Founding Emperor Research Articles

A Prince, the Literati, and the Emperor: Two Faces of One Shuihu Play by Zhu Youdun

Abstract Zhu Youdun, the prince of Zhou and the grandson of the Ming founding emperor, wrote and published thirty-one zaju plays. While Zhu Youdun’s plays have been well-researched in drama scholarship, their publication, circulation, and textual variations emerging from transmission among different audiences are rarely studied. Situating Zhu Youdun’s zaju writing and publishing activities as part of Ming princely publishing, this paper examines and compares two editions of Black Whirlwind Li Spurns Riches Out of Righteousness as a case study, one the printed edition circulating mainly among literati audience/readers and the other the heavily adapted manuscript edition based on inner palace performance for the imperial audience.

A Study on the Imagery of Liu Bang (劉邦) in the Geumhwasa Mongyurok (金華寺夢遊錄)

As the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang made outstanding contributions to the development of the Han nationality in China and the formation of a unified country. So, he has become a key character in many literary works, historical works, folk legends and traditional dramas. The Korean novel Geumhwasa Mongyurok depicts dozens of famous emperors in Chinese history, among which Liu Bang is the most important. When the author portrays the image of Liu Bang, he mainly uses three perspectives, namely, ‘the perspective of a scholar in the dream’, ‘the perspective of Liu Bang himself’ and ‘the perspective of the Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty’. It can be seen from the comparison that the image of Liu Bang in the Geumhwasa Mongyurok demonstrates not only a direct acceptance of Chinese historical books by Korean writers, but also demonstrates unique creations of him by Korean writers. With regard to Liu Bang’s appearance, different versions of the Geumhwasa Mongyurok all take the Chinese historical book Records of the Historian as the basis. But when portraying Liu Bang’s temperament, because there was no specific historical book to refer to, Korean writers used the changing dragon to highlight Liu Bang’s noble temperament as an emperor according to the Chinese cultural tradition. In different versions of Geumhwasa Mongyurok, the authors expressed positive or negative attitudes towards Liu Bang, which is very similar to the way that Chinese drama writers in the Yuan and Ming dynasties used to portray the image of Liu Bang.

The reason behind the collapse of Ming

Born in 1368 A.D., after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, the Great Ming Dynasty, which ruled until 1644, was the last Chinese dynasty ruled by a member of the Han ethnic group. Throughout the Ming dynasty, China’s population doubled, and trade, art, technology, and architecture reached new heights. However, the Great Ming Dynasty collapsed in 1644, its capital fallen to the rebel army led by Li Zicheng. This collapse was caused by several long-term causes embedded in its structure, which had eroded the government to the point of collapse. An important cause was the political structure that the founding emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, created at the initial phrase of the dynasty. The political system had been built up with several flaws that worsened as the dynasty evolved, which led to the rebellion and the collapse of the dynasty. These flaws included aspects within economy, heritage, and military.

Share and Rule: Intellectual Origins of the Early Ming (1368–1644) Princedoms

In the early Ming (1368-1644), the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (朱元璋, 1328-1398, r. 1368-1398) established more than twenty princedoms across the empire. Scholarship to date has generally emphasized the continuance of the Yuan (1271-1368) institutions into the early Ming. Apart from the endurance of Yuan legacy, this article addresses how Zhu Yuanzhang ideologically framed and justified the establishment of princedoms. By showing the possible influences of Southern Song (1127-1279) statecraft traditions on early Ming legislation, this article argues that Zhu Yuanzhang sought to construct the enduring system of government by drawing on the classic model of “divide and rule,” as suggested in the Confucian Classics. In their turn, the literati who advised Zhu Yuanzhang in the making of the Ming empire sought to secure their own realms of autonomy and influence in local society by upholding the fengjian doctrine and presenting themselves as the later counterparts of the ancient feudal vassals who “shared” in the governance of their country and “ruled” on behalf of their emperors.

The Kongs of Qufu: The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial China by Christopher S. Agnew

Reviewed by: The Kongs of Qufu: The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial China by Christopher S. Agnew Don J. Wyatt (bio) Christopher S. Agnew. The Kongs of Qufu: The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xi, 241 pp. Paperback $30.00, isbn 978-0-295-74593-0. Christopher S. Agnew's ambitious The Kongs of Qufu: The Descendants of Confucius in Late Imperial China constitutes a longitudinal examination of exceptionalism on multiple levels. On the most fundamental level, to be sure, we must regard this exceptionalism foremost as genealogical. After all, from the Han dynasty (202 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) forward, only those Kongs of China based at Qufu (in the southwestern part of the present-day province of Shandong) succeeded in becoming the direct progeny of the fabled "first teacher," Kong Qiu or Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.). On this basis, they thereafter secured the perquisite of perennial enfeoffment by every successive regime of the imperial order. However, this pertinent fact of ancestry notwithstanding, what Agnew's study demonstrates even more deftly is the depth as well as the durability of the exceptionalism with which we are presented by the Qufu Kongs. Through it, he painstakingly illuminates the intricacies of how this lineage was able to withstand not merely dynastic change but also bureaucratic–administrative imperatives across the ages in ways that made its members truly anomalous, distinct from all others in the empire. In doing so, Agnew provides us with a portrait in patriliny that was profoundly adept at exploiting its distinctiveness to its own advantage across time and successful in doing it far more so in novel political and economic terms that we could hardly suspect than in the customary cultural and ritualistic ones that we might normally expect. Apart from its "Introduction," which most advantageously offers a succinct survey of the existing Chinese- and Western-language secondary literature on the Kongs of Qufu as a lineage and its "Conclusion," which functionally serves more in the vein of an early twentieth-century epilogue than a restatement of prior arguments, Agnew's study consists of seven chronologically progressive chapters. The first chapter, "Inventing the Dukedom," explicates the watershed ritualistic debate of the mid-eleventh century resulting in the creation of the title of Duke for Fulfilling the Sage (Yansheng Gong 衍聖公), which was retained exclusively by the Qufu Kongs and not abolished until 1935.1 However, Agnew simultaneously contextualizes it as the product of factional politics arising during the early or Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), with one clear [End Page 243] ramification being the unprecedented creation of a county magistracy that was administratively separate from the ritualistic jurisdiction of the dukedom and yet still controlled by Kongs, at least at first. This bifurcation of what formerly was a unitary set of privileges vested in one man by imperial fiat was clearly intended to reduce the political influence of Kong lineage. The unintended effect it actually had, however, was to facilitate among the Qufu Kongs a level of self-rule that was replicated nowhere else in the empire, neither then nor later. Yet, as Agnew makes known via chapters 2 and 3, this early fourteenthcentury designation of Qufu as the county capital and Queli as the ritualistic site of the ducal residence—comprised of the Kong Manor (Kong Fu 孔府), the Kong Temple (Kong Miao 孔廟), and the Kong Cemetery (Kong Lin 孔林)—resulted in a firm jurisdictional distinction between the two (i.e., a bureaucratic wall that had not previously existed). Although separated by a distance of merely nine li 里, or three miles, once the distinction was formalized by Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) as founding emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the administrative seat of Qufu and the cultural seat of Queli entered into a fraught and oftentimes antagonistic relationship that would continue into the twentieth century. Or, as Agnew states the matter, "Local politics thus took on the character of a struggle between these contending sites and ideas, between those who supported the centralized aristocratic administration of hereditary ducal power, and those who sought to press for the regularization of local administration to bring it more in line...

Changing Identities: Chinese Muslims’ Marriage Strategies in Late Ming Quanzhou

Recent scholarship on early Ming sinification policies has revealed that the founding emperor of the Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang, carried out a series of reforms to revive Chinese features in his people which targeted the influence of Mongols and other foreigners on the empire, including enforcement of intermarriage between Chinese and non-Chinese to prohibit endogamy within non-Chinese groups. Endogamy had long been used as an effective means to consolidate the purity and ensure the continuity of Muslim communities in China. This study examines how the imperial state’s policy of mandatory intermarriage affected Muslim marriage choices by analyzing marital values, marriage strategies, and the adjustments of family practice in intermarried households. In this way, gender, through marriage strategies, played a critical role in Chinese Muslims’ changing identities.

Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The Politics of Antiquity and Identity by Hyung Il Pai (review)

Reviewed by: Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The Politics of Antiquity and Identity by Hyung Il Pai Sarah Milledge Nelson Hyung Il Pai, Heritage Management in Korea and Japan: The Politics of Antiquity and Identity. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013. 298 pp. This work of historical scholarship on the heritage management of Korea and Japan traces ideas about heritage in Korea to Japanese colonialism, and cultural heritage in Japan to the discovery in the West of Japanese art and artifacts. Included in the research reported are the influences of both foreigners and Japanese who imported definitions of heritage. For example, the ranking of national treasures was a Japanese invention for nationalistic purposes. Pai demonstrates that early decisions and attitudes about heritage management echo in the present in both Korea and Japan. Although it is often possible to skip the preface of a book, this preface rewards a careful read. Here, “heritage” is fully defined and the concept is traced through time by describing the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Pai strikes the theme of the book for archaeologists by stating, “the identification and ownership of art and artifacts recovered from the ground…have been and remain to this day the most contested symbols of nationhood” (xxix). This assertion is supported by the rest of the volume with explanations of the origins of cultural heritage in Korea and Japan. Chapter 1, “Ranking ‘Korean’ Properties,” demonstrates that Korean cultural heritage management began under Japanese colonialism and continued to develop after World War II, guided by perceived threats to Korean culture from both Japanese and Western influences. Pointed historical quotations and apt examples make her case. While the ranking of national treasures is uncommon elsewhere, it is a contentious matter in Korea. Numbers attached to these “treasures” are seen as values, rather than mere identifiers or signifiers of order in which they were selected as treasures. [End Page 187] The complications of selecting and ranking objects and places are entwined with Korea’s colonial past. While conceding the economic value and contributions to national pride of the cultural heritage business, Pai deplores the need for such amenities as tour bus parking for potentially spoiling the very heritage they are protecting and exhibiting. To explain the history of cultural heritage in Korea, Pai takes the reader back to Japan in the late 19th century in Chapter 2, “Collecting Japan’s Curios.” World’s Fairs stimulated the Western rage for things Japanese. Pai begins to explore the subject with exhibitions of objects selected as typical of a nation’s culture. In the world of wealthy collectors, ethnographic objects soon became of interest as well. Archaeology, she suggests, was stimulated by the finding of a gold seal which seemed to verify ancient Chinese records. The astonishing effect of an edict separating Shinto from Buddhism was to allow Buddhist temples and shrines to be raided for objects by Shinto priests. Further, Pai asserts that the unbroken 2,500 year lineage of the imperial family was a “fabrication” whose main political agenda was to affirm the Meiji emperor’s divine status and his direct kinship ties to the mythical founding ancestor emperor, Jimmu (62). She discusses the creation of “new folklore,” “fudging historical records,” and “abuses of power.” These are strong words. In the third chapter, “Tracing Japan’s Lineage,” Pai focuses on the effect of the unbroken lineage theory on antiquities, archaeology, and fine art as vehicles for nation building. She treats the influence of Ernest Fenollosa extensively, and shows that, although he recognized the contributions of Korea to the art of Japan, especially its early Buddhist art, he was primarily interested in Korea as a contributor to Japanese art. Okakura Kakuzo, who accompanied Fenollosa on his Nara survey, rose to be principal of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. In this capacity, he created a scheme for ranking national objects. As it was impossible not to recognize the Korean and Chinese origins of Buddhist art, Okakura explains this as, “swarms of immigrants from China and Korea, who crossed the sea at various periods in the early days of Japanese history, [but] it did not take them many...

Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing by Si-yen Fei (review)

Reviewed by: Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing by Si-yen Fei Jun Fang (bio) Si-yen Fei. Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2009. x, 361 pp. Hardcover $45.00, isbn 978-0-674-03561-4. Negotiating Urban Space, consisting of an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion, examines the characteristics of late Ming urbanization through four case studies. The introduction, “A New Approach to Chinese Urbanism,” reviews earlier influential studies of cities and urbanization in imperial China and contextualizes the approach and arguments of the book. Fei suggests that urbanization in late imperial China was not simply the byproduct of rapid commercialization, but also a process shaped by institutional and cultural practices particular to each dynasty. She terms her approach “dynasty-centered” (p. 26) and refers to urbanization in late imperial China as “dynastic urbanism” (p. 252). The first two chapters of the book probe Ming urbanism from an institutional perspective. Chapter 1, “We Must Be Taxed,” relates a city-wide effort by Nanjing residents in 1609 demanding that the government of Nanjing, the auxiliary southern capital of the post-1420 Ming dynasty, institute a property tax to replace the irregular and oftentimes unbearable burden of labor service. The petition received favorable responses from members of the administration, especially from its [End Page 64] censor-in-chief Ding Bin (1543–1633), who eventually implemented a corvée reform much welcomed by the local residents. The reform, Fei argues, provided an urban space for public participation, consultation, and negotiation with the government. Similarly, chapter 2, “ To Wall or Not to Wall,” also explores negotiation and contestation in urban spaces as it reconstructs a victorious elite-led crusade against building defensive walls in 1590s Gaochun and an equally successful government-initiated, pro-wall campaign in 1570s Jiangpu. Both were counties under the jurisdiction of the Yingtian prefecture where Nanjing was located. Fei believes that the cases presented in this chapter refute without equivocation the conventional wisdom that the Ming dynasty was the epitome of Chinese despotism. She argues they confirm her position that urban space was a site of negotiation and cooperation between state and society in late Ming times. The last two chapters examine urban space in late Ming Nanjing from a cultural perspective. Chapter 3, “Imagining Nanjing: A Genealogy,” examines two atlases and two tour-related books that projected different images of Ming Nanjing. Fei argues that these four Ming publications represented two distinct conceptions of the city in the Ming: one reflected the centralizing vision of the founding emperor and the other the vision of Nanjing native elites. Chapter 4, “Nanjing through Contemporary Mouths and Ears,” focuses on discussing the approximately 550-character fengsu (social customs) treatise in Gu Qiyuan’s (1565–1628) Kezuo zhuiyu (Superfluous chats from the guests’ seats). According to Fei, Gu divided Nanjing into eastern, central, southern, western, and northern districts, and this division was different from the official demarcation of the city into five administrative boroughs. Fei elaborates on Gu’s description of the five districts in terms of social relations (renwen) and financial power (wuli) between the native residents (zhu) and sojourning nonlocals (ke) and concludes that the native-sojourner relationship was a key feature of late Ming society. In the concluding chapter, “Toward a New Perspective on Late Imperial Urbanism,” Fei reflects on urbanism and urbanization in late Ming China and concludes that urbanization not only created more and larger cities in China, but also prompted the Chinese state and society to reconsider and reformulate the place of city in a centralized rural empire. In her studies of the four cases, Fei occasionally accepts Ming sources uncritically and elaborates on them excessively. An example can be found in her use of an account in Gu’s Kezuo zhuiyu, which states that “when Chengzu (the Yongle emperor, r. 1402–1424) moved the primary capital to Beijing, he ordered 27,000 civilian and artisan households to be moved (from Nanjing to Beijing). As a result, the population of Nanjing dropped by more than half, and corvée labor services were subsequently affected adversely” (juan 2, fangxiang shimo). Fei takes this source at...

Emperors, Kingdoms, Territories: Multiple Versions of the Pietas Austriaca?

The author proposes to enlarge the model of the Pietas Austriaca formulated by Anna Coreth by including material from non-Austrian core lands of the Habsburg monarchy. Using sources mainly from Austria and the empire, Coreth revealed the principal components of the dynastic devotion, linking the mission given by God to the founding emperor, Rudolph of Habsburg. Yet, in Hungary and Bohemia, seventeenth-century narratives on the origin and models of dynastic piety were not always in line with the Viennese model. Some parallel symbolic competition in representations of Habsburg piety culminated in an invention of traditions distinct from the Austrian model. The author then distinguishes between holy patrons and patron saints in the Habsburg monarchy, mostly in the seventeenth century.

Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China (review)

Reviewed by: Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China Paul R. Katz (bio) Qitao Guo . Exorcism and Money: The Symbolic World of the Five-Fury Spirits in Late Imperial China. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, China Research Monograph 55. Berkeley: The Regents of the University of California, 2003. 227pp. Paperback $18.00, ISBN 1-55729-077-6. Qitao Guo's study of a group of exorcistic deities known as the Five Furies (Wu-chang ) successfully explores the complex factors underlying the growth of communal religious traditions in late imperial China. The book's topic is a challenging one, as relatively little data exists on the Wuchang, and the history of their cult remains murky to this day. Guo is eminently qualified to conduct research on these deities, however, having written a Ph.D. thesis on Mulian operas in late imperial Huizhou (Anhui), which was also the area of China where the Wuchang cult flourished. His efforts have resulted in a work that clearly shows the Wuchang to be "Janus-faced" deities that could be represented as either ghosts or gods. In exploring the significance of this highly ambiguous cult, Guo focuses on what he defines as processes of "integration" and "gentrification" promoted by local elites, arguing that "By containing the demonic deity within a hierarchical pantheon, local elites managed to maintain their control over popular religious symbols, as well as over the common folk" (p. 9). In order to trace the historical development of the Wuchang, Guo relies on a wide range of sources, including scripts of Mulian operas, liturgical texts and paintings used for the worship of Anhui deities, and ethnographic accounts of Wuchang ritual dramas by scholars like Tanaka Issei and Mao Gengru . Exorcism and Moneyis divided into two main parts. Part 1, "Integrating Local Exorcism: The Evolution of the Symbolic World of the Five Furies," consists of three chapters. The first traces the origins of the Wuchang to ancient Nuo exorcistic rituals and Taoist liturgical traditions that arose during the Song dynasty, especially those featuring the exorcism of the Five Plague Spirits (Wu Wenshen ) and the worship of martial gods like Wen Qiong (Marshal Wen) and Zhao Gongming (Marshal Zhao) (pp. 29-30, 34-39). Guo makes the important observation that the Wuchang were worshipped as subordinates of Marshal Zhao, a factor that appears to have contributed to the growth of their cult (pp. 37-38). Chapter 2 focuses on the historical development of the Wuchang cult in light of religious policies implemented by the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang or Ming Taizu (1328-1398, r. 1368-1398). At the beginning of his reign, the emperor incorporated Wuchang into the cult of the state banner ( qidao), an act, Guo argues, that signaled "an imperial sanction [End Page 105]for popularizing the deity" (p. 41). Guo maintains that the actual popularization of the Wuchang did not commence until the mid-Ming and was due to a complex combination of factors, including socioeconomic and cultural conditions that allowed communal religious traditions to flourish as well as policies designed by Taizu to reform communal religious traditions, particularly the nationwide state sponsorship of temples/shrines to the City God (Chenghuang ) and the Earth God (She or Tudi ) and the establishment of Altars to the Vengeful Spirits (Litan ) at the county level. Chapter 3 contains a lengthy analysis of how Taizu's policies were transformed at the local level in Anhui, thereby contributing the to growth of the Wuchang cult. Guo places particular emphasis on what he terms the " ji er mingzhistrategy," which he glosses as "borrowing [official titles] to name [locally worshipped deities]" (p. 8). In effect, Guo argues, local elites both promoted and controlled communal religious traditions by "camouflaging" tutelary lineage deities with official titles originally intended for state-approved deities (like the City God), while also "subordinating" potentially illicit cults to the above-mentioned tutelary deities (pp. 58-59). He examines how ji er mingzhiprocesses shaped the growth of the Wuchang cult by presenting a case study of an extremely complex cult to a Guangde (Anhui) hero named Zhang...

SAGE, HERO, BANDIT: ZHU YUANZHANG'S IMAGE IN THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURYNOVEL YINGLIE ZHUAN

The sixteenth-century Chinese novel YINGLIE ZHUAN (The Romance of Ming Dynasty heroes) is about the founding of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). It has been attributed to Guo Xun (1475–1542), although this attribution has not gone unchallenged (Zheng Xiao, 1984:48; Zheng Pingkun, 1991; Zhu Henfu, 1995: 44–47). This attribution is based on the theory that Guo Xun, a descendant of Guo Ying (1337–1403), who was a general under Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, wrote or had someone else write this novel in order to glorify his ancestor and gain political benefits for himself. (Zheng Xiao, 1984:48; Shen Defu, 1959:140)

REPORT ON THE SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MING HISTORY (FENG-YANG, AUGUST 1995)

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS The Sixth International Conference on Ming History (Diliujie Zhongguo Mingshi guoji xueshu taolunhui) was convened at Fengyang, Anhui Province August 11–16, 1995. The location of the conference in Fengyang has special significance in Ming history as the birthplace of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Society for the Study of Zhu Yuanzhang (Zhu Yuanzhang yanjiuhui), Anhui Normal University (Anhui shifan daxue), Anhui History Society (Anhui lishi xuehui), and the Chinese Society for Ming Dynasty History (CSMDH, Zhongguo Mingshi xuehui). According to the conference program, 23 specially invited representatives and 140 formal representatives attended the conference. The former consisted mostly of government leaders and heads of local enterprises. The latter included 16 scholars from Japan; five from Korea; one each from the United States, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong; nine from Taiwan; and 106 from mainland China. Among the Chinese participants were Zhu Yuanzhang's offspring of the 37th generation Zhu Houjin and Mao Zedong's paternal grandson Mao Xinyu

THE LOCAL COMMUNITY IN EARLY MING SOCIAL LEGISLATION: MING TAIZU'S APPROACH TO TRANSFORMATION AND CONTROL IN THE “GREAT WARNING”

The village community figured prominently in the social legislation of the early Ming Dynasty. The founding emperor's humble origins linked his destiny to the commoners of the realm, when he regarded them as the vanguard of his grand design for the control and moral transformation of society. Ming Taizu (r. 1368–98) issued numerous imperial edicts, instructions, and laws to communicate to his subjects his own perspective of the ideal social order, one which justified autocratic rule and the state's conscious manipulation of social practice. An indication of the extent to which the early Ming state was prepared to go to implement Taizu's objectives is best seen in the “Great Warning” [DA GAO], a collection of imperial pronouncements issued between 1385 and 1387. Taizu's effort to legislate his social blueprint for Ming society was a watershed in Chinese government. The text of the “Great Warning” candidly illustrates Ming Taizu's desire to make the village community the focal point of his ideal social order. These pronouncements represent the best indication of imperial intent to remold society according to Taizu's dictates and reveal a unique approach to the implementation of Ming social legislation combining mass indoctrination, ritual observances, and coercion.

CHANGES IN THE FISCAL AND RURAL CONTROL SYSTEMS IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES

AbstractThe founding Ming emperor, Hung-wu, was known as the inaugurator of the political trend known as “Ming-Ch'ing despotism.” In the political realm, he abolished the traditional independent executive organ, the chancellor's office and placed the six major government departments under his direct control. High officials were constantly terrified by the emperor's whims; sometimes they were beaten to death in court and sometimes imprisoned for small offenses. No less than 100,000 gentry members, according to one estimate, had their land expropriated during Hung-wu's reign. On the other hand, the despotic rule in the social and fiscal spheres was manifested in his establishment of an enormous rural control machinery, the li-chia system, a nationwide land and population survey, the elimination of the locally powerful and the implementation of his agrarian policies. In this paper, I shall examine the changes of Ming fiscal administration from the early Ming to the late fifteenth century when the imperial ru...

Liu an, Second King of Huai-nan (180?-122 B. C.)

In attempting to depict the personality of Liu An, grandson of the founding emperor of the Former Han dynasty, the author examines three sources of evidence: the account of his life presented in the Standard Histories; the chapter on generalship and warfare from the Huai-nan-tzu, which reflects, according to the author, Liu An's view of himself as he would have liked to be; the legend of his apotheosis as a Taoist adept. The tragedy of Liu An's life was that he diverted so much time and energy from philosophical and literary pursuits, for which he was admirably equipped, to tedious scheming and fruitless sallies into the real world of politics.