hàn army besieged the city for 40 days before it fell.
-Because of this, the nobles had their king assassinated and then promised the Hàn army to give them whatever they wanted in exchange for their lives and the city. After brief negotiations, the Hàn army installed a puppet king friendly to Hàn dynasty and then left with like 3,000 of Dàyuān's famous horses and returned home (although 2/3 would perish on the way back through the Taklamakan Desert!).
-Because of the overall success of General Lí's second campaign against Dàyuān, the Xiōngnú Empire realized that if the Hàn dynasty could fuck with a nation as far away as Dàyuān then surely they were powerful enough to take on the Xiōngnú Empire for real next (especially since the Hàn armies now had powerful Ferghana horses!), so the Xiōngnú chanyu decided to try and open peace negotiations with Emperor Wǔ, but these talks quickly broke down after some drama and soon the Xiōngnú and Hàn armies began to clash at the border once again.
-One important dude to remember who lived during this time was Sīmǎ Qiān (AKA Zǐzhǎng), compiler of the
Records of the Grand Historian (AKA "Shǐjì" or "Tàishǐgōng shū") the source of so much of this material I'm learning about now!
-Born around modern-day Yùnchéng, Shānxī Province between 145 BC - 135 BC; his father, Sīmǎ Tán, was the Hàn court astrologer and "grand historian" (scribe) from 140 BC - 110 BC. After his father died, Sīmǎ Qiān replaced him as the new grand historian of the Hàn dynasty.
-Before becoming grand historian, Sīmǎ Qiān grew up educated by Confucian scholars and then (around the age of 20) traveling around the empire. Soon after he returned to the capital he was chosen to be an official palace attendant and soon he found himself traveling around with Emperor Wǔ himself.
-His involvement with the creation of the
Records of the Grand Historian began in 110 BC when he was summoned by his ailing father to return home and finish the shit he had been working on for years. Sīmǎ Qiān quickly returned and soon began working on completing his dad's work after Sīmǎ Tán died.
-So, I guess it's worth noting that the
Records of the Grand Historian is actually by both Sīmǎ Qiān AND Sīmǎ Tán and not just the former.
-Soon after this, Sīmǎ Qiān was selected to replace his father as the new grand historian. Anyway, this is where Sīmǎ Qiān enters into our narrative! How meta!
-99 BC- the Lǐ Líng Affair.
-Emperor Wǔ sends an army (led by Generals Lǐ Líng (AKA Shàoqīng) and Lí Guǎnglì) to attack the Xiōngnú Empire. However, during one particular both generals were defeated and then captured by the Xiōngnú.
-As the Hàn court began to shit all over Lǐ Líng (whom Emperor Wǔ blamed for the whole catastrophe) and how badly he had fucked up, Sīmǎ Qiān came forward as the only one to defend Lǐ Líng, whom Sīmǎ Qiān respected a great deal.
-This actually ended up pissing off Emperor Wǔ since he felt that Sīmǎ Qiān was implying that it was Lí Guǎnglì's (Lady Lǐ's bro, remember?) fault! So, Sīmǎ Qiān was arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. However, during that time executions could be commuted by either paying a huge fine or undergoing castration. Since Sīmǎ Qiān didn't have the money, he decided to go with castration instead of being killed.
-Thus, he was imprisoned under brutal conditions for three years before being allowed back into the palace as a eunuch and record-keeper (which was controversial among the courtiers since it was expected that a gentlemen was to commit suicide after suffering the pain and humility of being castrated).
-We're lucky that Sīmǎ Qiān made the wise decision to continue his work because otherwise we wouldn't have a completed version of the
Records of the Grand Historian to use as our primary source for so much Chinese history which perhaps could have been otherwise lost to time!
-During his time after he returned as a eunuch he continued to work on the
Records of the Grand Historian as well as work on other projects, too, such as the brand-new Tàichū ("Grand Beginning") calendar (which defined a solar year as 365.25 days and a lunar month as 29.53 days, as well as introducing 24 "solar terms" which divided the year into 24 equal parts) introduced by Emperor Wǔ as the new official calendar of the empire, which was a pretty big deal!
-At this point, it's worth noting that although Emperor Wǔ had greatly expanded the empire and transformed it into an incredibly powerful nation, all of these wars of expansion resulted in constant tax increases for most of the empire's population in order to support the war effort.
-These increases in taxes, as well as presumably a massive influx of immigrants (from the newly conquered territories), most likely caused widespread civil unrest and soon the imperial justice system began to return to the more harsh forms of punishment introduced by the Legalist Qín dynasty, a departure from the previous Hàn emperors whom had always enforced a more lenient, Confucian and Taoist style of a judicial system.
-Soon, Emperor Wǔ began to reintroduce the former horrors of familial extermination and greatly overreacting to minor slights... he was clearly drunk with power and turning into a brutal dictator!
-Because of this, revolts began to spring up all across the empire.
-In response to this, Emperor Wǔ issued an edict decreeing that government officials who experienced peasant revolts in their territories would be he held directly responsible, punishable by execution!
-Unfortunately, this just ended up backfiring because government officials would just cover up any evidence of a revolt so as to avoid execution.
-In addition, Emperor Wǔ must have suspected what was up because he began to grow increasingly paranoid, experiencing nightmares (including one where there were a bunch of wooden puppets beating him with sticks!) and hallucinations. Suspecting he was under the influence of black magic, he began to issue a series of witchcraft persecutions in which anyone was fair game, including the royal family!
-This would result in the executions of multiple high officials along with their entire respective clans (!) and even various members of the royal family (including Princess Zhūyì, one of his own daughters!)!
-94 BC- Emperor Wǔ and his consort Lady Zhào (who allegedly was pregnant for 14 MONTHS (yeah right!), the same time amount of time that Emperor Yáo's (one of the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors who possibly lived c. 2356 – 2255 BC) mother was pregnant with him) have a son- Prince Liú Fúlíng.
-In commemoration of the birth of his son and the supposed parallels between his wife's pregnancy and Emperor Yáo's mother's, Emperor Wǔ renamed Consort Zhào's palace entrance gate "Gate of Yáo's Mother", which caused a bunch of drama in the royal family because it suggested that Emperor Wǔ had changed his mind about having Crown Prince Wèi (AKA Prince Liú Jù (birth name) or Crown Prince Lì (posthumously)), who, by all accounts was an intelligent, peaceful man (unlike his father), take over as the heir apparent, and was now favoring his newborn son Liú Fúlíng instead.
-Conspiracy theories and rumors began to circulate as political divisions in the court sharpened, and soon the two sides began to hurl accusations at each other ranging from witchcraft to adultery.
-The pro-Emperor Wǔ and Prince Liú Fúlíng side included intelligence minister Jiāng Chōng and chief eunuch (in charge of managing the concubines) Sū Wén.
-When false evidence of witchcraft was found/presented in Gānquán (in modern-day Xiányáng, Shǎnxī Province (near Cháng'ān)) against Crown Prince Wèi by Minister Jiāng while the crown prince was vacationing there. Upon hearing the news of what had happened, Crown Prince Wèi's teacher Shí Dé suggested to the crown prince that perhaps this whole situation was like what had happened back during Qín Shǐ Huáng's reign (247-241 BC) with Chief Eunuch Zhào Gāo's involvement in the conspiracy to murder Crown Prince Fúsū! Could the same thing be happening again?
-Therefore, Shí Dé recommended that Crown Prince Wèi take a lesson from history and assume the likelihood that Emperor Wǔ was either supremely compromised (by Minister Jiāng Chōng and maybe others, too) or perhaps even murdered and strike against Minister Jiāng first by intercepting him on his way back to the capital and figure out a way to keep him from returning and bringing the trumped-up charges against the crown prince to the Hàn court.
-Crown Prince Wèi then sent one of his dudes identifying himself as being a messenger sent from the emperor to catch up with Minister Jiāng; upon catching up with them, he was able to have the minister and his entourage arrested (except for Sū Wén, who managed to escape back to the capital) and then executed the minister himself!
-Knowing he was in hot water, Crown Prince Wèi then sent word to his mother, Empress Weì, about what was going on. The empress must have known that her son was in deep shit, so she authorized her own personal palace guard to follow orders from her son and help distribute weapons and equipment to any who would help her son defend himself from the Sū Wén-Jiāng Chōng conspirators.
-In retaliation for the execution of Minister Jiāng, Sū Wén told the emperor that Crown Prince Wèi was plotting a rebellion against his father. However, the emperor (surprisingly) didn't believe what the eunuch was telling him, that his own son was rebelling against him, and that most likely what was happening was that this was some sort of power struggle between the crown prince and Minister Jiāng.
-Just to be sure, however, Emperor Wǔ decided to send a messenger to the crown prince summoning him to the Hàn court to explain himself, but I guess the messenger was too scared to get involved so he just left and then later returned falsely reporting that the crown prince was indeed in rebellion against his father, which unfortunately resulted in Emperor Wǔ believing that the crown prince was starting a revolt. So, the emperor sent an army, led by Prime Minister Liú Qūmáo (or is it Liú Qūlí?) to crush Crown Prince Wèi.
-Unfortunately for the crown prince, he was unable to raise a proper army of his own, and although his small force was able to hold their own in the streets of the capital for five days, they were eventually overpowered and the crown prince was forced to flee the city (he was later tracked down (at a kindly shoemaker's house somewhere in Hú County (in modern-day Sānménxiá, Hénán Province) and, being surrounded, he decided to commit suicide before he could be captured. Both of the crown prince's sons were then killed along with the kindly shoemaker and his family).
-Upon hearing of her son's flight from the city, Empress Weì committed suicide before she could be stripped of her position as empress (since it was most likely common knowledge at this point that she had helped her son).
-Soon after Empress Weì's suicide most of the members of her clan were arrested and executed by Emperor Wǔ (except, most notably, Empress Weì's grandson (and Crown Prince Weì's son), Liú Bìngyǐ, who was imprisoned, instead).
-One final victim of note who died as a result of Emperor Wǔ's witchcraft panic was actually General Lí Guǎnglì!
-This time the drama was caused by the court eunuch Guō Ráng who accused General Lí (his own brother-in-law!) and Prime Minister Liú Qūmáo (!) of using witchcraft to undermine Emperor Wǔ (for some reason).
-Believing Guō Ráng, Emperor Wǔ had Prime Minister Liú and his family promptly arrested and executed, but after General Lí's family was arrested the general (who was still stationed out on the frontier fighting against the Xiōngnú Empire) knew that the only way he could return home (and possibly save his family, too) without being imprisoned himself would be to score a major, Hail Mary victory against the Xiōngnú, but he ultimately failed and was captured by Xiōngnú forces.
-Fun fact: upon surrendering to the Xiōngnú, General Lí actually defected to their side and in return the Xiōngnú chanyu Húlùgū was given one of the chanyu's daughters as a wife. However, his new life in the Xiōngnú Empire wouldn't last long, as he'd be murdered about a year later by Wèi Lǜ, another Hàn defector over some drama involving Chanyu Húlùgū.
-92 BC- Emperor Wǔ FINALLY begins to wise up to all this witchcraft bullshit and realizes what had actually gone down with his son and the alleged "rebellion" against the throne, and as a result has Sū Wén burned alive and Minister Jiāng's entire family arrested and executed! He then had both a palace and altar built in memory of Crown Prince Wèi.
-Emperor Wǔ then issued a public apology to the entire nation for being a huge asshole, and vowed to change his behavior; he also pledged to stop his wars of expansion and focus more on agriculture and infrastructure and shit.
-As Emperor Wǔ's health began to rapidly deteriorate due to old age, he began to focus more on the question of succession (he'd killed the crown prince, of course!).
-Apparently, the emperor didn't think too much of the next four sons in line (!) and that only the fifth, his beloved Liú Fúlíng, would be a suitable replacement even though he was only like a toddler at this point!
-To serve as regent, the emperor appointed the high-ranking court official Huò Guāng.
-However, fearing that allowing for Lady Zhào to potentially continuing to live on as empress dowager would be "too dangerous" of a situation (due to all of the insane horrible shit that previous empress dowagers had done) and so he had her imprisoned and executed!
-87 BC- Emperor Wǔ finally dies. He'd ruled China for almost 55 years (157 BC - 87 BC), which up till then was a new record and wouldn't be surpassed until the reign of the Kāngxī Emperor of the Qīng dynasty (from 1654-1722 AD).
-At the time of his death, he had almost doubled the size of the Hán Empire, but this was achieved at the cost of his own people's prosperity.
-Although he had promoted Confucian thought for most of his life, towards the end he began to slide back into encouraging more Legalist-inspired harsh reforms as he grew more paranoid (which resulted in the mass executions of many people and their and familial clans, including members of his own royal family).
-This resulted in the empire becoming destabilized as the disgruntled population began to revolt.
-He also enforced the widespread use of an imperial examination in order to ensure that only the best and brightest would serve as his trusted court advisers (a very Confucian concept). This was a really important development because it established Confucianism as official imperial doctrine; before that it was all about connections and wealth among the nobility in order to serve as a court official, so having "commoners" promoted to high positions of imperial authority, which certainly must have been a major shock to the system.
-86 BC- Sīmǎ Qiān finally dies (at around age 60) :(
