Ban Gu's History of Early China 160497561X, 9781604975611

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BAN GU’S HISTORY OF EARLY CHINA

BAN GU’S HISTORY OF EARLY CHINA Anthony E. Clark

AMHERST, NEW YORK

Copyright 2008 Anthony E. Clark All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to: [email protected], or mailed to: Cambria Press 20 Northpointe Parkway, Suite 188 Amherst, NY 14228 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, Anthony E. Ban Gu’s history of early China / by Anthony E. Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60497-561-1 (alk. paper) 1. Ban, Gu, 32–92. Han shu. 2. China—History—Han dynasty, 202 B.C.– 220 A.D. 3. Historiography—China. I. Title. DS748.P38 C53 2008 931’.04—dc22 2008037847

For Amanda At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. —Albert Schweitzer

TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Plates

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Prologue Chapter 1: Inscribing the Past: A History of Chinese History The Perennial Dangers of Direct Criticism Praise, Blame, and the Modes of Judgment

Chapter 2: Inscribing the Text: A History of the History of the Han “True Editions” and Qing Skepticism Structure and Sources of the History of the Han Accretions and Additions From Han to PRC: Filiations of Transmission

Chapter 3: Inscribing the Family: A History of the Ban Clan

xiii 1 6 9

17 20 34 49 56

61

Ban Gu, Sima Qian, and Rewriting the Past Inscribing Genealogy Ban Bo and the Family’s Rise to a Consort Clan Narrating Through the Dangers of Court Historicizing Advantage: Highlighting Privilege, Loyalty, and Influence

82

Chapter 4: Inscribing the Self: Ban Gu’s Positioning of Text and Self

93

Eclipse of the Imperial Family: Wang Mang and the Liu Eviction

63 67 73 79

97

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Constructing Wang Mang: Duplicity, Omenology, and Despotism Inheriting Family Principles in the Wake of Political Collapse Ban Gu: Filial Son and Favored Historian A New Heaven, a New Mandate

Chapter 5: Inscribing the State: Killing Snakes, Chasing Deer, and Reconceiving Heaven’s Mandate Heaven and Its Mandate: Earlier Assumptions and Later Innovations Killing Snakes: Legitimizing the Han’s Mandate Chasing Deer: A Predetermined and Permanent Mandate Zan 贊: A Final Appraisal

Appendices A. B. C. D.

Ban Clan Family Tree (a Diagram) Complete List of Ban Gu’s Works Translation of the Hanshu Chapter Titles Ban Biao’s “General Remarks on Historiography”

108 116 118 133

139 144 155 166 179

183 183 184 186 198

Plates

203

Notes

207

Bibliography

263

Index

287

LIST OF PLATES Plate 1. Ban Gu’s tomb at Fufeng, Shanxi.

203

Plate 2. Song woodblock print of Ban Gu’s Hanshu.

204

Plate 3. Woodblock print of Ban Gu, originally from Mingdai gu shengxian huaxiang zan 明代古聖賢畫像贊.

205

Plate 4. Woodblock print of Ban Zhao.

206

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I would like to thank Toni Tan and her colleagues at Cambria Press for their kind encouragement and support. I also thank my anonymous readers who rendered invaluable advice and corrections; they shall find their suggestions reflected throughout this work. This book has benefited from the comments of several people—colleagues, friends, and family. Early drafts have had the advantage of being read by Maram Epstein, who helped me to find details, often curiously entertaining, in passages that I otherwise would have overlooked; Ina Asim, who has helped an overall literary study become more historical; Michael Fishlen, who has demonstrated to me that below the text is a hidden narrative where the author is more personally present; Charles Sanft, who pointed out several embarrassing errors in my interpretations of certain essays and provided helpful counterpoints to many of my a priori assertions; David Schaberg, who helped my research yield a deeper understanding of what lies behind the etymological and philological complexities of classical Chinese; William Crowell, who has through his attention to historical details added richness to my interpretation of Ban Gu’s

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self-representation; and Stephen Durrant, who has given me the lens through which early China can emerge as a real and life-changing place. Discourse with friends and colleagues—Matthew Wells, Eric Cunningham, and He Jianjun—at Oregon have added much to this study. Others have commented on my work at various academic meetings, and I owe them my thanks—David Knechtges, Paul Kroll, Robert Joe Cutter, Marten Kern, Che Ruxun, and Ken Brashier, to name a few. Jonathan Brooks has offered very helpful comments on my manuscript. I also thank my friends and colleagues at The University of Alabama for their support and assistance, especially Seth Panitch. I am grateful, also, for the generous financial gifts I have received from the J. William Fulbright, NSEP David L. Boren, and Research Advisory grants. I am indebted to the Rare Books Archives and the Center for Chinese Studies at the National Central Library, in Taibei, Taiwan, for providing me with an office and opening their repositories to me. The Southeast Review of Asian Studies has kindly granted permission to include my translation of Ban Biao’s “General Remarks on Historiography.” I have had frequent recourse to the editorial advice of Leland and Carol Roth, the latter whose pen has left more red marks on this draft than I have left on any student paper I have ever graded. Also, I thank my parents, James and Shirley, and my beautiful, too quickly growing daughter, Cassandra, for being happy distractions during times of stress. My greatest debt goes to my wife, Amanda, who has patiently listened to countless readings of passages in this text and rendered needed corrections. In the process of transforming this work from draft to book, Amanda has given her tireless support.

PROLOGUE

American architect Ralph Adams Cram (1863–1942) once said, “We must return for the fire to other centuries, since a night intervened between our fathers’ time and ours wherein the light was not.”1 The intellectual and material worlds throughout history have been divided at various times. There are those who enthusiastically welcome the ideal of progress, happily dismantling the “oppressive” and “funereal” vestiges of the past. Such a view, although not without some occasionally less pejorative reflections on the past, is expressed well in the final chapter of Edward Gibbon’s (1737–1794) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, where he asserted, “All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.”2 Others, like Cram, lamented the present for having strayed too far from its origins; modernity is as a plant cut off at its base, no longer organically growing from its former roots. The recording of Chinese history in its early stages, perhaps the writing of history over the course of time, is marked by an impulse to hearken to the “light” of our “fathers’ time” and the necessity to “advance.” Worldviews also influence the historian’s pen, that is, his

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or her beliefs and ideals color how the past is judged and how that past will be colored in the present. This book is a response to what I see as the unfortunate tendency to read historical records merely as deposits of information while relegating the authors of those records to the margins, if not to a place entirely out of mind. Early Chinese historians such as Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145– c. 86 BC) and Ban Gu 班固 (32–92) did not simply write “objective histories” of past events; the object of history was never impartial to Han 漢 (206 BC–220) historians. For them, the past was often accepted as an irrefutably golden era from which human institutions had wandered; or in the language of early philosophers and historians, the teachings of the sages (shengren 聖人) of high antiquity (shanggu 上古) had decayed (shuai 衰). There is, therefore, always a connection between the past one writes about and the present one lives within, for when one employs the events of the past to shed light on those of the present, one is always influenced by one’s historical context. Despite this disjunction, I remain unconvinced by recent assertions that all records of the past are necessarily “mythologized” by the historian’s cultural present by which he or she is encumbered. Admitting the usefulness of much of Edward Said’s ideas—his argument that all narrative representations of history are merely a “re-presence” of the past, that is, that they can never truthfully recover an accurate view of the past—is not born out by the rather frequent archeological discoveries that enforce the vision of early China provided to modern scholars by ancient historians.3 I do, however, entertain Said’s point here and there nonetheless. In addition, to read someone’s work is to read their words, and barring textual corruptions precipitated by centuries of accretions and lacunae, by reading their words present readers are, in a significant way, accessing their thoughts and ideas. But even so, texts change over time either in the mind of their authors or in the hands of their editors. The goal of this book, then, is to carefully read the writings of the Eastern Han 東漢 (23–220) historian, Ban Gu, in order to extract his personal ideas and, perhaps, also see some of his anxieties from the mass of his historical narrative. In short I am placing author before text,

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not because one is more important than the other but because the text, Hanshu 漢書 (History of the Han), has given scholars a view of China’s early history that cannot be separated from the man who produced it. The Han dynasty depicted in the History of the Han is the Han dynasty envisioned in the mind of its author; simply said, this study is focused primarily upon that mind. What this book hopes to achieve is a modicum of provocation; that is, I hope to consider one of China’s most influential histories from two directions. First, the standard expository information must be revealed in order to construct a vocabulary, an infrastructure, with which to discuss the History of the Han. I hope to illustrate that Ban Gu’s large historical work was really a larger inscription of self, namely, Ban Gu’s History of the Han was an inscription of the larger framework of Han history while being, at the same time, an inscription of his ideals, aspirations, expectations, and anxieties. The History of the Han is just as easily read as a history of Ban Gu. But Western readers, I suggest, have generally read early Chinese texts not as alternative forms of autobiography but simply as Chinese analogues for Western genres; Chinese history equals Western history in Chinese. That said, there are two modern views of Chinese historiography that have influenced how scholars have discussed Han historians; both are somewhat problematic. The first reading holds that the early Chinese historian was occupied more with the project of dispensing moral judgment than accurately and objectively recording past events. On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang, who stated that Chinese history acquired its authority “because of this historical principle and practice of bestowing praise and blame (baobian 褒貶) on personages and events of the past,”4 fall into this category. And they asserted that according to Sima Qian and Ban Gu, the “practical purpose” of history was “distinguishing the good and excoriating the wicked.”5 Indeed, moralistic judgments have been made in Chinese histories and in the West upon the subjects of history. Western examples of moral judgment dispensed by early authors of historical records include such writers as Julius Caesar (100–44 BC), Mestrius Plutarchus (c. 46–127), and Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56–c. 117).

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Such judgments were also rendered by medieval writers such as the Benedictine, Matthew Paris (c. 1200–1259). Although praise and blame was, some suggest, expected of all imperial Chinese historians, there were certainly other motives behind writing history. The Chinese historical impulse to judge must, moreover, be distinguished from the religious historians of the medieval West. Contemporary scholars often criticize this Chinese proclivity for its “unabashed and overt indenturing of history to ideological and political orthodoxy and moral-ethical edification,” resulting in the “ultimate ahistoricity of the Chinese way of recording and interpreting the past.”6 But ancient Chinese historians such as Ban Gu were not just writing history to praise and blame; such a reading discounts the unavoidable influence one’s life plays on his or her writing. Chinese historians were not merely machines of adjudication and impersonal arbiters of early Chinese classical morals. They were, as was Ban Gu, quite human, disclosing themselves between the lines, so to speak. A second assessment made by some current critics of Chinese histories involves the “cut-and-paste” method employed by Chinese historians to produce texts. Western scholars have often viewed Chinese histories as a “mere mechanistic assemblage of congeries of lived stories and events, an encyclopedic parade of facts and information.”7 In this view, umbrage is taken not with the Chinese habit for making moral judgment but rather with the tendency to uncritically compile and string together sources into a cut-and-paste narrative. These two apparently contradictory observations—that Chinese historians sacrifice historical accuracy to highlight moral and ideological judgment, and that they merely mechanically cut and paste documents together—are not, in the end, irreconcilable. For it is by selective cutting and pasting that such judgments are frequently rendered. In addition it is by careful readings of how a historian employs documentary materials in his or her work and dispenses judgments that the particular nuances of his or her ideology can be discerned. One of the points of this book, then, is to situate our reading on the historian rather than the history. Sometimes one can glean much of an author’s motives by looking at how, rather than what, he or she writes.

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A careful look at Ban Gu’s History of the Han reveals that an ideological view, and perhaps a great deal of personal sentiment, can, indeed, be culled from a text that has been in large part cut and pasted together. One example of this can be located in Ban Gu’s biographical chapter on the philosopher Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (176–104 BC). A cursory glance at this chapter might lead one to conclude that it was not authored by Ban Gu at all. The biography begins with an excerpt from Sima Qian’s (145–86? BC) Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian) and is followed by three of Dong’s memorials submitted to the emperor, which are, again, followed by another verbatim excerpt from the same source. Ban Gu’s biography of Dong Zhongshu, then, consists of a closely exact, although not without some variations, insertion of Sima Qian’s biography of Dong, divided in two by the three memorials, presumably taken from the imperial archives.8 At the end of the History of the Han chapter, in his Eulogy贊, Ban Gu inserted two quotes by the late Western Han 西漢 (206 BC–AD 9) courtiers, Liu Xiang 劉向 (c. 79–c. 6 BC) and Xiang’s son, Liu Xin 劉歆 (c. 50 BC–AD 23). The quote by Liu Xiang is a negative assessment of Dong while Xin’s is favorable. The final sentence of the chapter is the only one not taken mostly from Ban Gu’s original archival sources and includes only sixteen characters. In his only words of the entire chapter, Ban Gu wrote, “Liu Xiang’s great-grandson, Gong, was a gentleman of honest disquisitions indeed! And, he considered Liu Xin’s estimation of Dong Zhongshu to be correct.” 至向曾孫龔，篤論君子也，以歆之言為然.9 In all, Ban Gu inserted three memorials from the imperial archives within a short biography from the Records of the Grand Historian and inserted two quotations into his closing Eulogy, only writing one sentence of his own. What readers glean from this chapter, however, is Ban Gu’s approbation of Gong’s assessment of Dong Zhongshu and, hence, Gu’s acceptance of Dong’s philosophical views. The positive appearances of Dong throughout the History of the Han support the conclusion that Ban Gu favored him and his ideas. Seen in this example, Ban’s ideological bent can be apprehended from a rather lengthy chapter that includes only a single original sentence by Ban.10

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I should, at this point, attempt to place this book into its larger context, which is a growing interest in the study of Chinese historians and historiography in the West, perhaps beginning with Charles S. Gardner’s small book, Chinese Traditional Historiography (1938). Later works include Han Yushan’s Elements of Chinese Historiography (1955), W. G. Beasley and Edwin Pullyblank’s Historian’s of China and Japan (1961), Denis Twitchett’s The Writing of Official History under the Tang (1992) and more recently, Ng and Wang’s Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China (2005). On the topic of individual historians of early China there is scant work, and what exists is mostly focused on the great historian Sima Qian. These studies include Édouard Chavannes’ still unsurpassed Les Mémoires Historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien, vol. 1 (1895); Burton Watson’s Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China (1958); Stephen Durrant’s The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writing of Sima Qian (1995); and Grant Hardy’s World’s of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History (1999). This book turns to the historian Ban Gu, highlighting instances wherein Gu’s human concerns and anxieties have become manifest in his writing and, moreover, how his very personal antagonisms have colored the Han dynasty that scholars imagine today. On sources and methodology there are three editions of the History of the Han that I have most often consulted here: the Zhonghua shuju 中華書局 edition, published in 1962; the Hanshu buzhu 漢書補 注 (Supplemental Commentary on the History of the Han) commentary, first published during the 26th reign year (1900) of the Qing 清 (1644–1911) Emperor Guangxu 光緒 (r. 1875–1908);11 and the Jingyou edition, 景祐本 preserved in the Hanshu: Bona ben ershisishi 漢書﹕百 衲本二十四史.12 There are several other works that I have found helpful when writing this book, but studies devoted exclusively to Ban Gu remain lamentably few.13 In terms of translation and Romanization, I have utilized the fine translations of others such as Homer Dubs, Watson, and Clyde Sargent but have rendered my own throughout the text.14 I have also employed the pinyin system of Romanization, not because it is necessarily better than Wade Giles or other systems but because it

Prologue

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is now the standard. In addition, I have not included diacritical accents to indicate tones, as I presume that most readers of such a specialized topic as this are already aware of them. I have, it may seem, inserted an abundance of lengthy quotations in this book. I have done this because since this is a seminal discussion of Ban Gu, I think it is important to provide ample examples from primary early Chinese texts. While I argue that Ban Gu’s History of the Han is an inscription of his self-identity, I also believe that so is the present book. There is no production of text without the looming presence of the producer; all text is inscribed or, rather, represented by the author. All authors inscribe themselves into their work as James Joyce inscribed himself into Ulysses and inscribed Homer’s Ulysses into Joyce’s Ulysses. In some sense, even a book about the Han is an autobiography, be it by Ban Gu two thousand years ago or my book, written in my office. Finally, I would like to comment on why I chose to write on the present topic. There can be little doubt that Ban Gu’s Hanshu and other works have been extremely influential in shaping two millennia of Chinese literature and historiography. Indeed, perhaps only the Shiji and Zuozhuan 左傳 (Commentaries of Mr. Zuo) have contributed more common expressions to classical and modern Chinese than Ban Gu’s Hanshu. The qualities of Ban Gu’s literary style are emulated and alluded to in Chinese works of history, poetry, and narrative—novels and short stories—from after his death to the present. Whereas Sima Qian’s emotive and rhapsodic style became a standard form of personal expression, Ban Gu’s conciseness and urbane calmness influenced how most later historians narrated the events of their works. Beyond my interest in Ban Gu as an intellectual and literary innovator, I was compelled to write about him precisely because of his sophistication as a writer.

BAN GU’S HISTORY OF EARLY CHINA

CHAPTER 1

INSCRIBING THE PAST: A HISTORY OF CHINESE HISTORY

“Speak thou vast and venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary and with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee.” —Captain Ahab15

In his work, Moby Dick, Herman Melville (1819–1891) narrates a monologue by Captain Ahab as he stares at the suspended head of a recently slaughtered whale. Ahab muses over the life and experiences the whale must have had over the course of its life and how little can be seen of its now-decapitated body. In his final utterance, he exclaims, “O head! Thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”16 If the whale could speak, then Ahab could understand it entirely. But this cannot be, for the whale, as Ahab realizes, is dead, incomplete, and out of its natural habitat. In effect, it can only be partially apprehended. This is perhaps the best

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we can hope for as historians or scholars of ancient literature—to see the past in fragments that are irreversibly out of their contexts. But we can still describe what we do see and attempt to make some sense of the fragments. One approach to considering the past—the one undertaken here—is to focus on the historian rather than the history. The history of history is the discovery of human joys and anxieties, influenced by the agencies of history itself. The Polish historian Krystof Pomain believed that the “scientific” and “positivistic” views of history are now obsolete: The history of historiography has had its day. What we need now is a history of history which would place at the center of its investigation the interactions among knowledge, ideologies, the requirements of writing—in short, among the diverse and sometimes discordant aspects of the historian’s work. And which, in so doing, would allow us to construct a bridge between the history of the sciences and that of philosophy, literature, and perhaps art. Or rather between a history of knowledge and that of the different uses made of it.17

A discussion of an ancient work such as the History of the Han can at best highlight certain trends and strategies within the text and, in the process, conjure other issues for later inquiry. Throughout this book my intention is to cast some light on the impetus and anxieties behind the History of the Han’s authorship by considering the family and personal history of its author. I explore the intellectual climate that prevailed during Ban Gu’s life so as to suggest some reasons for the accolades he showered upon the royal family of the Han (202 BC–AD 220) and the dynasty it ruled—accolades that may well seem sycophantic to a modern reader. While much has been said about Ban Gu in previous scholarship as the writer of the History of the Han, little has been said about his other works, and even less has been said about him as a person. He has been imagined, as has his predecessor Sima Qian, simply as a historian laboring to preserve in text great events and great people. Ban Gu’s significance, however, extends beyond historical record; beyond the study of Chinese

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historiography; and beyond the study of poetics, stele inscriptions, and “hypothetical discourses.”18 Ban Gu’s intellectual contributions to early China invoked new perspectives on textual production and intellectual orthodoxy that have had lasting effects on how China has perceived its past. Unfortunately, however, Ban Gu’s biographical details have been little studied. The first Chinese work to discuss Ban Gu at length was the Hou Hanshu 後漢書 (History of the Later Han), where Ban Gu is discussed within the biography of his father, Ban Biao 班彪 (AD 3–54).19 Fan Ye 范曄 (AD 398–445), the author of this work, briefly outlined how Gu arrived at writing the History of the Han, putatively a completion of his father’s work. Current Chinese works mostly include only cursory biographical information on Ban Gu, generally because they have focused their research on textual studies of the History of the Han or Ban’s other literary works, rather than on him and his life. One contemporary Chinese scholar, Li Weixiong李威熊, wrote a study of the text entitled the Hanshu daodu 漢書導讀 (Guide to Reading the History of the Han), which includes a short biographical section on Ban Gu in a discussion of how the work was completed.20 Wang Mingtong 王明 通, another modern scholar, also has provided a short biography in his study, the Hanshu daolun 漢 書 導 論 (Considerations of the History of the Han).21 The few English sources that contain biographical information about Ban Gu include Herbert A. Giles’s A Chinese Biographical Dictionary,22 Nancy Lee Swann’s Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China,23 and Michael Loewe’s A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Empires (221 BC–AD 24)24 And the most complete English biographical discussion of Ban Gu for several decades has been Otto B. van der Sprenkel’s Pan Piao, Pan Ku, and the Han History.25 Several other works contain brief descriptions of Ban Gu’s life, though few have been produced in any language that is devoted exclusively to Ban Gu and his writings. Two works that do center on Ban Gu are Zheng Hesheng’s 鄭鶴聖 chronologically organized Han Ban Mengjian xiansheng Gu nianpu 漢班孟堅先生固年譜 (Annals of the Life of Mr. Ban

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[Gu] Mengjian) and Chen Qitai’s 陳其泰 Ban Gu pingzhuan 班固評傳 (Critical Biography of Ban Gu).26 One of my objectives is to produce something of a history of history by writing a history of the historian. My primary goal, though, is to explain Ban Gu’s apparently sycophantic support of the Han dynastic house and the tools he employed to render his support for the ruling Liu 劉 clan. His entire work, I suggest, is inscribed with anxieties naturally connected to his precarious role as an official court historian, and in order to show how he sought to mitigate the danger of his position, I discuss a variety of issues: some historical, some religious, some philosophical, and some literary. This is because the History of the Han contains all of these subjects. Ban Gu, by becoming a court official and historian, entered an ageold antagonism when he gained close proximity to the person of the emperor. He was, as were most court officials, caught between the duty to be an honest and direct courtier (who would, if called upon, render criticisms of his ruler’s misbehaviors) and the real possibility of arousing the emperor’s ire precisely because of his honesty. While this may appear to be a rather simple reading, such a simple situation, one in which what one writes or says can decide one’s future, is no simple matter if such a situation colors one’s entire literary work—especially if the work is the most important extant history of the Former Han. One only needs to recall Sima Qian’s castration for misspeaking to the emperor to see that penalties for honest talk were serious indeed. Previous history had shown that men and women who approached the emperor frankly were quite often demoted or executed. Ban Gu understood this antagonism well, and as a historian of court life, he was compelled to write his official history to serve two functions: first, to protect his career interests and, second, to facilitate a means whereby his historical writings could be a safe venue for loyal remonstrance. One of his strategies to mitigate this precarious antagonism was the formulation of a new view of the hallowed theory of tianming, 天命 Heaven’s Mandate in order to ingratiate himself with the rulers he served. To outline Ban Gu’s historical and literary strategies, I have organized this book into five sections: This chapter considers two preliminary

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topics. I first provide a general survey of the traditional antagonism between minister and ruler and, second, I introduce Ban Gu’s general view of history. Chapter 2 traces the long history of the material text, the History of the Han, looking at how the work was written, rewritten, edited, and commented on from its early stages to the editions of the text extant today. History is layered—history of author upon history of text upon history of empire—and each subsequent layer of rewriting represents a newly nuanced view of the past. With each new commentary and each new recension, the Han and the author who represented it are recast in a new light. Chapter 3 outlines how Ban Gu’s postface (xuzhuan 敘傳) inscribes his family with characteristics that depict them as wise and loyal ministers in the court who seem sometimes to endanger themselves by their remonstrations. Certain tensions emerge in Ban Gu’s account of his ancestors that reveal the anxieties and challenges of entering into court politics. Chapter 4 outlines how Ban Gu’s History of the Han was written in the wake of a turbulent political period during which the Han court was temporarily displaced and under the control of a former intimate of the Ban clan. In this chapter, I consider the historical antecedents that influenced how Ban Gu viewed the Liu family’s role as the imperial clan. I also highlight the influence that the Ban family’s ideological views had on him as he wrote his history—their admiration for classical tenets and their long history of involvement in state affairs. Finally, in this chapter, I provide a biographical sketch of Ban Gu’s life and the already-precarious circumstances of his authorship of historical records in his younger years—that is, before his official employment as a court historian. In chapter 5, I discuss one of Ban Gu’s strategies for framing his History of the Han within a theoretical paradigm that would appeal to the ruling Liu clan. Influenced by his father’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” 王命論, Ban Gu reconfigured the Heaven’s Mandate theory into one that marked the Liu clan as predestined to receive Heaven’s election.27 Ban Gu moreover restructured the Heaven’s Mandate paradigm into a form quite unlike its pre-Han form to please the ruling Liu clan by

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suggesting that their Mandate was divinely predetermined—not subject to moral requisites—while also being eternally granted.

THE PERENNIAL DANGERS

OF

DIRECT CRITICISM

The work of being a minister and engaging in political criticism was quite dangerous, and, like other courtiers, Ban Gu needed to structure his work carefully to alleviate some of the hazards of writing a history of the dynasty one lives within.28 Reflecting on the problems encountered by earlier ministers who directly criticized their rulers, Ban Gu notes that more savvy writers “therefore obscured their criticisms in their works and did not broadcast them, and thus they avoided the difficulties of their times” 是以隱其書而不宣，所以免時難也.29 Ministers used various strategies to protect and empower themselves throughout the Han, including circuitous speech, “subtle speech” (weiyan), 微言 and calling upon a higher power to speak on one’s behalf. Ban Gu’s History of the Han fits within the history of this antagonism in several ways. One way in which ministers attempted to protect themselves while rendering political criticism was by utilizing the allegorism commonly associated with the odes of the Shijing 詩經 (Classic of Odes). Well-selected lines from this anthology of early poems were often invoked to render a circuitous or ambiguous remonstration. In one early work, the Guoyu 國語 (Disquisitions of the States), one finds an example of a duke’s new wife trying to discern a minister’s partisanship by hiring a singer to recite a line from a popular ballad that would allude to her question.30 By reciting poetic lines understood to be attached to certain political allegories, or intoning songs circuitously intimating a topic one would not dare to raise openly, ministers could engage in criticism or inquiry while simultaneously avoiding direct statements. Mencius 孟子 (372–289 BC) contributed to the idea that an author of historical records renders circuitous criticisms through his or her “subtle speech” when he suggested that Confucius 孔子 (551–479 BC) wrote the Chunqiu 春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals) to correct the decay of his era.31 Mencius asserted that when Confucius wrote his historical

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record, “rebellious ministers and murderous sons were terrified” 而亂臣 賊子懼.32 That is, Confucius’ ostensible comments on mundane events functioned as encoded moral judgments. That historical writing was held suspect under the state’s observation is attested in Li Si’s 李斯 (?–208 BC) memorial to the first Qin emperor where he recommended that texts such as the Classic of Odes and Shangshu 尚書 (Documents) should be proscribed along with the works of the philosophers. Li also requested that anyone who fails to discard such works be harshly punished. His motivation was his concern that scholars who read historical records look to antiquity to, in actuality, censure the present.33 Li Si’s memorial highlights the suspicion rulers had that officials and academicians of the realm were able to render subtle political criticisms against them that could threaten the perceived legitimacy of their rule. Much later, the Han intellectual Dong Zhongshu imagined a way in which ministers could render their criticisms through the voice of another entity—Heaven (tian 天).34 In Dong’s view, Heaven is conscious of the affairs of the world and, in its concern for the state’s well-being, dispenses omens to warn the ruling house of its misrule. In a response to an inquiry from the emperor regarding the apparent capriciousness of the Mandate to rule, Dong suggested that Heaven warns rulers before finally destroying a dynastic house: 國家將有失道之敗，而天乃先出災害以譴告之，不知自省， 又出怪異以警懼之，尚不知變，而傷敗乃至. Only when states approach defeat through loss of the Way does Heaven first warn them by sending calamities to make its censure known. If these calamities are not examined, further oddities are sent to startle and frighten them. If these transmutations remain unexamined, fatal defeat arrives from Heaven.35

According to Dong, the actions of a ruler are subject to the opinions of Heaven. And in Dong’s view, ministers can best interpret Heaven’s portents and not the emperor himself; this is certainly convenient for the minister who applies his interpretive spin on any natural event so that he

8

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

can manipulate the ruler by exchanging his judgment for Heaven’s. In this way, Heaven is the mouthpiece of the minister and vice versa. Dong placed interpretive power in the hands of ministers; comets, calamities, and odd events could be seized by ministers as opportunities— or rather excuses—to render their criticisms of the ruler’s behavior. It was not the ministers who were remonstrating, but it was Heaven. Naturally, emperors were not unaware that a minister could falsely make such an appeal, and there were conflicts regarding the validity of claims that Heaven had made its censure known through some strange sign. This tension emerges in Ban Gu’s biography of Wang Mang 王莽 (45 BC– AD 23), for in this chapter, readers see Gu trying to discredit Wang’s appeals to Heaven’s will by demonstrating that Wang’s claims were contrived. But on the other hand, Ban Gu demonstrated in his “Treatise on the Five Phases” 五行 that portent interpretation is valid if employed by the right minister.36 Ban Gu inscribed his opinions into history as history’s author; Dong Zhongshu is affirmed in his conviction that ministers function as the rightful interpreters of Heaven’s messages, but in the end, it is Ban Gu who decided which ministers correctly and incorrectly interpreted omenological signs. Wang Mang, Ban Gu asserted, was a false interpreter. The author of history is the ultimate arbiter, or gatekeeper, of what is said, who is correct, and how events are to be interpreted. Ministers and rulers have not changed; ancient history reasserts itself. The antagonism between a minister’s desire to remonstrate and a ruler’s fear that criticism could endanger his authority has shown itself in recent times. After Mao Zedong’s 毛澤東 (1893–1976) failed economic strategies during the Great Leap Forward (1958) and his resulting abdication as chairman of the party, Mao experienced a growing disappointment over his loss of political power. While he retained his iconic presence— the ubiquity of statues and images of Confucius yielded to those of Mao—he lost his administrative voice. His displeasure was exacerbated in 1966 when the mayor of Beijing, an academic named Wu Han 吳唅 (d. 1969), wrote and performed a play, Hai Rui Dismissed from Office 海 瑞罷官. The play was ostensibly about a virtuous Ming 明 (1368–1644)

Inscribing the Past

9

courtier who was dismissed from his official post by an egotistical ruler. But Mao interpreted it as a circuitous attack on his earlier purging of Peng Dehuai 彭德壞 (1898–1974) and tried to have Wu removed from office, ironically aping the play’s theme. This conflict between a lesser statesman and a ruler had an influential role in what soon after evolved into the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). From China’s early period to its present era, the antagonism between minister and ruler has remained active. Ban Gu created an intellectual view wherein remonstrance is possible without suspicion. Of course, sycophancy always helps, but Ban Gu also highlighted the political value of his clansmen while discrediting Wang Mang’s claims to have received Heaven’s Mandate; he configured a novel Mandate paradigm in which the Liu clan’s tenure of Heaven’s approval was divinely predetermined and perennially assigned. According to Ban’s History of the Han, the Liu clan can count on Heaven’s endorsement now and forever. Beyond the political nuances of Ban Gu’s work, he did have a discernable historiographical view, one that supports the expectation to praise and blame—an impulse found throughout his writings.

PRAISE, BLAME,

AND THE

MODES

OF

JUDGMENT

Historical praise and blame (baobian 褒貶) are not indigenous only to China. Daniel Robinson, in his recent work, Praise and Blame: Moral Realism and Its Applications, wrote, Praise and blame are central features of scripture, of ethics and moral philosophy of ancient schools of rhetoric, of criminal law, of the behavioral and social sciences. They are the tested tools of childrearing and interpersonal influence, staples in the busy world of advertising and the murky world of propaganda. They are the means by which attention is drawn to the hero and the villain, the saint and the sinner, the victor and the vanquished.37

So this impulse sweeps across wide cultural lines. Ban Gu’s particular understanding of historical writing is revealed in two primary sources,

10

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

and both disclose much about his view of praise and blame. The first source is an essay by his father, Ban Biao, which appears to have influenced Ban Gu’s approach to writing. And the second source is Gu’s comments at the end of his biography of Sima Qian. Several of Biao and Gu’s historiographical opinions can be, in fact, taken from their comments on the historian Sima Qian. In addition to their comments, there is a short passage at the end of Fan Ye’s biography of Ban Gu that helps summarize their historiographical ideals. Ban Biao’s essay on history and Ban Gu’s comments on Sima Qian insist that while literary merit is valuable to historical writing, skilled writing must also be accompanied by appropriate moral evaluation. The work of historical writing should echo the tenets of Confucius, and two examples demonstrate this point. In Ban Biao’s “General Remarks on Historiography,” 略論 he complained that Sima Qian “gave place to ‘Goods and Wealth’ (Records of the Grand Historian, Chapter 129) while treating lightly benevolence and righteousness, and he expressed shame for the poor and destitute” 序貨殖，則輕仁義而羞貧窮.38 His essay expresses several misgivings about Sima Qian’s slighting of classical values. Likewise, Ban Gu complained at the end of his biography of Sima Qian (History of the Han, chapter 62), 亦其涉獵者廣博，貫穿經傳，馳騁古今，上下數千載間，斯 以勤矣．又是非頗繆於聖人. With his diligence he browsed very widely in books, threaded his way through the Classics and commentaries, and galloped up and down from the past to the present, covering a period of several thousand years. Yet his judgments stray rather often from those of The Sage.39

According to the two Bans, historical writing must include Confucian tenets and evaluate the figures of history according to the Master’s teachings. Biao and Gu’s comments contain several other remarks that disclose their historiographical bias; their praises and criticisms of Sima Qian reveal much of what they believed were good and bad strategies

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for writing. In Ban Biao’s essay, he commends Sima Qian’s narrative skills: 然善述序事理，辯而不華，質而不野，文質相稱，蓋良史之 才也. He was thus skilled at narrating and putting in order the principles of events; he was discerning but not flowery, substantial but not crude, and the pattern and substance of his writing are balanced. Overall, these are the talents of a good historian.40

But while Biao admired Sima Qian’s narrative talents, he also complained that 誠令遷依五經之法言，同聖人之是非，意亦庶幾矣 if we could in fact cause Prefect Sima Qian to have relied upon the model words of the Five Classics and agreed with what sagely men (or otherwise, “The Sage” 聖人 Confucius) considered to be right and wrong, then his intentions would not have been far from success.41

Despite one’s literary talents, it is the content that remains most important. Successful historical writing rests on proper reference to Confucian morality. Ban Biao also disliked Sima Qian’s syntax and organization. In his essay, he complained that Sima Qian was too wordy, asserting that “his book could be pared without end and there would still remain a surplus of words, and there would be many places where [the text] would not make a unified work” 其書刊落不盡，尚有盈辭，多不齊一.42 Not only did Biao object to Sima’s wordiness but he also complained that whereas Qian made a record of the styles (zi 字) of some men such as Sima Xiangru 司馬相如 (c. 179–117 BC), he did not record the styles of other important people of history, such as Xiao He 蕭何 (?–193 BC),43 Cao Shen 曹參 (?–190 BC),44 Chen Ping 陳平 (?–178 BC),45 and Dong Zhongshu.46 Sima Qian was inconsistent not only with styles but also when he recorded peoples’ prefectures and commanderies.

12

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Biao lamented that Qian’s inconsistency gives his readers no rest in trying to locate information on their own. Ironically, Ban Biao disparaged Sima Qian’s prolixity and his omissions of what Biao felt were important details. Furthermore, Ban Biao suggested that the function of recording the past is to explain the present, to make the past relevant to the present reader. Biao stated that such works as the Zuozhuan, Intrigues of the Warring States, Shiben 世本 (Genealogies), Chu-Han chunqiu 楚漢春 秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals of the Chu and Han),47 and the Records of the Grand Historian (Taishigong shu 太史公書) “are the means whereby this generation understands antiquity, and the means whereby later generations see the past; they are the ears and eyes of sagely men” 若左氏 , 國語,世本 , 戰國策 , 楚漢春秋 , 太史公書 , 今之所以知古 , 後之所由觀前 , 聖人之耳目也.48 Biao’s assertion is echoed in George Santayana’s (1863–1952) famous statement that those who forget about the past are condemned to repeat it. For Ban Biao, these early texts functioned as the interpretive tools of Confucian intellectuals; they are the “eyes and ears of sagely men.” In his final assessment of Sima Qian, which merely repeats much of what his father said about him, Ban Gu again praised Sima Qian’s literary merits. He noted that Qian “discourses without sounding florid; he is simple without being rustic. His writing is direct and his facts sound. He does not falsify what is beautiful, nor does he conceal what is evil” 辨而不華，質而不俚，其文直，其事核，不虛美，不隱惡.49 Ban Gu commends Sima Qian’s ability to provide detailed accounts of the Qin (221–209 BC) and Han, but he also had criticisms, suggesting that Sima Qian’s use of classical texts, commentaries, and philosophical works is “often careless and imprecise, and takes liberties with his sources” 其多疏略，或有抵梧.50 Moreover, Ban Gu criticized Sima Qian’s apparent preference for Huanglao 黃老 thought over the Confucian classics, his valorization of wandering knights ( youxia 遊俠), and those skilled at making profits over gentlemen scholars who live in retirement. Ban Gu also disliked Sima’s apparent disdain for the poor. Qian’s literary skills may be praiseworthy, but his writing lacks proper

Inscribing the Past

13

moral views and judgments. One sees that what, rather than how, one writes is most important; Ban Gu and his father held that a text should be appropriately laden with meaning. It must be biased, as long as its bias is the correct bias. In addition to Ban Biao’s essay and Ban Gu’s closing comments on Sima Qian, Fan Ye’s concluding remarks to his biography of Ban Gu provide a retrospective summary of Gu’s historiographical ideals. Fan Ye repeated Biao’s and Gu’s view that Sima Qian’s notions of right and wrong did not accord with those of sagely men.51 In his summary of Biao and Gu’s opinion of Sima Qian, Fan wrote, 其論議常排死節，否正直，而不敘殺身成仁之美，則輕仁 義，賤守節愈矣. Sima Qian’s discussions often dismiss those who have died for their principles, reject those who are honest and upright, and he does not talk about the beauty of those who fulfill benevolence at the cost of their own lives. Thus, he gives light treatment to humanness and duty, and slights those who stick to their principles in adversity.52

Fan Ye noted that the historiographical view of the two Bans is based on Confucian morals and suggested that the role of the historian is to explain events and render judgments according to the traditional teachings of Confucius. The application of this view is seen in several of Ban Gu’s end-of-chapter comments, or Eulogies (zan 贊), in the History of the Han, where Gu borrowed the voice of Confucius, often from lines in the Lunyu 論語 (Analects of Confucius), as a means to evaluate the persons he wrote about. Two examples demonstrate this point. In his biography of Su Wu 蘇武 (?–60 BC), Ban Gu drew from the Analects of Confucius to praise Su’s loyalty to Emperor Gao 高祖 (r. 206–195 BC), who Su served as a minister.53 Su exhibited the honored Confucian quality of “loyalty to one’s lord,” 忠君 for he is said to have responded to the news of the emperor’s death by looking south while weeping and spitting up blood day and night. Ban Gu wrote,

14

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA 孔子稱「志士仁人，有殺身以成仁，無求生以害仁」，「使 於四方，不辱君命」． Confucius declared that, ‘a man of ideals, integrity, and benevolence does not desire a life wherein he does harm to humanness; [he may] have to die himself in order to achieve humanness,’ and ‘[in being] sent throughout the four directions he does not bring shame to his lord’s commands.’54

In this final judgment of Su Wu, Ban Gu extracted two of Confucius’ statements from the Analects of Confucius, 15.9 and 13.20.55 After citing Confucius, Gu simply added that “Su Wu had these qualities indeed” 蘇 武有之矣.56 In Ban Gu’s biography of Emperor Jing 景帝 (r. 156–141 BC), he again quoted Confucius to imply his judgment.57 He wrote, “Confucius declared that, ‘such people were employed to keep straight the Way during the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou],’ ” 孔子稱「斯民，三得 之所以直道而行也」58 drawing from the original Analects of Confucius passage, 15.25, wherein Confucius said, “In my dealings with others, who do I upbraid and who do I commend? If I have praised him, he has already been put to the test” 吾之於人也，誰毀誰譽？如有所譽者，其有所試 矣.59 After this comment, Confucius continued with the line quoted by Ban Gu regarding people who “keep straight the Way”; it is this judgment that Ban Gu presumably wished his reader to attach to Emperor Jing. It is quite typical in Ban Gu’s History of the Han that the voice of Confucius is borrowed as a proxy for his own. In addition to the two examples I provide, Ban Gu also rendered judgments through the voice of Confucius in chapters 45, 46, 49, 66, 67, 71, 74, 77, 83, 85, 93, and 99. And of the instances where Confucius’ voice is used for historical judgment, all but a single passage from the Records of the Grand Historian are taken from the Analects of Confucius. Moreover, this list does not include other passages where Ban Gu rendered judgments on the subjects of his history in decidedly Confucian terms. In light of Ban Gu’s view of history, it seems quite clear that his intention was, in large part, to promote Confucian moral values by valorizing

Inscribing the Past

15

the paragons of those beliefs and, also, to praise and blame the people he wrote about. But dispensing judgment on the royal house was risky, especially if you lived near the central court. As an official of the court, Ban Gu needed to construct a safe intellectual and literary venue to express his concerns and views regarding the behaviors of the emperor. Ban Gu was a traditional moralist, but rulers do not always live up to moral expectations. Ban Gu, like all imperial courtiers, occupied the difficult position between an obligation to remonstrate against an emperor’s actions if they endangered the court and the natural impulse to protect his own interests. Ban Gu’s History of the Han is sometimes accused of being sycophantically partial to the Han ruling family. The following chapters in this book consider the long textual evolution of Ban Gu’s History of the Han and how the partisanship for the Han inscribed into this work functions as an accolade in favor of the ruling Liu clan as a means of self-protection while also creating new intellectual views and a novel method of writing history.

CHAPTER 2

INSCRIBING THE TEXT: A HISTORY OF THE HISTORY OF THE HAN

C’est un métier que de faire un livre, comme de faire une pendule; il faut plus que de l’esprit pour être auteur. —Jean de la Bruyère60

Just as all early Chinese narratives are inscribed authorially by the ideas and beliefs of those who produced them, so are the material texts inscribed by the layers of editorial changes, accretions, and appended commentaries that influence the reader’s interpretation. Inscription is representation, abstractly and tangibly; each new editor and commentator reinterprets and re-represents the edition he or she builds on. Tracing the material, or textual, history of Ban Gu’s History of the Han demonstrates that edited and re-edited books are hermeneutically plastic; interpretive modes and strategies are reconfigured with each subsequent copying and

18

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

revision after a work’s first draft. Authors do this themselves. How many books have readers read that have already endured several layers of revision by its author before finally being subjected to open readership? It is clear, then, that it would be remiss not to admit this before discussing how Ban Gu has inscribed his thoughts, beliefs, and antagonisms into his work; one must begin with an outline of how the text has evolved into the editions most commonly read today. Before I sketch the textual history of the History of the Han, I should note that there are differences between the modern Western and ancient Chinese notions of authorship. In English scholars use the terms author, editor, and compiler with some sense of distinction between their meanings.61 While it is convenient to refer to Ban Gu as the author of the History of the Han, I remain partially uncomfortable with this term, mostly, because it is only partially correct. Relying only on Western ideas of authorship, Sargent stated that “Pan Ku was not primarily an historian or a critical scholar; he was a careful compiler.”62 Sargent insisted that Ban Gu was not a historian, critical scholar, or author but merely a compiler, discounting the degree of agency compilers have over the interpretive results of what they have placed together into a single volume. To be more accurate, Ban Gu did several things at once; the tasks of compiling, editing, explicating, and narrating all apply to the labors of the Chinese historian during the Han. In a general sense, “producing” a text in ancient China was “authoring” a text. Also, if the authorship of a work must imply the individual production of that book, then textual authorship, for the most part, did not exist in China until the modern era, perhaps after China had become acquainted with Western models of writing. Any given ancient Chinese book, as one sees, for example, in the textual history of Ban Gu’s work, has undergone several layers of editing, copying, and reprinting. As Martin Kern suggested, inevitably over the course of time, a work such as the History of the Han has encountered the brush of several people.63 But despite the problems with settling on the Western idea of what authorship entails, there are reasons to assert that Ban Gu, in a sense, “authored” even the most highly edited and revised sections of the

Inscribing the Text

19

History of the Han. To reiterate the example I have mentioned, Ban’s “Biography of Dong Zhongshu” 董仲舒傳 is a chapter that some might conclude was not written by Ban Gu; and such a view is, in my opinion, limited to Western expectations of authorship. The chapter begins with a nearly verbatim excerpt from the “Collected Biographies of the Confucians” 儒林列傳 from Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian.64 Ban Gu divided Sima Qian’s short account of Dong Zhongshu into two halves, placing Dong’s three memorials in the middle.65 Gu presumably extracted the memorials from the imperial archives and inserted them into his chapter on Dong. At the end of Ban’s biography of Dong, he included two quotes and sides with the positive judgment.66 Ban Gu praised Dong Zhongshu simply by agreeing with someone else’s praise of Dong Zhongshu. There are three parts to Ban’s biography: first, a biographical excerpt taken from the Records of the Grand Historian; second, three memorials taken from archives; and third, a closing comment in which two scholars’ opinions of Dong Zhongshu are quoted. In all, Ban Gu’s written contribution to the long chapter includes only sixteen characters. But if one considers the materials that Ban Gu edited into the chapter, their implications, and the insinuation of his final sixteen-character sentence, one sees that Ban actually said quite a lot. He placed himself in Dong’s philosophical camp, a camp based on what Loewe called “Reformist” ideals.67 I suggest that “authorship” in ancient China had less to do with what of one’s own words were set to pages than what of his or her own thoughts and opinions were expressed in them. Editing, quoting, and revising is authorship in the early Chinese context. It is with this view of authorship that I outline the history and structure of Ban Gu’s historical record. Since the textual history of the History of the Han is quite complex, I have divided my account into four sections: first, a general sketch up to the commentators of the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 (General Catalog of the Four Treasuries with Explanatory Notes);68 second, an outline of the textual sources used to write the History of the Han; third, a study of the work’s stages of development; and fourth, a consideration of the various recensions

20

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

of the text and an outline of their two lines of transmission. Generally, the goal here is to demonstrate that the present edition of the work is by no means the original draft produced by Ban Gu two millennia ago; in theory, one questions whether so-called urtexts exist at all, since all works are “edited” works.

“TRUE EDITIONS”

AND

QING SKEPTICISM

My discussion of the textual evolution of the History of the Han begins with two general questions: Why did Ban Gu, in the first place, set out to produce a work that took him over twenty years to complete? And what are scholars to make of the account in the Nanshi 南史 (Southern Histories) regarding a “true edition” of the History of the Han that was allegedly discovered? Ban Gu’s impetus for producing the History of the Han, as sources suggest, was initially to complete and improve his father’s previous historical writing, which consisted only of sixty-five biographical chapters. Later, Ban Gu was ordered by Emperor Ming 明帝 (r. AD 58–75) to conclude his work after a forced break from writing. The response of the Qing editors of the General Catalog of the Four Treasuries is helpful in sorting out the spurious report of a “true edition” of Ban Gu’s history. Ban Gu’s father, Ban Biao, died when Gu was only twenty-three years old, and it was this year that he left the Grand Academy to return to his home at Fufeng 扶風 to mourn his father’s death. It was probably then that he began his long project of writing the History of the Han. Ban Gu’s account of his father’s death is brief. After recalling the circumstances of Biao’s authorship of his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” Ban Gu stated, “Biao had a son named Gu. Gu’s father, Biao, died when Gu was young. Gu thus wrote his ‘Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden’ in order to express his fate and follow his will” 有子曰固， 弱冠而孤，作幽通之賦，以致命遂志.69 Ban Gu informed his readers only that he was orphaned when young and that he subsequently wrote a fu rhyme-prose to lament his father’s death; Gu said nothing at all about Biao’s literary works.70 Although Ban Gu did not mention anything regarding his father’s authorship of historical writing or any sense

Inscribing the Text

21

of obligation to continue in his father’s footsteps, he did mention other motives for writing a history of the Han. Fortunately, the fifth century historian, Fan Ye, provided a more expanded account of Ban Gu’s return home and subsequent authorship of the History of the Han. Fan stated, “During the jianwu thirtieth year (AD 54), Ban Biao died at the age of 52; he had written rhyme-proses, disquisitions, documents, records, and a total of nine chapters of memorials” 建武三十年，年五十二，卒官．所著賦，論，書，記，奏事 合九篇.71 Here one sees that Ban Biao was, in fact, quite prolific. Fan revealed nothing about Biao’s writing of biographies in this passage, but he stated earlier that due to the inferior quality of previous historical records from after the reign of Emperor Wu 武帝 (r. 140–87 BC) to his time, Biao “continued to collect former histories of past affairs, and additionally connected together other accounts he had heard. He wrote the Later Biographies in several tens of chapters” 繼採前史遺事，傍 貫異聞，作後傳數十篇.72 While Ban Gu did not mention his father’s writings, Fan Ye informed his readers that Biao had already produced a substantial amount of work before his death, including some “several tens of chapters” of biographical works. Presumably, all of these writings were available to Ban Gu as he passed the requisite three years of mourning at home. The Tang 唐 (AD 618–907) scholar, Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 (AD 661–721), is more specific regarding the number of biographical chapters Ban Biao produced. In his Shitong 史通 (Generalities on Historiography), Liu recalled, 史記所書，年止漢武，太初已．後，闕而不錄．其後劉向， 向子歆及諸好事者，若馮商，衛衡，揚雄，史岑，梁審，肆 仁，晉馮段肅，晉丹，馮衍，韋融，蕭奮，劉恂等相次撰 續，迄於哀，平閒，猶名史記．至建武中，司徒援班彪以 為其言鄙俗，不足以踵 前史；又雄，歆褒美偽新，誤後惑 眾，不當垂之後代者也．於是採其舊事，旁貫異聞，作後傳 六十五篇． That which is recorded in the Shiji ends at the time of the taichu era (104–101 BC) of Emperor Wu (r. 140–87 BC). Afterwards,

22

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA records are lacking and unrecorded. After Emperor Wu, Liu Xiang, his son, Xin, and those fond of affairs such as Feng Shang, Wei Heng, Yang Xiong, Shi Cen, Liang Shen, Si Ren, Jin Feng, Duan Su, Jin Dan, Feng Yan, Wei Rong, Xiao Fen, Liu Xun, and others, each continued to write until the time of Emperors Ai (r. 5–1 BC) and Ping (r. AD 1–5).73 They also called their works, ‘Shiji.’74 Once we arrive to the jianwu era (AD 25–55), the assistant of the minister over the masses, Ban Biao, considered their words to be lowly, vulgar, and insufficient to follow in the tracks of the former historian, Sima Qian. Moreover, Liu Xin and Yang Xiong praised the false Xin dynasty, harming later times and deluding the masses; their works are not worthy to be transmitted to later generations. Accordingly Ban Biao collected accounts of old affairs while simultaneously linking together what he had heard, and he produced the Later Biographies in sixty-five chapters.75

Several assertions in Liu’s account are of interest here. He noted that a number of scholars produced “Shiji” after the records of Sima Qian’s had ended, he suggested that Ban Biao was dissatisfied with their quality, and, he stated that Biao was thus compelled to produce works of his own. Liu claimed that Ban Biao’s work equaled “sixty-five chapters,” thus disambiguating Fan Ye’s statement that he produced biographies in “several tens of chapters [ juan 卷].”76 The account of Biao’s authorship thus evolved; details were added. So even before the history of the History of the Han begins, the history of its sources already appears to be somewhat plastic; what was Liu Zhiji’s source of his claim that Biao wrote precisely “sixty-five” biographical chapters? Fan Ye and Liu Zhiji account for literary works produced by Biao, and it is probable that some chapters of the History of the Han may actually be Biao’s work simply pasted into Gu’s larger book. It is likely that when Ban Gu arrived at his father’s residence to mourn his death in 54, he perused Biao’s works and was influenced and inspired by them. One can also assume that while he was at the Grand Academy, Ban Gu was well inculcated with the Confucian classics and that an attachment to the ruling dynasty had been sufficiently cultivated.77 Gu was, thus, well prepared to undertake his Han-centered literary project based on his father’s

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biographies of Han persons and his classical, state-centered education at the capital. Ban Gu’s earliest motivation to write the History of the Han was, thus, probably exposure to his father’s biographical works. Fan Ye wrote that after Biao had died, “Gu considered his father’s continuation of former histories to be incomplete (or ‘not detailed’), and so he applied his energy and concentrated his thoughts, wishing to finish his father’s efforts” 固以 彪所續前史未詳，乃潛精究思，欲就其業.78 Current readers cannot know for sure the inner impetus that Ban Gu felt as he began to record the history of the Han, but Fan’s suggestion is plausible; Gu began his work to continue his father’s. Liu Zhiji added that Ban Gu set out to finish his father’s work because he “had had not yet fulfilled his clan’s prominence” 未盡一家.79 What did Ban Gu have to say about why he wrote the History of the Han? It is clear that Fan Ye and Liu Zhiji were probably influenced by Sima Qian’s account of why he wrote the Records of the Grand Historian, suggesting that Gu was urged by a sense of familial obligation. Ban Gu said nothing along this line. In his postface, he outlined his motives for writing the text without a single word on his father’s work and, then, provided a brief explanation of each chapter.80 固以為唐虞三代，詩書所及，世有典籍，故雖堯舜之盛，必 有典謨之篇，然後揚名於後世，冠德於百王…漢紹堯運， 以建帝業．至於六世，史臣乃追述功德，私作本紀，編於百 王之末，廁於秦，項之列．太初以後，闕而不錄，故探撰前 記，綴輯 所聞以述漢書． I know that Yao, Shun, and the Three Dynasties were recorded in the Classic of Odes and Documents, and that for generations they were model texts. Accordingly, while Yao and Shun flourished there were certainly writings on their model plans. This being so, their reputations were exalted in later generations to crown the various kings with virtue… . The Han continues the Mandate of Yao, and on that basis established its imperial occupation. Once we come to the sixth generation of Han rulers (i.e., Emperor Wu), the minister of history, Sima Qian, accordingly pursued writing to attain meritorious virtue. He privately produced the “Basic

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Annals,” and edited into them accounts of the various kings during declining dynastic years. At the same time he included the likes of Qinshi Huangdi and Xiang Yu. After the taichu era (104–101 BC), there were accounts omitted and unrecorded. And so I investigated writings that had been previously recorded and gathered together what I had heard in order to write the History of the Han.81

Ban Gu’s motives, as he outlined them, do not disclose an explicit sense of filial obligation as in the case of Sima Qian; neither did he suggest that he decided to write the History of the Han based upon the works produced by his father. Ban Gu recalled that he recorded the accounts of the Han emperors like those of the past who had recorded the lives of Yao and Shun. Embedded here is an implicit comparison between the sage-kings of the honored past and the era of the Liu family rulers of the Han. Immediately after this suggestion, Gu noted that the Han dynasty continued the Mandate of Yao, a point that is woven throughout his writing in various ways. He also criticized Sima Qian for aggrandizing the opponents of the Han and then, as if echoing his father’s sentiments, suggested that he wrote his records of the Han in order to fill in the blank areas that remained after Sima’s work had ended. Ban Gu asserted that the sweep of his History of the Han is centered on the Han, and Ban Biao’s part in Gu’s decision to produce his book is only hinted at in his remark that the blanks of history needed to be filled in. Other than setting out at first to finish the work already begun by his father and produce a Han-centered history in the vein of those who had documented the sage-kings of old, Ban Gu was also induced to complete his work at the command of the emperor. His private ambitions were, thus, transferred to an official dimension. Around AD 62, a man from Ban Gu’s provincial home had accused him of “privately altering and producing a national history” 私改作國史.82 He was accordingly imprisoned and, later, exonerated through the intervention of his twin brother, Ban Chao 班超 (AD 32–102). The History of the Later Han recalls that during the trial, a copy of Ban Gu’s incomplete manuscript was presented

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to the emperor, who “marveled at it” 甚奇之 and appointed Gu to an official position at the Orchid-Terrace 蘭臺, working with texts in the imperial archives. Once there, Ban Gu’s familiarity with the events of state history surely deepened. After a year of writing and cowriting several historical documents, the emperor ordered Ban Gu to “return to and complete Gu’s former writings” 使終成前所著書.83 After receiving the emperor’s order to complete his history of the Han, Ban Gu was placed in a situation quite unlike Sima Qian’s; his history was officially sanctioned by the state. Sima’s history was an entirely private endeavor. Moreover, Ban Gu’s motive for writing his History of the Han, as he stated, was to document the Han history in the same way previous historians had during the eras of sagely kings. In other words, Ban Gu implicitly compared his text to earlier classics, the Classic of Odes and the Documents. What constituted the “first draft” of the work, and what form had it assumed when it was “finished?”84 In his postface, Ban Gu disclosed the title of his work, the scope of its records, and its contents. He revealed the name of his work as the History of the Han, and regarding the scope and components of the work, he wrote, 起元高祖，終于孝平王莽之誅，十有二世，二百三十年，綜 其行事，旁貫五經，上下洽通，為春秋考紀，表，志，傳， 凡百篇． I began with Emperor Gao (r. 608–195 BC) and ended with Emperor Ping the filial (r. AD 1–5) and the execution of Wang Mang (i.e., AD 23). I included twelve generations, equaling 230 years. I summarized their actions and affairs, while at the same time linking the text with passages from the Five Classics. I consulted and penetrated high and low in order to produce a historical record comprised of Annals, Charts, Treatises, and Biographies, totaling 100 chapters.85

Ban Gu wrote his postface as if his work were, indeed, already complete. Furthermore, he briefly discussed the individual chapters of his work, in essence, capping each with a final explanatory comment. Ban Gu not only provided his commentary on each chapter but also assigned them a

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numerical order, leaving his readers with a table of contents, so to speak. Barring textual corruptions during later eras, an event all too likely, scholars can assume that Ban Gu had, in fact, completed a “final draft” of his History of the Han before he died. Here one enters into a problem that Xiao Wuji 蕭嗚籍 referred to as “a situation near paradox” 事近矛 盾.86 That is, while Ban Gu seems to have considered his work finished, no subsequent account has admitted that it was, indeed, completed when he died. Later histories of Ban Gu’s history appear to contradict Gu, suggesting that his work was unfinished when he died in AD 92. In chapter 84 of the History of the Later Han, Fan Ye outlined the textual history of the History of the Han just after Ban Gu’s death, stating that Gu’s younger sister, Ban Zhao 班昭 (AD 49–c. 120), had a significant role in applying finishing touches to the text. He recounted that, “Ban Zhao’s older brother, Gu, wrote the History of the Han, but he died before he had finished the eight Charts and the ‘Treatise on Astronomy’ ” 兄固著漢書，其八表及天文志未及竟而卒.87 He, then, noted that Emperor He 和帝 (r. AD 89–105) summoned Ban Zhao to go to the Eastern Pavilion where her brother’s manuscript was kept and finish it: 時漢書始出，多未能通者，同郡馬融伏於閣下，從昭受讀， 後又詔融兄續繼昭成之． When the History of the Han was first published there were several people who could not understand it,88 so Ma Rong, who was from the same region as Ban Zhao, crouched below in the pavilion, and followed Zhao to receive her readings. Later, the emperor also summoned Ma Rong’s elder (younger?) brother,89 Xu, to carry on and complete the text.90

According to Fan Ye, the History of the Han was not only incomplete after Ban Gu died but also it, moreover, required substantial revisions since it was difficult to understand. Following the chronology of Fan’s account—or perhaps all—of the History of the Han were finished and published, and then it underwent further revisions by Zhao and the two Ma brothers, Ma Rong 馬融 (AD 79–166) and Ma Xu 馬續 (dates

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unknown). This is nearly all Fan said about the authorship of the History of the Han. Accounts of the textual history of the History of the Han appear to have accreted with time. Liu Zhiji recorded a more expanded history of Ban Gu’s text than did Fan Ye. Liu restated much of what I have just outlined of the Ban Gu and Fan Ye accounts of the History of the Han’s completion, but he added that Ban Zhao was summoned by the emperor to edit and narrate the text along with Ma Rong and eighteen other scholars.91 Liu’s account also asserts that it was Ma Xu specifically who finished the eight Charts and the “Treatise on Astronomy.” Fan Ye added details to Ban Gu, and Liu Zhiji added details to Fan Ye. So, when was a “first draft” of the History of the Han completed? It is clear that scholars after Ban Gu’s death agree that his manuscript was incomplete after he died, and thus, it underwent serious revisions. And if Ban Zhao, Ma Rong, Ma Xu, and some eighteen others were summoned to work on the History of the Han, the revisions must have been extensive. However, it is likely that Ban Gu submitted a “first draft” of his work to the court written by his hand in his lifetime. We have already seen that Ban Gu discussed his work as if it were already finished, and Fan Ye admitted as much. The History of the Later Han stated, “From the yongping era (AD 58–75) Ban Gu began to receive summonses from the emperor, and for more than twenty years he focused his energy and gathered his thoughts, finishing his History of the Han during the jianchu era (AD 76–84)” 固自永平中始受詔，潛精 積思二十餘年，至建初中乃成.92 Fan thus suggested that after twenty years of writing, Ban Gu finished his work sometime between the years of AD 76 and 79, well within the span of Gu’s lifetime. Liu Zhiji concurred, “Passing through more than twenty years, the History of the Han was finished during the jianchu era of Emperor Jing (r. AD 76–88)” 經 二十餘載，至景建初中乃成.93 Fan Ye and Liu Zhiji have each made the same two apparently opposing claims: first, that after twenty years of writing, he finished it, and second, that Ban Gu’s work was unfinished after his death and required revision. Since this is, as Xiao Wuji said, “an affair near paradox,” there

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is, perhaps, one plausible explanation, that is, Ban Gu did, in fact, submit a “first draft” of his History of the Han between AD 78 and 79, but its syntax was too difficult to grasp, thus inducing the emperor to order Ban Zhao and possibly other scholars to produce a clearer narrative. Even today, scholars complain that Ban Gu’s text is difficult to apprehend; Ban Gu’s laconic manner of writing is a good example of Confucius’ injunction that a good student should be able to infer the remaining three corners of a square when he is shown only one.94 What happened to the text, then, after the Eastern Han revisions? After the draft of the History of the Han was completed, probably by early 79, and subsequently revised shortly after Ban Gu’s death in 92, several commentaries were produced. The text was then transmitted through schools of specialists who made it their academic specialty. Wei Zheng 魏徵 (AD 580–643) recorded in his Suishu 隋書 (History of the Sui) that of the Han Standard Histories, 正史 “only the teaching methods of the Records of the Grand Historian and History of the Han were transmitted along with commentaries…and those who transmitted the Records of the Grand Historian were very few” 唯史記，漢書，師法 相傳，并有解釋…史記傳者甚微.95 According to Wei, Ban Gu’s work then surpassed Sima Qian’s in popularity, and by the seventh century, an interesting account regarding the History of the Han emerged. Li Yanshou’s 李延壽 (fl. seventh century AD) Nanshi 南史 (Southern Histories) includes a curious account in the biography of Liu Zhilin, a scholar in the retinue of the heir apparent. Li wrote that Fan, the king of Si at Poyang 鄱陽嗣王範, obtained a “true edition” 真本 of the History of the Han and presented it to the heir apparent at the Eastern Palace.96 The heir then ordered Liu Zhilin and other scholars of the palace to compare the “ancient edition” 古本 to the “current edition,” 今本 whereupon Liu “recorded several tens of instances of structural disparities between them” 錄其異狀數十事.97 The General Catalog of the Four Treasuries editors’ reactions to Liu Zhilin’s specious record are well reasoned and, at times, quite caustic, responding in the most detail to five of Liu’s claims. Looking at Liu’s assertions and the Qing editors’ rebuttals is enlightening, but in the end, the history of the History

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of the Han remains uncertain. Unhappily, however, the scope of my discussion does not allow me to consider in detail another equally fascinating claim putatively by Ge Hong 葛洪 (AD 283–343), that is, that Liu Xin, rather than Ban Gu, was the real author of the History of the Han.98 Liu Zhilin first claimed that the recently discovered “ancient” or “true” edition provides details not given in the commonly circulated copy. 案古本漢書稱永平十六年五月二十一日己酉，郎班固上，而 今本無上書年月日子． According to the ‘ancient edition’ of the History of the Han, the gentleman, Ban Gu, presented his work to the emperor during the jiyou time of the twenty-first day of the fifth month of the sixteenth year of the yongping reign year (AD 73), whereas the current edition does not clarify the day, month, or year that the work was presented.99

Liu Zhilin revealed that the “true” or “ancient” edition of Ban Gu’s History of the Han describes the exact year, month, and day of the text’s presentation to the emperor. Liu’s date corresponds to AD 73. The editors of the General Catalog of the Four Treasuries refuted Liu’s presentation date on two accounts. They reasserted that Ban Gu was summoned and ordered to complete his work during the yongping era (AD 58–75) and that he did not complete it until the jianchu era (AD 76–84). The editors thus suggested that Liu neglected to consult the chronology provided in the History of the Later Han, for Liu’s date of 73 clearly falls three years before the parameters outlined by Fan Ye. The editors also recalled that according to Fan’s biography of Ban Zhao, the “Treatise on Astronomy” and the eight Charts were incomplete when Gu died. The General Catalog of the Four Treasuries states that “the order of the book’s successive completion occurred in two separate courts; it was not authored by a single hand” 是此書次第續成，事隔兩朝，撰 非一手.100 Although the Qing editors have perpetuated the “first edition paradox” I have already mentioned, they argued that according to the History of the Later Han, Liu Zhilin’s date is untenable.

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Liu Zhilin’s second assertion concerns the content of the History of the Han: 猶案古本敘傳號為中篇，今本稱為敘傳，又今本敘傳載班彪 事行，而古本云「彪自有傳」． Moreover, according to the “ancient edition,” the “postface” is called the “middle chapter,” whereas the current edition claims that it is the “postface.” Also, the “postface” of the modern edition records the affairs and actions of Ban Biao, Ban Gu’s father, whereas the “ancient edition” states that “there is an individual biography for Ban Biao.”101

Liu made a far-reaching claim here about the traditional structure of ancient texts in general when he suggested that in the ancient edition, the postface is called the “middle chapter”; there was no precedent of “middle chapters.” Alternatively this line could be read to suggest that the “postface” 敘傳 of the “ancient edition” was distinguished as a “middle chapter” 中篇, that is, placed in the middle of the History of the Han. The Qing editors, again, discredited this point and, likewise, the suggestion that in Liu’s “true edition,” there is an individual biography of Ban Gu’s father. They recalled that in “all ancient texts the ‘postface’ is recorded in the final chapter” 古書敘皆載于卷末.102 Liu’s claim, thus, ignores precedent. In addition, the editors stated that Ban Gu called the final chapter of his work a “postface” 敘 because it is in this section that he outlined his intentions for writing the History of the Han. It is sensible, then, that Gu’s summary of his intentions for authoring the text, as well as his brief recapitulations of each chapter, would have been placed at the end rather than the middle of the text, like all other texts of his era. Also, the final sentence of the History of the Han states that the postface is the last chapter of the text.103 The editors also used Ban Gu’s work to refute Liu’s assertion that in the “true edition” of the History of the Han, Gu included an individual biography of his father. The first point the Qing editors made regarding Ban Biao is that he was distinguished because of his talents during the reign of Emperor

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Guangwu 光武帝 (r. AD 25–57), the founder of the Eastern Han. During that time, Biao became the prefect of Ling, retired from his office on the pretext of illness, and was finally summoned several times by the three excellencies. The editors noted that this “rightly makes him a man of the Eastern Han” 實為東漢之人.104 Liu’s claim is spurious since Ban Gu stated in his postface that “I began with Emperor Gao and ended with Emperor Ping the filial 孝平 (r. AD 1–5) and the execution of Wang Mang.”105 The editors thus argued that as Ban Biao was an “Eastern Han man” and the scope of the History of the Han is the Western Han, it would have made no sense to give him his own biography. The editors finally comment that Ban Biao was “only appended into the ‘postface’ ” 惟附于敘傳.106 Liu Zhilin’s third claim is that that “the Annals, Charts, Treatises, and Biographies of the current edition do not correspond in an orderly fashion, whereas the ‘ancient edition’ corresponds in an orderly fashion, and assembled they equal thirty-eight chapters” 今本紀及表志列傳不相合 為次，而古本相合為次，總成三十八卷.107 Whereas Liu’s comment concerns the structural continuity and size of Gu’s work, the Qing editors responded only to the claim that the original text included thirtyeight chapters, or juan 卷 (“rolls”). Again, Liu’s account, as the editors noted, contradicts Ban Gu’s statement that he “produced a historical record comprised of Annals, Charts, Treatises, Biographies, totaling 100 chapters.”108 They also pointed out that according to the History of the Sui, the History of the Han equals 115 chapters, and the edition current to themselves had been further divided into 120 chapters. The editors noted that they were divided because the individual rolls were too heavy, and if the entire History of the Han were divided only into thirty-eight chapters, it would “be impossible to carry” 不可行也.109 Fourth, Liu noted that his “true” edition of the text is ordered quite differently from the current one, stating that “in the current edition, the ‘Biographies of the Emperor’s Relatives by Marriage’ is placed after the ‘Biographies of the Western Regions,’ whereas in the ‘ancient edition’ they follow the ‘Imperial Annals’ ” 今本外戚在西域後，古本外戚次 帝紀下.110 He also wrote that the records of the various kings who were

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related to the emperors are interspersed within the biographies of the History of the Han but that in the “ancient edition,” these accounts all appear in the “Various Kings” section, which follows the “Biographies of the Emperor’s Relatives by Marriage.” While this may be a more suitable arrangement, the editors, nonetheless, repeated their accusation that Liu had disregarded Ban Gu’s outline of the History of the Han in his postface. Liu’s claim, again, does not coincide with the information given by Ban Gu regarding his ordering of the various chapters.111 Finally, Liu Zhilin recounted that the narrative in both editions is different, supporting his assertion with two examples. Liu took a short passage from Ban Gu’s “Biographies of Han Xin, Peng Yue, Ying (Qing) Bu, Lu Wan, and Wu Rui,” chapter 34, and said that this passage appears in the current edition: 信惟餓隸，布實黥徒，越亦狗盜，芮尹江湖．雲起龍驤，化 為侯王． Han Xin was merely a covetous subordinate; Ying Bu was truly tattooed and banished; Peng Yue crept like a dog in order to steal; and Wu Rui ruled the rivers and marshes. Clouds rose and dragons ascended, and they were transformed into nobles and kings.112

Liu’s “true” edition is, of course, very different: 淮陰毅毅，仗劍周章，邦之傑子，實惟彭，英．化為侯王， 雲起龍驤． Huaiyin [i.e., Han Xin] was unyielding, and relied upon his sword during trouble; truly only Peng Yue and Ying Bu were heroes of the state. They were transformed into nobles and kings as clouds arising and dragons ascending.113

Whereas Ban Gu’s description of these men in the “current edition” is characteristically pejorative, Liu’s “true edition” version praises them. The Qing editors disputed the validity of Liu’s claim by arguing that the commentator, Zhang Yan 張晏, remarked on the line, “Wu Rui ruled the rivers and marshes,” which is located in the current edition and not in Liu’s version; therefore, an earlier edition than Liu’s, the one read by

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Yan, did not contain the “true” edition narrative.114 After refuting Liu Zhilin’s claims recorded in the Southern Histories, the editors’ final judgment of Liu is uncomplimentary. The General Catalog of the Four Treasuries editors consistently noted that Liu’s claims contradict the original comments of Ban Gu and earlier commentators, concluding that “this makes it clear and also knowable that what Zhilin says about the ‘ancient edition’ is insufficient to inspire trust!” 是昭明亦知之遴所謂古本者不足信矣.115 They compare Liu to the Han dynasty scholar, Zhang Ba 張霸, who is said to have been the first to produce a “forged Classic,” 偽經 a fake edition of the Documents.116 They also deduced that since the Tang commentator on the History of the Han, Yan Shigu 顏師古 (AD 581–645), does not mention Liu Zhilin’s “true edition,” Yan must have also known that Liu was dissembling. In the end, the Qing editors rendered their final judgment not on Liu but on the author of the Southern Histories, Li Yanshou, asserting that “Li Yanshou did not investigate the entire affair, but rather hastily recorded it into history. It can also be said that he loved the strange and delighted in seeming broadly learned; he ignorantly did not edit his work!” 李延壽不訓端末，遽載於史，亦可云愛 奇嗜博，茫無載斷矣.117 I have highlighted several points regarding the general textual history of Ban Gu’s History of the Han. I began with Ban Gu’s motives to write, suggesting that he was first compelled by his father’s biographical chapters and then by the emperor’s command to complete his text after a temporary imprisonment. Ban also noted that he wrote his history in the same ideological vein as the writers of the Classic of Odes and the Documents, in other words, to put in writing the sagely actions of the rulers of his era. I also suggested that the “first draft” of the History of the Han was completed during Gu’s lifetime, presented to Emperor Zhang 章 帝 (r. AD 76–88) probably in AD 79, and finally revised by Ban Zhao, Ma Rong, Ma Xu, and others. But much of what I have argued remains unavoidably speculative since the real history of the text is laden with questions brought about by evolving accounts from Ban’s account to Fan Ye’s and Liu Zhiji’s.

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I have also shown that during the Northern and Southern dynasties period 南北朝 (AD 386–588), Liu Zhilin produced an account in which a “true edition” of Ban Gu’s work is compared to the “current edition.” The Qing editors of the General Catalog of the Four Treasuries called this a blatant forgery. While the evidence marshaled by the editors to prove that Liu’s edition is false may somewhat verify the validity of the current edition, little can be held with certainty regarding the text’s actual history.118 The Liu Zhilin spurious edition of the History of the Han and the supposed Ge Hong preface to the Miscellanies of the Western Capital underpin the complexities of the text’s evolution. But despite the problems of two millennia of revisions, accretions, “corrections,” explications, and reprintings, the History of the Han continues to be read by many as an accurate account of the Han and a masterpiece of Chinese literature.

STRUCTURE

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SOURCES

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HISTORY

OF THE

HAN

It appears that from its first reading, the History of the Han’s syntax has been thought difficult; scholars have complained about the text’s syntactical inaccessibility and its resistance to easy consultation.119 Emperor He was not the only Han ruler to find Ban Gu’s writing cryptic. Liu Zhiji recalled that the Eastern Han emperor, Xian 獻帝 (r. AD 190–220), was also confounded by Ban Gu’s writing. In his Generalities on Historiography, Liu wrote, 漢獻帝以固書文煩難省，乃詔侍中荀悅依左氏傳體刪為漢記 三十篇，命秘書給紙筆．經五六年乃就．其言簡要，亦與給 傳并行． Emperor Xian considered Ban Gu’s book to be confusing and difficult to understand. Thus, he summoned the palace attendant, Xun Yue (AD 148–209), to abridge Ban Gu’s history and produce the Han Records in thirty chapters based upon the model of the Commentaries of Mr. Zuo, ordering him to be provided with pen and paper at the imperial library. He was finished after five or six years, and his words were simple and concise. Moreover, the Annals and Biographies ran together.120

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Xun Yue was commissioned to simplify the syntax of the History of the Han and to restructure it to follow the annalistic model of the Chun qiu Zuo zhuan 春秋左傳 (Mr. Zuo’s Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn). Ban Gu’s 100-chapter work was condensed to thirty chapters, and what took Gu more than twenty years for him to complete took Yue only five or six to revise.121 How later readers understood and understand Ban Gu’s work is influenced by later persons who set out to explain its meanings. The production of commentaries grew increasingly popular during the Eastern Han, and present researchers are aware of three scholars of that era—perhaps the earliest—who produced exegetical works on the History of the Han. These three are Xun Yue, the author of the Hanji 漢記 (Han Records); Fu Qian 服虔 (fl. AD second century); and Ying Shao; their comments, for the most part, have been preserved in Yan Shigu’s commentary on Ban Gu’s work.122 While these early commentators were trying to make sense of Gu’s narrative, the work’s title was also evolving, and once the History of the Han began to be translated into English during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its narrative and title encountered even more interpretation. Derrida’s comment that “we need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things” is especially relevant as we approach the interpretive accretions layered onto the History of the Han.123 To begin with, English translators have rendered the title several ways; Dubs and Sargent translated Ban Gu’s work as History of the Former Han Dynasty, Watson as History of the Former Han, and others such as Swann and Loewe simply transliterate it as Han shu. I am not comfortable with the first two translations. First, there is the issue of what to do with the graph qian (“former”), which does not consistently appear in the text’s title in all editions; and second, how is one to most accurately render the graph shu 書 (“book,” “record,” “history,” “document”) into English? Ban Gu did not include qian in his mention of the title; how could he have, as he did not divide the Han into two periods, “qian” 前 (“former”) and “hou” 後(“later”)? The Han dynasty he lived in was merely a continuation of the dynasty founded by Emperor Gao in 202 BC. Li Weixiong

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suggested that the graph qian was added to distinguish Ban Gu’s work from Fan Ye’s, and it appears natural that since Fan named his text Hou Hanshu (History of the Later Han), Ban Gu’s should then be called Qian Hanshu (History of the Former Han).124 As far as I can locate, the addition of the graph qian first appears in Liang Yuandi’s 梁元帝 (r. AD 552) sixth-century Jin louzi 金樓子 (Master of the Golden Tower). Four major histories are mentioned in Yuandi’s text, the “Qian Han (Former Han), Hou Han (Later Han), Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), and Sanguo zhi (Records of the Three States)” 前漢，後漢，史記，三國志.125 Translating the graph shu 書 presents other problems. Xu Shen’s 許 慎 (d. AD 120) Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explanation of Writings and Graphs) stated, “That which is written on bamboo or silk is called shu” 箸 (here meaning 著) 於竹帛謂之書.126 In other words, according to a contemporary of Ban Gu, the graph shu merely suggests “to record,” and it is probably accurate to render it as the verb “to record” or as “history.” Since Ban Gu did not use the graph qian in his title, it should be dispensed with when translating the name of his work into English. The title is perhaps best translated, then, as Records of the Han or History of the Han. One also might ask why Ban Gu chose to entitle his work Hanshu 書 (History of the Han) rather than Hanji 記 (Han Record), thus employing the same graph as Sima Qian. Li Weixiong suggested that “Ban Gu settled on Hanshu (History of the Han) as the book’s name to distinguish his work from Sima Qian’s” 班固定名為漢書，是為了和 史記所分別.127 I would add to Li’s comment that Ban Gu’s work was intentionally Han-centered whereas Sima’s was a general history; Gu, thus, specified the dynasty in his title. But again, it is entirely possible that even the postface readers have today has been changed by subsequent editors, so that one cannot be entirely confident that History of the Han was, in fact, the title Gu gave to his work. While Ban Gu’s title is different from Sima Qian’s, the structure of Gu’s work is, nonetheless, an imitation of Sima’s Records of the Grand Historian. The general arrangement of Sima Qian’s history, which was entirely novel when it was first written, is divided into five sections: (1) “Basic Annals” 本紀 in twelve chapters, (2) “Charts” 表 in ten

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chapters, (3) “Documents” 書128 in eight chapters, (4) “Hereditary Families” 世家 in thirty chapters, and (5) “Collected Biographies” 列傳 in seventy chapters; in Ban Biao’s essay on historiography, he stated that ten chapters of the Records of the Grand Historian had been lost.129 Ban Gu adopted Sima’s system of categorization with only two changes. Gu eliminated the “Hereditary Families” section and renamed the “Documents” (shu 書) section as “Treatises” (zhi 志). Succeeding histories used the graph shu rather than ji in their titles, preferring to follow Ban Gu’s final structure and categories rather than Sima Qian’s. They no longer included a “Hereditary Families” category, and the term Treatises 志 replaced Documents 書.130 Thus the History of the Han includes four, rather than five, sections: (1) “Basic Annals” 本紀 in twelve chapters, (2) “Charts” 表 in eight chapters, (3) “Treatises” 志 in ten chapters, and (4) “Collected Biographies” 列傳 in seventy chapters. In all, the extant Records of the Grand Historian consists of 130 chapters whereas the History of the Han only has 100 chapters. Beyond minor structural differences between the two works, the sweep of their respective histories is quite different. As Ban Gu stated, he “began with Emperor Gao (r. 206–195 BC) and ended with Emperor Ping the filial (r. AD 1–5) and the execution of Wang Mang” 起元高祖，終于孝平 王莽之誅.131 His records are limited to a span of 230 years. Sima’s work, however, begins with the putative beginning of Chinese culture set traditionally during the third millennium BC. While Sima Qian and Ban Gu’s works are similar in size, they are dissimilar in scope, and scholars have developed strong opinions on this matter; some believe that Sima Qian is too broad whereas others think that Ban Gu is too narrow. Why was it, then, that Ban Gu limited his records as he did to the Han? Li Weixiong suggested, “Ban Gu desired to honor the Han, and so he changed the Records of the Grand Historian’s ‘general history’ format to a ‘dynastic history’ format” 班固欲尊漢，所以變史記通史之體， 而斷代為篇.132 This is to say that Ban Gu limited his work to the Han to honor it above other dynasties; more precisely, his work desired to valorize and support the Liu ruling family. I agree with Li’s assertion in general; however, one of the historiographical terms he used, I suggest,

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misrepresents Ban Gu’s work. He correctly stated that the Records of the Grand Historian is a general history 通史 but otherwise referred to the History of the Han as a dynastic history 斷代, a term that I believe applies imperfectly to Gu’s text. The term dynastic history is usually thought to imply a work that is focused on a specific dynasty within a string of consecutive dynasties, and this presupposes a view of history that there exists a “dynastic cycle.”133 First, as there were not yet any “dynastic histories” to influence Ban Gu’s view of history, it is unreasonable to assume he had such a view. And second, it seems that Ban Gu expected the Han dynasty to continue in perpetuity. Hence, calling the History of the Han a dynastic history misrepresents Ban Gu’s motives. Gu’s work may rightly be described as a “Han history,” but only later Standard Histories may be correctly called “dynastic histories.” While some may view this distinction as overly exacting, it is, nonetheless, an important point if one wishes to understand one of Ban Gu’s underlying messages—that the Han was expected to last forever. By attempting to locate the possible sources for Ban Gu’s writing, scholars can learn much about the methods of the early Chinese historian and the complexities of reconstructing a text’s history. Yan Shigu suggested that in the twelve “Basic Annals” that begin the History of the Han, the “word ‘Annals’ 紀 implies ‘to arrange,’ 理 that is, to gather into order all accounts and tie them together in years and months” 紀， 理也，統理眾事而繫之於年月者也.134 This is just how the “Basic Annals” are structured in the Records of the Grand Historian and History of the Han. Sima Zhen 司馬貞 (fl. AD eighth century) assigned special meaning to the graph ji, 紀 suggesting that since it contains the radical for silk (i.e., 系), and since emperors over the course of history connect together as a strand of silk, it is used when recording their biographies.135 Sima Zhen, thus, viewed China’s history as a monolithic culture, linked together by a continuous thread of emperors—a claim that most modern historians cannot accept. Sargent suggested that the source materials Gu utilized to produce his work are “(1) the literary works of Former Han writers; (2) Former Han

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documents in the archives of the Later Han dynasty when Pan Ku did his work; and (3) personal experience and oral tradition.”136 But as I have already shown, several other persons contributed to the History of the Han after Ban Gu’s death. All of Ban Gu’s “Basic Annals” are focused on Han rulers; this cannot be said of Sima Qian’s “Basic Annals” section. The Records of the Grand Historian, however, provides the information, if not most of the narrative, for five of the imperial biographies in Ban Gu’s text. A description of how Ban Gu probably pieced together his work illustrates how much of his text is, perhaps, other peoples’ writing. Chapter 1, “Annals of Emperor Gao,” was drawn from Sima’s chapter 8; chapter 3, “Annals of Empress Gao,” was drawn from Sima’s chapter 9; chapter 4, “Annals of Emperor Wen,” was drawn from Sima’s chapter 10; chapter 5, “Annals of Emperor Jing,” was drawn from Sima’s chapter 11; and chapter 6, “Annals of Emperor Wu,” was drawn from Sima’s chapter 12.137 Ban Gu’s “Annals of Emperor Hui,” is conspicuously missing from the Records of the Grand Historian. The sources for the remaining “Basic Annals,” Emperors Hui and those who follow Emperor Wu, were probably taken from the imperial archives. After Ban Gu was awarded the position of historian of the orchid terrace, he and his associates were commissioned to write historical records at the imperial repository, and Fan Ye noted that “[Ban Gu] worked along with the former prefect of Suiyang, Chen Zong, the prefect of Zhangling, Yin Min, and the assistant of the director of retainers, Meng Yi, and they together completed the Annals of Emperor Guangwu” 與前睢陽令陳宗，長陵令尹敏，司隸從事孟冀共成世祖本紀. 138 This is good evidence that the materials Gu used to write his “Basic Annals” were not only taken from the Records of the Grand Historian but also were derived from the state archives.139 One could say, then, with relative confidence that several Biographies, Charts, and Treatises were written with state documents at hand. Also, memorials, such as the three by Dong Zhongshu located in chapter 56 of the History of the Han were likely from the archives. There are eight Charts in Ban Gu’s work and ten in Sima’s, and for the most part, Ban Gu used Sima Qian’s Charts as a model for his; only

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Records of the Grand Historian’s chapters 13, 14, and 15 have been excluded from Ban’s list of corresponding Charts. Otherwise, Ban inserted or paraphrased Sima’s Charts, adding additional materials datable to after the reign of Emperor Wu. Ban Gu also appended two Charts that are not included in the Records of the Grand Historian, the “Chart of the Graciously Favored Nobles Who Are Related to the Emperor by Marriage,” chapter 18, History of the Han and the “Chart of Personages Past and Present,” chapter 20, History of the Han. In general, the “Chart of Personages Past and Present” consists of Ban Gu’s personal assessments of historical persons without any reference to Sima Qian’s work. Ban Gu’s debt to Sima Qian is extensive. “Chart of the Nobles and Kings With a Different Surname than the Imperial Clan,” chapter 13, History of the Han relies on chapter 16, Records of the Grand Historian for years one through six; after the sixth year, Ban Gu turned to chapter 17, Records of the Grand Historian. “Chart of the Nobles and Kings with the Imperial Surname,” chapter 14, History of the Han was taken from chapter 17 of Records of the Grand Historian. “Chart of the King’s Sons Who Were Nobles,” chapter 15, History of the Han, used material from Sima Qian’s chapters 18, 19, 20, and 21 for records of persons who predate Emperor Wu. For Ban Gu’s “Chart of Meritorious Ministers of Emperor Gao, Emperor Hui, Empress Gao, and Emperor Wen,” chapter 16, he consulted chapters 18 and 19, Records of the Grand Historian. Ban Gu, however, relocated several of the people who appear in these last two Records of the Grand Historian Charts into other chapters of his work. Much of what is contained in the “Chart of the Meritorious Ministers of Emperor Jing, Emperor Wu, Emperor Zhao, Emperor Xuan, Emperor Yuan, and Emperor Cheng,” chapter 17, History of the Han, is derived from chapters 19 and 20, Records of the Grand Historian. This information from Sima Qian, much of which has been identified as the work of another scholar, Chu Shaosun 褚少孫 (c. 104–c. 30 BC), deals with persons who predate Emperor Wu. The “Chart of the Graciously Favored Nobles Who Are Related to the Emperor by Marriage,” chapter 18, History of the Han is drawn from parts of chapters 18, 19, and 20, Records

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of the Grand Historian. The “Chart of the Various Officers, Dukes, and High Officials,” chapter 19, History of the Han is Ban Gu’s original invention, considering the names, duties, and circumstances of official positions and people. Ban Gu’s final Chart, the “Chart of Personages Past and Present,” chapter 20, also is an original invention, though some scholars have attempted to attribute it to other writers.140 In this Chart, Ban ranked each person into nine categories, the highest being “sagely men” 聖人 and the lowest being “stupid men” 愚人. Unlike the rest of his work, this chapter is not limited to the Han but begins with the legendary Fu Xi 伏犧. Several people through China’s imperial history have disliked this chapter; Liu Zhiji and Zhao Yi 趙翼 (AD 1727–1814), for example, called it superfluous.141 Ban Gu’s Confucian (儒家) sympathies emerge in this Chart, as the further back in antiquity a person lived, the higher he was placed in Gu’s ranking system. This is another example of Ban Gu’s difference from Sima Qian, for there are no similar examples of such an ordering in the Records of the Grand Historian. To reiterate, the Basic Annals and Charts rely on the Records of the Grand Historian, and the remainder of the source materials were procured from the state archives, the location of Gu’s official post.142 Ban’s ten Treatises are modeled on Sima’s eight Charts, and Li Weixiong suggested that Ban Gu named them “zhi” 志 rather than “shu” 書 to distinguish them from Sima Qian’s Treatises; the meaning of the graph zhi is close in meaning to the graph ji, 記 “to record.”143 Yan Shigu noted that “zhi 志 means ji, 記 to record, which implies the collected records of affairs” 志，記也，積記其事也.144 In general, Ban Gu modeled six of his Treatises after Sima Qian, writing only four original ones of his own. Ban’s Treatises, zhi, that do not have a corresponding Treatise, shu, in the Records of the Grand Historian include “Treatise on Five Phases,” “Treatise on Geography,” and “Treatise on Classics and Other Writings.” Ban Gu’s “Treatise on Harmonies and Calendrics,” relies upon chapters 25 and 26 of Records of the Grand Historian, and Li Weixiong suggested that parts of this Treatise have been taken from the works of Liu

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Xin.145 “Treatise on Ritual and Music,” chapter 22, History of the Han combines information from Sima’s chapters 23 and 24.146 Moreover, Ban Gu relied on discussions and memorials by Jia Yi 賈誼 (200–168 BC), Dong Zhongshu, Wang Ji 王吉, and Liu Xiang. Chapter 23, “Treatise on Punishments and Laws,” consulted chapter 25 of Records of the Grand Historian and is influenced by chapter 10. Chapter 24, “Treatise on Food and Money,” is divided into two halves, with the first section discussing food and the second discussing money. The section for the period before Emperor Wu draws upon chapter 30 of Records of the Grand Historian. This Treatise is also supplemented with information from essays by Jia Yi, Chao Cuo 晁 錯 (200–154 BC), and Dong Zhongshu. Chapter 25 of Ban Gu’s History of the Han, “Treatise on State Sacrifices,” relies on Sima’s chapter 28 for information prior to Emperor Wu. Chapter 26, “Treatise on Astronomy,” uses chapter 27 of Records of the Grand Historian. Ban’s chapter 27, “Treatise on Five Phases,” does not have a corresponding chapter in the Records of the Grand Historian; it was a new work by Ban Gu. But it is, nonetheless, likely that Gu drew material from the “Great Plan” 洪範 chapter of the Book of Documents in this Treatise, and there is also evidence that he consulted the discussions of Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xiang, Liu Xin, and Jing Fang 京方 (77–37 BC).147 Ban’s “Treatise on Geography” does not correspond to a chapter in the Records of the Grand Historian but appears from its content to be in part derived from Sima’s chapter 129. Chapter 29, “Treatise on Irrigation and Waterways,” used the Records of the Grand Historian’s chapter 30. Ban Gu’s final Treatise, “Treatise on Classics and other Writings,” draws upon Liu Xin’s “Seven Summaries” 七略. Ban Gu produced only four Treatises that have no antecedent in the Records of the Grand Historian. He combined Sima Qian’s “Document on Ritual” and “Document on Music” to produce his “Treatise on Ritual and Music,” and the “Document on Harmonies” and “Document on Calendrics” to produce the “Treatise on Harmonies and Calendrics.” Ban revised Sima’s “Document on Astronomy” to write his “Treatise on Astronomy.” We have already seen in a passage from the History of the Later Han that Ma Xu worked

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on the History of the Han after Ban Gu’s death, and Liu Zhiji mentioned that Xu finished Ban’s astronomy Treatise. In any case, I have suggested that Xu probably only revised the Treatise, but it may be that the entire chapter was written by him. The “Document on the Feng and Shan Sacrifice” became the “Treatise on State Sacrifices”; the “Document on the Yellow River Canals” became the “Treatise on Irrigation and Waterworks”; and the “Document on the Even Standard” became the “Treatise on Food and Money.”148 Ban Gu included seventy biographies, or “Collected Biographies,” in his History of the Han.149 He dispensed with Sima Qian’s “Hereditary Families” category and placed all biographical accounts in the single category of “Collected Biographies.” With few exceptions—Xiang Yu’s biography, for instance—all of the persons in Ban Gu’s biographies are from the Han, and are set in chronological order. There is a problem when dealing with the biographical chapters of Ban Gu’s History of the Han, that is, how much was written by or taken from the “sixty-five” biographies written by his father? Certainly, since Biao died before his son began writing his History of the Han, one cannot say that Biao deliberately contributed to a work he knew to be his son’s. And as I have already noted, Ban Gu never mentioned any other work by his father outside of his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” There is, however, evidence in the History of the Han that Ban Biao had a role in at least five biographies in Ban Gu’s work.150 If one surverys the various textual histories of Ban Gu’s book in later Chinese sources, one discovers that accounts of Ban Biao’s authorship of biographies evolved over time. As I have mentioned, Fan Ye recalled that Biao produced “several tens of chapters” of biographies. By the Tang dynasty, Liu Zhiji wrote that Biao’s biographies were written in precisely “65 chapters.” More recently Xu Fuguan suggested that Ban Biao’s biographies each included only a single person, writing that, “Ban Biao continued to write 65 chapters and used a single person as the unit for each chapter, whereas Ban Gu combined several persons to produce one chapter” 班 彪所續六十五篇，乃以一人為單位之篇，與漢書合數人為一篇者 不同.151 I am not entirely comfortable with Xu’s statement since there is

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not enough evidence to draw such a conclusion. While it is probably true that Ban Biao authored biographies—internal evidence in the History of the Han supports this assertion—the details of their nature remain conjectural. There are, however, five chapters of Ban Gu’s work that some Chinese scholars suspect are, at least, partially Ban Biao’s or are revised versions of original Biao drafts. As I hope is clear by now, just who wrote specific sections of the History of the Han is not easy to assert confidently; the best scholars can do is speculate. Whether or not Biao’s biographies only included a single chapter is unclear despite Fan Ye’s suggestion that this was the case. The “Basic Annals of Emperor Wen” is a chapter that Biao seems to have written entirely. Ban Biao appears as the commentator in the final remarks of the chapter. Ban Gu left his father’s name in the narrative with no attempt to mask his voice, and some argue that Gu did this as a gesture of filial piety and to subtly inform the reader that his father wrote the chapter. The passage states, 贊曰﹕臣外祖兄弟為元帝侍中，語臣曰元帝多才藝，美史書． The Eulogy states: My (your minister’s) maternal grandmother’s older and younger brothers were made the palace retainers of Emperor Yuan. They informed me that Emperor Yuan had several talents in the arts and considered historical books attractive.152

The “minister” in this Eulogy is usually identified as Ban Biao. The Han commentator, Ying Shao, noted that “the annals of both Yuan and Cheng were written by Ban Biao; when ‘chen’ 臣 (i.e., ‘minister’) is used, the speaker is Biao. The distaff relative mentioned is Jin Chang” 元，成 帝紀皆班固父彪所作，臣則彪自說也．外祖，金敞也.153 Thus, Ying Shao, who lived a scant century after Ban Gu had completed the History of the Han, attributed the entirety of the Emperor Yuan 元帝 (r. 48–33 BC) and Emperor Cheng 成帝 (r. 32–6 BC) biographies to Ban Biao. Ru Chun 如淳 (fl. AD 221–225) disagreed with Ying’s suggestion that Biao was the author of the Yuan annals, insisting in his commentary that “Ban Gu’s distaff relative is Fan Shupi” 班固外祖，樊叔皮也.154 Ru said that the “minister” of the passage is not Biao but his son, Gu, for

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several reasons. One reason being that Fan Shupi is not mentioned in the History of the Han or History of the Later Han, and another that “Shupi” is Ban Biao’s style, Ru Chun’s comment is generally disregarded. It appears that Ban Biao, perhaps, wrote the passage found at the end of chapter 9 of History of the Han, and some have inferred from this that he wrote the entire chapter.155 The “Basic Annals of Emperor Cheng,” chapter 10 of the History of the Han, also includes a final passage that appears to have been written by Ban Biao. 贊曰﹕ 臣之姑充後宮為婕妤，父子昆弟侍帷幄，數為臣言… . The Eulogy states: My paternal aunt was installed in the inner palace (i.e., women’s quarters) as the Jieyu (favored beauty), and her father’s sons, that is, her older and younger brothers, waited on the emperor in his private tent; they several times said to me that… .156

The graph gu 姑 used in this passage denotes one’s father’s sister, and the only Ban woman installed as a Jieyu in Emperor Cheng’s harem was, in fact, Ban Biao’s paternal aunt. The “minister” in this Eulogy is, thus, logically Ban Biao. For this reason, Ying Shao stated that Ban Biao probably wrote chapters 9 and 10. Jin Zhuo 晉灼, a scholar from the Jin 晉 (AD 265–419), simply noted that the paternal aunt is Ban Biao’s.157 Following the conclusions of these early commentators on the History of the Han, the annals of Cheng are often attributed to Ban Biao. Chapter 73, the “Biography of Wei Xian 韋賢 (147–66 BC),” mentions Ban Biao’s name more explicitly than do the two imperial biographies I have just discussed. The chapter includes a passage that reads, “The secretary to the minister over the masses, Ban Biao, said… .” 司 徒掾班彪曰.158 And despite Ying Shao’s belief that Ban Gu wrote the annals of Yuan and Cheng, Yan Shigu expressed his disagreement in his commentary on this line from chapter 73. Yan wrote, 漢書諸贊，皆固所為．其有叔皮先論述者，固亦具顯以示後 人，而或者固竊盜父名，觀此可以免矣．

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Ban Gu wrote all of the Eulogia (final passages) in the History of the Han. Of those biographies that Ban Biao had formerly discussed and written about, Ban Gu always highlighted his father’s name to make his name known to later people. There are some who claim that Gu has stolen his father’s name (reputation?), but when you look into it, their assertions can be dismissed!159

Thus, according to Yan Shigu, Ban Biao authored none of the passages that appear in Ban Gu’s text; Gu merely inserted his father’s name in order to perpetuate Biao’s reputation. Gu’s inclusion of his father’s name, as Yan would have his readers believe, was an act of filial piety. Additionally, since Biao does not appear in chapter 73 in first person, it is quite possible that he did not write this chapter. Another occurrence of Ban Biao’s name appears in the “Biography of Zhai Fangjin 翟方進 (?–7 BC)” and the “Biography of Empress Wang 王后 (also, 王政君 or 孝元王皇后, 71–13 BC).”160 Again, whether Ban Biao wrote these two chapters has been debated. However, it may be that since the appearance of Ban Biao’s name in chapters 73, 84, and 98 is not in the first person, he may not have authored these chapters. Yan Shigu may be correct that Biao’s name is included in these three chapters as a gesture of respect by his son, Gu. The first-person comments by Ban Biao at the end of the two imperial biographies of Emperors Yuan and Cheng, moreover, do suggest that Biao may have been their original author. Needless to say, when considering how much of the History of the Han appears to have been taken from Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian and the evidence that Biao’s work may have been cut and pasted into the “Collected Biographies,” one is left somewhat bemused by the authorial voices emerging from the text one reads today. Foucault’s “What is an Author?” comes to mind when confronting the perplexities of trying to identify the constituent parts of the History of the Han vis-à-vis the actual portions of the text produced by Ban Gu. In the end, Gu’s work conforms to Foucault’s idea of the author as “function,” discursively and historically constructed.161 Another problem confronts one as he or she pieces together the textual history of Ban Gu’s work—its division of chapters. This is yet another

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area that demonstrates how the text has evolved, being configured and reconfigured in stages. I have already quoted Ban Gu’s statement that he produced a historical record “comprised of Annals, Charts, Treatises, and Biographies, totaling 100 chapters.”162 The first draft produced by Ban, then, consisted of 100 chapters. The History of the Sui records another number, stating that the History of the Han consisted of 115 chapters, and by the time the Qing editors were researching the work’s textual history, it had grown to 120 chapters. The editors of the 1962 Zhonghua shuju edition stated, 漢書的自定本是一百卷．而隋書經籍志和舊唐書經籍志著錄 都作一百十五卷，唐志又說顏師古注漢書一百二十卷． The original number of chapters in the History of the Han was set at 100 chapters. Yet the bibliographic Treatises of the History of the Sui and Old Tang History both record that there are 115 chapters. The New Tang History bibliography moreover claims that Yan Shigu’s commentary on the History of the Han consists of 120 chapters.163

So, the History of the Han has experienced two occasions of chapter division—one recorded in the History of the Sui (115) and one recorded in the Xin Tang shu 新唐書 (New Tang History) (120). How can this be explained? The first step in answering this question is to distinguish between chapters and chapter divisions. The Standard Histories following the History of the Han simply note that the text is divided into juan (卷 “rolls” or “chapters”), and their authors do not recount that there have been any new chapters added. This suggests that the total number of chapters has not been altered, but rather, some of the chapters have, over the millennia, been further divided into separate rolls. While it is convenient to state that the History of the Han readers have today consists of 120 “chapters,” it would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that the modern text consists of 100 chapters, several of which have been divided into separate sections. The text probably underwent two stages of chapter division—the first before the Sui 隋 (AD 581–617) and the second sometime before Yan Shigu wrote his commentary. This can be explained quite simply.

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Following the titles of chapters 57, 64, 80, 96, and 100, there are comments by Yan Shigu that explain the divisions of those chapters into parts A and B (上下), and the editors of the Zhonghua edition stated that “following this it can be known that these five chapters were divided at the time Yan Shigu was producing his commentary” 從此可知顏師姑作 注時折出的就是這五卷.164 Since scholars know that Yan Shigu commented on a 120-chapter version and that he accounted for five divisions, there remain fifteen divisions to account for. The present version contains the following divisions outside of those five discussed by Yan Shigu: chapters 1, 15, 19, 21, 24, 25, 28, 94 and 97 are divided into two halves; chapter 27 is divided into five parts; and chapter 99 is divided into three parts. In all, there are fifteen sections beyond the original number of 100 chapters; none of the chapters from the second group are among those divisions discussed by Yan Shigu. From the two groups of chapter divisions, one can reconstruct a general picture of the text’s chapter history. The first stage of division occurred before the publishing of the History of the Sui and was divided in the following way: Chapter Division—Stage One: Chapter 1 (+1) Chapter 15 (+1) Chapter 19 (+1) Chapter 21 (+1) Chapter 24 (+1) Chapter 25 (+1)

Chapter 28 (+1) Chapter 94 (+1) Chapter 97 (+1) Chapter 27 (+4) Chapter 99 (+2) TOTAL: 115 chapters ( juan)

The second stage of chapter division happened after the publication of the Jiu Tangshu 舊唐書 (Old Tang History). This stage can be outlined in this way: Chapter Division—Stage Two: Chapter 57 (+1) Chapter 64 (+1) Chapter 80 (+1)

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Chapter 96 (+1) Chapter 100 (+1) TOTAL: 120 chapters (or “rolls”)

Ban Gu’s original 100-chapter distinction remains intact since the original chapters have not been changed but merely divided. The History of the Han of today contains 120 chapters, retaining the distinctions of both stages of division.165 Beyond the tangled history of the text’s authorship and growing divisions lay an additional problem, namely, the layers of development it encountered to reach its present shape.

ACCRETIONS

AND

ADDITIONS

Having discussed Ban’s possible motivations for producing his work and the likely sources he consulted, it will be helpful to consider the various stages the book went through as it was completed. I think this is an important point to dilate on as no book reaches one’s shelves without evolving through several steps, even before it is finally published and exposed to open readership. Sources have shown that Ban Gu produced his first draft after more than twenty years of writing, following which it was further revised. The modern Ban Gu scholar Wang Mingtong 王明通 and the late imperial author of the Nian’er shi zhaji 廿二史劄記 (Notebook on the Twenty-Two Histories) Zhao Yi 趙翼 (AD 1727–1814) have suggested that Ban’s history passed through the hands of four people before being finished, and I would add to this that the History of the Han went through more or less five stages of development; present recensions of the work can be divided into two filiations. Fan Ye recalled, “From the yongping era (AD 58–75) Ban Gu began to receive summonses from the emperor, and for more than twenty years he focused his energy and gathered his thoughts, finishing his History of the Han during the jianchu era (AD 76–84).”166 Anything I say on this subject should be considered in light of this comment. Two points are significant: First, Ban Gu worked on the History of the Han for more than twenty years, and second, he finished during the jianchu era. I attempt to pinpoint the precise year in which Ban Gu finalized his first draft, as

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much as this is possible. This will support Fan Ye’s “more than twenty years” account and support my belief that Ban Gu did, in all likelihood, produce what he considered a complete draft of the History of the Han before he died in AD 92. We recall the passage from the “Collected Biographies of Women” in Fan Ye’s History of the Later Han where he claimed that “Ban Zhao’s older brother, Gu, wrote the History of the Han, but he died before he had finished the eight Charts and the ‘Treatise on Astronomy.’ ”167 Also, I quoted Xiao Wuji earlier, who, noticing that Fan Ye’s assertion contradicts Ban Gu’s statement that he had already finished, called this issue “an affair near paradox.” As I suggested, the History of the Han was probably “finished” according to Ban Gu but still needed revisions according to later scholars, including the emperor, who felt Ban’s narrative was too difficult. Fan Ye’s timeline needs to be reconciled with the chronology of Ban Gu’s life. Chen Hanzhang 陳漢章 (AD 1874–1938) specified the span of time the text was being written and suggested a specific year it was completed; Zheng Hesheng agreed with Chen’s assessment. Chen stated, 班固作漢書，二十五年，始永平元年戊午，終建初七年壬 午．固以永平五年入校書，而漢書之作不始是年也． Ban wrote the History of the Han in around twenty-five years, beginning in the first year of the yongping era (AD 58) and ending in the seventh year of the jianchu era (AD 82). Gu was employed to edit texts during the fifth year of the yongping era (AD 62), and this year was not the first year that Ban Gu worked on the History of the Han.168

Chen, thus, believed that Ban Gu’s text was completed in about twentyfive years, between 58 and 82. Ban responded to Liu Cang’s 劉蒼 invitation for “good men” to present themselves at his estate in 58, but I suggest that this was not the year he began writing his History of the Han. Fan’s statement that Ban Gu began to receive summonses in 58 is not necessarily connected to the date Ban Gu began to write his history.

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Chen is correct in assuming that Ban Gu probably did not begin writing in 62 after being employed as an editor in the imperial archives. He already observed that if Ban Gu began in that year, the twenty-year mark would have occurred around 81. While the year does fall within the jianchu era (AD 76–83), one must remember that Fan Ye said that it took Gu more than twenty years to finish the text. Since the year 82 is only two years before the end of the jianchu era, this year—82—is perhaps unlikely. A few other points bear on my consideration of a plausible date that Ban Gu began writing the History of the Han. First, Ban Biao died in 54, and Gu then left the Grand Academy to return to mourn his father’s death. One can assume, as Zheng Hesheng did, that Gu remained at his family’s estate for the requisite three years while in mourning. Ban Gu later submitted his résumé to Liu Cang in 58; was calumniated, imprisoned, later employed by the emperor in 62; and finally installed as a historian of the orchid terrace in 64. Fan Ye’s account of Ban Gu’s incrimination figures prominently. Fan noted, “Someone presented a memorial to Emperor Ming, accusing Gu of privately altering and producing a national history” 有人上書顯宗，告固私改作國史者.169 This implies that by 62 Ban Gu already produced some historical records. If, as Chen and Zheng suggested, Ban Gu did not start writing until 58, he would have been working on his history for only about four years when he was accused. While Chen and Zheng’s assumption is plausible, they gave scant attention to the three years of Ban Gu’s mourning and the one or two years afterward before he submitted his résumé to Liu Cang in 58. It is likely that Gu, indeed, began his long project while mourning at his father’s home, probably in 54 or 55.170 The burden now is to illustrate how this supposition stands in light of Fan Ye’s “more than twenty years” completion statement. The jianchu era ran from 76 to 84, and Ban Gu could have finished his history any year within that time. Ban Gu was assigned to work at the discussions at the White Tiger Hall in 79, and after 79 he was most likely too busy with related editorial and authorial responsibilities to have completed a final draft of his work.

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I suggest, then, that he finalized the History of the Han either in 78 or early 79. If Ban Gu began to write in 54 or 55, the twenty-year mark would, thus, rest in the years 74 or 75. If he began to write in 54 or 55, and the text’s completion is placed in the years of 78 or 79, this would consequently equal a completion time of twenty-four or twenty-five years, falling well within Fan Ye’s “more than twenty” year completion assertion. Conveniently, the years 78 and 79 are precisely in the middle of the Jianchu era. And if these calculations are correct, Ban Gu would have been free to pursue his other literary and military interests after 79, which is what sources suggest he did. Even if Ban Gu completed what he considered to be a finished draft by the year 78 or 79, the number of sources that recount later accretions demand attention. While one can generally assign the work to Ban Gu, given my previous definition of authorship within the context of early China, one cannot correctly state that the text we have today was produced by him alone; the current form and content of the History of the Han underwent several stages of development. The first stage began with the extraction of relevant materials from the Records of the Grand Historian. As I have shown, five of Ban Gu’s “Basic Annals,” chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and much of what Gu wrote about from before the reign of Emperor Wu in his Charts, Treatises, and Collected Biographies is taken from Sima Qian. Fan Ye wrote, 彪既才高而好述作，遂專心史籍之閒．武帝時，司馬遷著史 記，自太初以後，闕而不錄． Ban Biao was very talented and fond of textual transmission, so he focused his mind in the area of historical texts. During the time of Emperor Wu, Sima Qian wrote the Historical Records. The time after the taichu reign era (104–101 BC) was unrecorded.171

Fan suggested that records were lacking after the taichu reign era, that is, after the close of Sima Qian’s history. Ban Gu said in his postface, “After the taichu era, there were [accounts] omitted and unrecorded,”172 and Liu Zhiji repeated Fan Ye and Ban Gu’s assertions, stating, “that which is recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian ends at the time of the taichu era

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of Emperor Wu. Afterwards, records are lacking and unrecorded.”173 Collectively Fan Ye, Ban Gu, and Liu Zhiji all suggested that Ban Biao and Ban Gu began their work recording history by collecting records of events that were not included in the Records of the Grand Historian. After recounting that Ban Biao wrote his Later Biographies in 65 chapters based upon materials documented after the close of the Records of the Grand Historian, Xu Fuguan reported, 按漢書武帝以前，取之史記，則史記入漢以後之所記，亦可 視為漢書得以成立之第一歷程． According to the account in the Generalities on Historiography, that which is in the History of the Han dateable from before Emperor Wu was taken from the Records of the Grand Historian. Thus, that which is recorded into the Records of the Grand Historian from after the beginning of the Han can, moreover, be observed to constitute the first stage of the History of the Han’s development.174

Stage one, then, was merely the compilation and editorial organization of Records of the Grand Historian materials into the History of the Han. The next step in reconstructing the History of the Han’s course of development is accounting for the records of events that occurred between the end of the taichu (101 BC) era and the end of the Western Han (AD 9). The second stage of development in the course of the History of the Han’s completion was the insertion of materials produced after the reign of Emperor Wu and before the time of Ban Biao’s authorship of biographies. As has been seen, Liu Zhiji stated, After Emperor Wu, Liu Xiang, his son, Xin, and those fond of affairs such as Feng Shang, Wei Heng, Yang Xiong, Shi Cen, Liang Shen, Si Ren, Jin Feng, Duan Su, Jin Dan, Feng Yan, Wei Rong, Xiao Fen, Liu Xun, and others, each continued to write until the time of Emperor Ai (r. 5–1 BC) and Emperor Ping (r. AD 1–5). They also called their works, “Shiji.”175

Not only did these scholars write records of events that occurred after Emperor Wu but Xu Fuguan also asserted that they expanded on records

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already included in Sima Qian’s history. The work of Chu Shaosun, although not listed in Liu’s list of scholars who wrote histories after Sima Qian, nonetheless, serves as a good example of someone who added to the Records of the Grand Historian; Chu’s amendments and expansions, however, are to be located within the current Records of the Grand Historian.176 The second stage of the History of the Han’s development consists of those records produced before Ban Biao that were inserted into Ban Gu’s work. The third stage of development involves the biographies authored by Ban Biao. The third stage, or textual layer, is Ban Gu’s appropriation of his father’s biographies into his “Basic Annals” and “Collected Biographies.” My earlier assertion that one of Ban Gu’s motives for writing was his dissatisfaction with the limited nature of his father’s work is relevant to this point—that is, Fan Ye’s statement that “Gu considered his father’s continuation of former histories to be incomplete (or ‘not detailed’), and so he applied his energy and concentrated his thoughts, wishing to finish his father’s efforts,” implies that Ban Gu had his father’s writings in hand before he began to produce the History of the Han.177 It is likely, then, that Gu inserted sections of Biao’s works into his own. The fourth stage of development is the period during which Ban Gu compiled, organized, and wrote the text proper. As I noted, Zheng Hesheng identified two periods during which Ban Gu worked on his history: the time before his official appointment to the imperial archives and the time during which his writing was officially controlled by the state.178 The first period of Ban Gu’s authorship was immediately after “he applied his energy and concentrated his thoughts, wishing to finish his father’s efforts.”179 Ban Gu was ordered by Emperor Ming in 62 to “return to and complete his former writings.”180 Ban Gu wrote his text under two dissimilar conditions, and both allowed him to produce his work with his individual stamp. But it was the time after he was ordered to finish his work that constitutes the fourth stage of his work’s development. The fifth and final stage of the History of the Han’s development consists of the posthumous revisions made on the text under the direction

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of Emperor He. Fan Ye’s biography of Gu’s younger sister, as I have mentioned, informs that the text was yet “unfinished” after Gu died. Fan said, “Ban Zhao’s older brother, Gu, wrote the History of the Han, but he died before he had finished the eight Charts and the ‘Treatise on Astronomy.’ ”181 Furthermore, Fan recounted that after the text was first circulated, it was confusing, and so, Emperor He ordered Ma Rong to work on the text with Ban Zhao in the Eastern Pavilion. Fan continued, “Later, the emperor summoned Ma Rong’s elder brother, Xu, to continue and complete the text” 後又詔融兄續繼昭成之.182 Xu Fuguan asserted, and I agree with him, that a first draft of the History of the Han was completed before Gu’s death in 92. Xu wrote, 八表及天文志，班固當已著手，特有待補苴，姑須班昭馬續 的踵成，這是漢書得有今日面貌的第五歷程． Ban Gu, at that time, had already begun the eight “Charts” and the “Treatise on Astronomy,” and they merely had to await filling in. For this reason Ban Zhao and Ma Xu’s subsequent completion was necessary. The History of the Han’s acquisition of its current form through these amendments constitutes its final stage of development.183

The History of the Han passed through the hands of Ban Gu, Ban Zhao, Ma Rong, and Ma Xu, and this is why Zhao Yi stated that “thus, investigating the History of the Han from start to finish, it altogether passed through four hands over the course of thirty or forty years, from its inception to a complete text” 乃考其始末，凡經四手，閱三四十年， 始成完書.184 These five stages of development, or layers of textual accretion, can be recapitulated in this way: The History of the Han’s Five Stages of Development: Stage One: Stage Two:

Insertion of Sima Qian’s pre-Emperor Wu materials Insertion of materials by scholars who authored historical records that dealt with the era between the end of the taichu era and Ban Biao

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Stage Three: Insertion of materials from Ban Biao’s Later Biographies Stage Four: The compiling, editing, and writing of records by Ban Gu Stage Five: The amendments and revisions made by Ban Zhao, Ma Rong, and Ma Xu

FROM HAN

TO

PRC: FILIATIONS

OF

TRANSMISSION

One can add even more complexities to the account I have already given of the text’s history, for as Ban Gu’s work was rewritten and re-edited, it also became divided into different recensions.185 Time has inscribed disparities in how the History of the Han is read, understood, divided, and printed so that one must, today, keep in mind that whatever edition one reads, it is only one of several versions. For the most part, Ban Gu’s work assumed its final form during the first century after Gu’s death, but its history did not end then; two millennia of reading, copying, and commentating continued after Ma Xu made his layer of revisions. The most common edition of the text used today is the Zhonghua shuju 中 華書局 edition, first published in Beijing in 1962. The punctuation and formatting of this edition is similar to the 1959 Zhonghua shuju edition of the Records of the Grand Historian, completed by Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893–1980).186 The punctuation and formatting by the History Department of Northwest University 西北大學 in China and the prefatorial comments by Fu Donghua 傅東華, I should note, represent yet another layer of hermeneutic inscription, for the act of punctuating an early Chinese work is an act of interpretation and representation.187 While the Zhonghua version remains the most convenient to consult, by no means does it contain the most thorough commentary. The most comprehensive compendium of scholarly prolegomena and commentary is Wang Xianqian’s 王先謙 (AD 1842–1918) Hanshu buzhu 漢書補注 (Supplemental Commentaries to the History of the Han), first published in 1900.188 Two lines of textual filiations, including eight major recensions, predate the current Zhonghua edition of the History of the Han.189 While it is certain that Ban Gu’s text was preserved and transmitted throughout

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the Eastern Han and later dynasties, the earliest edition preserved in near entirety dates to the Northern Song 北宋 (AD 960–1126). This recension was produced during the reign of Emperor Renzong 仁宗 (r. AD 1023– 1063) and is named after the reign period during which it was published, the jingyou, since it refers to a reign era; later it can be non-italicized as it refers to an edition]era 景祐 (AD 1034–1037). In a facsimile of the Jingyou recension, preserved in the Bona ben ershisishi series 百衲本二 十四史, is a comment by the Northern Song editor, Yu Jing 余靖, which reveals its original date of publication. It states that “on the ninth month of the jingyou first reign year, the vice director of the palace library, Yu Jing, presented a copy of the History of the Han… .” 景祐元年九月秘書丞余 靖上言.190 Thus, the Jingyou edition of the History of the Han can be dated to the first year of the jingyou reign era, corresponding to the year 1035. The first edition that relied on the Jingyou History of the Han is the so-called Jianan recension, 建安本 produced during the reign of the Southern Song 南宋 (AD 1127–1279) emperor, Ningzong 寧宗 (r. AD 1195–1224). This version was part of a larger project to reprint several of the Standard Histories during the qingyuan 慶元 reign era (AD 1195–1200).191 Since the scholar Liu Zhiwen 劉之問 appears in several sections of the text, this edition was named after his place of origin, Jianan. It is otherwise referred to as the Liu Zhiwen or Qingyuan edition but most commonly is called the Jianan edition. The notes of Song Qi 宋祁 (AD 998–1061), an earlier Northern Song scholar who predates the Jingyou edition, appear in the Jianan recension. The second edition that relied on the Jingyou recension is the Nanjian recension 南監本, prepared during the Ming dynasty at the National Academy of Nanjing and edited by Zhang Bangqi 張邦奇 and Jiang Rubi 江汝璧.192 Loewe suggested that according to various dates located within the text, this edition was probably produced between 1529 and 1533.193 The Beijian recension 北監本 was a state-commissioned edition based upon the Nanjian recension, dated to 1597. An official set of the Standard Histories was produced in 1739 during Qianlong’s 乾隆 (r. AD 1736–1795) extended reign and named the Wuying dian recensions 武英殿本; they were named for the imperial

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printing establishment at which they were produced.194 The History of the Han edition printed in this series is, thus, referred to as the “Wuying dian” or “Palace” edition 殿本. It was based on the format of the 1597 Beijian recension and edited by Qi Shaonan 齊召南 (AD 1706–1768).195 There are, then, five notable editions in the first filiation of Ban Gu’s work, beginning with the Jingyou recension of 1035 and ending with the Wuying dian recension of 1739. The second line of filiation begins with an edition printed for the private library of the Ming/Qing bibliophile, Mao Jin 毛晉 (AD 1599– 1659), called the Jiguge recension 汲古閣本.196 The printing date of this edition is 1641, and it is noted to have relied on an earlier Song version of the History on the Han that is unidentified.197 Two later editions were derived from the Jiguge recension—the Jinling recension 金陵本 and Wang Xianqian’s edition. The Jinling recension is so named because the Jinling Bookstore 金 陵書局 published it, and the publishers there reused woodblocks of the Jiguge edition to make their copy in 1869, during the reign era of Emperor Tongzhi 同治 (r. AD 1862–1874).198 The Jinling recension, even though it follows the Jiguge edition, made several changes to follow with the Jingyou and Wuying dian editions.199 Unfortunately, these revisions were made without notation. The final edition to follow the Jiguge recension is Wang Xianqian’s commentary. Wang based his edition on the Jiguge version rather than the older Jingyou printing, and while it may have been more reasonable to use the older Jingyou recension, Wang’s version of the History of the Han remains the most replete with scholarly comments; Wang has compiled, by far, the most exhaustive commentarial edition to date. It is Wang’s commentary that the editors of the modern Zhonghua edition used as their basis. They stated, 王本最後出，注中備錄諸家的意見，對以前各本的得失已經 有所論證，所以用它作底本較為方便． Wang Xianqian’s edition was the last to be published before ours, and its commentaries have completely recorded the opinions

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of all of the History of the Han’s commentators. It has already expounded the strengths and weaknesses of the previous editions, and so we have used this recension as our basic text for its comparative convenience.200

This is a good explanation of the value of using Wang Xianqian’s work as a basic text since it contains the entire narrative of Ban Gu’s work, as well as the major commentators who have researched it. Nonetheless, the greatest weakness of Wang’s recension is that it does not always provide reliable textual discriminations between recensions. The earliest “complete” edition of Ban Gu’s History of the Han, then, is only traceable as far back in China’s history as the Northern Song, to 1035; however, several fragments have been located dateable to the Tang, roughly contemporary to the commentary of Yan Shigu. The two filiations are as follows: Two Lineages of History of the Han:201 Filiation A:

Filiation B:

Jingyou Edition 景祐本 (AD 1035) Jianan Edition 建安本 (AD 1195–1200) Nanjian Edition 南監本 (AD 1529–1533) Beijian Edition 北監本 (AD 1597) Wuying Dian Edition 武英殿本 (AD 1739)

Jiguge Edition 汲古閣本 (AD 1641) Jinling Edition 金陵 (AD 1869) Wang Xianqian Edition 王先謙本 (AD 1900)

Of course, this outline of filiation B does not account for the alleged Song edition said to have been the basis of the Jiguge recension. The most famous and influential commentary on Ban Gu’s work, and the one included in all editions, is that of the Tang scholar, Yan Shigu. Yan, who lived during the fall of the Sui dynasty and the beginning of the Tang, was employed by the second Tang emperor, Tang Taizong 唐 太宗 (r. AD 627–649) to produce commentaries on the classic texts.202

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He was already a renowned scholar and bibliophile during the Sui and also known through his uncle, Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (AD 531–595), who published his Yanshi jiaxun 顏氏家訓 (Family Instructions of the Yan Clan).203 The emperor commissioned Yan Shigu to write a commentary on the History of the Han, and in his preface, Yan listed twenty-three previous commentators, though their notes can now only be found within Yan Shigu’s work.204 Yan Shigu’s and Wang Xianqian’s commentaries represent several competing interpretive ways to read Ban Gu’s work, and new glosses are being produced, adding further accretions to a history of the Han that continues to evolve. Each layer added to the History of the Han represents a new perception of history; as Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) suggested, history is really human projection of the present onto the historical past. This projection is, in several ways, a fictional history constructed from the materials of an imagined present, which often only gains access to later versions of an earlier product. Unless an Eastern Han edition of the History of the Han is discovered, the best scholars can do is read a work layered with competing representations of a represented Han history. The appreciation of the past, inscribed as it is in historical narrative, is to “aimez ce que jamais on ne verra deux fois (love what you will never see again).”205

CHAPTER 3

INSCRIBING THE FAMILY: A HISTORY OF THE BAN CLAN

方今大漢酒埽群穢，夷險芟荒，廓帝紘， 恢皇網． Now, the great Han has washed away the multitude of weeds, leveled the parlous and cut down the overgrown, expanded kingly glory, and magnified imperial rule.206 —Ban Gu

When someone sets out to write a biography or autobiography, he or she necessarily chooses what to include, what to leave out, and how to represent what remains; what remains is, ultimately, the record of impressions. Sifting through any biography or autobiography to locate truth is no different than sifting through memories to locate truth; even primary sources are little more than inscribed memories. Historical reality is unavoidably veiled in observation, feeling, interpretation, and the process of representation. Ban Gu’s work is a very complex and rich

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tapestry of representation and re-representation, as may be seen quite clearly in his postface. Gu’s family history is not only about his clan’s rise to prominence in the court but also it is about the Han in general, it is about flattery, and it is largely about himself. Our impressions of the Ban family and of Ban Gu’s motivations for writing his history come mostly from his hand, located in his postface (xuzhuan 敘 傳). Biographical accounts of one’s clan were rare in early China, and the only precedent that comes to mind is Sima Qian’s autobiography (zixu 自序).207 Ban, in fact, used many of the elements found in Sima’s autobiography but with several differences—differences that reveal much about how Ban Gu chose to represent his clan and himself. For example, whereas Sima Qian explicitly mentioned his father’s work as a historian, Ban Gu chose, instead, to emphasize his father’s Confucian classicism, omitting any mention of his written works. Ban Gu also highlighted his family’s political achievements and association with the imperial family whereas Sima Qian was less interested in describing his family’s relationship with the court. Ban Gu’s postface reveals that his conception of self cannot be separated from his conception of family; his own identity was enmeshed with that of his entire clan. In other words, Gu’s chosen venue for representing himself was a carefully crafted representation of his family. His postface draws attention to his family’s usefulness to the state, essentially underscoring his clan’s, and, hence, his own privileged relationship to the rulers of the realm. In other words, his self-representation is woven into a larger description of his family, which, in turn, becomes an account largely of service to the imperial house. Below the surface of Ban’s narrative, however, lies the story of an ambitious family that advances itself from a powerful household on the frontier to active participants in court politics. Ban Gu’s postface inscribes Ban into an account of his clan, represented as paragons of Confucian virtue and usefulness to the central court. Ban Gu’s biography of his family represents his clansmen as intellectual and moral exemplars who instilled in rulers the classical mores that, by the Han, had become associated with Confucius and his followers.

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And while Gu followed the structure of Sima’s “Autobiographical Postface of the Grand Astrologer” 太史公自序 in his biographical chapter, he did not attempt to demonstrate, as Sima Qian did, that his family had always been involved in the work of writing history. Ban Gu’s postface is less concerned with his family’s official functions than with its moral influence and close proximity to the court. His narrative connects his clan to an imperial family he asserted would possess the Mandate of Heaven forever. But in reality, his family’s connection to the center of power was most likely facilitated after the Ban clan had introduced one of its young and talented daughters into the imperial harem despite Ban Gu’s suggestion that they were distinguished because of their collective virtues and talents. Before outlining the larger scope of Gu’s clan biography, it is helpful to compare his postface to his predecessor, Sima Qian’s; this will help to sort out some of the differences in how the two chapters were conceived.

BAN GU, SIMA QIAN,

AND

REWRITING

THE

PAST

Ban Gu modeled his postface after Sima Qian’s. In essence, he rewrote Sima’s postface and the history of his clan to accommodate his objectives. Perhaps the largest difference between the two postfaces is how the two writers accounted differently for their undertakings. While their final products might seem quite similar, their motives were different. For Sima Qian, the importance of redeeming his father’s work as a historian seems paramount; this can be seen in his description of the deathbed encounter between the two. In the final chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian recounted an emotional passage between himself and his dying father, Sima Tan 司馬談 (c. 190–110 BC)—an account replete with its mode of representation. Sima wrote that in 110 BC Emperor Wu intended to establish the Feng 封 and Shan 禪 sacrifices and that “the grand astrologer was detained at Zhounan (modern Luoyang) and not employed to follow along, so he expressed his exasperation and was about to die” 太史公留滯周南，不得行事，故發憤且卒.208 Sima Qian rushed to

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see his dying father, whereupon the grand astrologer, on his deathbed, grasped his son’s hand and wept. Sima Tan told his son, 余先周室之太史也．自上世嘗顯功名於虞夏，典天官事．從 世中衰，絕於予乎. My ancestors were the grand astrologers of the Zhou house. From past generations, our meritorious reputation was made known during the times of the sage-king Yu Shun and the Xia dynasty for managing astronomical affairs. In later generations our reputation has diminished; shall it end with me?209

Qian wrote that his father’s greatest worry was that the “meritorious reputation” of the family might end with him. Sima Tan’s concern for the preservation and continuation of his family’s legacy is expressed in his dying words: 汝復為太史，則續吾祖矣…余死，汝必為太史，為太史，無 忘吾所論著矣. You are certain to be, like me, the grand astrologer, then you will carry on our ancestral line!…When I have died, you must be the grand astrologer, and as the grand astrologer, do not forget what I have discussed and written!210

Sima Tan ended his emotive exhortation with the regret that his ambition to produce texts had not been fulfilled; this was left to his son. Sima Qian justified his enterprise to write a history of China by making it a filial response to his father’s dying wishes. There is no such dialogue in the History of the Han. Sima Tan implored his son to record history in order to preserve his family’s legacy and to remember his textual works whereas Ban Gu did not mention his father’s literary contributions. Ban Gu did not view his historical project in the same way Sima Qian did; recording history was not motivated or justified by an imperative to preserve family posterity or fulfill his father’s literary ambitions. Gu does not seem to have viewed his work as a necessary act of filial piety but seems to have been motivated by a need to represent his clan as classical courtiers who aided the court’s stability and well-being.

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Ban Gu seems to have felt no need to justify his work on the basis of filial piety or to finish his father’s work as Sima Qian had claimed to do. So the question is—why, if Ban Biao’s work did, in fact, provide some of the rudimentary materials for Gu’s work, did Ban Gu not more explicitly mention his father’s contribution? In his study of Han thought, Xu Fuguan called Ban Gu’s postface a “strange piece of writing,” 有點奇怪 的文章211 noting that while the postface of the History of the Han effusively praises Gu’s ancestors, not one character mentions that Ban Biao wrote any history.212 While Ban Gu did not deliberately avoid reference to his father’s writings, it is clear that he felt no need to explicitly comment on them. As I have noted in the second chapter, they are merely quoted, and that is all. Several Chinese studies suggest that Ban Gu, in fact, relied upon those works as he authored the History of the Han, and there are passages located in Ban Gu’s work where the “clerk of the minister over the masses” (situyuan 司徒掾), Ban Biao, is quoted directly.213 Ban Gu quoted his father under Biao’s official title in passages throughout his work. In chapter 73, the biography of Wei Xian 韋賢 (147–66 BC), Gu wrote, “The clerk of the minister over the masses, Ban Biao, states… .” 司徒掾班彪曰.214 Again, in chapter 84, the biography of Zhai Fangjin, he recorded, “The clerk of the minister over the masses, Ban Biao, states…” 司徒掾班彪曰.215 In addition, there are passages in which the identified speaker, despite not being identified by name, can only be Ban Biao. The annals of Emperor Cheng, for example, includes the statement, “My father’s sister was installed in the rear courts as the jieyu (favorite beauty)…” 臣之 姑充後宮為婕妤, a passage that only could have been written by Ban Biao since the jieyu was Ban Kuang’s 班況 daughter; that is, she was Ban Zhi’s 班稚 sister.216 Hence, the author of this passage is the “clerk of the minister over the masses,” Ban Biao. In short, Ban Gu freely quoted his father’s work without mentioning explicitly that Biao ever wrote anything. This could not be more different from Sima Qian, who made much of his father’s writings, highlighting his need to continue and complete them.

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It appears, then, that Ban Gu was less interested in emphasizing his father’s work as a historian than in pointing out his Confucian orthodoxy. Ban Gu’s only real mention of his father is in connection to Biao’s ideology; it is not that Biao wrote but what he said that concerns Gu. It is Fan Ye, rather than Ban Gu, who filled in the details of Biao’s literary works. 彪既才高而好述作，遂專心史籍之閒．武帝時，司馬遷著史 記，自太初以後，闕而不錄，後好事者頗或綴集時事，然多 鄙俗，不足以踵繼其書．彪乃繼採前史遺事，傍貫異聞，作 後傳數十篇． Ban Biao was very talented and fond of transmitting and producing texts, so he concentrated on the area of historical works. During the time of Emperor Wu, Sima Qian wrote his Records of the Grand Historian. From the end of the taichu reign era (104–101 BC) on there were no records. Later, among those who were fond of official affairs, some collected records of the events of their time. Nevertheless, there were still many who were vulgar and unworthy to follow in the tracks of the works of Sima Qian. Ban Biao, accordingly, continued to collect matters neglected by earlier scribes, and additionally connected together other accounts he had heard. He wrote the Later Biographies in several tens of chapters.217

Although Ban Gu generally stated in his postface that his father “devoted his energy solely to the study of sagely men,”218 Fan noted more specifically that Biao “concentrated on the area of historical works.”219 The difference in these two statements is significant, for it speaks to how Ban Gu wished his father to be represented. Whereas Gu highlighted his father’s Confucian orthodoxy, Fan Ye emphasized Biao’s historical work. That Gu’s brief biography of his father does not explicitly recognize Biao’s authorship of historical records illustrates that Sima Qian’s impulse to write was quite different; that is, Qian wished to honor Tan by finishing his work. But as I have already shown, Ban Gu made no attempt to hide the fact that he used Biao’s writings. Whereas the History of the

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Later Han notes only that Ban Biao wrote history, the seventh-century Shitong 史通 (Generalities on Historiography) suggests more explicitly that Ban Gu used his father’s works to write his own.220 The question of whether portions or complete chapters of Ban Biao’s works were inserted verbatim into the History of the Han cannot be answered in light of the text’s long history of rewriting and reinscription that has layered the work over the millennia. One possibility regarding why Ban Gu does not mention his father’s authorship of historical records is, perhaps, a bit anticlimactic. Ban Gu had little to justify; Sima Qian had much to justify. By the time he wrote his postface to his History of the Han, Gu was an official historian for the emperor, had ready access to the imperial archives, and felt little need to explain why he was writing; it was his job.221 Whatever other motives Ban Gu might have had, however, his primary motive appears to have been to preserve his favor by glorifying the Liu rulers of the Han and to account for his family’s rise into the court elite. Of his father’s works, the most relevant to Gu’s effort to ingratiate his family to the emperor was Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” It makes sense that Ban Gu included this essay in the postface because it emphasizes what Ban Gu wished to be understood of his clan: that they were highly literate Confucians, wise and loyal moral authorities in the court, and a good influence on the emperors they served. Inscribing his clan in this way reflected well on him as a court official. Much of the genealogical portion of Gu’s postface was structured to emphasize classicism, morality, and influence to, perhaps, mask his clan’s rise to influence by developing a consort tie to the Han emperor. In the end, the Ban clan’s rise to favor and power was probably more calculated than Ban Gu was willing to explicitly suggest in his narrative.

INSCRIBING GENEALOGY Unlike Sima Qian who originated his family history with the legendary figure Zhuan Xu 顓頊 of remote antiquity, Ban Gu most explicitly began his genealogical record in his postface with a person from the state of

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Chu.222 Elsewhere, in his “Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden,” 幽通賦 Ban Gu, like Sima Qian, traced his family lineage back to such legendary figures as Zhuan Xu and Gao Yang 高陽. In the beginning of his postface, however, Gu started his account with a Chu official rather than the more obscure characters of legend. By beginning with someone in more recent history, Ban made his account more tangible, even if it recounts a rather outlandish event. He wrote, 班氏之先，與楚同姓，令尹子文之後也．子文初生，棄於瞢 中，而虎乳之．楚人謂乳「穀」，謂虎「於檡」，故名穀於 檡，字子文．楚人謂虎「班」，其子以為號．秦之滅楚，遷 晉，代之間，因氏焉． The ancestors of the Ban family had the same surname as the Chu royal family,223 and their descendants derive from Prime Minister Ziwen.224 When Ziwen was first born, he was abandoned at Meng marsh, and a tigress nursed him.225 The people of Chu refer to nursing as “gou” and to tigers as “hutu.” Thus, they called him Gou Hutu, and gave him the style Ziwen.226 The people of Chu also refer to tigers as “ban,” and Ziwen’s son (Dou Ban) took Ban as his appellation. When the Qin destroyed Chu, the Ban family relocated to the area between Jin and Dai.227 In this way, Ban was made the clan name.228

The first ancestor Ban Gu mentioned is Ziwen 子文, the prime minister of Chu, and, indeed, an important figure in the Commentary of Mr. Zuo; the very same Ziwen appears in the Analects in a quotation by Confucius.229 In a typical Analects passage about the virtue of humanness (ren, 仁, alternatively rendered as “human empathy”), the disciple Zizhang 子 張 had the following dialogue with the Master: 子張問曰：「令尹子文三仕，無喜色，三已之，無慍色．舊 令尹之政，必以告新令尹．何如？」子曰：「忠矣！」曰： 「仁亦乎？」曰：「未知；焉得仁？」． Zizhang asked, “When Prime Minister Ziwen was employed three times his countenance revealed no delight. When he was dismissed three times from office, his countenance revealed no displeasure. He was certain to report the administrative affairs of

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the previous prime minister himself to the new prime minister. What do you think of this?” The Master replied, “He was loyal indeed!” Zizhang asked, “Can he be said to have been humane?” Confucius responded, “I do not yet know; how could he have obtained humanness?”230

Significantly, Ban Gu recounted that the earliest ancestor of his clan held a high official position in the Chu court. And while Confucius did not consider Ziwen “humane,” he was, otherwise, praised for being loyal, itself an honored virtue.231 Ban Gu claimed a man honored within the classical tradition as his distant ancestor. Other than declaring an honored official of antiquity as his clan’s progenitor, Ban Gu also attached an unusual event to Ziwen’s birth. Early Chinese texts often assigned such extraordinary circumstances to an ancestor’s birth, particularly the first ancestor.232 By representing Ziwen’s birth as he had, Gu implicitly connected his family genealogy to the traditional paragons of antiquity. An account of Ziwen’s birth appears in the Commentary of Mr. Zuo under the fourth year of Duke Xuan 宣 公 (四 年, 605 BC), and surely Ban Gu consciously connected his history to this passage. The Commentary of Mr. Zuo recalls, 初，若敖娶於鄖，生鬥伯比．若敖卒，從其母畜於鄖．淫於 鄖子之女，生子文焉．鄖夫人使棄諸夢中．虎乳之．鄖子 田，見之，懼而歸．夫人以告，遂使收之． Formerly, Ruo Ao married a woman from Yun, and she bore Dou Bobi. After Ruo Ao died, Dou Bobi followed his mother and was reared at Yun.233 Dou had a lascivious affair with the daughter of the viscount of Yun, and the daughter bore Ziwen. The wife of the viscount had the child abandoned at Meng marsh. A tigress nursed it, and when the viscount of Yun was hunting he saw it. He was alarmed and returned to his home. His wife told him what she had done with the child and then sent someone to retrieve it.234

The narrator(s) of the Commentary of Mr. Zuo recalled that Ziwen, the first ancestor in Ban Gu’s postface, was the son of Dou Bobi 鬥伯比, conceived in an affair with the Yun viscount’s daughter.235 The first

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Ban ancestor who can be verified, then, is Rou Ao 若敖, the father of Dou Bobi. After narrating the birth of his “first ancestor,” Ban Gu accounted for the acquisition of his clan name, Ban 班, a graph that means “tiger” in the ancient Chu dialect. He, thus, explained his surname by connecting Ziwen’s unusual birth account to the Chu term for tiger, noting that the people of Chu assigned the style “Ban” to Ziwen’s son due to his father having been nursed by a tigress. Another name ascribed to Ziwen, based on his birth account, is Gou Hutu 穀於檡; in Chu, the word for to nurse is gou 穀, and another word (besides ban 班) for tiger is hutu 於 檡.236 Thus, the name Gou Hutu is derived from Ziwen’s having been “nursed by a tigress.”237 While Ban Gu decided not to push his clan’s origin into remote antiquity in his postface, he, nonetheless, began his account with a person colored by myth; his surname is enmeshed with the tiger-nursed origin of his family. By consulting Ban Gu’s postface and the Commentary of Mr. Zuo, a general sketch of Ban Gu’s early genealogy can be reconstructed. It begins with the Chu Prince Ruo Ao, whose son was Dou Bobi; neither are mentioned explicitly in the postface. Dou sired Ziwen, and Ziwen then had a son named Dou Ban, whose name, Ban 般, may have served as the original source—or loan graph—for the character, Ban 班, used in the History of the Han.238 Ban Gu did not clarify who immediately followed Dou Ban; the next clansman in his genealogy appears during the end of the Qin 秦 (221– 207 BC). He wrote, 始皇之末，班壹避墬於樓煩，致馬牛羊數千群．值漢初定， 與民無禁，當孝惠，高后時，以財雄邊，出入弋獵，旌旗鼓 吹，年百餘歲，以壽終，故北方多以「壹」為字者． During the end of Qin Shi’s reign,239 Ban Yi took refuge at Loufan, raising several thousand herds (or a herd of several thousand) of cattle and sheep.240 When the Han was first established there were no sumptuary proscriptions regarding the people, and during the times of Emperor Hui the Filial and Empress Gao241 Ban Yi used his wealth to build his power in the border region.242 When

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Ban Yi left for and returned from hunts, flags were raised and drums resounded. He lived more than a hundred years and died of old age. Accordingly, several people in the north took “Yi” as their style.243

The reader is not told what happened to the Ban family after the time of Ziwen’s son, Dou Ban, who lived during the beginning of the Eastern Zhou (c. 771 BC), though after a bit of reconstruction, he or she can piece together a few details about the Ban clan’s earliest history. Ruo Ao appears in a “flashback” passage under the year 605 BC in the Commentary of Mr. Zuo; thus Dou Ban lived approximately four hundred years before the next recorded Ban clansman. During the turbulence at the end of the Qin, Ban Yi made his way to the north and became wealthy raising cattle and sheep. And during the eras of Emperor Hui 惠帝 (r. 195–188 BC) and Empress Gao 高后 (also, Lü Zhi 呂雉, d. 180 BC), Ban Yi used his wealth to distinguish himself at the border territories. This is the earliest record of the Ban family during the Han. After his brief account of Ban Yi’s new wealth and honor in the frontier regions of the newly established Han, Ban Gu quickly mentioned three clansmen before pausing to reflect on Ban Kuang. The first is Ban Yi’s son, Ban Ru 班孺, who the “people of the regions and commanderies intoned songs about” 州郡歌之.244 Ru’s son, Ban Chang 班長, was awarded an official position as governor of Shanggu 上谷 but was, otherwise, given no special favors.245 Chang had a son named Ban Hui 班 回, who “was made the prefect of Zhangzi on the basis of being an abundant talent” 以茂材為長子令.246 Ban Gu described Ban Hui’s son, Ban Kuang, in more detail. While he said little about Ru, Chang, and Hui, Ban Gu made a point of telling his reader that Chang and Hui were state officials. Thus, one is introduced in succession to Ban Yi, Ban Ru, Ban Chang, Ban Hui, and Ban Kuang, but Ban chose to speak in more detail about his ancestor Kuang. Ban Kuang was made bureau head of the left colonel of picked cavalry, and there were two events in his life that are most relevant to my discussion—his daughter’s entrance into the imperial harem and his later relocation to the imperial tombs. I suggest that the first detail contributed

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to the Ban clan’s prominence during and after the reign of Emperor Cheng. Ban Gu noted, “During the beginning of Emperor Cheng’s reign, Ban Kuang’s daughter attained the distinction of favorite beauty within the emperor’s harem” 成帝之初，女為婕妤.247 Her contribution to the family’s rise is unquestionable. Ch’ü T’ung-tzu noted that “…members of the consort families were usually appointed high officials, and that many of them held top posts in government.”248 Second, Ban Kuang was relocated to Changling 昌陵 to take part in a project to build Cheng’s imperial tomb. Pragmatically speaking, the clan’s wealth and political sway may have influenced the emperor’s decision to place them in a closer area where their activities could be observed. Ban Gu recalled that Kuang “relocated to Changling [for the construction of Chengdi’s tomb].249 Later, the work at Changling was discontinued, and great ministers and famous families were registered at the capital Chang’an”; Ban Kuang became affluent after attaining his official posts.250 Kuang’s biography includes a list of several official posts that highlight his merits. He was recommended for his first post as “filially pious and incorrupt” 舉孝廉, an official category of men recommended to office. Earlier in the Han, Dong Zhongshu memorialized the throne regarding the ideal requisites for the selection of court officials. After recommending an intricate system of selection for official posts and suggesting that a Grand Academy be established to nurture the scholars of the kingdom, Dong asserted, “If the kingdom’s worthy men are obtained, the prosperity of the Three Founding Kings could be easily brought about and the reputations of Yao and Shun could be achieved” 得天下之 賢人，則三王之盛易為，而堯舜之名可及也.251 The fact that officials were selected because they were “filial and incorrupt” reflected well on the ruling house, as it suggested a time of imperial prominence, and in light of this ideal, Ban Gu recalled, “The grand minister of agriculture submitted an evaluation listing Ban Kuang at the top” 大司農奏課連 最.252 Kuang’s biography in the History of the Han is typical of Ban Gu’s depiction of his clansmen. As I have mentioned, Kuang’s daughter became a palace consort during the beginning of Emperor Cheng’s reign, and her rank in the

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harem was second among the fourteen ranks of palace ladies, below the empress herself. Hans Bielenstein noted that the ladies in the imperial harem were arranged according to a “scale of bureaucratic status,”253 adding that, “each lady of the harem henceforth not only possessed official rank but also enjoyed the income connected with it.”254 Ban Gu never mentioned that Ban Jieyu’s position provided her with a voice in the emperor’s ear, and he also did not mention that her position included considerable wealth and prestige that must have become an advantage to the Ban clan. Ban Kuang had three sons in addition to his daughter, and each became an official at the court. The three sons were Ban Bo 班伯, Ban You 班斿, and Ban Zhi; Zhi was Ban Gu’s grandfather. In his anecdotal materials regarding Ban Bo and his siblings, Gu described them as wise stewards of classical wisdom and virtue, often depicting them as cautious members of the court who rendered sound advice when questioned by the emperor. The Ban clansmen often distinguished themselves in strained circumstances; Ban Gu portrayed his clan within the context of factional disputes and consort rivalries while trying to spare them their good reputation. Ban’s account of his clansmen is a bit formulaic, sacrificing the roundness of honest recollection for the safety of depicting them as squarely virtuous and useful servants of the court. They are repeatedly portrayed as rather austere classicists, dispensing the hackneyed tenets of Confucius and his followers. Curiously, the emperors who Ban Gu wished to please are more rounded in Ban Gu’s narrative, guilty of drunkenness, womanizing, and general revelry in the inner courts.

BAN BO AND

THE

FAMILY’S RISE

TO A

CONSORT CLAN

Ban Bo’s history marks a noticeable shift in Ban Gu’s narrative, and it seems as if Gu was in possession of more materials as he drafted this biography; it may be that he was relying on oral accounts transmitted to him by his father or (great) uncles. Or perhaps the state records of Ban Bo’s role in court politics were more comprehensive than those of previous Ban clansmen. In any case, Ban Gu appears to have known a great

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deal about his great-uncle Bo, and he was quite intent on setting him apart from other less upright members of the court. Ban Gu’s account of Bo includes a richer narrative than his other clansmen. Ban Gu’s detailed presentation of Ban Bo was, perhaps, an attempt to persuade the reader that there are other reasons for the family’s rise to prominence than Ban Jieyu’s privileged position. Surely a contemporary reader would have been familiar with the general details of Ban Jieyu’s biography; Gu outlined them in his chapter 97, which I discuss presently. Gu would also have been aware that the reader might suspect that Ban Jieyu was the primary cause for the Ban clan’s rise to influence. By laying more emphasis on Bo and other clansmen in his family history, it appears that Ban Gu was trying to deflect this suspicion. Gu was proud of Ban Jieyu, to be sure, but he wanted to remind his reader that she was not the sole reason, perhaps not even the main reason, for his family’s eminence. Jieyu’s former favor with a previous emperor was, by itself, little help to Ban Gu’s favor with the present emperor. For him, more must be said to make his past clansmen relevant to his own situation. Ban Gu’s account of Bo is the longest narrative treatment of any person in the entire postface, and much of it appears to be an effort to suggest that his favor as a minister was unrelated to his sister’s influence. Bo was a minister in the court of an emperor who was married to his sister, and during the Han, it was common of ministers to be suspicious of nepotism. But Ban Gu dwelled more on his clansman’s merits than the political insecurities of court life. Bo was the intellectual disciple of Shi Dan 師丹 (?–3 BC), an academician who specialized in the Classic of Odes255 and later endorsed by the general-in-chief, Wang Feng 王風 (?–22 BC).256 Ban Bo was summoned to Yanni Hall 宴昵殿 and then promoted to regular palace attendant because of his skill at reciting and discussing the classics.257 He was able to discuss the subtleties of the Documents and Analects at Jinhua Hall 金華殿 with the eminent Han scholars, Zheng Kuanzhong 鄭寬中, Zhang Yu 張禹, and Xu Shang 許商.258 Ban Gu portrayed Bo as a classical scholar who was quickly advanced because of his unusual talents and good appearance. Gu also

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recounted that when their discussions were discontinued, Bo did not enjoy the company of the fancily dressed young men who loitered in the palace but was apparently uninterested in the careerists who composed his age group.259 Ban Gu used his privileged position as historian to depict Bo as exceptionally talented, exceptionally virtuous, and exceptionally unlike the other young men who frequented the palace. After recalling that Ban Bo was originally from the north and describing him as a man “full of emotion” 慷慨, Ban Gu’s narrative includes an account that highlights Bo’s political savoir-faire.260 During Emperor Cheng’s Heping reign period (28–25 BC), Bo was ordered to welcome the Xiongnu chieftain (shanyu 單于)261 at a borderland pass and accompany him back to the capital. While he was in the northern region, Bo became aware of an incident involving two powerful families of Dingxiang 定襄 who had murdered an official.262 Perhaps hoping to gain the emperor’s favor, Bo entreated the court to allow him to act as the grand administrator at Dingxiang for one year to resolve the problems there. The emperor granted his request, and he was, thus, installed there as a high official. Ban Gu noted, however, that the people of Dingxiang were uneasy with the news of Bo’s assignment: 定襄聞伯素貴，年少，自請治劇，畏其下車作威，吏民竦 息．伯至，請問耆老父祖故人有舊恩者，迎延滿堂，日為供 具，執子孫禮．郡中益弛．諸所賓禮皆名豪，懷恩醉酒，共 諫伯宜頗攝錄盜賊，具言本謀亡匿處．伯曰：「是所望於父 師矣．」 The people of Dingxiang heard of Ban Bo’s common rank and young age, and that he had himself requested to handle the troubles there. Fearing that Bo would descend from his chariot and make a show of intimidation, the petty officials and people sighed in alarm. When Ban Bo arrived, he sent an invitation to elders, family members, and men who his clan had gained favor with long ago, welcoming them to fill the banquet hall. He offered them cups of wine throughout the day, upholding the rites of son and grandson (that is, he treated them with respect), and the people of the commandery were increasingly at ease. All those he entertained as guests were men of renown and bravery. Filled

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA with gratitude and inebriated, they all remonstrated with Bo that he should urgently take in and make a record of the region’s bandits, and they told him the places where the original schemers had gone into hiding. Ban Bo then said, “This is why I look to you, sirs!”263

While Ban Bo’s earlier successes were due to his attractiveness and textual mastery, here Ban Gu portrayed him as a diplomatic young official who was able to win over the hearts of the local people and solicit information. Gu underpinned Ban Bo’s administrative savvy, which enabled Bo to arrest the region’s malefactors, despite the probability that his request to serve at Dingxiang was perhaps motivated by ambition.264 Bo’s possible career motives for solving the dilemma at Dingxiang are, of course, never mentioned in the History of the Han; rather, Ban Gu recounted that Bo dispatched his subordinates, and “those who had gone into hiding were all taken into custody within ten days” 及它隱伏，旬 日盡得.265 Gu wrote that once Ban Bo had arrested the region’s criminals, “the commandery trembled with fear, and everyone acclaimed his divine intelligence” 郡中震栗，咸稱神明.266 And Ban Gu’s account of his great-uncle’s resourcefulness did not end there. After his year of service at Dingxiang expired, Bo requested to be allowed to return to the capital through his commandery to visit the tombs of his ancestors. While there, he distributed several hundred cash to his clansmen, and “the northern region considered this glorious, and the elders made a record of it” 北州以為榮，長老紀焉.267 Finally, while Bo was on the road home, he caught a “wind” that made him ill, after which the emperor provided him with the salary of a grandee, presumably because of his success at Dingxiang. Ban Gu carefully described his great-uncle as a wise Confucian with the political sense to resolve a serious problem at a border region. While the subtext of this passage suggests that Bo was merely maneuvering himself into political advantage, Ban Gu made such a reading necessarily speculative. In a later passage, Ban Gu compared Ban Bo’s wisdom and integrity with other less virtuous statesmen, recalling incidents of a group

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of pleasure seekers, including Zhang Fang 張方, Chunyu Zhang 淳于 長, and the emperor himself, who would leave the palace incognito and spend nights in drunken revelry.268 One account illustrates Ban Gu’s crafted representation of Ban Bo. Ban told of a banquet where the palace attendants called the emperor and his guests to “down their wine and present their empty cups” 引滿舉白; the hall was filled with “the sounds of chatter and laughter” 談笑大噱.269 There hung a painting of King Zhou 紂王 crouched over drunk with his favorite consort, spending the night in drunken carousing. Since Bo was present at the banquet, having just recovered from his illness, Emperor Cheng pointed toward the painting and asked for his opinion. How Ban Gu knew the details of this dialogue is, indeed, mysterious; but once we concede that he was molding a particular image of his clan, it is clear that Bo’s response is more an example of Ban Gu’s literary talent than a historical record. Ban Gu wrote, 伯對曰：「書云『乃用婦人之言』，何有踞肆於朝？所謂眾 惡歸之，不如是之甚者也．」上曰：「苟不若此，此圖何 戒？」伯曰：「『沈湎于酒』，微子所以告去也；『式號式 謼』，大雅所以流連也．詩書淫亂之戒，其原皆在於酒．」 上乃謂然歎曰：「吾久不見班生，今日復聞讜言！」放等不 懌，稍自引起更衣，因罷出． Ban Bo replied, “The Documents state, ‘Now King Zhou listens to the words of this woman.”270 How could there be such crouching and depravity in the court? That which is called a place where all wickedness accumulates is not as severe as this is.”271 The emperor said, “Just so long as I am not like this, what caution is there to take in this painting?” Ban Bo replied, “Weizi announced his departure from Yin on the basis of the king’s ‘deep madness for wine.’272 It is ‘great clamor and shouting’ that the ‘Greater Elegentiae’ deplores.273 The admonitions of excessive and chaotic behavior in the Odes and Documents all have their origins in wine.” The emperor sighed heavily and said, “It has been a long time since I have seen Ban Bo, and today I have again heard his excellent words.” Zhang Fang and his group were not happy to hear what Bo had said. Gradually they got up from their seats, changed their robes, and departed.274

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In addition to the economy of Bo’s language, an example of what David Schaberg called “patterned speech,” and the richness of his allusions to the follies of the wicked King Zhou, Ban Gu depicted his great-uncle as a man whose words were heeded by the wayward Emperor Cheng.275 The following passage tells that Emperor Cheng, thus, turned away from his reckless behavior. Zhang Fang was expelled from the capital, and the emperor gradually came to dislike incognito meanderings and banquet revelries and returned to self-cultivation through the use of classic texts.276 Ban Gu’s narrative leaves the impression that Bo’s short remonstrance completely reformed the wayward emperor, who returned to Confucian learning. Ban Bo’s biography describes Bo as academically precocious, virtuous according to traditional values, savvy when negotiating political crises, and morally persuasive to an emperor inclined toward palace delights. Ban Gu emphasized his uncle’s moral sway over the emperor in anecdotal accounts; Bo saved the emperor and his empire from future difficulties through his wise advice. Gu’s narrative follows the convention of honored dialogue as in the Commentary of Mr. Zuo to depict Bo as an erudite exemplar, indispensable to the state’s security and stability. Ban Gu also discussed Ban Kuang’s two other sons who were, like the other Ban clansmen, involved in court affairs. Ban You was Kuang’s second son, and we are told much less about him than we are of Bo. You was a “man of wide learning who had superior talents,” 博學有俊 材 recommended by a court official to the post of gentleman where he responded to the emperor’s enquiries. He was later promoted to the post of grandee remonstrant and then to bureau head of the right and leader of the gentlemen of the household. He was ordered to collate texts in the imperial library along with Liu Xiang.277 Ban Gu recalled that once You was installed in this post, he was selected to the works that he and Liu had edited in front of the emperor. Ban Gu also noted that You received a gift of texts from the emperor, “The emperor esteemed Ban You’s abilities and gave him duplicate copies of works in the imperial archives. At that time, those books were not in general circulation” 上器其能，賜以 祕書之副．時書不布.278

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The emperor’s generous gift highlights Emperor Cheng’s special favor for Ban You, and Ban Gu included a short anecdote to show the extent of You’s favor and privilege: 自東平思王以叔父求太史公 , 諸子書，大將軍白不許．語在 東平王傳． Liu Yu, the king of Dongping, requested copies of the Records of the Grand Historian and the works of the various philosophers on the basis of being Emperor Cheng’s uncle (the son of Emperor Xuan).279 The general in chief, Wang Feng, reported that it would be unacceptable to allow this. This is discussed in the “Biography of the King of Dongping” (i.e., History of the Han, chapter 18).280

In other words, Ban Gu pointed out that Ban You received more imperial favor than even a relative of the emperor, albeit one whose character is not exactly pristine. Ban Bo and Ban You received high consideration from the court. Bo, as we have already seen, was provided with a substantially high salary while he was ill in bed. To receive such a salary while inactive in court affairs is, indeed, curious. Like his older brother, Ban You died young, leaving only one son. Ban Gu’s account of You’s imperial favor may be interpreted as extending to the entire Ban clan, who were essential appendages to the central court.

NARRATING THROUGH THE DANGERS

OF

COURT

Despite Ban Gu’s attempts to highlight his clan’s favor in the court of Emperor Cheng, his postface reveals increasing anxieties regarding the clan’s survival. Ban Bo’s extended illness may have been genuine, but it, nonetheless, gave him an excuse to remain distant from the hazards of political life. Ban Zhi, on the other hand, could not spare himself from allegations, despite attempts to distance himself from the court. Ban Gu’s biography of Zhi, his grandfather, depicts a man who was reticent regarding matters of court politics, but Zhi was, alas, unable to remain entirely aloof. Whereas Bo’s absence from court was rewarded, Zhi’s

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carefulness was less successful. In the end, Ban Zhi is represented as a virtuous courtier who could not avoid incrimination, despite, or because of, his reticence. Like all of Kuang’s children, Ban Zhi was educated in the classics, eventually earning “the posts of gentleman of the yellow gates and regular palace attendant; he was sincere and upright, and self-restrained” 為黃門郎中常侍，方直自守.281 Zhi found his way into officialdom much as his brothers had. During the end of Emperor Cheng’s reign, circumstances in the court began a precipitous decline, accelerated by the nomination of an heir apparent who was not a son of the reigning emperor. The decision to appoint an apparent who was not a direct son of the emperor was uncomfortable but unavoidable, for Cheng did not have any sons to appoint. Palace patrolmen were dispatched to solicit the opinions of various ministers, and Ban Zhi did not support the decision; Ban Gu recalled that Ban Zhi “was the only one who did not dare to respond” 獨不敢答.282 Ban Zhi’s reticence regarding Liu Xin’s 劉欣 (reigned as Emperor Ai 哀帝, 6 BC–AD 1) election to heir apparent was naturally unappreciated by the future Emperor Ai, and after he was enthroned in 6 BC, Zhi was exiled to the distant tributary state of Xihe 西河—present Inner Mongolia—and assigned to the post of chief commandant.283 Ban Zhi eventually regained favor with the court in 3 BC when he was promoted to grand administrator of Guangping 廣平.284 His newfound favor was brief, however, for once Wang Mang seized control, Ban Zhi’s career in court politics was again endangered.285 Were it not for the intervention by Wang Mang’s aunt, Wang Zhengjun 王政君 (71 BC–AD 13), Zhi would likely have been executed for his offence against Mang’s ego. To begin with, despite Ban Gu’s disdain for Wang Mang in his History of the Han, he did not conceal that Ban You and Ban Zhi were, at one time, intimate with Mang. In fact, Ban Gu recalled that after You died, “Wang Mang dressed in mourning clothes and paid for the funerary textiles, chariots, and horses, at great expense” 修緦麻，賻賵甚 厚.286 In other words, Wang Mang mourned You’s death as if he were a Ban relative. The friendship between Wang and the Bans did not last,

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a point Ban Gu was eager to make later in his postface. After Emperor Ping acceded in AD 1, the empress dowager, Wang Zhengjun, acted as his regent while Wang Mang actually controlled the state. Ban Gu noted, “At that time, Wang Mang desired to bring about great peace in the state by means of culture, and so he dispatched emissaries to attend separately to the customs and habits of the people and gather hymns and songs” 方 欲文致太平，使使者分行風俗，采頌聲.287 Ban Zhi was, again, reticent, and Ban Gu tersely stated, “Ban Zhi did not present any hymns” 稚 無所上.288 Neither Emperor Ai nor Wang Mang appreciated Ban Zhi’s silence, and Ban Gu related that after incriminations and recriminations involving Zhi, Gongsun Hong, 公孫閎 and Zhen Feng, 甄豐 which could have easily resulted in their execututions, Wang Zhengjun came to the Ban clan’s defense. The entire story is complex; Zhen Feng accused Gongsun Hong of reporting false portents that would reflect poorly on the court, and Ban Zhi declined to report auspicious portents (i.e., hymns praising the court). Hong and Zhi would have been executed for their “offences.” However, Empress Dowager Wang asserted, 不宣德美，宜與言災害者異罰．且後宮賢家，我所哀也. It is correct to punish someone who does not proclaim the court’s virtue and goodness differently from one who speaks of inauspicious portents. Furthermore, it is the worthy clansmen of the rear court, [like Ban Jieyu], for whom I feel sympathy.289

Ban Gu wrote that after Wang Zhengjun’s intervention, only Gongsun Hong was sent to prison and executed. Ban Zhi was spared because of his favor with Wang Mang’s aunt. The narrative seems deliberately structured to highlight Ban Zhi’s courageous virtue and his favor with Wang Zhengjun. Ban Zhi’s relationship with the court is represented as dangerous, precipitated by his hesitance to express support for persons he could not endorse. Ban Gu suggested that his great-uncle’s virtue is what really threatened the Ban clan’s favor in state affairs. It is not surprising that Gu set his clan against the usurper, Wang Mang, redeeming his clan from its

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previous friendship with him. Ban Gu inscribed loyalty to the Han into his biographical narrative of his clan. Zhi finally realized the precariousness of his actions, and Ban Gu stated that after Wang Zhengjun’s intervention, 稚懼，上書陳恩謝罪，願歸相印，入補延陵園郎． Ban Zhi was alarmed and submitted a petition to the emperor recalling his goodwill and apologizing for his own crime. Zhi requested to be allowed to surrender his seals of office and come back to fill in as a gentleman of the parks at Yanling.290

Ban Zhi saw the wisdom of an apology and requested a post where he could remain at a distance from Wang Mang. In the end, the empress dowager approved his request, and he was provided with his previous salary until his death. Ban Gu noted, “Resulting from this event, the Ban clan was not illustrious in the court of Wang Mang, and thus never suffered incrimination” 由是班氏不顯莽朝，亦不罹咎.291 The narrative is carefully crafted to remove the Ban clan from the corruptions in the courts of Emperor Ai and Wang Mang.

HISTORICIZING ADVANTAGE: HIGHLIGHTING PRIVILEGE, LOYALTY,

AND

INFLUENCE

Ban Gu’s postface centers on his clan’s privileged status, loyalty to the Han, and moral influence on the emperors. To do this, he inserted events into his narrative that emphasize his clan’s comparatively favored position among other courtiers; this can be seen, for example, in his account of Ban You’s receipt of a duplicate set of texts from the imperial library. Ban Bo’s effective remonstration against Emperor Cheng’s revelries underscores the family’s moral influence, and Ban Biao’s essay supporting the Han, which I discuss presently, shows the Ban clan’s loyalty to the Liu clan. History in Ban Gu’s narrative was molded to advantage his clan’s and, thus, his own relationship to the ruling family. One example of how Ban Gu dilated on his clan’s privileged position among the various state officials and royal kinsmen is his account of the popularity of the family library, stressing that other intellectuals did

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not receive such a gift. Others in Ban Zhi’s social group, including such famous persons as Yang Xiong 揚雄 (58–18 BC), traveled from far away to visit their library since the Ban family collection was so impressive.292 Ban Gu recounted a curious anecdote involving his cousin, Ban Si 班 嗣, who refused to let the famous philosopher Huan Tan 桓譚 (c. 43 BC–AD 28) borrow books from the family library.293 Ban Si, a Daoist who rejected his classical education, exhorted Huan Tan to reject the trap of the sages and give free reign to his natural inclinations. Ban Si’s diatribe against classical learning is skillfully couched in Zhuangzian terms, alluding to passages in the Zhuangzi 莊子 (Master Zhuang).294 The passage describes Ban Si meeting Huan at the Ban family door and refusing him access to the library while lecturing him on the uselessness of Confucian learning. The Ban clan was privileged and popular, enjoying such a high status that it could refuse to allow other famous persons access to its library. Ban Gu’s discussion of his father does not highlight his clan’s privilege as his accounts of other clansmen do, nor did Gu write that Biao had any special influence over the emperor. Rather, Ban Gu presented his father as a loyal follower of the Han house who could foresee that Wang Mang’s usurpation was only a temporary pause in the Liu clan’s rightful rule of the empire. Despite Ban Gu’s carefully structured account of his father, there remains a real possibility that Ban Biao’s pro-Han essay merely masked his careerist maneuverings. It appears that Biao was more willing to change his alliance than Ban Gu would have his reader believe. While Ban Gu represented his father as loyal and prescient, several events of his father’s life are purposefully omitted or left ambiguous in the History of the Han narrative. For example, Ban Gu left the precise nature of Ban Biao’s relationship to the local warlord, Wei Ao 隗 囂 (?–AD 33), during Wang Mang’s rule unclear.295 Was Biao actually a supporter of Wei’s cause to establish his regional power, or did he, as the History of the Han narrative suggests, assume that Wei Ao could be convinced to help restore the Han? Of course, Ban Gu evaded this question, and he chose to structure his narrative to disassociate his father from

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a challenger to the Liu tenure of Heaven’s Mandate. Although Ban Gu said little of Biao’s relationship with Wei Ao, Fan Ye later filled in some of the details in his History of the Later Han. Ban Biao’s short biography in the History of the Han states that Biao devoted himself exclusively to the “way of sagely men” 聖人之道 and was an itinerant scholar who traveled together with his Daoist cousin, Ban Si. The text noted, 年二十，遭王莽敗，世祖即位於冀州．時隗囂據壟擁眾，招 輯英俊，而公孫述稱帝於蜀漢. When he was twenty years old he encountered the defeat of Wang Mang, and the enthronement of Emperor Guangwu at Jizhou.296 At that time, Wei Ao occupied Long (Tianshui), amassed a military, and gathered bravos and worthies; Gongsun Shu declared himself emperor at Shuhan.297

Then, after describing the turbulent political climate following Wang Mang’s defeat, Ban Gu wrote, “Wei Ao asked Biao a question” 囂問 彪曰.298 Nothing in this passage reveals how Biao came to know Wei Ao; Ban Gu only recorded their dialogue regarding the state of the kingdom and then inserted his father’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” Gu was less interested in the circumstances of the dialogue than its content, for it is the content that represents his father advantageously. The circumstances of Biao’s interview with Wei Ao are much too suspicious to allow into the narrative, for why, indeed, would he be in the retinue of someone who wished to establish his own kingdom if he were not, perhaps, considering following him? Unlike Ban Gu, Fan Ye had nothing to lose by telling the truth about Biao’s connection to Wei, and he provided details that Ban Gu omitted. Fan Ye wrote, 年二十餘，更始敗，三 輔 大亂．時隗囂擁眾天水，彪乃避 難從．囂問彪曰… When Ban Biao was just over twenty, the Gengshi Emperor defeated Wang Mang and the three adjuncts rose in a great rebellion.299 At that

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time, Wei Ao amassed a military at Tianshui, and Ban Biao fled the difficulties in the capital to follow him.300 Wei Ao asked Biao a question, saying…301

Fan Ye noted that Ban Biao fled the unrest of the capital to “follow” Wei Ao, presumably knowing that Wei had amassed troops in the Gansu corridor region. There may be no way to know if Ban Biao knew anything at first of Wei’s intentions to establish a kingdom or empire; but Ban Gu and Fan Ye recalled that after Wei asked Biao if the situation of the Vertical and Horizontal alliances of the Warring States era would again arise, Biao understood that it was not Wei’s aim to restore the Han but rather to develop a regional power of his own. The History of the Han and History of the Later Han note that Ban Biao was unhappy with Wei’s intentions and wrote his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” to substantiate the Liu clan’s rightful tenure of Heaven’s Mandate. But there can be little doubt that Biao was a “follower” of Wei, at least for a time, and Ban Gu suppressed this fact in order to underscore his father’s essay in support of the Han. Gu highlighted his father’s unwavering loyalty to the Han; the suppression and emphasis of details is, after all, the privilege of the historian. One problem with Ban Gu’s narrative is that it does not explain why his father joined a challenger to Liu supremacy in the first place. Perhaps van der Sprenkel was correct when he said of Ban Biao’s decision to “follow” Wei Ao, In this situation it was imperative for a young man with his career to make to choose his party. Biao chose to link his fortunes with those of Wei Ao and traveled to the latter’s headquarters in Gansu, where he was made welcome and treated with consideration and respect, and where he remained for nearly seven years. The struggle for power was protracted and uncertain. By the time of the twenties, however, it was becoming very clear that Liu Xiu, now proclaimed as Emperor, would emerge victorious from the civil wars in the east. In the meantime, Wei Ao’s position in the west was steadily deteriorating, and Ban Biao began prudently to prepare for a change of sides. He seems to have left Wei Ao in AD 30.302

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Van der Sprenkel views Biao’s connection with Wei as a career gamble, stating that Ban Gu’s biography of his father, depicting Biao as a loyal follower of the Han, “does him something more than justice.”303 My point is not to discern Ban Biao’s inner intentions, for there is really no way of knowing them, yet Ban Gu’s representation of his father clearly fits into the greater pattern of his postface, which presents his clansmen in the best light possible. Ban Gu’s narrative reveals little that could bring into question his father’s loyalties to the Liu clan. Fan Ye, however, hinted at a different picture. It remains to account for one other member of the Ban clan in more detail, Ban Kuang’s famous daughter. Ban Gu did not include his most famous relative in his postface but rather placed Ban Jieyu in his “Biographies of the Emperor’s Relatives by Marriage.” This narrative, despite being in another chapter, reinforces the carefully structured depiction of the Ban clan outlined in his postface. Her biography functions in two ways. First, it juxtaposes Ban Jieyu with other less virtuous palace ladies such as Zhao Feiyan 趙飛燕 (?–1 BC) and Li Ping;304 and second, it functions to illustrate her moral influence over Emperor Cheng in a passage recounting her refusal to ride with the emperor in his chariot. Ban Gu’s biography of his great-aunt also reveals information that goes beyond his efforts to underscore his clan’s influence in the court. I read it as evidence that Ban Jieyu’s enrollment into the ranks of imperial consorts provided the Ban clan with the connection necessary to advance the family into higher official ranks. Although her role in the imperial chambers certainly helped matters for the Ban family, her life there was not without anxieties. There is always history that the historian cannot hide, and for this, the reader must indulge a bit of speculation. Ban Gu’s narrative of Ban Jieyu begins with her entrance into the women’s quarters; she was selected for the inner courts during the first year of Emperor Cheng’s reign (32 BC). At first she was made a junior maid, but in a short time, she was “greatly favored” 大幸 and made a jieyu 婕妤, or “favorite beauty.”305 She lived in the Zengcheng Lodge 增成舍 and was later relocated to a hall outside of the palace where she bore a son who, as it happened, died after several months.306 After

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recounting the loss of Ban Jieyu’s son, Ban Gu outlined an event that remains a vivid example of a virtuous consort’s edification of her imperial husband. Ban Gu’s great-aunt was described in the same formulaic fashion as the other Ban clansmen: 成帝遊於後庭，嘗欲與婕妤同輦載，婕妤辭曰：「觀古圖 畫，賢聖之君有名臣在側，三代末主乃有嬖女，今欲同輦， 得無近似之乎？」上善其言而止．太后聞之，喜曰：「古有 樊姬，今有班婕妤．」 Emperor Cheng was once dallying in the women’s quarters, and he asked Ban Jieyu to ride with him in his imperial chariot. Ban Jieyu declined saying, “I have observed that on ancient paintings worthy and sagely rulers all have eminent ministers beside them, but in depictions of the final rulers of the Three Dynasties they have favored ladies beside them. Now, you want me to ride with you in the imperial chariot; is this not close to these later depictions?” The emperor was pleased by her speech and desisted. The empress dowager heard about what had happened and was also pleased. She said, “In antiquity there was Fan Ji; now there is Ban Jieyu.”307

There are striking similarities between Ban Jieyu’s refusal to ride in Emperor Cheng’s chariot and Ban You’s remonstrance against the same emperor’s revelries at a banquet. Ban Jieyu asserted that Emperor Cheng’s request to have her ride with him in his chariot resembled images on paintings of dissolute “final” emperors who ride with their favorite beauties, and Ban You used a painting of the wicked King Zhou in his remonstrance against Cheng’s banquet carousing. Both employ images from admonitory paintings to juxtapose the emperor’s distractions from court responsibilities with previous rulers who lost the Mandate. In addition, the passage notes that Ban Jieyu 誦 誦 詩 及 窈 窕，德 象，女 師 之 篇．每 進 見 上 疏，依 則 古 禮．詩及窈窕，德象，女師之篇．每進見上疏，依則 古禮． …recited the Classic of Odes, the Yaotiao (Docility and Modesty?), Dexiang (Virtuous Countenance?), and the Nüshi (Feminine

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Not only is she an educated Confucian and a wise remonstrant but also she is an important influence on the emperor and members of the harem. Despite Ban Jieyu’s good counsel and salutary influence on her husband, she, nonetheless, encountered hardships. Her experiences in the court are in some ways reminiscent of Ban Zhi’s, whose careful reticence could not spare him incriminations. After outlining Ban Jieyu’s refusal to ride with the emperor and her subsequent remonstrance, Ban Gu recalled his great-aunt’s decline in favor. He stated that Ban Jieyu, presumably hoping to gain favor with the emperor, recommended one of her personal attendants, Li Ping, to his inner quarters. The emperor fancied and promoted her to the same rank as her former mistress, that is, to jieyu. Emperor Cheng also renamed her, changing her surname from Li 李 to Wei 衛, thus comparing her to a former singing girl named “Wei” who Emperor Wu had fancied and used to replace his present empress.310 It was, in fact, Li Ping and Zhao Feiyan who became occupied with distracting Emperor Cheng from his duties in court, carousing with him at banquets and involving the emperor in indecorous pastimes. Ban Jieyu’s recommendation of Li backfired, for Empress Xu 許皇后—also called Xu Kua 許 誇, ?–8 BC—and Ban Jieyu lost favor with the emperor once Li and Zhao had his attentions; afterward, they rarely entered the court.311 Zhao Feiyan accused Empress Xu and Ban Jieyu “of employing sorcery to curse the other women of the inner court, even directing imprecations against the emperor himself ” 祝詛後宮，詈及主上.312 Empress Xu was accordingly deposed, and Ban Jieyu was interrogated. Ban Gu included her defense in his book: 「妾聞『死生有命，富貴在天』修正尚蒙福，為邪欲以何 望？使鬼神有知，不受不臣之愬；如其無知，愬之何益？故 不為也．」

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I, your concubine, have heard that, “Death and life are fated, and riches and honor reside in Heaven’s will.” If self-cultivation and rectification cannot bear felicity, what can be hoped for by putting evil desires into use? If the spirits have understanding, they will not receive the plaints of a disloyal minister. If they do not have understanding, what profit will there be in complaint? For this reason, I would not behave as I have been accused of.313

It seems that the emperor had not completely forgotten his former sentiments for her, for Ban Gu recounted that he was pleased by the logic of her response and awarded her one hundred catties in gold. Ban Jieyu feared further incriminations, however, and requested to wait on the empress dowager in the Eastern Palace. He agreed, and she lived with Xu until Emperor Cheng died in 7 BC. She was finally assigned to look after Cheng’s grave, where she, too, was eventually interred. Ban Gu represented his great-aunt as an “exemplary” Ban clansman, well educated, upright, and influential, but he also revealed the anxieties and real dangers of living so close to the emperor. And despite her uprightness, Ban Jieyu was capable of misjudgment, for she recommended an attendant who contributed to the court’s disintegration and her own fall from favor. It may have been that Ban Jieyu, like her nephew Biao, had her career in mind when she recommended her servant Li Ping. It was, perhaps, intended to gain the emperor’s favor. Nonetheless, it worked against her. In spite of her loss of favor, Ban Jieyu’s biography illustrates Ban Gu’s attempt to represent his clansmen as faithful counselors and followers of the Han; Ban Jieyu conforms to his usual formula. And despite the unhappy outcome of Zhao Feiyan’s accusations, Ban Jieyu had surely done much to solidify her family’s place among the courtiers who influenced the court; and were it not for her, it may be that Ban Gu would not have risen to a position to write his History of the Han. Perhaps he knew this. One notices several anxieties coming to light in the narrative of Ban Gu’s postface. First among them is, perhaps, his Herculean effort to distinguish his clan from other members of the court who Ban Gu blamed for the state’s decline. One also notices Ban Gu’s attempts to set himself

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apart from his predecessor, Sima Qian. The Ban clan, Gu would have his reader believe, were blameless supporters of the Liu family’s claim to Heaven’s Mandate—a topic that I consider in more detail in the forthcoming chapters. Despite Ban Gu’s efforts to elevate his clan, however, his narrative reveals the dangers and apprehensions that accompany such proximity to the central court. The History of the Han postface contains evidence of Ban Gu’s struggle to legitimize his clan’s place among the elites of political influence. One final point might serve to explain why Ban Gu felt inclined to represent his clan as he did. In his comments in his “Biographies of the Wandering Knights” 游俠傳 postface, Ban Gu disclosed his opinion of that class of people. He wrote, 開國承家，有法有制，家不臧甲，國不專殺．矧乃齊民，作 威作惠，如台不匡，禮法是謂． In founding states and carrying on families, there are laws and regulations. A private family must not keep stores of arms, a state must not impose the death penalty arbitrarily; how much more is this true in the case of ordinary individuals! If they take it upon themselves to terrorize or hand out favors, why not correct them? That is what rites and laws are for.314

With his disdain for wandering knights in mind, it is, indeed, curious that his clansman, Ban Ru, was such a person.315 It is also interesting in light of Gu’s critique of families who keep private stores of arms that Ban Yi was likely the founder of such a family. One can detect Ban Gu’s need to mask such a family image by highlighting his clan’s growing affiliation with the rightful heirs to power, the Lius. However, despite what may be viewed as an effort to supersede his clan’s early legacy by emphasizing such later upright clansmen as Ban Bo, Ban Zhi, and Ban Jieyu, he did seem to genuinely admire and honor his forbears. As the scholar of Han rhyme-prose, Gong Kechang 龔克昌remarked regarding Ban Gu’s attitude toward his ancestors that “Ban Gu constantly holds the memory of his ancestors’ achievement in his heart, and he sternly demands of himself that he not allow his conduct to defile

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their reputation.”316 His esteem for his clan, for instance, is seen in the following lines of his rhyme-prose, “Communicating with the Hidden,” written after his father’s death: 考遘愍以行謠 終保己而貽則兮 里上仁之所廬 懿前烈之純淑兮 窮與達其必濟 When my late father encountered disappointment, he made of it a song. In the end he protected himself and transmitted his principles. He took as a neighborhood the place where supreme benevolence made its dwelling. He regarded as excellent the purity of the former illustrious ones. In both times of poverty and fortune, they were certain to help those in need.317

Ban Gu’s family biography, as I have suggested, is as much an autobiography as it is a biography because as its author, he is its creator. Ban’s narrative representation of his clan is formulaic; they all shared the same virtues and worth. Ban, thus, placed himself within this formula.

CHAPTER 4

INSCRIBING THE SELF: BAN GU’S POSITIONING OF TEXT AND SELF

然史之為任，乃彌綸一代，負海內之責，而嬴是非之尤… 遷固通矣，而歷詆後世，若任情失正，文其殆哉． Indeed, the responsibility of a historian involves the ordering of a dynasty; he is responsible to all the people within the boundaries of the seas, in his shouldering of the burden of pronouncing moral judgment… With all the learning of Sima Qian and Ban Gu, they have been the subjects of criticism for generation after generation. When one lets his private prejudices lead him astray, that is the graveyard of his writing.318 —Liu Xie 劉勰

Ban Gu’s writing, as I have suggested, was structured to represent history to his advantage. Of course, anyone in his context would sense the

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anxieties of occupying an official position at that time; the vicissitudes of imperial favor and disfavor were quite precarious. In several ways Ban Gu did not have the luxury to dwell in an uncomplicated realm of unadorned facts; history needed to be crafted to best position himself in the political climate of a newly restored and still tenuous Han dynasty. Many readers have noticed that Ban’s History of the Han is a somewhat sycophantic work, frequently praising the Liu ruling clan. I agree with such a reading, but more can be said. How, and in what ways, is Ban Gu’s writing apparently sycophantic? Surely his work is more refined than merely functioning as blatant flattery. His intellectual contribution to Han history is actually quite sophisticated, and his apparent toadying is more nuanced than generally noted. Ban Gu wrote while the Han rulers were particularly concerned with the Mandate of Heaven. Wang Mang’s Xin dynasty 新 (AD 9–23) had only recently ended, and the Han court was grasping for legitimacy; the legitimacy the Liu clan desired is precisely what Ban Gu’s work provided. I noted in the previous chapter that at least one reason Ban Gu wrote his book as he did was to position himself safely in an uncertain political climate. In his postface, he emphasized the worth of his family largely in political terms, and it was necessary to do the same regarding himself. Ban Gu had to place himself against the political instability caused by the perceived moral degeneracy that proceeded the Wang Mang era. In his biography of Emperor Ai 哀帝 (r. 6 BC–AD 1), Gu said that the young emperor had witnessed the period of Emperor Cheng, when “blessings/favor” left the imperial house and the emperor’s power was transferred to his maternal relatives.319 Why did the imperial house lose this “favor,” or these “blessings” (lu 祿, alternatively translated as “Heaven’s approving regard”)? Indeed, what does it mean to “lose favor?” Ban Gu recalled that when Emperor Ai “attended court, he frequently executed his great officials, seeking to strengthen the might of the ruler and to imitate Emperors Wu and Xuan” 是故臨朝婁誅大 臣，欲彊主威，以則武，宣.320 The execution of senior ministers and the impulse to imitate previous examples of rule suggest that there were severe problems in the court during Ai’s ascension to the throne.

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Certainly, the corruption of Emperors Cheng and Ai and their ministers had so weakened the court that there were many who welcomed Wang Mang’s usurpation. Ban Gu’s work had to participate in the project of restoring the Han, and one way to legitimize the restored court was to delegitimize Wang Mang. Looking back from the restored Han, it is clear that the court was in decline during the reigns of Cheng and Ai. In his dialogue with Wei Ao, Ban Biao was compelled to admit, “Once we arrive at the reign of Emperor Cheng, he borrowed from the outside families,321 the imperial tenures of Emperors Ai and Ping were cut off, and the state’s inheritance (line of succession) was broken three times” 至於成帝，假借 外家，哀，平短祚，國嗣三絕.322 While the imperial prerogative of Emperor Cheng was “borrowed from the outside families,” the “imperial tenures of Ai and Ping were truncated.” That is to say that, like Cheng, neither Ai nor Ping had heirs-apparent in a normative sense; they had no sons to whom to transfer their reigns. The empire, synonymous with the imperial family, was transferred to boys who were not direct sons of the emperor. The history of the Han emperors preceding Ban Gu was quite messy, and retelling that history necessitated careful navigation. Ban Gu structured his work to reconcile the Han restoration with the Liu clan’s inability to preserve the dynasty and to secure his position in the court. Foremost, he formulated an intellectual paradigm of which the Liu family would approve. His paradigm suggests that the Liu family’s Mandate to govern was not subject to the moral behaviors of its ruling members, nor were the Lius’ actions related to the welfare of the common people. In Ban Gu’s largely novel formulation of the Mandate theory, there is no cause-and-effect relationship between the Liu family’s behavior and the people they rule. Second, Ban Gu constructed a historical model that hinted at dynastic permanence. In Ban Gu’s presentation of history, the Liu family was in permanent possession of Heaven’s Mandate, and thus, critiques of the family were acceptable since they could not challenge the Han’s perpetual rule. This allowed Ban Gu and other ministers to speak openly, eliminating the possibility

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that he could be accused of endangering the state’s privileged position. In Ban Gu’s political view, the Liu family could lose Heaven’s “favor” (lu 祿) without losing “Heaven’s Mandate” (tianming 天命).323 Unlike the model of Heaven’s Mandate outlined in the Documents during the Western Zhou in which Heaven’s sanction could be gained or lost on the basis of moral virtue, Ban Gu’s revised theory visualized a perennial Mandate, one which was and would continue to be attached to the Liu family. Ban Biao had already suggested this theory in his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” One suspects, however, that Ban Gu’s theory may really have been a somewhat sensible maneuver to secure his favor in the court. To help explain Ban Gu’s historical view, I begin with a brief outline of the Han court just before the Wang Mang usurpation. Next, I review five Ban clansmen of this period: Ban Jieyu, Ban Bo, Ban You, Ban Zhi, and Ban Biao—family members who were active in court politics during the reigns of Cheng, Ai, and Ping. During Wang Mang’s rule, the Ban clan had become itinerant, and, as Ban Gu would have his reader view them, they were working toward the restoration of the Han under the rightful rule of the Liu family. Finally, I provide a more extensive biographical sketch of Ban Gu’s life and career, trying to piece together how the earlier history of the Han and his family might have influenced how he crafted his work. Considering the historical context, the state, the Ban clan, and Ban Gu during the transition years from BC to AD, it is quite evident that Ban Gu produced something of a “Humpty-Dumpty history,” intending to put the pieces of the dynasty back together, so to speak. Unlike Sima Qian, who constructed a history of China beginning with the Yellow Emperor and ending with his era, Ban Gu tried to reconstruct and make a dynasty that had just been ruptured by court incompetence, moral decline, and usurpation cohesiveness. Throughout the History of the Han, Ban Gu persistently blamed categories of people he felt contributed to political decline: those who were not orthodox Confucians, those who were not part of the Liu clan yet wished to rule, and those consorts

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of the inner quarters who jockeyed for their power rather than placing state interests first.

ECLIPSE OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY: WANG MANG AND THE LIU EVICTION On January 15, AD 9, the regent of the Han proclaimed himself emperor, dissolving the Liu family’s tenure of the dynasty. Ban Gu wrote in his biography of Wang Mang, 始建國元年正月朔，莽帥公侯卿士夆皇太后璽韍，上太皇太 后，順符命，去漢號焉． In shijianguo era, the first year, the first month, on the first day of the month, Wang Mang led the highest ministers, marquises, high ministers, and gentlemen to offer the imperial seal and ceremonial apron of an Empress Dowager and present it to the Grand Empress Dowager nee Wang, in order to obey the mandate given through the portents and do away with her title from the Han dynasty.324

Wang Mang thus marked the beginning of his reign with the abnegation of the grand empress dowager’s Han designation, making her title relative to his position as the new emperor. Wang Mang then rearranged the court’s structure and named his new dynasty the “Xin.”325 Ban Gu was expected, in light of Wang Mang’s fourteen-year rule, to, nonetheless, argue that the Lius were the real holders of Heaven’s Mandate, and that the Xin was not, in fact, a genuine dynasty but rather an interregnum. Ban Gu, thus, described this as a hostile and carefully calculated usurpation. Still, this event did not emerge ex nihilo, and some fault must be ascribed to the Liu family, a reality that Gu was at pains to reconcile with the need to legitimize the Han. To be sure, several of the antecedents of this “interregnum” are found in the “Annals of Emperor Cheng,” but Ban Gu began his explanation of the Wang Mang usurpation in earnest in his “Annals of Emperor Ai.”

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The consort problems of Cheng’s reign grew into a crisis during Ai’s brief reign. As we have seen, Emperor Cheng surrendered himself to long nights of revelry with his favorite consorts, Zhao Feiyan and Li Ping. Cheng deposed the rightful Empress Xu and installed these two women who, along with several dissolute ministers, distracted the emperor from his duties with long banquets where the “cups of wine never went dry.” As Ban Gu presented the account, his great-uncle, Ban Bo, remonstrated against the emperor’s misconduct, ultimately enlightening him. Despite Ban Bo and Ban Jieyu’s moral influences, however, Cheng’s consorts did not reform their conduct. And perhaps most tragic by Han standards was the fact that the emperor died without a direct heir. The fall of the Western Han was precipitated by the fact that Cheng and Ai died without sons. Since none of Emperor Cheng’s sons survived childhood,326 the grandson of Emperor Yuan’s favorite concubine, Fu Zhaoyi 傅昭億, was selected to ascend the throne, resulting in a power struggle between the women in court that tainted later depictions of imperial consorts.327 In 9 BC Cheng established Emperor Yuan’s grandson, Liu Xin, to be the heir apparent after he had distinguished himself by demonstrating a superior knowledge of ritual during a court interview. After Liu Xin was made heir apparent, his grandmother was ordered to visit her grandson only once every ten days to prevent an overly strong attachment to the distaff members of the future emperor’s family. This would presumably avert any influence Liu Xin’s grandmother might have over her grandson after he had become emperor. But rather than obey this restriction, she visited the heir daily, reaching him surreptitiously through a passageway without making a formal entrance.328 The results of these interactions appear to have empowered the old grandmother once Xin had become Emperor Ai. Once Empress Dowager Fu had the support of her imperial grandson, Ai, she carefully removed her competitors in court. Wang Mang, who had been Emperor Cheng’s advisor, retired after several high level officials in his clan had been removed from their positions of influence. During Emperor Ai’s reign, four principal women vied for power: Empress

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Dowager Fu (Ai’s grandmother), Zhao Feiyan (Cheng’s empress), Grand Empress Dowager Wang (Yuan’s empress and Wang Mang’s aunt), and Empress Dowager Ding (Ai’s mother); it was Empress Dowager Fu who had the most influence over the young emperor. Zhao Feiyan’s position declined after the death of her husband, Emperor Cheng, which effectively removed her only supporter in court. Feiyan was, as Ban Gu portrayed her, a lascivious consort who was above nothing that might enhance her power. Grand Empress Dowager Wang was nominally the most senior woman in court, and in terms of authority, only Emperor Ai had prominence over her. Empress Dowager Fu, however, did not appreciate Wang’s position, for Fu had long worked to acquire the emperor’s favor. The emperor’s mother, Empress Dowager Ding, should have held a significantly higher position, but her influence appears to have been minimal. In addition, Ding was not, as Ban Gu suggested, an especially virtuous person. In an imperial edict issued on June 16, 7 BC, the newly appointed Emperor Ai elevated the ranks of his grandmother and mother as a matter of course. The previous title of his grandmother, Empress Dowager of Ding Tao 定陶太后, was changed to Empress Dowager Gong 恭皇太后, and his mother’s previous title of Concubine Ding 丁姬 was elevated to Empress Gong 恭皇后.329 Their promotions were, for the most part, ritually correct, but as their positions were thus promoted, so were the positions of their respective families. Ding Ming 丁明, the emperor’s distaff uncle, acquired the new post of captain of Yang’an, and the son of his distaff uncle, Ding Man, acquired the post of captain of Pingzhou 平周侯.330 Among the Fu contingent of the emperor’s distaff relatives, the father of Emperor Ai’s consort—later empress—Fu Yan 傅晏, was made captain of Kongxiang 孔鄉侯.331 Other than the Fu and Ding families, only the younger brother of Zhao Feiyan, Zhao Qin 趙欽, was promoted from his previous post to a more prestigious position of captain of Xincheng 新成 侯.332 For the most part, it was the Fu and Ding clans who were gaining the upper hand in court, and in the ethos of the History of the Han, once the women began to control the court, it was certain to collapse. During Emperor Ai’s reign, Grand Empress Dowager Wang remained aloof, preferring to avoid the political maneuverings of the other

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court women. As Ban Gu often did, he juxtaposed the virtuous actions of one consort, in this case of Wang, to other less honorable ones. While Ding, Fu, and Zhao are depicted as conniving consorts, Wang is presented in a positive light. Gu wrote, “The Grand Empress Dowager nee Wang issued an imperial edict that the cultivated fields which had not been used for tombs, belonging to the Wang clan who were imperial relatives by marriage, should all be distributed to the poor people” 太 皇太后詔外家王氏田非冢塋，皆以賦貧民.333 In several of Wang’s appearances in the History of the Han, she is shown to be a virtuous counterpart to the machinations of her “sisters” of the inner courts. Dubs noted, “As one after another of the court officials were removed, the emperor’s mother and grandmother were given higher titles, until there were four Empresses Dowager in court: nee Wang, nee Zhao, nee Fu, and nee Ding.”334 All four of these women contested for power except Wang, who, in the end, outlived the other three. Wang Zhengjun was, indeed, the only powerful woman who survived into the era of the Wang Mang usurpation. In short, by the time Ban Gu began to write the History of the Han, few palace ladies were viewed favorably. Perhaps, only two were known to have been exemplars of “womanly virtue”: Ban Gu’s great-aunt, Ban Jieyu, and Wang Mang’s aunt, the grand empress dowager, Wang Zhengjun. Due to the intrigues of these consorts, court politics reached a high point of ferocious politicking. Zhao killed at least one imperial son, Fu plotted for her grandson’s ascendancy, and Ding cooperated with Fu in violently removing contending families in high positions of influence. Even the collaborations between Fu and Ding did not always prevent rivalries between them. Again, only Wang received Ban Gu’s commendation during the period of Emperor Ai’s troubled rule. But women are not the only members of the court who Ban Gu represented pejoratively; he also criticized the emperors themselves, along with certain ministers. Emperor Ai and his young minister, Dong Xian 董賢 (23–1 BC), figure poorly in Ban’s narrative.335 Emperor Ai was infatuated with Dong Xian to such an extent that his ability to govern was threatened by his distraction. In view of Ban

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Gu’s unflattering account of Ai’s rule, his final comments at the close of the “Basic Annals of Emperor Ai” are interesting. Ban Gu wrote, “In his nature Ai was not fond of music or female beauty” 雅性不好 聲色.336 Emperor Ai may well be the most famous homosexual ruler in China’s long history, and he is described as credulous. The emperor censured the court intellectual, Xia Heliang 夏賀良 (?–5 BC), after being “deceived” by him on a matter regarding the dynastic Mandate.337 In another instance, Ai tried to abdicate his throne to his young lover based on a loose interpretation of dynastic change. Finally, Ban Gu’s narrative suggests that Ai’s sexual fascination with his minister caused him to neglect court affairs, hastening the state’s decline. Perhaps the best place to begin a discussion of Ban Gu’s unfavorable account of Emperor Ai’s misrule is with his attachment to Dong Xian. Ban Gu outlined the intimate relationship between the emperor and Dong Xian in chapter 93, “Biographies of the Obsequious”—a rather unfavorable chapter. 董賢字聖卿，雲陽人也．父恭，為御史，任賢為太子舍人． 哀帝立，賢隨太子官為郎．二歲餘，賢傳漏在殿下，為人美 麗自喜，哀帝望見，說其儀貌，識而問之，曰：「是舍人董 賢邪？」因引上與語，拜為黃門郎，繇是始幸． Dong Xian’s style was Shengqing; he was from Yunyang.338 His father, Dong Gong, was a secretary.339 Dong Xian was employed as a member of the suite of the heir apparent. Once Aidi had become the emperor, Xian, as he was among the heir apparent’s retinue, was accordingly made a gentleman. After two years, Xian was recording readings from the clepsydra within the hall. Xian was beautiful and enchanting, and Emperor Ai gazed at him, delighting in his manner. The emperor recognized him and asked about him saying, “Is he not Dong Xian, the member of the suite?” He was accordingly led to the emperor and they spoke to each other. Xian was promoted to gentleman of the yellow gates. Thus began his favor.340

After Ai became emperor, he transferred Xian into the imperial palace and promoted him to gentleman in order to keep him close. Significantly,

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Ban Gu highlighted their meeting as one focused upon appearance rather than intellectual or moral merit; Gu generally described persons he approved of in terms of their intellectual talents, and he carefully limited his description of Dong to his physical appearance and the emperor’s attraction to him. After Dong Xian’s promotion, he experienced a meteoric rise in favor and political status. Ban Gu continued, 問及其父為雲中侯，即日徵為霸陵令，遷光祿大夫．賢寵愛 日甚，為駙馬都尉侍中，出則參乘，入御左右，旬月間賞賜 絫鉅萬，貴震朝廷． Emperor Ai asked about Xian’s father, and discovered that he was merely the captain of Yunzhong; by the end of the day the emperor summoned him to be prefect of Baling.341 Dong Gong was then promoted to the post of imperial household grandee. Ai’s doting love for Xian grew deeper daily, and he was made the chief commandant of attendant cavalry palace attendant; leaving, they were together in the chariot, and returning, they were side by side. Within ten months, Dong Xian had been given great rewards and his wealth shook the court.342

The growing closeness between the emperor and his Dong Xian was clearly one through which Dong and his family benefited. Not only was Xian’s father promoted the very day the emperor asked about him but Xian also was presented with a post, palace attendant, that facilitated close proximity. The emperor and Xian were inseparable.343 The highest extent of the emperor’s diversions from political responsibilities was not caused by his fondness for Xian in the public sphere but, rather, his attachments to his minister within the imperial bedchamber. This aspect of their relationship was, for Ban Gu and his colleagues in court, the greatest problem of Emperor Ai’s reign, not because of any particular moral disdain for homosexuality but because it kept Ai from his imperial court duties and producing sons. In one of the most famous anecdotes in the History of the Han, Ban Gu recalled an account involving the emperor’s sleeve through which to criticize the ruler’s infatuation

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with a minister who was supposed to be an impartial advisor rather than a distraction from court responsibilities. 常與上臥起．嘗晝寢，偏藉上袖，上欲起，賢未覺，不欲動 賢，乃斷袖而起．其恩愛至此． Dong Xian normally slept and arose with the emperor. On one occasion while they were napping during the day, Xian was reclining atop the emperor’s sleeve. The emperor desired to get up, and as Xian was not yet awake, and as he did not wish to disrupt him, the emperor cut off his sleeve and arose. Emperor Ai’s favor and love for Xian reached such an extreme!344

This account appears to be a subtle—or not—critique of the emperor’s inclinations away from his rightful arena, the court. While there exist other passages in the History of the Han and Records of the Grand Historian that discuss male “favorites” of Han emperors, few speak so explicitly. Ban Gu and Sima Qian included chapters on male favorites, and as Sima wrote, “…it is not women alone who can use their looks to attract the eyes of the ruler; courtiers and eunuchs can play that game as well. Many were the men of ancient times who gained favor in this way” 非獨女以色媚，而士官亦有之。昔以色幸者多矣.345 Dong Xian’s influence extended further than the imperial bedchamber. Xian’s residence, being some distance from the palace, became an inconvenience for their frequent reunions, and so Ai had Xian’s wife and children moved into the palace, where she also was given free access to the emperor’s inner quarters. In addition, Dong Xian’s sister was taken as a consort for the emperor and given the honorary title of zhaoyi 昭億 (brilliant companion). Xian’s father continued to receive promotions, and his father-in-law was made a court architect and commissioned to construct a tomb for Xian near the one planned to contain the body of Emperor Ai; Xian could, thus, remain near the emperor even in death. Armed escorts were assigned to protect Dong Xian, and his living areas were opulently furnished, probably exceeding normative standards.

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Emperor Ai’s court was replete with intrigues and associations, and his affection for Dong Xian was only one strand of the greater problem. Ban Gu narrated an event that highlights how far Ai’s thoughts were from his duties as emperor: 上置酒麒麟殿，賢父子親屬宴飲，王閎兄弟侍中中常侍皆 在側．上有酒所，從容視賢笑，曰：「吾欲法堯禪舜，何 如？」閎進曰：「天下乃高皇帝天下，非陛下之有也．陛下 承宗廟，當傳子孫於亡窮．統業至重，天子亡戲言！」上默 然不說，左右皆恐．於是遣閎出，後不得復侍宴． The emperor had a wine banquet set out in Unicorn Hall in the Weiyang Palace.346 Dong Xian, Dong Gong, and other kinsmen were present, drinking at the banquet. Also, Wang Quji, the palace attendant, and Wang Hong, the regular palace attendant, were both beside the emperor.347 The emperor was in his cups and loosened up. He observed Dong Xian’s smile and said (or, “said smiling”), “I wish to give the throne to Xian on the precedent of Yao’s abdication to Shun; what of this?” Wang Hong advanced and said, “The kingdom is still the kingdom of Emperor Gao, and is not yours to bequeath. You have inherited the ancestral temple, and it is proper that you transmit your rule to your descendants in perpetuity. The imperial prerogative is of grave importance and the Son of Heaven must not speak in jest like this.” The emperor was silent and angry, and the retainers were all afraid. Accordingly, Wang Hong was sent away, and afterward he never again served the emperor at a banquet.348

In terms of literary merit, Ban Gu set the scene quite nicely. Before recalling this account, he provided a brief historical introduction to the major players of the event. Wang Quji 王去疾 and his younger brother, Hong, attended to the emperor, serving immediately on either side. Dong Gong and his son, Xian, were also imbibing in the Unicorn Hall. Naturally, the emperor was in attendance, and as Ban Gu implicitly suggested, he was surrounded by a bevy of young favorites vying for his attention. But there is more to this scene than a mere banquet. Wang Hong 王閎 is the hero in Gu’s narrative. He is the most junior attendant at the banquet and the only one with the mettle to remonstrate

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against Emperor Ai’s reckless proposal. Ban Gu’s account highlights Ai’s fixation on Xian and the apparent disregard he has for the empire he is supposed to be ruling. Gu seems to suggest here that Aidi would forfeit the empire for a smile. Ai’s court had experienced the machinations of consorts and the implicit competitions of a group of young male retainers, Dong Xian chief among them. Ai’s willingness to forfeit his rule was not only a playful jest, for on at least one other occasion, but also he demonstrated his willingness to believe that his Mandate had expired. However, before addressing that event, I should account for Dong Xian’s pitiable destiny in court. Ban Gu presented an ignoble end for the “flatterer,” Dong Xian, underpinning Xian’s ineptitude as an advisor and, worse, as a Confucian. The History of the Han recalls that after Emperor Ai had died––Xian’s only secure connection to power––the grand empress dowager summoned Dong Xian to an audience. One needs to bear in mind that she was Wang Mang’s aunt and that during Ai’s reign, Mang had become estranged from court life, replaced by the young and handsome Dong Xian. The reason for the grand empress dowager’s summons was ostensibly to request that Xian handle the affairs of the funeral and mourning for the deceased emperor, a responsibility under the jurisdiction of his appointed position. Ban Gu commented that after she stated her request, “Dong was internally anxious and could not respond; he removed his cap respectfully and apologized” 賢內憂，不能對，免冠謝.349 In response to Dong Xian’s incompetence, the grand empress dowager replied, “The captain of Xindu, Wang Mang, was formerly the commander in chief, and was recommended to handle the former emperor’s funeral arrangements. He is well informed regarding ancient precedents, so I will order him to assist you” 新都侯莽前大司馬奉送先帝大行，曉習故事，吾令莽佐君.350 Intentionally or not, she humiliated Dong Xian and found a pretense to restore her nephew to his former involvement in court. Wang Mang was depicted as a model Confucian expert in ritual affairs whereas Dong Xian was made a fool. Ban Gu stated that after the grand empress dowager’s reply to Xian’s reticence, “Xian bowed his head in response to his immense good

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fortune” 賢頓首幸甚.351 Following this exchange and Wang Mang’s return to court, Dong Xian’s demise occurred quickly, and the accusations launched at Xian grow in the remainder of the account. In the end, Dong Xian was accused of not providing adequate medical assistance to the ailing emperor, and his seals of state were revoked. Xian understood the precariousness of his situation in court without his imperial patron to protect him, and he promptly committed suicide along with his wife. Thus ends the narrative of Emperor Ai and his intimate advisor. Ban Gu provided a sardonic critique of the emperor’s distractions from court, caused by an attractive but inept young official. Emperor Ai’s credulity regarding Heaven’s Mandate was an important antecedent to Wang Mang’s usurpation, and Mang’s arrogation of the state had a large influence on how Ban Gu positioned himself in his career and writing. The historical events that brought about the fall of the Western Han and the rise of Wang Mang influenced how Ban Gu recalled those events. In July of 5 BC Xia Heliang, along with several other courtiers, claimed that the Mandate of the Han was in jeopardy, and a lengthy passage illustrates Emperor Ai’s apparent willingness to accept spurious predictions about Heaven’s Mandate. 侍詔夏賀良等言赤精子之讖，漢家曆運中衰，當再受命，宜 改元易號．詔曰：「漢興二百載，曆數開元．皇天降非材之 佑，漢國再獲受命之符，朕之不德，曷敢不通！夫基事之元 命，必與天下自新，其大赦天下．以建平二年為太初元將元 年．號曰陳聖劉太平皇帝．漏刻以百二十為度．」 The Expectant Appointee Xia Heliang and others spoke of revelations from Chijingzi, that the Han dynasty had come upon a time of decay in the midst of the period of time allotted to it by its destiny, so that it must again receive the Mandate of Heaven; hence it was proper that the Emperor should change the year-period and alter his title.352 The imperial edict said, “The Han dynasty arose two hundred years ago, and many times in succession it has begun new year-periods. August Heaven has sent down its aid to Us who have no ability, so that the Han dynasty’s estate should a second time be permitted to have the portents for receiving the Mandate of Heaven. Though We are not virtuous, who are We that We

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should dare not to listen to the will of Heaven? Now that We are to receive this great Mandate which is the foundation of all government, We must certainly give everyone in the empire an opportunity to renew himself. Let a general amnesty be granted to the empire. Let the second year of the period Jianping become the first year of the period Taichuyuanjiang. Let Our title be the Sovereign Emperor of Great Peacefulness Who Makes Known the Sageness of the Liu House. For the graduations of the clepsydra, let 120 gradations per day be used as the measure of their size.”353

One significant aspect of this passage is how extreme and ready is Ai’s response to Heliang’s fallacious assertion. He issued a general amnesty, changed the calendar, and changed his title—all largely suggesting an implicit rupture with the previous line of Liu emperors. Later in September of the same year, the emperor revoked his endorsement of Heliang’s recommendations, admitting that following his advice was a mistake. Emperor Ai, furthermore, stated that Heliang and his colleagues had all “gone contrary to the Classics, and turned their backs on ancient practices” 違經背古.354 Ai must have felt some humiliation as he rescinded all of the changes made in this edict, save the general amnesty. Ban Gu’s overall depiction of Emperor Ai is unfavorable. Emperor Ai was not a son of the previous ruler. He was under the control of his conniving grandmother. He seems to have enjoyed a bevy of male “favorites” around himself. He disregarded his duties in court due to his fondness for “cutting the sleeve.” He offered to abdicate and surrender the kingdom to his young lover, a man who was supposed to be an unbiased advisor. And finally, he was credulous in matters regarding the Liu family’s Mandate to rule. The palace women were no better. They disregarded court etiquette (Fu), indulged in lascivious pastimes (Zhao), and murdered one or more imperial sons (Zhao). The only apparently virtuous people of the palace appear to have been Wang Zhengjun, Wang Mang, Wang Hong, and Ban Jieyu. It appears that according to the view of Heaven’s Mandate contemporary to Emperor Ai’s rule, the Liu family had lost all moral claims to the kingdom. According to the standards of Heaven’s Mandate outlined

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earlier in the Documents, the Han was amidst its final collapse and the court was soon to fall. The ensuing reign of Emperor Ping was little more than a period wherein Wang Mang finally marshaled his forces while the Liu family’s claim to the empire diminished. Ban Gu’s portrait of the closing years of the Western Han is bleak. The decline of the Liu family’s political tenure and the subsequent usurpation by an apparently devoted Confucian erudite are elements of influence over Ban Gu’s selfidentity, so important that they cannot be passed over before discussing Gu’s biography. As I have said, Ban was a member of a clan that had, at one time, close alliances with Wang Mang, who was, by his time, villainized as a usurper and a false Confucian. Ban Gu could not help but address the Wang Mang era and the Liu clan’s tenure of Heaven’s Mandate as he wrote his work.

CONSTRUCTING WANG MANG: DUPLICITY, OMENOLOGY, AND DESPOTISM Wang Mang’s rise to power remains a subject of scholarly disagreement; was he a virtuous Confucian who ascended the throne at a time of necessity, or was he merely a careerist during the end of the Western Han?355 Whatever the case, it was necessary for Ban Gu to portray him as a usurper to please his imperial patrons and to justify his father’s and his view that the Liu family was the true and only inheritor of Heaven’s Mandate. There is little doubt that Mang’s rise to power and subsequent rule rendered the extant Heaven’s Mandate paradigm problematic during the late Western Han. Ban Gu’s work responded to Wang Mang’s use of this theory to validate his arrogation of the court, first, by discrediting Wang Mang’s claims to have received Heaven’s Mandate and, second, by reconfiguring the paradigm in order to preclude such claims in the future. One of Gu’s major narrative themes is Wang Mang’s duplicity. Ban Gu purported to reveal Mang’s “inner intentions” to empower himself as regent and then emperor. He also suggested that Mang falsified portents in order to verify his receipt of Heaven’s Mandate, and so Ban Gu portrayed him as a false Confucian who was, in reality, a despotic

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ruler who did not recoil from such cruelties as executing his sons, nephew, and other family members he thought might threaten his rising political strength. Just as Cao Cao 曹操(AD 155–220), perhaps, unfairly became typecast as one of China’s great villains, so too did Wang Mang become villainized in Ban Gu’s History of the Han. Ten events provide a general summary of Ban’s depiction of Wang Mang’s rise and fall. It should be kept in mind that Wang served Emperor Cheng for more than four months before the emperor’s death in 7 BC and was then expelled from court by consort machinations and by Ai, who replaced him with Dong Xian. First, Wang Mang was restored to the highest position as advisor after Ai died in 1 BC.356 Second, Wang Mang made himself a regent, modeled after the Duke of Zhou 周公. Ban Gu’s account of his rise to regency hints at Mang’s duplicity and careerism. Gu asserted that once Wang Mang had ingratiated himself by various means with the common people, 眾庶 “he also wanted the right to decide matters on his own authority. Mang knew that the Grand Empress Dowager had no taste for governing, so he gave a hint to the ministers to write memorials recommending Mang run the state” 又欲專斷，知 太后厭政，乃風公卿奏.357 The grand empress dowager, thus, produced an edict proclaiming Wang Mang the “Duke Pacifying the Han” 安漢 公 and gave him the operating power of governance. Even though Wang Mang had effective control of the court, he was not formally made regent until AD 6. Third, in 5 BC and AD 3 Wang Mang forced his sons, Wang Huo 王獲 (c. 33–3 BC) and Wang Yu 王宇 (?–3 BC), to commit suicide, demonstrating the cruelty of which he was capable.358 Fourth, he succeeded in having his daughter married to the reigning Emperor Ping to assure his clan’s influence in court politics. Fifth, various ministers who were in favor of Wang Mang taking the throne reported––or perhaps contrived––a series of portents. These portents began in earnest in AD 5 when more than nine hundred ministers presented a memorial extolling Wang Mang and recommending that he be given a series of nine gifts.359 The most remarkable part of this memorial is the statement that during the time of Wang Mang’s hold over the court, there were portents

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from Heaven, including “more than seven hundred auspicious presages of unicorns, phoenixes, tortoises, and dragons” 麟鳳龜龍，眾祥之瑞， 七百有餘.360 It is remarkable that such a memorial could have passed without suspicion since the appearance of such beasts, especially the unicorn, was known to have augured the arrival of a new Mandate, that is, a new dynasty.361 Sixth, a court gentleman, Zhai Yi 翟義 (?–AD 7), opposed Mang’s regency in an abortive rebellion in AD 7, during which he advertised that Wang Mang had secretly killed the young Emperor Ping.362 Zhai set up Liu Xin 劉信 as the Son of Heaven to reverse Wang’s destruction of the ruling Han.363 The seventh major event was Wang Mang’s final usurpation of the throne in AD 9. This move was precipitated by a falsified portent in the form of a brazen casket produced by an obsequious courtier named Ai Zhang 哀章 (?–AD 23).364 The eighth significant event is the Red Eyebrow uprising, a crisis that proved insurmountable for Wang Mang. This uprising was caused by famine; as Ban Gu stated, “In this year (AD 18), Li Zidu, Fan Chong, and others of the Red Eyebrows gathered together because of the famine and arose in Langye commandery.365 They moved about and robbed. Their bands all numbered in the ten-thousands” 是 歲，赤眉力子都，樊崇等以饑饉相聚，起於琅邪，轉鈔掠，眾皆 萬數.366 In the end, it was a combination of trying to control this uprising and providing relief for several natural disasters, including an invasion of locusts in the capital (AD 22), that weakened Mang’s resources until his dynasty could no longer stand.367 As Dubs asserted, “The real cause for Wang Mang’s fall was the failure of his government to meet the strains put upon it.”368 Ninth, demonstrating rising support for the Liu family, several military groups established Liu Xuan 劉玄 (Shenggong 聖公) as emperor in AD 23, changing the reign era to Gengshi 更始. The tenth and decidedly final event that highlights Wang Mang’s fall from power is his execution in 23, on October 6, atop the Jiantai 漸臺 (Terrace of Permeation/ Bathing?).369 Ban Gu appears to have been most distressed by Wang Mang’s use of forged portents in order to claim Heaven’s Mandate. The Wang Mang narrative in the History of the Han serves well to highlight

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how and, more importantly, why Ban Gu structured his history as he did. To make his case that Mang was a false Confucian and that he was capable of manipulating events to mask his inner intentions, Gu recorded events that emphasize Wang Mang’s two-sided character; he often did this anecdotally. For example, the History of the Han records a minor event wherein Mang purchased a female servant under dubious circumstances, an event that occurred before he founded the Xin. 嘗私買侍婢，昆弟370或頗聞知，莽因曰：「後將軍朱子元無 子，莽聞此兒種宜子，為買之．」即日以婢奉子元．其匿情 求名如此． Wang Mang once privately purchased a waiting-maid. Some of his cousins came to know something about it. Because of that, Mang said, “The General of the Rear, Zhu Bo Ziyuan, has no sons.371 I, Mang, heard that this girl’s line is fruitful in bearing sons, so I purchased her for him.” The same day he presented the slave-girl to Zhu Bo Ziyuan. In the forgoing manner he hid his desires and sought for fame.372

This passage raises several questions, not the least of which is how Ban Gu could have known the details of this event. No less curious is Ban Gu’s comfort in describing Wang’s inner intentions. But, nevertheless, it is what the reader is intended to glean from the account that matters; Wang Mang “hid his desires and sought for fame.” Not only did Gu imply that Wang Mang had an inappropriate passion for women but also that he was capable of manipulating events and impressions in order to marshal alliances. Ban Gu guided his reader’s attention to what lies beneath the surface of Wang Mang’s “generosity.” How is one to interpret Wang Mang’s apparent acts of self-denial and Confucian air of continence and parsimony? Ban Gu suggested that Wang Mang “wished to make his fame and reputation surpass that of his predecessors, hence he denied himself tirelessly” 欲令名譽過 前人，遂克己不倦.373 In this vein, Wang Mang continued to redistribute most of the favors and grants that he had received from the emperor. He incessantly refused official positions and emoluments in order to, as Ban Gu would have his reader believe, ingratiate himself

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with those he deemed beneficial to his agenda. Certainly, once Mang became emperor of his dynasty, his extravagances were impressive, commissioning several expensive building projects and dispatching large numbers of troops to strengthen his new empire. Wang Mang was, moreover, portrayed as manipulative, taking frequent advantage of weak-minded officials. Of Wang Mang’s principal supporters in court, Kong Guang 孔光 (65 BC–AD 5); Wang Shou 王受; Zhen Feng 甄豐 (?–10 BC); Zhen Han 甄邯 (?–AD 12); and Sun Jian 孫建 (?–AD 15), the descendant of Confucius, Kong Guang best illustrates Mang’s ability to duplicitously manipulate people and events in his favor.374 Kong, an erudite official, was vigorously promoted and frequently used by Mang to present memorials that favored his private cause to the grand empress dowager in Kong’s name. In 1 BC Wang Mang tried to remove the emperor’s maternal relatives and anyone else who may have obstructed his rise to power. Thus, he produced memorials requesting their dismissal or punishment, left them unsigned, and gave them to Kong Guang to present to his aunt. While Kong provided an erudite Confucian patina to the court, his character was, nonetheless, weak and easily manipulated. Ban Gu stated that when Wang Mang presented his unsigned memorials to Kong, he was unquestionably compliant. Gu described Kong as “habitually timid and cautious, and so he did not dare to refuse to send in these memorials as his own” 素畏慎，不敢不上之.375 Ban Gu also noted, “Each time they were received, Wang Mang advised the Grand Empress Dowager to assent to these memorials” 莽白太后，輒可其奏.376 Wang Mang manipulated the actions of his colleague, Kong, and his aunt, the grand empress dowager. One final example of Wang Mang’s motives illustrates that his ambition to usurp the throne did not mature until late in his regency. His daughter’s betrothal to Emperor Ping suggests that early on, Mang only intended to empower himself and his clan rather than establish his dynasty. After Wang Mang had suppressed the Zhai Yi rebellion of AD 7, Ban Gu recorded that Wang’s hubris began to grow. Wang Mang’s decision to usurp was not immediate but grew as circumstances continued to confirm the Han collapse. Ban Gu wrote,

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莽即滅翟義，自謂威德日盛，獲天人助，遂謀即真之事矣. Since Wang Mang had annihilated Zhai Yi, he himself considered that his majesty and virtue was increasing daily and that he had secured the assistance of Heaven and of men, so he plotted to ascend the throne as the actual emperor.377

Ban Gu suggested that Wang Mang began planning how to take the empire only a year before he, in fact, usurped the throne. As if to accentuate Mang’s self-centeredness, Ban Gu immediately followed with an account of the death of Wang Mang’s mother, whose death Mang hardly acknowledged. Mang’s followers were compelled to present a memorial on his behalf to the grand empress dowager, “justifying” his nonchalance toward his mourning rites for his mother based on a contrived pretext. Wang Mang was a self-absorbed conspirator in Ban Gu’s narrative, duplicitous and insensitive to his clansmen, even to his mother. One senses that Ban went a little overboard in his attempts to disconnect any attachments his clan might have previously had to Mang. Omenology, which had become a Han preoccupation after Dong Zhongshu argued that portents were signs of Heaven’s censure or approbation, became an obsession for Wang Mang and his faction in the courts of Emperor Ping and the infant emperor, Ruzi Ying 孺子嬰 (r. AD 6–8). The memorial in which it was reported that, “auspicious omens, such as unicorns, phoenixes, tortoises, and dragons” had been observed numbering more than seven hundred was clearly an exaggeration intended as evidence of Mang’s favor with Heaven. The memorial also shows how deeply Mang’s influence was over the courtiers and how influential the Heaven’s Mandate and Five Phase theories had become during the Western Han. Dubs asserted that these two theories …made intelligent people think that a change in the dynasty was inevitable. The succession of the powers moreover made them think it would be possible to predict the next dynasty. Fire produces earth. The Wang clan claimed descent from the Yellow Lord, who had the virtue of earth.378 This genealogy almost certainly antedated Wang Mang; it seems to have been merely a noble clan’s attempt to exalt itself by claiming divine descent.379

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The Heaven’s Mandate paradigm was by Mang’s time enmeshed with the Five Phase theory, in which each phase was believed to either create or destroy the ensuing phase. It is beyond the scope of my discussion to exhaustively consider the complexities of these theories; it suffices to say that the Han had previously adopted the phase Fire in 104 BC, and Wang Mang claimed that his phase was Earth, the product of Fire.380 There was a solar eclipse in 12 BC accompanied by cloudless thunder that concerned the court intellectuals. Gu Yong 谷永 (?–8 BC) suggested in response to this eclipse that the virtue of Fire was waning while that of Earth was waxing.381 Gu Yong’s memorial, like an earlier one in the same vein by Gan Zhongke 甘忠可 that predicted the end of the Han, was seen by Wang Mang as a source of legitimacy for his claims to the empire.382 Several scholars who wished to support his ascendancy recorded omens just before Wang Mang’s usurpation. The first portent explicitly claiming that Wang Mang had been given Heaven’s Mandate occurred in AD 6. Ban Gu recounted, 是月，前煇光謝囂奏武功長孟通浚井得白石，上圓下方，有 丹書著石，文曰：「告安漢公莽為皇帝．」符命之起，自此 始矣． In this month, the Displayer of Splendor in the South, Xie Xiao,383 memorialized that the Chief of Wugong prefecture, Meng Tong,384 while a well was being dug, had secured a white stone, round above the square below, with red writing on the stone. The writing said, “An instruction to the Duke Giving Tranquility to the Han Dynasty, Wang Mang, that he should become the Emperor.” The coming of mandates from Heaven through portents began indeed with this one.385

Iconographically the circle was representative of Heaven 天 and the square was representative of Earth 地. The shape of this stone is reminiscent of the Neolithic bi 璧 discs and cong 琮 tubes unearthed from several ancient Chinese tombs. This stone, by its very shape, carried certain divine connotations, probably purposefully employed to add legitimacy and importance to the stone “discovered” by Meng Tong. Ban Gu

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followed this account with a response, not by Wang Mang, but by his aunt, the grand empress dowager, in order to make his judgment known via a borrowed voice. Ban Gu noted that after Xie Xiao 謝囂 memorialized Meng Tong’s 孟通 “discovery,” Wang Mang hastily forwarded the document to his aunt, who responded, “This thing is trumped up to deceive the empire. Its message cannot be put to practice” 此誣罔天 下，不可施行.386 Her response is, indeed, a quick repudiation of the omen’s validity. In AD 8 several officials, including Liu Jing 劉京 (AD ?–81), Hu Yun 扈暈, and Zang Hong 臧鴻, presented additional memorials claiming that Wang Mang had received Heaven’s Mandate through numerous portents issued by Heaven, and Ban Gu wrote that Mang accepted them all.387 Hereafter, the tenor of Wang’s interactions with his aunt displays his growing confidence that he should rightly become the new emperor. After he had received the memorial from the courtiers, Wang Mang submitted another document to his aunt, the Grand Empress Dowager Wang, about a separate portent, this time in the form of a dream experienced by the chief of Changxing Ting (commune) 昌興亭, Xin Dang 辛當.388 This memorial reported that during one night, Xin Dang had several dreams in which a herald from Heaven appeared to him and said, 「吾，天公使也．天公使我告亭長曰：『攝皇帝當為真．』 即不信我，此亭中當有新井．」亭長晨起視亭中，誠有新 井，入地且百尺． I am a messenger from his excellency Heaven. His excellency Heaven sent me to inform you, Chief of the Commune, saying, “The Regent-Emperor is due to be the actual Emperor.” If you do not believe me, in this commune there is due to be a new well. The Chief of the Commune arose at dawn and looked, and in the Commune there actually was a new well, which entered into the earth for almost a hundred feet.389

Other portents followed, such as when a stone ox 石牛 from Ba commandery 巴郡 with an inscription magically appeared in front the Weiyang Palace.390 Furthermore, while a group of officials were looking at

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these objects, a divine wind blew in a dust cloud that revealed a message on silk proclaiming that Wang Mang should “inherit the Mandate of Heaven” 承天命.391 The ubiquity of portents by this point reveals a large effort to make Wang Mang the emperor, which finally occurred in January AD 9. Ban Gu suggested, however, that all of the portents assigning Heaven’s Mandate to Wang Mang were fallacious and that the commoners were not fooled by Mang’s claims.392 The ease with which these portents were fabricated and believed appears to have inspired Ban Gu and his father, Biao, to reconfigure the Mandate theory in such a way as to make it an immutable sanction. Of all of Ban Gu’s critiques directed at Wang Mang, the most relevant to Gu’s agenda was Mang’s propensity to follow—or contrive—false portents. For Ban Gu and his father, Biao, moral indiscretions were not of themselves criteria for discrediting one’s receipt of Heaven’s sanction, but proving that one has falsified signs of Heaven’s Mandate is ample evidence to discredit his or her Mandate claim. An important detail that is often overlooked is that Ban Gu’s character attacks on Wang Mang are intended less to assert Mang’s ineligibility to receive the Mandate than to establish his inclination to falsify it. The History of the Han’s depiction of the founder of the Xin dynasty is one of a self-centered, conspiring, and despotic person who would manipulate weak-minded officials, such as Kong Guang; promote false portents; and have his sons and grandchildren executed to contrive a reputation of being upright or eliminate political rivals. Everything Ban Gu pointed to in his portrayal of Wang Mang in some way supports his claim that Wang never, in fact, acquired Heaven’s Mandate. After reading Gu’s sustained discrediting of Mang’s claim to the empire, one wonders how much of this view was inherited from the Ban family.

INHERITING FAMILY PRINCIPLES IN THE W AKE OF P OLITICAL C OLLAPSE The History of the Han’s presentation of Wang Mang and other matters of historical record did not appear out of nowhere but were, rather,

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crafted by Ban Gu who, like all historians, viewed history through the lens of his immediate context. Ban Gu’s narrative reveals all too much of his family’s views. The collapse of the Han’s edifice of control, the crisis surrounding the Mandate theory precipitated by Wang Mang’s usurpation, and the inherited Ban family principles are all matters that influenced Ban Gu’s representation of the past. I have already discussed the Han collapse and Mang’s use of the Mandate ideal; all that remains before I focus on Ban Gu are some brief comments on his ancestors, specifically those who lived just prior to himself. Five Ban clansmen, in particular, were present during the final years of the Western Han and Wang Mang’s subsequent usurpation: Ban Jieyu, Ban Bo, Ban You, Ban Zhi, and Ban Biao. These clansmen represent an unwavering support for the Liu clan, and as I have demonstrated, their model of imperial support places remonstration and critique above obsequious flatteries and acquiescence. The Ban family’s repeated corrections of Liu family indiscretions should not be viewed as a retraction of support. The previous chapter demonstrated how Ban Jieyu, Emperor Cheng’s consort, declined the emperor’s invitation to ride with him in the imperial chariot and rendered an intrepid remonstration that compared his invitation to the kings of antiquity who had lost the ability to sustain their rule. Like all of her fellow clansmen, her remonstration was a form of loyal correction rather than a withdrawal of fidelity. Ban Bo’s relationship with the Liu family appears in two passages in the History of the Han, considered also in the previous chapter. In the first account, Bo saved the court from difficulties at Dingxiang, where he hosted a banquet to solicit information about malefactors in that area. The second account in many ways mirrors the interaction of Ban Jieyu, his sister, with the emperor. Ban Bo was portrayed as a corrective agent to the emperor’s distractions from his duties. Bo, using the example of a painting of “a drunken king Zhou [of Shang/Yin] dallying with his consort, Da Ji,” cited examples from the Classic of Odes and Documents, thus reforming the emperor’s habits. Bo’s brother, Ban You, also distinguished himself during the reign of Emperor Cheng. His greatest mark of achievement, it appears, was

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his receipt of a duplicate library of the emperor’s private collection, establishing the Ban family as leaders in the scholarly community. Ban You’s contribution to the Ban clan’s prestige seems to have been his intellectual qualifications, presumably inclined, as were his other family members, to support the Liu family as an erudite official. Bo’s brother, Ban Zhi, is still another example of the Ban clan’s influential connection to the Liu family. Ban Zhi’s account, however, extends beyond the reign of Cheng into the troubled rule of the distracted Emperor Ai. Ban Gu emphasized Ban Zhi’s loyalty to the Liu clan while Wang Mang plotted his future rule of the court. Despite Zhi’s early intimacy with Wang, he appears increasingly critical as Wang disclosed his agenda. As Wang Mang began his operation to empower himself by removing—mostly by incriminating—potential adversaries, Ban Gu recorded that his grandfather, Zhi, lost his former esteem for Wang Mang. Gu wrote that Zhi despised how he “harmed the sagely Way” of the Liu family.393 Finally, Ban Biao demonstrated his support for the Liu clan during the Xin dynasty in his work, the “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” Ban Biao’s doctrine of a Mandate that is permanently attached to the Liu family was influential in Ban Gu’s intellectual and political formation. If Gu’s work as a historian began as a continuation of his father’s ambition to complete a satisfactory history of the Han, then Biao’s views certainly found their way into Ban Gu’s writing. What then were the family principles Ban Gu inherited? The answer is, perhaps, found in Ban Gu’s postface, where we see that he became the foremost heir to his clan’s appreciation of classical erudition and values. This is repeatedly reaffirmed in his postface; even the Daoist Ban Si was originally trained in the classical tradition. Finally, and most important to my suggestions, Ban Gu inherited his family’s adamant support of the Liu family as the inheritors of Heaven’s approval.

BAN GU: FILIAL SON

AND

FAVORED HISTORIAN

Ban Gu was born in the wake of the terrible collapse of the central court. The last few Western Han emperors had facilitated Wang Mang’s

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usurpation by their neglect of state affairs, and after fourteen years of interregnum and uprisings, the long-awaited restoration of the Han had just been achieved. Ban Gu’s early childhood was lived during the early restoration years, and his childhood was no doubt influenced by his father’s recollections of the previous decades of decline and conflict. One source of information regarding Ban Gu’s life is Fan Ye’s short discussion of Gu and his work.394 He wrote, 固字孟堅．年九歲，能屬文誦詩賦，及長，遂博貫載籍，九 流百家之言，無不窮究，所學無長師，不為章句，舉大意而 已．性寬和容眾，不以才能高人，諸儒以此慕之． Gu’s style was Mengjian. When he was nine he could write prose, and recite poems and rhyme-proses. Once he had grown, he acquired a broad understanding and respect for textual works and the sayings of the Nine Philosophical Schools and Hundred Schools, and there was none that he did not exhaustively study.395 He did not acquire what he had learned from a steady teacher. He did not write in “chapter and verse” style, but simply brought out the greater meaning. Ban Gu was by nature magnanimous, accommodating, and accepting of all, and he did not elevate himself above others based on his own talents. Because of these things, all of the Confucians admired him.396

While he may have been wealthy, aristocratic, and bookish, according to Fan, he was not unkind, smug, or pedantic. Ban Gu recorded little about himself in his History of the Han. He has limited his entire autobiography to two short passages, one connected to his account of his father’s death and another summarizing circumstances before he wrote his “hypothetical discourse,” the “Response to a Guest’s Jest” 答賓戲. In the first passage—both passages are located in his postface—Ban Gu wrote, “Biao had a son named Gu. Ban Gu’s father died when Gu was young. 397He thus wrote his ‘Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden’ in order to express his fate and accord with his desire” 有子曰固，弱冠而孤，作幽通之賦，以致命遂志.398 Readers are additionally told that that Ban Gu was a gentleman during the yongping (58–75) era of Emperor Ming. He edited texts as a

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secretary and studied exhaustively to make writing his occupation.399 We learn little more from the History of the Han than that Ban Gu’s father died when he was young, he wrote a rhyme-prose, he was a gentleman during the reign of Emperor Ming 明帝 (r. 58–75), and he edited and wrote texts. We can extract much more about Ban Gu and his life from Fan Ye’s History of the Later Han. Ban Gu was born first along with his twin brother, Ban Chao, during the eighth year of the jianwu era (AD 32), when Biao was twenty-nine. Fan Ye noted that Biao was twenty years old when Wang Mang was defeated and that afterward he fled from the difficulties at the capital to follow Wei Ao at Tianshui. Sima Guang 司馬光 (1019–1086) recorded in his famous Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑒 (Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government) that Biao’s temporary alliance with Wei was in 29.400 After Biao’s discourse with Wei Ao, he fled to the stronghold of Dou Rong 竇融 (16 BC–AD 62).401 Zheng Hesheng 鄭鶴聲 presumed that Ban Biao would still have been in the retinue of Dou Rong at Hexi in 32, when Ban Gu was born.402 If Zheng is correct, Ban Gu was born while his father was working as Dou’s advisor. Biao and his family moved to the capital at Luoyang 洛陽 in 36 when Ban Gu was five years old. Fan Ye recounted that Ban Biao assisted Dou Rong in repelling Wei Ao’s advance on the capital, after which Biao was summoned to an audience with the emperor. The precise year of Rong’s return to the capital is not specified in Fan Ye’s biographies of Biao and Gu, but Fan’s biography of Liang Tong 梁統 (r. 88–106) mentions, “During the jianwu twelfth year (36), Liang Tong, Dou Rong, and others, all went to the capital” 十二年，統與融等俱詣京師.403 Ban Biao and his family were probably among the entourage that traveled from Gansu to the capital along with Liang and Dou. After Biao’s return to the capital, he was awarded a post as the prefect of Xu 徐, located in modern Jiangsu 江蘇. Since Emperor Guangwu was enfeoffing ministers and promoting people’s ranks in 37, it is likely, then, that Biao was sent to Xu. Ban Gu would have been six when he followed his father to Xu, later moving back to the capital when he was twelve. Fan Ye recorded,

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時東宮初建，諸王并開，而官屬未備，師保多闕．彪上言曰... When construction on the Eastern Palace had begun, all of the kingdoms were being opened (i.e., the kings were being enfeoffed at their respective kingdoms), the official posts had not yet been completed (filled), and there were several positions of the officials of education empty. Thus, Ban Biao presented a memorial, which said…404

Biao memorialized the emperor regarding enfeoffments and problems with the officials of education, though the reader is not told here when this occurred. In 43 however, Emperor Guangwu produced an edict granting fiefs of three kingdoms.405 It is possible, then, that Biao submitted his memorial during this year and was residing in the capital along with his family. A recorded meeting between Ban Gu and the philosopher, Wang Chong 王充 (27–c. 100) suggests that Gu was in the capital when he was thirteen. The History of the Later Han recounts, “When Ban Gu was thirteen, Wang Chong saw him and tapped on his back, saying to his father, Biao, ‘This boy will surely record the affairs of the Han’ ” 固年十三，王充見之，拊其背謂彪曰：「此兒必記漢事．」. 406 While I find the account of Wang’s prediction somewhat suspect, it is not unlikely that they could have met, especially since Ban Biao was Wang Chong’s teacher. Chong’s biography in the History of the Later Han states, 充少孤，鄉里稱孝．後到京師，受業太學，師事扶風班彪． 好博覽而不守章句． Wang Chong was orphaned when he was young, and the villagers acclaimed his filial piety. Later, he went to the capital, where he received his training at the Grand Academy. He served Ban Biao, a man from Fufeng, as his teacher. He was fond of broad reading and did not maintain the “chapter and verse” style.407

Biao’s influence over Wang Chong is, perhaps, seen in the comment that Wang “did not maintain the ‘chapter and verse’ style,” for in this description of Ban Gu, we read that Gu “did not write in ‘chapter and

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verse’ style, but simply brought forth the greater meaning.” Ban Gu and Wang Chong probably inherited their disdain for chapter and verse style from Biao. Furthermore, since Wang Chong is said to have studied at the Grand Academy, which was located in the capital, we are provided with additional evidence that Ban Gu was in Luoyang when they met.408 Ban Gu’s younger sister, Ban Zhao, was born when he was around fourteen.409 Fan Ye stated that she married Cao Shixu 曹世叔, who was from Fufeng, like her.410 Fan also noted that she was “broadly educated and highly talented; Shixu died young. Her behavior was circumspect and she was a model of order,” 博學高才．世敘早卒，有節行 法度 and after commending her character, he outlined Zhao’s part in editing and revising her brother’s work, the History of the Han.411 Ban Gu’s immediate family, then, consisted of his father, mother, younger twin brother, and younger sister, all of whom were classically educated, although Chao preferred military pursuits to the scholarly work of Biao, Gu, and Zhao. Though determining the date requires some effort, it is currently well accepted among Chinese scholars that Ban Gu entered the Grand Academy in 47. Yang Yixiang 楊翼驤, the editor of the Zhongguo shixue shi cidian 中國史學史辭典 (Historiographical Dictionary of Chinese History), asserted that Ban Gu “entered the Grand Academy at Luoyang when he was sixteen,” that is, in 47.412 On the other hand, the editors of the Zhonghua shuju recension of the History of the Han did not mention Gu’s training at the Grand Academy at all in their biographical sketch of his life. Fan Ye’s “Basic Annals of Emperor Guangwu” note that in the fifth year of the jianwu era (29/30), the emperor “began to construct the Grand Academy” 初起太學.413 The school must have, thus, been completed and was accepting students by Ban Gu’s sixteenth year. The best source readers have verifying that Ban Gu was, in fact, at the Grand Academy, however, is the biography of Cui Yin 崔駰 (?–92), chapter 52 of the History of the Later Han. 年十三能通詩，易，春秋，博學有偉才，盡通古今訓詁百家 之言，善屬文．少游太學，與班固，復毅同時齊名．

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When Cui Yin was thirteen he could comprehend the Classic of Odes, Classic of Changes, and the Spring and Autumn. He was widely learned and had extraordinary talents. He completely understood the ancient and modern commentarial works on the sayings of the Hundred Schools, and wrote prose well. When he was young, he attended the Grand Academy and gained a reputation there at the same time along with Ban Gu and Fu Yi.414

Here one has good evidence of Ban Gu’s attendance at the empire’s premier college, and one also learns that Gu studied with other notable young scholars such as Li Yu 李育, Kong Xi 孔僖, Fu Yi 復毅, and Cui Yin. Gu stayed at the Grand Academy until his father died in 54; he was twenty-three when he left the college. While there is much said about Ban Biao between 47 and 54, all I can note of Ban Gu during this time is that he remained at the Grand Academy and studied. Fan Ye stated that “during the jianwu thirtieth year (54), Ban Biao died at the age of fifty-two; he had written rhyme-proses, disquisitions, letters, records, and a total of nine chapters of memorials” 建 武三十年，年五十二，卒官．所著賦，論，書，記，奏事合九篇.415 Later in the same chapter, Fan wrote that “when Ban Gu’s father, Biao, died, Gu returned to his home village” 父彪卒，歸鄉里.416 It stands to reason, then, that if Ban Biao died in 54, and Ban Gu returned to his home village after his father’s death, Ban Gu left the Grand Academy the same year. It is quite likely that it was during Ban Gu’s three years of mourning that he began his work on the History of the Han. Ban Gu’s literary career really emerged during the time of his obligatory mourning. In the passage from the History of the Han I have quoted, Ban Gu stated that when he was young, his father died and he wrote a rhyme-prose, the “Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden.” The History of the Later Han states that after Ban Gu returned to his village, he assessed his father’s historical works and considered them lacking. Fan recalled that after Ban Gu had begun to complete his father’s work, work that Ban Gu never mentioned, he encountered the incriminations of a rival. Certainly, this was an unpleasant event, but it fortunately resulted in a promotion. The accusation against Ban Gu was made in 62,

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but before then he had already impressed the King of Dongping 東平, Liu Cang 劉蒼 (c. 35–83), with a flattery-laden sample of his writing.417 Liu Cang was fond of classic literature and enjoyed the work of sophisticated thinkers. The incumbent Emperor Ming favored him; apparently he liked Liu Cang’s attractive beard and, thus, appointed him to a high post. He was eventually promoted to be one of the three excellencies.418 In 58 Ban Gu responded to Liu Cang’s invitation to “good men” 英雄 and distinguished himself to a member of the imperial family. Fan Ye recalled, 永平初，東平王蒼以至戚為驃騎將軍輔政，開東閤，延英雄． 時固始弱冠，奏記說蒼曰… . During the yongping era, first year (58), King Cang of Dongping was made the general of the agile cavalry because he was a close imperial relative, and he assisted in governance. He opened the eastern portal and issued a wide invitation to good men.419 At that time Ban Gu was young and he presented a memorial to Cang, stating… .420

Ban Gu was twenty-seven when he presented his literary résumé to Liu Cang, a work that is routinely sycophantic, comparing Liu Cang to such honored paragons as the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Shao 召公. Gu exclaimed that “in antiquity there was the Duke of Zhou, and today there is you, general” 昔在周公，今也將軍.421 Cang accepted the résumé, quite happily it seems, and so Ban Gu entered the political landscape. According to the Ma Ban zuo shi niansui kao 馬班作史年歲考 (Yearly Account of the Historical Works of Sima Qian and Ban Gu), it was “during this year that Ban Gu carried on his father’s [historical] work” 是年 續父業.422 It is difficult to accurately date several events that happened after Ban Gu submitted his résumé to Liu Cang in 58. However, Zheng Hesheng placed Ban Gu’s imprisonment and subsequent promotion in 62. A man from his area, Fufeng, calumniated Ban Gu. The History of the Han account tersely states, “Someone presented a memorial to Emperor Ming accusing Gu of privately altering and producing a national history”

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有人上書顯宗，告固私改作國史者.423 The results of the accusation were at first precarious. The emperor sent someone to receive Ban Gu into custody, fettering and locking him into the capital prison (i.e., Jingzhao, or the capital and its metropolitan area).424 His entire library was confiscated. The narrative continues to state, “Before that, a man from Fufeng named Su Lang falsely implicated Ban Gu in an affair involving charts and prophesies” 先是扶風人蘇朗偽言圖讖事.425 After Su’s incriminating report, similar to one rendered against Dong Zhongshu earlier in the Han, Ban Gu was “sentenced to die in prison” 下獄死.426 Ban Gu’s brother, Chao, feared that Gu would be unable to clear himself and hastened to the capital for an audience with the emperor. Chao explained Ban Gu’s meanings while, meanwhile, an official from Ban’s home prefecture presented Gu’s work to the emperor, who “marveled at it,” 甚奇之 and summoned Ban Gu to an audience. Ban Gu’s death sentence was revoked, and he was appointed to the position of historian of the orchid terrace; his unofficial historical work was thus made official.427 Owing to the intervention of his younger brother and the official who brought Gu’s writings to the emperor’s attention, Ban Gu’s continued work was facilitated. Once installed in his official post at the orchid terrace, Ban Gu’s labors on the History of the Han were suspended. Fan Ye wrote that, after Gu had received this promotion, 與前睢陽令陳宗，長陵令尹敏，司隸從事孟冀共成世祖 本紀. He worked along with the former prefect of Suiyang, Chen Zong, the prefect of Zhangling, Yin Min, and the assistant of the director of retainers, Meng Ji, and they together completed the Annals of Emperor Guangwu.428

Ban Gu’s literary efforts were concentrated on the responsibilities of his official post, and as Zheng Hesheng asserted, “the authorship of the History of the Han can be divided into two periods, private and official,” 漢 書 撰 述，可 分 為 官 私 二 期 the time before his court appointment, and the time after finishing the Shizu benji 世祖本紀 (Annals of

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Emperor Guangwu).429 While Ban Gu was installed at the orchid terrace, he was part of a collective effort to compile and produce historical documents. After his work on the Annals of Emperor Guangwu, Ban Gu was promoted to a post that gave him access to the imperial library, a promotion that was probably granted in 63. It was apparently due to his abilities there that he was ordered to return to his work on what materialized into the History of the Han. Fan Ye noted, 遷為郎，典校秘書．固又撰功臣，平林，新市，公孫述事， 作列傳，載記二十八篇，奏之．帝乃復使終成前所著書． Ban Gu was promoted to an imperial secretarial position to work as the director of editing in the imperial library. Gu, moreover, wrote of the affairs of such meritorious ministers as Ping Lin, Xin Shi, and Gongsun Shu, and produced biographies and records in twenty-eight chapters. He presented them to the emperor, who accordingly ordered him to return to and complete his former writings (i.e., the History of the Han).430

So while Ban Gu was employed at the orchid terrace, he produced writings that impressed the emperor, who thus directed him to return to his work on the History of the Han. While Ban Gu was working on his manuscript, his younger brother Chao was made acting major and sent to the western frontier along with Guo Xun 郭恂.431 Chao distinguished himself as a worthy general and began a long history of service to the Han court. The emperor apparently appreciated Chao’s military skills, and on Guo Xun’s recommendation, he was promoted to the post of major of the army. This event marked the beginning of the Ban family’s involvement in Eastern Han campaigns against the “barbarian” tribes. In fact, Ban Gu later went to the northern frontier on a military expedition against the Xiongnu; Ban Chao did not return to the capital from his post at the frontier until after Ban Gu’s death. In 74, when Ban Gu was forty-three, he and several of his colleagues who worked in the palace repositories wrote a hymn in response to a

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curious occurrence. Certain miracles were reported in the capital. Fan Ye wrote, “During that year (74), sweet dews poured effusively, tree branches interlocked together, glossy gandoderma fungus grew in front of the hall, and spiritual birds of five colors gathered together in the capital” 是歲，甘露仍降，樹枝內附，芝草生殿前，神雀五色翔集 京師.432 Ban Gu is not mentioned in this particular passage; however, Wang Chong recorded in his Discourses Weighed in the Balance that at that time, Ban Gu, Jia Kui 賈逵, Fu Yi 傅毅, Yang Zhong 楊終, and Hou Feng 侯諷 presented hymns on such strange events.433 It is likely that this work was used in liturgical rites, as were the works of the Music Bureau (Yuefu 樂府) during the Western Han. This account suggests that Ban Gu was involved in official literary production.434 Fan Ye’s biography of Ban Gu highlights Gu’s support for the Liu family, and before discussing Ban Gu’s History of the Han, Fan stated, “Ban Gu believed that the Han continued the Mandate of Yao in order to establish its imperial enterprise” 班固以為漢紹堯運，以建帝業.435 Fan Ye connected Ban Gu’s loyalty to the Han to his production of Han historical records. Ban Gu produced hymns of praise for the Han and historical writings that render accolades to the Liu family’s occupation as the imperial family. Fan Ye noted that during 58 to 75, Ban Gu began to receive summonses from Emperor Ming; it was then that Gu’s favor grew. Ban Gu produced several works during the height of his involvement with the court, but his involvement appears to have waned after his mother’s death in 88. Most of the biographical information scholars have for the period after his promotion to gentleman pertains to his literary efforts. The History of the Han, History of the Later Han, and the Ban lantai ji 班蘭臺集 (Collected Works the Historian of the Orchid Terrace Ban Gu), a Ming collection of Gu’s works by the Imperial Granary Director Zhang 太倉張, are the best sources for compiling a list of his works, and many of them exist only in fragmentary form.436 A cursory glance at the scope of Gu’s work during his appointments at the capital shows his remarkable productivity. Until 88, Ban Gu’s activities were only generally outlined, with the exception of the circumstances that led him to compose his “Rhyme-Prose

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on the Two Capitals” 兩都賦. Before Emperor Ming died in 75, Gu defended Emperor Guangwu’s decision to establish the Eastern Han capital at Luoyang. Fan Ye told that after Ban Gu was granted the post of gentleman, he was often in the presence of the emperor and, thus, in a position to render remonstrations, and on one occasion Ban Gu’s poetic intercession defended the court’s decision to construct palaces and dig a moat around the new capital. Ban also used his defense as an opportunity to criticize the court’s extravagance. The History of the Later Han notes that after an elderly gentleman from Guanzhong 關中—the region of the old capital at Chang’an 長安—urged the court to move the capital back to its previous location, Ban Gu responded by writing his “RhymeProse on the Two Capitals.” The precise date of this composition remains uncertain. Fan Ye recorded, 時京師修起宮室，濬繕成隍，而關中耆老猶望朝廷西顧．固 感前世相如， 壽王，東方之徒，造搆文辭，終以諷勸，乃 上兩都賦，盛稱洛邑制度之美，以折西賓淫移之論． At that time the palaces and estates of the capital were being restored and heightened, and moats and ditches were being dug around the city walls. An elderly gentleman from Guanzhong still wished the court to be moved back to the west. Ban Gu, inspired by the writers of the former generation such as Sima Xiangru, Shou Wang, and Dongfang Shuo, designed a composition in verse and prose to use as a critical exhortation. He then submitted his “Rhyme-prose on the Two Capitals” to the emperor, extolling the beauty of the system of Luoyang, in order to defeat the western guest’s extravagant discussions.437

In the end, the capital remained at Luoyang. Until his promotion in 78 and his assignment to record the proceedings at White Tiger Hall in 79, scholars know little more than that Ban Gu continued to become more popular. The new emperor, Zhang 章帝 (r. 76–88), was fond of literature and admired Ban Gu’s writing in particular, and so Ban Gu often “entered and read texts within the forbidden palace, sometimes remaining there both day and night” 數入讀書禁 中，或連日繼夜.438 Not only was Ban Gu called to “read texts” aloud

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to the emperor but he also accompanied him on imperial tours, each time composing rhyme-proses or hymns. When Emperor Zhang convened important deliberations among the court scholars, Ban Gu was often called to discuss the more difficult problems in front of the emperor, and he was rewarded with imperial favors, apparently because of his intelligent participation in court disputations. Ban Gu was promoted around 78 to major of the black tortoise, but sources are silent regarding his activities in this post.439 Perhaps the most significant court event to mark Ban’s career was his assignment to the deliberations at White Tiger Hall. The History of the Later Han records that 天子會諸儒講論五經，作白虎通德論，令班固撰集其事. the emperor had a meeting at which all of the Confucians held disquisitions regarding the Five Classics. The General and Virtuous Disquisitions at White Tiger Hall was produced—Ban Gu was commissioned to write the collected accounts of the events at the meeting.440

This meeting was convened in 79 to discuss and codify interpretations of the Confucian classics but there has been some debate regarding why Ban Gu’s role in the discussions is not mentioned in the “Basic Annals of Emperor Zhang” but is, instead, mentioned in chapter 40 of the History of the Later Han.441 There have been assertions that since Ban Gu is not mentioned in the Basic Annals, he may not have really been the author of the General and Virtuous Disquisitions at White Tiger Hall. Zhou Shouchang 周壽昌, in his commentaries on the History of the Later Han, argued that Ban Gu’s rank was not sufficiently high to be included among those mentioned in the Annals. Zhou suggested that Gu’s authorship of the text was, thus, mentioned in his biographical section, chapter 40.442 Whatever the case, Ban Gu was present at the meeting and ordered to compile a volume on the discussions. Scant information regarding Ban Gu’s literary work can be gleaned from sources about the time between his participation in the White Tiger Hall discussions in 79 and his departure from office to mourn

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his mother’s death in 88. It was most likely around 79 that Ban Gu completed his History of the Han. Fan Ye’s account of Gu’s mother’s death leads into the final four years of Ban Gu’s life, and three major events punctuate the narrative of these concluding years: his service to the Han general Dou Xian 竇憲 (?–92), his demotion from office, and the circumstances of his death. By the time Ban Gu was accepted into Dou Xian’s retinue, the Han had a new emperor, He 和帝 (r. 89–105) and Dou had lost favor. The complicated account of Dou Xian’s fall and Ban Gu’s involvement with him is narrated in Fan Ye’s history, where it is noted that Ban Gu was made the commissioner over the army of the center in order to advise General Dou. Ban Gu often corresponded with his brother Chao, who was quite experienced in dealing with the Xiongnu; one can assume that Gu’s knowledge of the northern tribes was probably derived from Chao. As soon as the Xiongnu heard about Dou Xian’s departure from the capital in 89, they dispatched an emissary to Juyan Pass 居延塞 to meet the Han army and establish diplomatic relations with the court.443 General Dou sent Ban Gu to meet the emissary. En route, however, Gu discovered that the southern Xiongnu had mounted a surprise attack and defeated the northern Xiongnu, and since conflicts between the tribes in the northwest were becoming increasingly fierce, Ban Gu abandoned the mission. Meanwhile, the Xiongnu defeated Dou Xian.444 Fan Ye recorded, “When Dou Xian was defeated Ban Gu was tried first and dismissed from office” 乃竇憲敗，固先坐免官.445 Several of the unpleasant events that occurred after the “disgraceful” return of Dou and Ban were due to the emperor’s disfavor toward Dou Xian and the intrigues of an imperial eunuch. The antecedents of Dou’s fall are typical of Han politics; when He became emperor, he was too young to assume full power in court, so the empress of the previous ruler was called on to act as regent until he reached majority. As a member of the Dou clan, she naturally empowered her relative, Dou Xian, as her chief advisor. She later made him regent. In 91 Emperor He was capped and given full control of the court, and it appears that the emperor was, at that time, eager to remove the Dou clan from power. The emperor planned the fall

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of Dou Xian with the help of one of his eunuchs. Once Dou had returned to the capital in 92, he was stripped of his rank and an investigation was ordered. He was charged with plotting to assassinate the emperor, and Dou and his family either committed suicide or were executed.446 The account of Ban Gu’s death is rather pitiable in light of his ongoing loyalty to the ruling Liu clan and his long years of service to the court. Fan Ye’s record of Ban Gu’s death in prison suggests that the emperor was probably never aware of Ban Gu’s internment. The History of the Later Han recalls, 初，洛陽令种兢嘗行，固奴干其車騎，吏椎呼之，奴醉罵， 兢大怒，畏憲不敢發，心銜之．乃憲氏賓客皆逮考，兢因 此捕繫固，遂死獄中．時年六十一．詔以譴責兢，抵主者 吏罪． Formerly, the prefect of Luoyang, Chong Jing, had been traveling. One of Ban Gu’s servants was attending to his chariots and horses. The petty official Chong Jing happened to bump into him, whereupon Ban Gu’s servant, who was drunk, upbraided him. Jing was infuriated, but since Dou Xian intimidated him he did not dare to vent his anger, and so he harbored resentment against Ban Gu in his heart. When the guests of the Dou family were all arrested for investigation Chong Jing used the occasion as an opportunity to arrest and bind Ban Gu. Subsequently, Ban Gu died in prison; at that time he was sixty-one. Chong Jing was thus decreed to be punished for the crime of being a petty official who had opposed his superior (i.e., Ban Gu).447

In the end, Ban Gu died in prison due to a trifling row between one of Gu’s servants and the capital prefect, though he himself had never offended Chong.448 Ban had already been demoted because of his association with Dou Xian, and that appears to have been sufficient to assuage the emperor’s displeasure toward Gu. It is clear that Gu’s death really had nothing to do with the emperor, as Ban Gu’s sister, Zhao, remained close to Emperor He and his empress even after Gu’s death. Fan Ye concluded his biography of Ban Gu and his father, Biao, with a comparison of Ban Gu and Sima Qian and noted that the discussions

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of Sima Qian, Ban Biao, and Ban Gu are as those produced by the office of the historian. Fan praised Gu’s writing in particular, stating that it is exacting and systematic and that it “makes the reader work hard but not think it tiresome” 使讀之者斖斖而不猒.449 Finally, Fan Ye wrote, “Ban Gu was pained by Sima Qian’s inability to use his wisdom to escape the extreme punishment of castration, even though he had learned and consulted broadly” 固傷遷博物洽聞，不能以智免極刑.450 Fan Ye noticed the irony of Ban Gu’s criticism of Sima Qian’s inability to avoid castration, citing that Gu fell into serious punishment—death—and though his wisdom reached that of Sima Qian, he could not save himself. Fan wrote, “Alas! This is why men of old brought their discussions even to the eyelashes whereas Ban Gu only discussed the hair he could see” 嗚 呼！古人所以致論於目睫也.451 Fan Ye implied here that Ban Gu critiqued Sima Qian’s misfortune but did not possess the wisdom to foretell his calamity in prison. By way of a brief review, Ban Gu’s life spanned the reigns of four Eastern Han emperors, and his biography is, perhaps, even more enmeshed with the imperial family than the ancestors Ban wrote of in the postface of his History of the Han. From various sources, primarily the History of the Later Han, we have seen that Ban Gu was born into an aristocratic and orthodox Confucian family. His parents were itinerant at the time of his birth, and during the political conflicts that marked the period just after the Wang Mang interregnum, Ban Biao and his family followed two men, Wei Ao and the general who supported the Liu family, Dou Rong. After the Lius were securely reinstated as the imperial clan, Ban Gu’s family relocated to the Eastern Han capital at Luoyang, and Gu entered the Grand Academy. Ban Gu developed several friendships with men who later accompanied him on his rise to prominence. After Ban Biao died in 54, Gu left the academy to mourn his death, and it was then that he began this literary work. In 58 Ban Gu distinguished himself to one of the imperial clansmen with his rather toadying résumé, earning him a reputation for his literary talent. Near this year Ban Gu was accused of producing a private national history and implicated in an affair involving portents. He was

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imprisoned and sentenced to death, but then rescued by his brother Chao. Ban Gu’s works were presented to the emperor, who was duly impressed and promoted Gu to the post of historian of the orchid terrace. During his tenure as an official in the Han court, he produced several hymns and poems extolling the Han’s munificence. In 79 Ban Gu attended the deliberations at White Tiger Hall and helped to codify the interpretations of the Five Confucian classics. His mother died in 88, and he temporarily left his post to mourn her death. Finally, in 92, a man who held a petty grudge plotted against Ban Gu, and Gu died in prison before he could be vindicated. The greater portion of his life was occupied with official responsibilities and literary production. I should insert a final note of caution here before I continue my discussion; reconstructing Ban Gu’s biographical history is riddled with the same textual problems as Ban Gu’s History of the Han. Fan Ye’s biography of Biao and Gu cannot be taken unproblematically as a reliable source on Ban Gu’s life, and all I have done here is piece together several disparate sources to construct what I see as the most probable account.

A NEW HEAVEN,

A

NEW MANDATE

Now that I have provided a sketch of Ban Gu’s life, as much as this can be done, I would like return to the question of how his life and context influenced his work. I began this chapter with the suggestion that Ban Gu produced a Humpty-Dumpty history and intended to put the pieces back together of a broken empire. The circumstances of his life and its antecedents compelled him to textually repair the kingdom by producing a record that functions as a cautionary tale in which he critiqued anyone who might threaten Han sovereignty and refigured the Mandate theory to eliminate its assumption of dynastic cyclicality.452 By considering three realms of representation—of the state (Han), family (Ban), and individual (Gu)—I have provided a framework in which to consider how Gu necessarily had to position himself safely in an uncertain political climate. The sources with which to learn about Ban Gu’s immediate historic antecedents are primarily those sources provided by

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Ban Gu. In other words, Ban Gu explained how the events of history led to his context; his history explains its motives. Selecting what would be included into historical record and how it was represented is precisely how Ban Gu framed himself into his context. It is already clear that Ban Gu lived in the wake of a turbulent political climate. He was born after the collapse of Liu control, and his father witnessed the Liu family’s eclipse by a “usurper” and “imposter” Confucian. Gu’s early years were probably infused with a disdain for Wang Mang, who had arrogated the throne to himself duplicitously and caused intense conflicts in a once ordered empire. Ban Biao had undoubtedly taught Ban Gu his theories regarding Heaven’s Mandate, in which the Liu family alone was the rightful heir to Heaven’s sanction and the rulership of the state. One of Ban Gu’s first tasks as he began his history was to explain how Wang Mang came to power and why his position did not last. Ban Gu’s explanation of Wang’s rise begins with the moral and administrative decline of the Liu family, centering on Emperors Ai and Ping. His discussions of these emperors are critical and didactic; by highlighting their errors, he admonished against repeating them. Despite the consort crises during Emperor Cheng’s reign, he did not entirely abandon his administrative duties. It was with Ai that the quotidian concerns of running the court were set aside for more frivolous pleasures. Emperor Ai was also quite influenced by his grandmother, Empress Dowager Fu. Ban Gu portrayed Cheng’s two consorts, Zhao and Li, as well as Ai’s grandmother and mother, as selfish careerists, even murdering heirs to gain power. Ban Gu juxtaposed his great-aunt, Ban Jieyu, and Wang Mang’s aunt, the empress of the former Emperor Yuan, with other less honorable women of the imperial harem. In this way, Gu offered at least one reason for the Liu family’s decline. After the Liu family’s sense of duty to the empire had become obscured by “unkingly” pastimes, Wang Mang began his rise to power, first as regent and finally as usurper. While one could argue that Mang merely filled a vacuum otherwise occupied by the Liu emperors, Ban Gu depicted him as a Janus-like Confucian, hiding his ambitions behind an air of moral refinement.453 Gu began his biography of Mang with

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a flattering description of him as an orthodox classicist, but his later accounts displayed Wang’s unsavory propensities. Ban Gu suggested, for example, that in 23 “Wang Mang was daily in the harem with persons versed in the magical arts, Zhaojun, from Zhuo commandery, and others, testing magical and technical arts and giving himself up to lustful pleasures” 莽日與方士涿郡昭君等於後宮考驗方術，縱淫樂焉.454 Ban Gu’s harshest appraisal of Wang Mang, however, is reserved for his misuse of the Mandate theory. The number of portents rendered by Wang’s supporters intended to support his rise to the imperial prerogative was extreme—more than 700. These portents included the appearance of a unicorn, traditionally the mark of a new ruler, and Ban Gu went to great lengths to stress that these unusual events were contrived. The forged brazen casket portent presented by the sycophantic courtier, Ai Zhang, was nothing more than an excuse for Wang Mang to finally take over the kingdom.455 Wang Mang is most vehemently censured in the History of the Han for two transgressions: first, being a false Confucian and second, producing false portents in order to claim Heaven’s approbation. Not only was he a despotic tyrant capable of executing his sons but also he was capable of using the hallowed Heaven’s Mandate paradigm to benefit his cause. Wang Mang was not the only man to plot his elevation to the “divine right” of being emperor. Others such as Wei Ao, likewise, hoped to “catch the deer (kingdom)” and win Heaven’s Mandate, and to such ambitions, Ban Biao and his son, Gu, responded with an altered theory of Heaven’s Mandate. The major argument behind Biao and Gu’s response to Wang Mang and others’ claims to Heaven’s Mandate is that Heaven’s sanction can be had by the Liu clan alone. Ban Biao was careful to note that the Zhou rulers’ mismanagement and dissolution of their rules had terrible results on the common people. The Liu family, on the other hand, had no effect upon the people, despite its moral failures. This view was completely novel when he formulated it. When discussing the Liu clan’s failings and subsequent political conflicts, Biao stated, “The perils arose from above, but no harm was done to those below” 危自上起，傷不及下.456 The Liu clan

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was exempt from the same cause-and-effect accountability of previous ruling families, such as the Zhou. Emperors Cheng’s and Ai’s poor imperial rules could, thus, be explained as a kind of “peril above” that did not reach the common people below—a peril that did not imply the end of the Han. Another aspect of Biao and Gu’s new paradigm discredits Wang Mang’s claim to Heaven’s sanction. Biao asserted that the Mandate of Heaven could not be attained by skill or connivance. In his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” Ban Biao wrote, 世俗見高祖興於布衣，不達其故，以為適遭暴亂，得奮其 劍，游說之士之比天下於遂鹿，辛捷而得之，不知神器有 命，不可以智力求也． The mass of people see that Gaozu arose from among the common men and they do not comprehend the reasons for his rise. They believe that happening upon a time of violence and disorder he was able to wield his sword, as the wandering political theorists compare the conquest of the empire to a deer chase in which success goes to the luckiest and swiftest. They do not understand that this sacred vessel, the rule of the empire, is transmitted according to destiny and cannot be won by either craft or force.457

Biao asserted that machinations such as Wang Mang’s, or those of other aspirants as Wei Ao, were ineffective without the predetermined sanction of Heaven. Unlike the Warring States’ political ideal of Heaven’s Mandate based upon merit, Ban Biao concluded that ming 命 connotes “destiny” rather than a kind of reward. What was usually seen as a kind of remuneration is now viewed as a Mandate that was long ago predestined; I consider this in more detail in the next chapter. Ban Gu recalled in his biography of Wang Mang that during Wang’s Xin dynasty, a diviner named Wang Kuang 王況 (?–AD 21) prognosticated that the “Han House was certain to rise again” 漢家當復興.458 Non-Liu aspirants to the throne were little more than pretenders or, at most, only temporarily empowered since the Han’s Mandate was permanently attached to the Lius, destined to return. When Ban Gu stated at the end of Emperor Ai’s

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biography that the imperial house had lost “favor” 祿, he did not mean that it had lost the Mandate 命. Ban Gu’s writings contain numerous reactions to the problems outlined in the beginning sections of this chapter. His critiques of nonvirtuous consorts, non-Confucian, and non-Liu pretenders, as well as his reconfiguration of the Heaven’s Mandate theory, are all part of Ban Gu’s effort to position himself safely within an uncertain climate. Ban Gu was a person who, like his ancestors before him since the reign of Emperor Cheng, was actively involved in the workings of the court. He was an intellectual proponent of orthodox Confucianism as it became codified in the first century AD; his work centered on the Liu family’s rule not only because it was safe to do so but also because believing that one family held a perennial Mandate was a view of history that envisioned no future dynastic changes. This view could hope for less bloodshed in a kingdom that had already endured enough. That said, Ban Gu’s postface and Fan Ye’s biography of him suggest that many of his attempts to valorize the Han and formulate a nuanced understanding of the Mandate of Heaven paradigm were, perhaps, hopeful attempts to safely position himself and his career. Liu Xie’s 劉勰 (c. 465–c. 521) comment that Ban Gu’s private prejudices had “led him astray” may be quite acute. Ban Gu’s presentation of history is markedly pro-Han, and one cannot avoid asking how much real Western Han history was lost behind the adulatory language of the History of the Han. But in the end, Ban Gu’s praise for the Han and narrative attempts to position himself do not discount the novelty and complexity of his intellectual ideas; Ban Gu deserves just as much credit for his ideas as earlier thinkers such as Dong Zhongshu, Jia Yi, or Yang Xiong. Ban created a view of political legitimacy that is just as much an intellectual construct as his history.

CHAPTER 5

INSCRIBING THE STATE: KILLING SNAKES, CHASING DEER, AND RECONCEIVING HEAVEN’S MANDATE

Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get the uppermost. Government is essentially immoral. —Herbert Spencer

Voltaire stated, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”459 This is a point that anyone in Ban Gu’s position would be acutely aware of; Gu’s history of the Han had to fulfill the expectation to criticize the court’s failures while simultaneously praising its virtues. He did this by rearranging inherited ideas about political authority so that legitimacy and moral virtue were somewhat divorced. It is difficult to imagine the classicist statesman Ban Gu restructuring and

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reinterpreting a hallowed ideology of the past. Yet, his political and social circumstances necessitated a re-evaluation of the terms assigned to certain ideals, especially since modifying long-held political values could serve to protect his interests.460 Ban Gu did not, however, jettison traditional views in favor of entirely new perspectives, but rather, he restructured them to fit the Eastern Han political climate and to facilitate his survival. He was a Confucian, and Eastern Han Confucianism, as much as it favored orthodoxy, also favored flexibility. Theories such as Heaven’s Mandate could not be discarded; nevertheless, classical tenets were organic to Ban Gu—while they remain the same, they grow into different manifestations. In much of this chapter, I consider the idea of destiny. As we have seen in the previous chapters, Ban Gu was born into a context that was emerging from political and intellectual crises, and, perhaps, the largest question of his time was Heaven’s will for the empire. Ban Gu’s History of the Han tried to address this question in a way palatable to the imperial family he served, and his answer was largely based on the idea of destiny. Mencius said, “There is nothing that does not have its destiny” 莫非命也.461 The Chinese term ming 命 can be understood as “destiny/ fate” or, at other times, to mean “mandate/command.”462 Thus, Mencius’ remark may alternatively be read as “there is nothing that does not have a mandate.” When Ban Gu referred to ming in his writing, he seems to have implied both meanings, and when he discussed the rulership of the Han in his work, he seems to have suggested that to have the Mandate of Heaven was, indeed, the “destiny” of the Liu family.463 Reconciling his altered understanding of the Heaven’s Mandate ideal with previous beliefs was one of Ban Gu’s objectives. So far I have considered the History of the Han on several levels as a historical record, an encomium of Ban Gu’s clansmen, and an explanation of the antecedents of the Wang Mang usurpation. It remains to weave together these disparate strands to illustrate how Ban Gu’s motivations and ideologies figure into his work as a whole. This chapter, then, consists of several sections, beginning first with a brief review of what I have suggested in the previous chapters. Next, I briefly outline

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the development of the Heaven’s Mandate 天命 ideal until Biao and Gu codified it into a stable and self-contained paradigm.464 Next I consider the ideal as it evolved in the Classic of Odes, Documents, and Records of the Grand Historian.465 I discuss how the History of the Han reconfigures the Mandate theory, growing out of the foundational suppositions of earlier texts. I also discuss how from the Zhou conquest of 1045 BC until Ban Biao, the most common notion of Heaven’s Mandate held that Heaven’s bestowal of its sanction to rule was based on meritocratic requisites. While such a view remained largely the same after the Zhou, the memorials included in Dong Zhongshu’s biography in the History of the Han suggest an important development of that theory. Dong had two objectives in his memorials: to solidify the previously vague view of Heaven as a purposeful entity and to subordinate the ruler’s ability to interpret omens to worthy ministers.466 Dong viewed Heaven as a deity that maintained a watchful eye over the empire, dispensing rewards or punishments to stabilize it. Dong’s suggestion that ministers are the rightful interpreters of omens influenced how Ban Biao and Ban Gu interpreted the Heaven’s Mandate theory. This belief is foundational to Ban Gu’s “Treatise on Five Phases,” where his repositioning of the minister de facto repositioned the role of the historian. While the historian functioned as judge, either anonymously as the author(s) of the Commentary of Mr. Zuo or openly as Sima Qian, it was only after Ban Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” that imperial historians were free to do so without the possibility of being accused of challenging the ruler’s tenure of Heaven’s sanction. Schaberg’s view “of judgment as the telos of narration” applies just as much to the History of the Han as to the Commentary of Mr. Zuo or Discourses of State.467 Ban Gu’s narrative judgments in his History of the Han are not veiled behind anonymity. According to Ban Gu’s philosophy of the Han’s tenure of Heaven’s Mandate, any judgment rendered by the historian functions as a form of loyal remonstration that does not call into question the incumbent emperor’s rightful place on the throne. Near the end of this chapter, I provide a summary of how Ban Gu’s historical view consisted of several layers; beneath a veneer of flattery

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lie several theoretical propositions. For example, Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” and Gu’s History of the Han demonstrate that they no longer believed that Heaven’s Mandate was conferred based on moral requisites. Thus, a drunken womanizer such as Liu Bang 劉邦 (i.e., Emperor Gao) could rightfully receive Heaven’s sanction, unimaginable in earlier texts dealing with the principle of the Mandate; destiny and the Mandate were viewed originally as interconnected principles regarding the legitimate tenure of rulership. According to Biao and Gu, however, Heaven’s Mandate is preordained rather than earned, for the wealthy and the poor, the ruler and the ruled, all are destined to their positions. The question of how their reformulated Mandate theory affected later Chinese historians and political theorists would be an excellent topic for further study. My conclusion focuses on the problem of Mandate transference; I show that Ban Gu’s History of the Han was structured as a polemic in which the Han was believed to have a permanent Mandate. By removing moral requisites from the acquisition of Heaven’s sanction, and by connecting the Liu family’s Mandate to the sage-king Yao, Ban Gu, in essence, overturned previous ideals. First, Heaven’s Mandate could no longer be “lost” due to improprieties, and second, periods of “un-Mandated” rule such as postYao rulers, including Wang Mang, were only “interregnums,” interruptions in the single strand of the true Mandate of Heaven that the Liu clan alone could rightly claim. More simply put, any rule after Yao that was not by the Liu clan was really just an interregnum. Ban Gu’s arguments for the Liu clan’s privileged and predetermined tenure of the Mandate conveniently mitigated the traditional antagonism between rulers who were naturally concerned that their ministers’ remonstrations might challenge their right to rule, and ministers, who, knowing the dangers of speaking frankly, still saw the need to censure unkingly behavior. Ban Gu’s work achieves something quite ironic; he positioned himself as a classicist while overturning classicism. He used the Heaven’s Mandate ideal to support a completely novel way of interpreting the Heaven’s Mandate ideal. I began this book with a brief consideration of the historically complex relationship between rulers and their court advisors, and I also discussed how Ban Gu viewed the project of writing history, using traditional ideas

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as flexible tools rather than lapidary tenets. I have shown that Ban Gu’s postface was structured to highlight his family’s important, if not necessary, connection to state affairs. Ban family courtiers enlightened distracted and aberrant rulers and, thus, stabilized the empire. Ban Jieyu’s refusal to sport with Emperor Cheng in his chariot while he should have been attending to more important matters is a good example of Ban Gu’s representation of his clan as particularly able to maintain correct personal behavior while correcting the emperor’s faults. Emperor Cheng reformed his behavior and returned to the study of classical texts after hearing Ban Bo’s remonstration against his unkingly revels with Zhao Feiyan and other palace ladies. I have suggested that whereas Fan Ye’s biography of Ban Biao emphasizes his historical interests, Ban Gu, rather, emphasized his father’s ideologies. This was, in part, due to Fan Ye’s apparent need to create a parallel between Sima Qian and Ban Gu’s motivations to write. While Sima Qian was compelled to finish his father’s historical writing, Ban Gu intimated no such motivation. This was because Ban Gu felt no need to justify his work to later readers. Gu’s work was Han-centered and Han-sanctioned whereas Sima’s was focused on the entire sweep of China’s past and was independently produced. I provided an outline of the historical antecedents of Ban Gu’s life following the turbulent Wang Mang usurpation, and I suggested that Ban Gu developed a theory in which the Liu family could lose Heaven’s favor without necessarily losing its Mandate. This is part of Ban Gu’s paradigm that replaces the meritocratic Heaven’s Mandate idea of the Documents with one that is divinely determined beyond moral criteria. A series of court crises gave Wang Mang the support of several courtiers and facilitated his eventual arrogation of power. The History of the Han narrative shows how corrupt the court had become; but despite the court’s weakness, virtuous ministers defended the Liu family’s Mandate. The History of the Han asserts that Wang Mang usurped the throne on the basis of contrived omens, portraying him as a duplicitous Confucian whose machinations brought him to falsify claims to have received Heaven’s Mandate. It appears on the whole that three

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major forces influenced Ban Gu’s vision of history as he wrote his History of the Han: the collapse of the Han edifice of control, the crisis regarding how to interpret the Mandate theory, and Gu’s inherited family principles. It is in light of these three factors that Ban Gu wrote against nonvirtuous consorts, nonclassicist courtiers, and nonLiu claimants of the empire. It is also in this light that Ban Gu reconfigured the extant Heaven’s Mandate theory into one that was less changeable. In actuality there was little agreement on how to apply the Mandate ideal before Ban Biao and Ban Gu standardized its theoretical implications.

HEAVEN AND ITS MANDATE: EARLIER ASSUMPTIONS AND LATER INNOVATIONS468 To understand the extent of Ban Gu’s revisions of the Mandate of Heaven ideal, I need to briefly outline its origins. Gu’s restructuring of this ideal was no light task; he was remolding one of the most hallowed principles in Chinese history, the very tool used by rulers to legitimize their position. As Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) wrote, “…there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”469 The restored Han was, indeed, a new order, but it, nonetheless, needed to rely on classical ideas of legitimacy to curry support. Ban Gu’s work bridges the distance between the tenets of antiquity and the new circumstances of the present. In 1045 BC, a battle at Mu Ye 牧野 between the “depraved” last ruler of the Shang dynasty 商 (1500–1045 BC), King Zhou 紂王, and King Wu of the Zhou 周武王 ended the Shang, forever transforming China’s political ideologies.470 This was problematic in view of the putatively privileged position the Shang ruler held as the royal descendant of God on High, Shangdi 上帝. As Julia Ching put it, “The early Chinese kings, especially the Shang rulers, considered themselves as descendants of the demigods, and therefore also, as the kin of divinities.”471 Naturally, some justification for displacing the clan with the most powerful spirit-ancestors was

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necessary. The answer to this dilemma was not only to displace the ruling king with a man from another clan but also to displace the powerful god supporting him. Thus it has been argued, though not unproblematically, that the Shang deity Shangdi was replaced by the Zhou conquerors with a nonclan-specific deity, Tian 天, or Heaven.472 The results of this battle mark the historical era when the idea of tianming, or Heaven’s Mandate, was growing into a veritable political theory. Edward Shaughnessy stated, The Zhou conquest of the Shang at the battle of Mu Ye in 1045 BC represented at the time perhaps only the replacement—through force of arms—of one local power by another, but for later Chinese it came to illustrate the irrepressible will of Heaven turning its Mandate from one state, the rulers of which had grown distant from the people, to another state blessed with virtuous rulers.473

According to this model, the rulers of the Shang forfeited Heaven’s support, which was thus transferred to the more virtuous leaders of the Zhou. But this was not only a matter of virtue but also a religious problem since a numinous power was involved. Ching noted, “The Mandate theory offered philosophical and religious rationalization for a military conquest; it also sowed the seeds of future ‘revolution,’ since the Mandate could be removed (geming) by Heaven from the undeserving ruler.”474 Shaughnessy and Ching observed that according to the Mandate of Heaven ideal at the time, the Mandate could be removed from an undeserving ruler. The transferability of Heaven’s Mandate was accepted by Zhou and Western Han intellectuals, but such a paradigm was problematic in Ban Gu’s view, and in order to challenge that idea, Gu had to consider what it meant to be “deserving.” Early on the Mandate of Heaven principle had strong moral implications. In the Analects, Confucius commented on the stages of his life, stating that “at fifty I understood tianming” 五十而知天命.475 Much ink has been spilled trying to decipher the meaning of tianming in Confucius’ statement, but it is generally held that Confucius did not suggest that at fifty he understood “Heaven’s Mandate” as a political ideology

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or could at fifty discern who Heaven sanctioned as ruler of the state. In his commentary on the Analects, Yang Bojun 楊伯峻 (1909–1992) did not commit any specific meaning to Confucius’ understanding of tianming, choosing instead to leave the term ambiguous.476 Qian Mu 錢 穆 (1895–1990), on the other hand, expounded at length on the philosophical connotations of the tianming in Confucius’ statement, suggesting that, “Tianming implies all of the proper senses of morality and responsibility of human life” 天命指人生一切當然之道義與職責.477 In other words, Qian Mu moralized the term, which in the Analects may merely imply one’s accordance with the processes of destiny, that is, to understand that one’s personal behavior and providence are enmeshed with or fated by Heaven. How is the term used in the Classic of Odes and Documents? It appears to me that these two works politicize the term, and it remains connected to moral requisites until the first century AD when Ban Biao and Ban Gu divested it from its moral implications. In the Classic of Odes, an anthology of poetry dating from c. 1000 to c. 600 BC, there appear moralistic and politicized uses of the term tianming. In the Classic of Odes, one poet wrote, “Ordered and sagely men may drink wine but remain affable and self-controlled. Those who are disordered and obtuse become more addicted to drunkenness daily. May you all be reverential in your demeanor, for Heaven’s Mandate is not renewable” 人之齊聖，飲酒溫克，彼昏不知，壹醉日富，各敬爾儀，天 命不又 (“Xiao wan,” 小宛 Mao, 196).478 While this ode does not explicitly concern political sanction, it does reflect the Zhou attitude toward moral conduct. Virtuous action is requisite to the receipt of Heaven’s support. Furthermore, the anonymous poet stated that the Mandate, or sanction, is nonrenewable; the ode acts as an admonition against conduct that may cause Heaven’s disavowal. Loewe noted, The expression Mandate of Heaven (tianming) appears some seven times in the Book of Songs (Shijing), in the sense of the bidding given by Heaven to certain kings and their obedience thereto… Above all the poem asserts the highly important thesis that the Mandate does not remain constantly with one incumbent…479

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The thesis of a changeable Mandate based on moral requisites appears to be the standard view in the Classic of Odes. Two passages in the Documents also illustrate the implications of the Mandate of Heaven theory during the early Zhou. The Documents, in fact, represent the most vigorous politicization of the term. In the “Oath of Tang” 湯誓 chapter of the text, the Mandate of Heaven tenet figures in the opening remarks. According to the text, Tang 湯, the legendary founder of the Shang, delivered the oath before embarking on a punitive attack against the last ruler of the Xia, King Jie 桀王. In essence it is a justification for overthrowing the extant dynasty. 王 曰：「格爾眾庶，悉聽朕言．非台小子，敢行稱亂；有 夏多罪，天命殛.」 King Tang said: “I proclaim to all you common people; come and listen to what I say. It is not I, still a young man, who would dare to go forth in rebellion. However, the crimes of the Xia are numerous, and it is Heaven’s Mandate to punish them.”480

Here the term tianming appears to have been combined with the moralistic connotations implied in the Classic of Odes and was also used to suggest that Heaven supported Tang’s punishment, or overthrow, of the Xia because of King Jie’s improprieties. Heaven’s Mandate justified dynastic change, though Heaven’s putative support of the most virtuous ruler may have, in truth, been quite simply a form of legitimizing the vanquisher. Another passage appears in the “Prince Shi” 君奭 chapter of the Documents that represents a politicization of the term tianming, in a speech putatively by the Duke of Zhou to one of his contemporaries, the Duke of Shao, or Shao Shi 召奭. The Duke of Zhou exclaimed, “Pitiable! Heaven has sent down its misfortune on the Yin; the Yin has lost its Mandate, and our state of Zhou has received it” 弗弔！天降喪于 殷，殷既墜厥命，我有周既受.481 Here, tianming is clearly understood in political terms. The term tianming involves a deified Heaven that transfers political power from one dynastic house to another. The Duke continued,

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA 我亦不敢寧于上帝命，弗永遠念天威．．．在我後嗣子孫， 大弗克恭上下，遏佚前人光在家，不知天命不易，天難諶， 乃其墜命. We should not, moreover, dare to casually receive the Mandate of God on High, nor dare not to continually remember Heaven’s greatness…If our descendants are in large measure unable to reverence Heaven and Earth, and discontinue the brilliant virtue of our state’s ancestors, not understanding that Heaven’s Mandate is not easy to receive, or that Heaven cannot be counted on, then they will lose the Mandate.482

Two themes color the Duke’s speech. First, he began by telling his supporter, the Duke of Shao, that the Zhou state’s conquest over the Yin was justifiable because Heaven had retracted its support of the Yin and bestowed it on the Zhou. Second, he exhorted his descendants to remember Heaven’s greatness and that the Zhou descendants can lose the Mandate if they are unable to “continue the brilliant virtue” of their ancestors. Tianming is understood as a sanction that is meritocratically earned and transferred.483 In the Mencius, the Mandate of Heaven theory includes not only moral requisites on the part of the incumbent ruler but also accountability to the people over whom he ruled. According to Mencius’ more nuanced view, Heaven’s approval was discernable in the support of the people toward their ruler. The common people, argued Mencius, were given the highest consideration, holding precedence over the ruler himself. In a discussion of Yao’s famous abdication to Shun, Mencius asserted that Shun would not have accepted the throne were it not for the overwhelming support of the common people for him rather than Yao’s son, who according to traditional expectations, should have inherited the kingdom. To justify Shun’s receipt of the throne, Mencius quoted a now lost chapter of the Documents, “Heaven sees what our people see and hears what our people hear” 天視自我民視，天聽自我民聽.484 According to Mencius, the transferal of Heaven’s Mandate was precipitated by the eyes and ears of the common people, that is, the people’s well-being was paramount. Martin Powers summarized this view of Heaven’s Mandate, noting,

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If a king conducts himself as a tyrant, the people are free to depose him. Indeed, under these circumstances, the people by their actions are the very embodiment of the will of Heaven. This is the Mandate of Heaven theory. A central part of the Confucian classics, the concept did not mature in Han times until the late first century BC. Thereafter, however, it remained the foundation of Confucian political thought throughout history.485

The right of the people to displace the emperor, however, is not a hallmark of the late Western Han and early Eastern Han view of Heaven’s Mandate. Rather, the common view of Heaven underwent a transformation around the middle of the Western Han, a change in which Heaven became increasingly imbued with an individualistic agency. Mencius’ view of a Heaven with the eyes and ears of the people became a Heaven with its own eyes and ears.486 A telling debate took place in front of the Western Han emperor; one detects an imminent interpretive shift in how Heaven’s Mandate was perceived. In this debate, two ministers disputed the true implications of Heaven’s Mandate; Yuan Gu Sheng 轅固生 appears as an advocate of Mencius’ view that a depraved ruler may be deposed or replaced, and Huang Sheng 黃生 represents the emerging view at the time that Heaven’s sanction is destined or may even be permanent: 轅固，齊人也．以治詩孝景時為博士，與黃生爭論於上 前．黃生曰：「湯武非受命，乃殺也．」固曰：「不然． 夫桀紂荒亂，天下之心皆歸湯武，湯武因天下之心而誅桀 紂，桀紂之民弗為使而歸湯武，湯武不得已而立，非受命 (而)[為]何？」黃生曰：「『冠雖敝必加於首，履雖新必貫 於足．』何者？上下之分也．今桀紂雖失道，然君上也；湯 武雖聖，臣下也．夫主有失行，臣不正言匡過以尊天子，反 因過而誅之，代立南面，非殺而何？」固曰：「必若云，是 高皇帝代秦即天子之位，非邪？」 Yuan Gu was a man from the state of Qi. Because he had mastered the Classic of Odes he was made an erudite during the time of Jingdi. On one occasion he debated with Huang Sheng in front of the emperor. Huang Sheng said: “Tang and Wu did not receive the Mandate, and moreover they were murderers.” Gu replied: “It

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA is not as you say. Now, King Jie and King Zhou were uncultivated and disorderly and the heart of the kingdom completely turned toward Tang and Wu. Because the kingdom’s heart had turned to them, Tang and Wu punished Kings Jie and Zhou. The people of Kings Jie and Zhou would not obey them and turned to Tang and Wu. Because Tang and Wu had no other alternative, they were established as kings themselves. Is this not receiving the Mandate?” Huang Sheng retorted: “Even if a hat is worn-out it must be put on the head, and even if shoes are new they must be put on the feet. Is this not so? ‘High’ and ‘low’ have their distinctions. Now, even though Jie and Zhou had lost the Way, they were nonetheless high rulers, and even though Tang and Wu were sages, they were low ministers. Now, if a ruler fails in his behavior, and the minister does not rectify his speech and correct his mistakes in order to honor the Son of Heaven, but instead punishes his ruler on the basis of his mistakes and replaces him on the throne, is this not murder?” Gu then said: “If it is certainly as you say, then was it not murder when Emperor Gao, the founder of the Han, replaced the Qin and made himself the Son of Heaven?”487

There is a paradox in this debate, one that illustrates the growing disagreement about whether an emperor’s Mandate can be viewed as permanent. While Yuan Gu Sheng suggested, quite in line with Mencius, that the Mandate of Heaven can be forfeited if the people have turned away, Huang Sheng argued that no matter how virtuous or undesirable a ruler is, a ruler can only be a ruler and a minister can only be a minister. They are each victims of destiny. Even though this passage asks the questions necessary for Ban Biao and Ban Gu’s eventual answer, at this point, the debate is left unresolved. Sensing an intellectual dilemma that could potentially challenge his claim to Heaven’s Mandate, Emperor Jing interrupted the debate, stating, “In discussing one’s learning, he cannot be considered stupid if he avoids talking about Tang and Wu receiving the Mandate” 言 學者毋言湯武受命，不為愚.488 In other words, the very sticky problem of political legitimacy and moral behavior was unsettling and, thus, left unresolved. Huang Sheng had, perhaps, for the first time in the history of the Heaven’s Mandate theory suggested that Heaven’s sanction might

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be predestined. One question remained, however; if a lowly man was destined to his low status, how could Liu Bang rightly have “inherited” Heaven’s Mandate? He was, after all, a crude peasant.489 To explain how one man of modest birth could rightfully inherit the Mandate of Heaven while another could not, we must consider the growing belief that Heaven was viewed as a deity with its agency. That is, once Heaven is removed from its accountability to human exigencies, we see that its decisions can be made independently, without the necessity of considering moral merit. While the Western Han view of Heaven early on still held that a ruler’s behaviors affect his tenure of the Mandate of Heaven, the agency given to Heaven was an important step toward Ban Gu’s view that Heaven’s decision to choose one family over another was a resolute, if not permanent, decision. It was quite convenient that during the Western Han, the Mandate of Heaven ideal became increasingly used as a means to control the emperor. For Dong Zhongshu, Heaven’s omenological activities acted as a warning to a wayward ruler that his rule was in jeopardy; they were signs that were exclusively interpretable by worthy ministers. Later, Heaven’s omens no longer threatened the ruling clan but acted in the same way as a minister’s advice to his ruler did, as a form of loyal remonstrance.490 Dong Zhongshu’s view of Heaven appears in his memorials, and these memorials highlight his belief in Heaven’s agency and its interpretability. While Dong added a new dimension to the early Chinese view of Heaven, his ideas, nonetheless, retain the view that Heaven’s approval of a political leader is meritocratic. Dong connected the interpretation of Heaven’s voice to the selection of men of worth who could correctly explain that voice to the Son of Heaven. No longer, as during the Shang, was the ruler the most important mediator of Heaven’s will, but at this time, it was the well-chosen minister who could fulfill that function. Durrant suggested, Dong Zhongshu wished to subordinate imperial authority to purposive cosmological forces. As the emperor controls subjects,

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA reasoned Dong, so heaven should control the emperor. Indeed, an elaborate system of correlations between heaven and earth means that the emperor must constantly beware; for any misrule will result in inauspicious portents and natural disasters. The emperor fulfills his sacred mandate and thereby averts calamity by overseeing the moral education of the people. To assist him in this enormous task, he must diligently seek men of talent. In fact, according to Dong Zhongshu’s recitation of history, the primary characteristic of the rule of sages is their wise use of talent.491

Dong’s view of Heaven subordinates the ruler beneath Heaven’s judgment while also placing him implicitly under the judgments of his prescient ministers. Heaven’s individual agency allows it to “send down” warnings to an emperor who misrules. The three of Dong Zhongshu’s memorials included in Ban Gu’s biography of him all respond to inquiries issued by Emperor Wu.492 In these memorials, Dong outlined his views on proper rule and treats Heaven’s approval as a matter of great importance. In his first inquiry, the young Emperor Wu asked, 夫五百年之間，守文之君，當塗之士，欲則先王之法以戴翼 其世者甚眾，然猶不能反，日以仆滅，至後王而後止，豈其 所持操或誖繆而失其統與？固天降命不可復反，必推之於大 衰而後息與？烏虖！凡所為屑屑，夙興夜寐，務法上古者， 又將無補與？三代受命，其符安在？災異之變，何緣而起？ Now, within the period of five hundred years, many lords who preserve culture, and responsible scholars have desired to emulate the methods of the former kings in order to refresh and aid the people of their generation. Even so, they could still not turn the times. Each day fell into further destruction until the time of the latter kings when the destruction of the Way was finally ended. Can it be that their good conduct nevertheless, in some cases, contrary to all reason, caused them to lose the Standard? Is it certain that the Mandate sent down by Heaven cannot be reversed, or must it be pushed into great decay and finally cease? Alas! Is there no benefit to gain from all who are active, rising early, retiring late, and employing the methods of the ancients? The Three Dynasties

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received the Mandate; from where does their authority derive?493 What causes the transmutations of various calamities to arise?494

The permanence of Heaven’s Mandate is clearly the most pressing question in this inquiry. Emperor Wu wondered why the proper actions of scholars who “desired to emulate the methods of the former kings” could do nothing to check the declining times, and he wished to know if the Mandate was predestined or subject to change. Dong provided two answers; first, he suggested that the Mandate is, indeed, subject to change based upon human actions, but second, Heaven is too benevolent to dispense its judgments without first warning the human realm of its disapproval. Dong Zhongshu wrote in his first memorial, 視前世已行之事，以觀天人相與之際，甚可畏也．國家將有 失道之敗，而天乃先出災害以譴告之，不知自省，又出怪異 以警懼之，尚不知變，而傷敗乃至．以此見天心之仁愛人君 而欲止其亂也．自非大亡道之世者，天盡欲扶持而全安之. Having observed how the affairs of previous generations have transpired, and in this way observing the interactions between Heaven and men, much inspires awe. When states and households approach the final loss of the Way, Heaven first warns by sending dangerous calamities in order to make its censure known. If they then do not know that they must examine themselves, oddities are sent to startle and frighten them. If they still do not know to change themselves, fatal destruction arrives from Heaven. From this it can be seen that Heaven, in its benevolence, loves the lords of men and desires to stop their chaos (or rebelliousness). Heaven exhausts itself desiring to sustain and completely pacify a generation that does not greatly diminish the Way.495

According to Dong Zhongshu, Heaven discerned when states and households behaved improperly and sent down warnings in the form of calamities, and if its admonitions were ignored, Heaven destroyed it. He later asserted, “Thus, governance, chaos (or rebelliousness), abandon, and restoration reside within oneself (i.e., one’s own agency), and it is not that the Mandate sent down from Heaven is unalterable. He who grasps

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at falsehood destroys the Standard of governance” 故治亂廢興在於 己，非天降命不可得反，其所操持誖謬失其統也.496 In Dong’s view, Heaven’s Mandate is transferable. But in the end, Dong’s paradigm does not focus on a Heaven that justifies dynastic change but, rather, on one that admonishes a dynasty to be mindful of its actions. Heaven tries to preserve an extant dynasty before it becomes necessary to replace it. How, one might ask, is a good ruler to best manage the state in order to avoid Heaven’s censure? He is to love the people and remain attached to scholars who can provide a transformative education to the ruler and the ruled. According to Dong, the sage-kings of the past were all able to successfully rule because they “took transformative teachings as their great duty” 以教化為大務.497 Whoever could provide those teachings was to be selected by high officials from throughout the kingdom and further educated at the Grand Academy. Indeed, without worthy scholars to transform the ruler and the common people, and who alone could correctly interpret Heaven’s will, a kingdom was ill fated. Only after the empire is equipped with good ministers can it return to the greatness of the idyllic past. Dong Zhongshu’s philosophy regarding ministers can be summarized in one of his remarks, “If all of the kingdom’s worthy men are obtained, then the prosperity of the Three Kings (Three August Ones) could be easily brought about and the reputations of Yao and Shun could be achieved” 偏得天下之賢人，則三王之盛易為，而堯 舜之名可及也.498 Dong Zhongshu’s belief in a Heaven that responds to human affairs was an important step toward Ban Biao and Ban Gu’s new interpretation of the Mandate theory. As long as Heaven can transfer one clan’s dynastic Mandate to another based on moral behavior, the idea of predetermination and permanence remains problematic. On the other hand, a Heaven with agency is able to respond to human actions outside of fixed and moralistic rules. While Heaven is able to react to human actions with approval or disapproval and act upon them by dispensing warnings and destruction, it still does not predetermine; this interpretation awaited the intervention of Ban Biao and Ban Gu. In addition, the Bans would re-envision Mencius’ philosophy that the ruler’s good or bad actions precipitated good or bad reactions among his subjects.

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Biao and Gu conceptualized a Heaven that could assign its Mandate to a ruler whose actions, if immoral, were of no consequence to the common people. Ban Gu’s History of the Han includes two intellectual strands vis-à-vis the Mandate of Heaven theory: a complex legitimization of the Han’s Mandate and the removal of moral requisites from its bestowal. For Gu, Heaven’s Mandate was predestined and, perhaps, permanent.

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Was it merely empty flattery when on an imperial tour with Emperor Jing in 83,499 Ban Gu submitted his “Hymn on the Southern Tour” 南巡 頌 beginning with the words, “Only the Han again received the Mandate” 惟漢再受命.500 It may be that Ban Gu’s numerous encomia for the Han with effusive compliments was little more than an effort to navigate through the dangers of court life. One recalls the famous Chinese idiom, “To be in the emperor’s company is tantamount to living with a tiger” 伴 君如伴虎. One rather extreme example of Ban Gu’s immoderate praises of the Han is located in his “Response to a Guest’s Jest” 答賓戲. In this hypothetical discourse, Ban Gu included a long litany of accolades for the Han’s glory, and it appears to me that he was, after all, toadying a bit too much. 方今大漢洒埽群穢，夷險芟荒，廓帝紘，恢皇綱，基隆於 羲、農，規廣於黃、唐；其君天下也，炎之如日，威之如 神，函之如海，養之如春．是以六合之內，莫不同原共流， 沐浴玄德，稟卬太和，枝附葉著，譬猶屮木之殖山林，鳥魚 之毓川澤，得氣者蕃滋，失時者苓落… . Now, the great Han has washed away all of the weeds of the Qin, eliminated danger and eradicated misery, expanded kingly glory and magnified imperial discipline. Its infrastructure is more glorious than Fu Xi’s and Shen Nong’s, its regulations are broader than Huangdi’s and Tang Yao’s, and as it lords over the kingdom501 it brightens it like the sun, overawes it like a spirit, contains it like the ocean basin, and nourishes it like the spring. Therefore, all within the six directions (north, south, east, west,

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA up, and down) flow together from the same origin, are washed by profound virtue, and naturally raised in great harmony. Leaves are applied to their branches, just as herbs and trees grow in mountain forests, and birds and fish grow among streams and marshes. That which obtains the Han’s influence (“qi” 氣) has flourishing growth, while that which misses its era is scattered and desolate.502

It would be difficult to imagine a more celebratory series of phrases. Ban Gu would have his reader believe that nature yields its finest fruits under the brightness of the Liu family’s authority. While all that obtains the Han’s influence flourishes, other dynastic eras are “scattered and desolate.” As Ban Gu suggested, the Han, under the aegis of the Liu clan, was the most acceptable rule for nature and humanity. Certainly, this would have pleased the emperor for whom Ban Gu worked and, thus, secured his position as court historian. Ban Gu supported his pro-Han/pro-Liu view in two ways. First, he suggested that the Liu clan inherited—or, rather, carried on—the Mandate of the sage-king Yao. Such a family connection to legendary paragons was, in fact, not uncommon. Second, Gu connected the account of Emperor Gao’s slaying of the White Snake to the Five Phases theory, traditionally attributed to the third-century philosopher, Zou Yan 騶衍 (305–240 BC).503 He did this to dismiss Wang Mang’s claim to have inherited his “Mandate” in succession to the Han and to qualify the Liu clan’s position under the Fire phase. It is well attested among Chinese scholars that Ban Gu’s History of the Han is weighted heavily by his political support for the Lius. Fan Ye began his biography of Ban Gu with the assertion that “Ban Gu held that the Han carried on the fortune (Mandate?) of Yao, and on that basis established his imperial enterprise…” 固以為漢紹堯運，以建帝業.504 In other words, Fan Ye began his description of Ban Gu with a description of Gu’s belief that the Han clan was related to Yao. There are several places in the History of the Han that connect the Han’s Mandate to the reign authority of Yao. Three passages serve to illustrate Ban Gu’s belief: his concluding remarks in his “Basic Annals

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of Emperor Gao,” his summary of the Emperor Gao annals in his postface, and Ban Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate.” Ban Gu’s account of the Liu family’s origins produces a lineage that connects Liu Bang to the sage-king Yao. Gu began by recalling Cai Mo 蔡墨, a Jin historian of the Spring and Autumn era, who had already accounted for the family connection. Cai, according to Gu, asserted that after the Yao clan—then called the Yao Tang 陶唐 clan—had declined, one of their descendants was a dragon tamer.505 This man was Liu Lei 劉累, the first descendant of Yao to adopt the surname Liu. Liu Lei was in the service of one of the putative Xia kings, Kong Jia 孔甲, otherwise called Kong Shen 孔申. Later Liu descendants took the clan-name Fan, including a man named Fan Xuanzi 范宣子. After citing Cai Mo’s account of Liu Lei’s family connection to the Yao clan and the later change to the name Fan, Ban Gu included a quote from Fan Xuanzi, who traces the clan back to Yao Tang.506 Ban Gu also noted that during the Spring and Autumn period, one of the Fan clansmen acted as a chief judge 士師 and that during the time of Duke Wen of Lu 魯文公 (r. 626–609 BC), the Fans fled to Qin. Several Fans later returned to Jin while those who remained in Qin changed their surname back to Liu. During the Warring States period, one of the Liu clansmen from Qin was captured in Wei, and when Qin destroyed Wei, he relocated to Daliang 大梁.507 Ban Gu’s lineage of the imperial clan represents a rather complex attempt to connect the Han ruling family’s Mandate to the sage-king Yao. Ban Gu recalled that once Liu Bang became the emperor of the Han, he installed official shamans to perform sacrifices at the regions where his ancestors had dwelled, such as Daliang. They were to sacrifice to all his ancestors, including Yao, the Fans, and the Lius. The final line of the chapter declared, 由是推之，漢承堯運，德祚已盛，斷蛇著符，旗幟上赤，協 于火德，自然之應，得天統矣. From the foregoing accounts we gather that the Han dynasty succeeded the fortunes (Mandate?) of Yao; its virtues and the happiness recompensing it are great. The cutting in two of the snake,

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA the auspicious omens which appeared, the banners and pennons which emphasized the color red in harmony with the virtue of fire, were responses which came of their own accord, thereby showing that Gaozu secured the dynastic rule from Heaven.508

We note two points here: the Liu clan’s reign-virtue is validated by its connection to the sage-king Yao, and Liu Bang’s slaying of the White Snake marked his ascendancy under the phase Fire. Connecting Liu Bang’s reign-virtue 德祚 to Yao was so important to the political views of Ban Biao and Ban Gu that both emphatically reiterated the point. The Liu clan’s ancestral connection to the sage-king Yao is, again, restated at the end of the History of the Han, appearing in the second half of Ban Gu’s postface. In this passage, Ban Gu outlined Liu Bang’s claim to the Mandate, which he asserted was inherited and continued from Yao. Indeed, much of Ban Gu’s view of the Mandate ideology is outlined in his summary of the “Basic Annals of Emperor Gao.” Gu began with the accolade, “August indeed was the Han founder, succeeding Yao’s Mandate” 皇矣漢祖，纂堯之緒.509 His first objective was to assert his belief in Liu Bang’s connection to Yao. The tribute continues, “Truly, Heaven gave birth to virtue, and intellectual and martial precocity” 實天 生德，聰明神武 when it endorsed the Han.510 Ban Gu also recalled that the people of Qin were lawless because of their draconian subjugation of the empire and that Xiang Yu’s 項羽 (232–202 BC) departure to Chu was inevitable. But what followed Gu’s praise of the Han and blame of the Qin is more curious; he stated that in addition to Xiang Yu’s rise, Liu Bang emerged from obscurity. Gu recounted, “He cut in two the Snake and roused the multitudes, the Spirit Mother announced the fulfillment of the omen of Liu Bang’s Mandate, and the red banners were accordingly raised” 斷蛇奮旅．神母告符，朱旗乃舉.511 This last statement requires some explanation. Carefully couched within the remark that Liu Bang cut the Snake in two and raised the red banners is an assertion that Liu Bang had inherited, or re-inherited, the Mandate under the Red phase, thus dismissing the validity of Wang Mang’s claims to the Mandate of Heaven based on Wang’s use of the Five Phase paradigm. Since the Liu clan ruled under

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Fire (Guangwu continued that phase), Wang Mang’s reign under Earth was accordingly specious. Notably, the account of Liu Bang’s killing of the Snake was derived from the Records of the Grand Historian and did not appear for the first time in Ban Gu’s writing—that is, unless the account was a later insertion into Sima Qian’s record, but I find this unlikely. Biao and Gu were the first to seriously employ this account as a validation of Liu Bang’s Mandate under the phase Red, or Fire. Liu Xiang and Liu Xin had only hinted to the fact earlier. The Five Phase—wuxing 五行—paradigm as it was understood during the Eastern Han was a mixture of several interpretations. Sima Qian wrote that the first to formalize the Five Phase model was Zou Yan, putatively a scholar from Qi. Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990) suggested that Zou was a representative of what Han thinkers classified as the Yin Yang School 陰陽家.512 The apparent connection between Yin Yang and Five Phase cosmology is evident, as Yin Yang cosmology holds four basic tenets: Yin is the opposite of Yang, Yin creates Yang, Yin contains Yang, and Yin turns into Yang. It is the last quality of the Yin Yang paradigm that perhaps influenced the Five Phase model most and the one that is most relevant to the Five Phase application to the Heaven’s Mandate theory. The “Great Plan” chapter in the Documents has quite clearly influenced Ban Gu’s perception of the Five Phase paradigm. Ban Gu inserted verbatim a passage from the “Great Plan” into his “Treatise on Five Phases,” and then he politicized the passage to a high degree. The “Great Plan” states, “The first of the Five Phases is called Water, the second is called Fire, the third is called Wood, the fourth is called Metal, and fifth is called Earth” 五行：一曰水，二曰火，三曰 木，四曰金，五曰土.513 Here, the Five Phases are outlined more or less in their order of “conquest.” According to their cyclical function—and seasonality functions significantly in this model—the preceding phase is destroyed by the following one. Water conquers Fire, Fire conquers Wood, Wood conquers Metal—the most problematic—and Metal conquers Earth.514 In its reverse order, the model represents “nourishment”; Wood nourishes Fire, and so forth. The nourishment cycle was the normative model for dynastic change, though this changed periodically.

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A passage in the Lüshi chunqiu 呂 氏 春 秋 (The Annals of Master Lü) recalls the Yellow Emperor’s adoption of the phase Earth. It states, 黃帝之時，天先見大蚓大螻，黃帝曰：「土氣勝．」土氣 勝，故其色尚黃，其事則土. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, Heaven first made a large number of earthworms and mole crickets appear. The Yellow Emperor said: “The force of the element earth is in ascendancy.” Therefore he assumed yellow as his color, and took earth as a pattern for his affairs.515

The text continues to recount how Yu adopted the phase Wood, Tang adopted Metal, and King Wen adopted Fire, each conquering the previous phase. This view of a dynastic cycle, one in which dynastic Mandates corresponding to a specific phase are replaced by the subsequent phase, held that no dynastic house was permanent. This model was naturally unpopular among incumbent rulers, and by Ban Gu’s time, the Five Phase model was reinterpreted. So how does Liu Bang’s killing of the Snake fit into the Five Phase model of dynastic succession? As I have already mentioned, the Records of the Grand Historian and the History of the Han describe Liu Bang slaying the Snake, but Ban Gu made the Five Phase dynastic succession model more explicit in his narrative. Ban Gu wrote, 高祖被酒，夜徑澤中，令一人行前．行前者還報曰：「前有 大蛇當徑，願還．」高祖醉，曰：「壯士行，何畏！」乃 前，拔劍斬蛇．蛇分為兩，道開．行數里，醉困臥．後人 來至蛇所，有一老嫗夜哭．人問嫗何哭，嫗曰：「人殺吾 子．」人曰：「嫗子何為見殺？」嫗曰：「吾子，白帝子 也，化為蛇，當道，今者赤帝子斬之，故哭．」人乃以嫗為 不誠，欲苦之，嫗因忽不見．後人至，高祖覺．告高祖，高 祖乃心獨喜，自負．諸從者日益畏之. Gaozu, under the influence of liquor, was traversing the marsh one night. He ordered a man to go in front. The man who was in front returned and reported, “Up ahead there is a large serpent blocking the path. We had better go back.” Gaozu was drunk and

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said, “When a strong man walks along, what is there to fear?” Then he went ahead, drew his sword, and cut the serpent in two. The serpent was divided into two parts and the way was cleared. After walking several li, he was overpowered by drink and slept. When a man who came along afterwards reached the place where the serpent had been, an old woman was weeping there in the night. The man asked the old woman why she wept, and the old woman replied, “A man killed my son.” The man said, “How did your son come to be killed?” and the old woman replied, “My son is the son of the White God. He metamorphed himself into a serpent and blocked the way. Just now the son of the Red God has cut him in two; hence I weep for him.” Now the man thought that the old woman was not speaking the truth, and wanted to trouble her. Therefore the old woman suddenly disappeared. When the man who came along afterwards reached the place where Gaozu was, Gaozu had awakened and so he told Gaozu about it. Then Gaozu privately rejoiced in heart and took confidence in himself, while his followers daily feared him more and more.516

Several statements in this anecdote function to substantiate the Liu clan’s dynastic ascendancy; likewise, Emperor Gao’s conception and birth have a direct relationship to this account. Significantly, Ban Gu recounted that Emperor Gao was sired by the “Red God.” This detail is connected to an earlier passage that describes the circumstances of his mother’s impregnation. 母媼嘗息大澤之陂，夢與神遇．是時雷電晦冥，父太公往 視，則見交龍於上．已而有娠，遂產高祖. One day the old dame, his mother, was resting upon the dyke of a large pond when she dreamed that she had a meeting with a supernatural being. At the time there was thunder and lightning, and it became dark. When Gaozu’s father, the Taigong came to look after her, he saw a scaly dragon above her. After that she was with child and subsequently gave birth to Gaozu.517

Emperor Gao’s mother was impregnated by a “scaly dragon” that flew above her in a storm as she slept. Emperor Gao is the son of the “Red

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God,” who was manifest in the dragon that impregnated his mother beside the pond. The account reveals how the Five Phase theory of succession was employed in substantiating Emperor Gao’s Mandate; and it later became the story with which Gao’s connection with Yao is made. Early belief held that the Han inherited the Qin’s phase Water, a notion that was sustained by such early Han ministers as Zhang Cang 張蒼 (d. c. 152 BC).518 Jia Yi and Sima Qian, however, held that the Han ruled under the phase Earth, which they believed overcame the phase Water under which the Qin ruled. Liu Xiang and his son Xin reversed this conquest model of dynastic succession. They viewed the dynastic cycle as one of growth rather than conquest, suggesting that the Han ruled under Fire rather than Water or Earth, perhaps eliminating altogether the Qin and its phase. This new view was based on the passage recounting Gaozu’s slaying of the White Snake. Ban Gu recalled in his “Treatise on State Sacrifices” that debates concerning the cycle of dynasties and the order of the phases remained unabated until Liu Xiang and Liu Xin finally produced their theory. Ban Gu’s partisanship, perhaps, lies with the two Lius who appear to have settled the matter. According to Liu Xiang and Xin, the Liu clan had inherited the phase Fire from the time of the sage-kings of old. They suggested, 故高祖始起，神母夜號，著赤帝之符，旗章遂赤，自得天 統矣. Thus, when Gaozu first arose the Spirit Mother of the Snake howled in the night and the Contract of the Red God was manifest. The red banners were shown following the color Red, and from these the Han obtained the Standard of Heaven indeed!519

Although this passage may be one of the earliest to express the theory of the Liu clan’s ascendancy under the phase Fire, it seems that it was not fully accepted until after the inauguration of the rule of the Eastern Han emperor, Guangwu. This also marked the first explicit use of the Snakeslaying passage as proof of the Liu clan’s rule under the virtue of Red,

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which is part of a growth cycle rather than a conquest one. Ban Biao, however, was the first to assert with some authority that the Liu clan was descended from Yao.520 So far I have suggested that the Heaven’s Mandate model was understood in several ways before the Wang Mang era. In time, however, the nature of Heaven was reconceived and the role of the Five Phase cosmology in political succession became increasingly debated. During the time of Wang Mang, several conflicting theories regarding Heaven and the Five Phase began to codify into a singe view. Loewe suggested that by the time of Wang Mang, the Mandate theory was finally “accepted as orthodox.”521 Loewe noted that …it appears that the symbol of Water was adopted by Qin and Former Han, until its replacement by Earth in 104 BC; that Wang Mang re-adopted Earth; and that the change to Fire took place after the accession of Guangwudi, first of the Later Han emperors.522

Liu Xiang and Liu Xin held that the Han ruled under the color Red (Fire), though Emperor Guangwu was the first to adopt it officially. It seems reasonable that Guangwu finally accepted the phase Fire because Wang Mang had claimed the Earth as his reign phase—Fire becomes Earth. In this way, Guangwu was asserting that Earth had never ascended; Fire had remained in place. It may also have been that Ban Biao and Ban Gu were instrumental in the court’s final acceptance of Fire. Mang believed his Mandate to have derived from the phase Earth and that his dynastic phase grew naturally from Fire (the Han). In terms of color, the phase Fire corresponds to Red and Earth to Yellow. In January AD 9 Wang Mang sat in the Front Hall of Weiyang Palace and presented a document outlining his inheritance of Heaven’s Mandate. Ban Gu wrote, 還坐未央宮前殿，下書曰：「予以不德，託于皇初祖考黃帝 之後，皇始祖考虞帝之苗裔，而太皇太后之末屬．皇天上帝 隆顯大佑，成命統序，符契圖文，金匱策書，神明詔告，屬 予以天下兆民．赤帝漢氏高皇帝之靈，承天命，傳國金策之 書，予甚祗畏，敢不欽受！

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Wang Mang returned, seated himself in the Front Hall of the Weiyang Palace, and issued a written message which said: “I possess no virtue, but I rely upon the fact that I am a descendant of my august deceased original ancestor, The Yellow Lord, and a distant descendant of my august deceased first ancestor, the Lord of Yu, Shun, and the least of the grand empress dowager’s relatives. August Heaven and the Lords on High have made abundantly apparent their great assistance, so that the Mandate of Heaven has been completed and the succession to the imperial rule has been set in order. By portents and credentials, designs and writings, a metal casket and a written charter, the gods have proclaimed that they entrust me with the myriad people of the empire. The Red Lord is the genius of Emperor Gao of the Han dynasty. He has received a Mandate from Heaven and has transmitted the state to me by a writing on a metal charter. I have been extremely reverent and awed—how could I presume not to receive it respectfully?”523

Wang Mang claimed that the spiritual eminence of the Red Lord, the phase Red (Fire), was duly transmitted to the spiritual eminence of the Yellow Emperor, or the phase Yellow (Earth). And by connecting his ancestral lineage to the sage-king Shun, Mang created a historical parallel between Shun, who succeeded Yao, and the succession of the Mandate from the Liu clan to his. That is, historically Wang Mang’s putative ancestor, Shun, succeeded Emperor Gao’s putative ancestor, Yao, to the throne. This provides good evidence that the Liu clan connection to Yao was an idea already present at the time of Mang’s accession. Even the enemies of the Liu clan—here, Wang Mang—appear to have accepted the Han’s inheritance of Yao’s Mandate. As I have said, much of what Ban Gu hoped to achieve in his History of the Han was the de-legitimization of Wang Mang’s claim to the Mandate of Heaven, and this is, perhaps, Gu’s most obvious attempt. By highlighting Mang’s claim to the phase Earth and by asserting that the Han house ruled by virtue of the phase Fire, Ban Gu suggested that the Fire of the Liu clan’s reign, so to speak, was never extinguished. Ban Gu would have his reader believe that despite Wang Mang’s insistence, Earth did not, in fact,

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ascend in the dynastic cycle. What is more, Ban Gu asserted that the Han phase was Fire, even though the Western Han emperors never claimed it. Claiming that the Liu clan received its Mandate from Yao was, perhaps, more important in Ban Gu’s view than the attribution of the phase Fire to the Liu clan by establishing the Red God’s relation to Liu Bang. Ban Biao and Ban Gu’s new view of Heaven’s Mandate was not without problems. How does one resolve the apparent contradictions between their new interpretation of Heaven’s Mandate and the paradigm of antiquity? One possible answer is that they changed the Five Phase paradigm so that it had less to do with dynastic succession than dynastic characteristics. This modified version of the theory can be seen in Gu’s “Treatise on the Five Phases,” where he outlined how the Eight Diagram chart was issued from the Yellow River and given to the sage-king, Fu Xi, and how the Documents were issued from the Luo River and presented to Yu. The documents given to Yu were, according to Ban Gu, none other than the “Great Plan” chapter of the Documents. After describing the historical development of the Eight Diagrams and the “Great Plan,” Ban Gu asserted, 則乾坤之陰陽，效洪範之咎徵，天人之粲然著矣. They were modeled on the Yin and Yang of the Eight Diagrams (literally, the qian 乾 and kun 乾) and followed the investigations of portents in the ‘Great Plan’ to clearly manifest the Way of Heaven and man.524

For Ban Gu, the Eight Diagrams and “Great Plan” were to be used as a means to make “manifest the Way of Heaven and man.” That is, they were used in divination and the readings of portents. The “Great Plan” is the text from which the Five Phases discussed in Gu’s “Treatise on the Five Phases” is derived; it is also from this text that the characteristics of the phases are defined. In his treatise, Ban Gu used the characteristic of each phase as defined in the “Great Plan” to describe actions and events. In short, he used the Five Phases less for their cyclical quality than for their usefulness to describe the particular folly of a

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given emperor’s behavior. They were not used to describe the cycle of dynasties but rather to describe the behavior of people. In his Treatise, Ban Gu cited a passage from the “Great Plan” before discussing the interpretations of various portents. Gu quoted, “Water is said to glisten and descend; Fire is said to blaze and ascend; Wood is said to be crooked and straight; Metal is said to conform and change; and Earth is said to be involved in sowing and reaping” 水曰潤下，火曰炎 上，木曰曲直，金曰從革，土曰爰稼穡.525 The subsequent portent and calamity interpretations in his Treatise are based on this statement from the “Great Plan.” In a discussion of political applications of the phase Fire, Ban Gu wrote that Fire resides in the south and raises its brilliance and light to clarify distinctions. This, Gu stated, is what the proper ruler does. The king “leads the state facing south, clarifying and governing” 南面嚮明而治.526 The ruler clarifies distinctions by separating good officials from bad ones, literally, “worthies” 賢 from “sycophants” 佞. When good and bad ministers are distinguished, Ban Gu asserted that “Fire attains its nature,” 火得其性 and when they are not, “Fire loses its nature” 火失其性.527 The phases are in this way employed as a means of description rather than as a model. Ban Gu used the Five Phases to render moral and political admonitions and exhortations, such as asserting that a particular action by the emperor did not conform to the nature of Fire. While it is clear that Gu, on one hand, used the Five Phases theory to ascribe the phase Fire to the Liu clan’s Mandate to rule, he, on the other hand, removed it somewhat from its cyclical usage, making it a means of critique rather than a paradigm of cosmological succession. Ban Gu is, perhaps, moving away from the model of a dynastic succession. There is yet another aspect of his view of Heaven’s Mandate—destiny. And it is to this that he placed most of his faith in the Han Mandate.

CHASING DEER: A PREDETERMINED

AND

PERMANENT MANDATE

So far I have suggested that Ban Gu restructured the Heaven’s Mandate ideal to legitimize the Liu clan’s rule over the empire, nuancing the Five

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Phase system from merely a model of cyclicality to a vocabulary for praise and blame. I have also noted that Ban’s History of the Han holds that the Mandate was permanently attached to the Liu clan, inherited from the sage-king Yao, and theoretically irrevocable. On the surface, Ban Gu’s belief in a permanent Mandate is problematic, for to view Heaven’s Mandate as permanent, one must either hold that the ruling clan is perfectly and continually moral or that their behavior bears no relation to Heaven’s approval; that is, can an immoral person inherit and/or retain the Mandate? One must also answer the obvious charge that the Mandate had already changed several times in China’s history, and how can a ruler’s immoral actions not adversely affect the wellbeing of the people he rules? Ban Gu’s new view of Heaven’s Mandate could not simply disregard past beliefs; to change them, he needed to address them. Mencius held that a ruler’s actions are directly correlative to the people’s welfare and that the Mandate of Heaven could be discerned through the eyes and ears of the people. In order for Gu to support his view, several complexities needed to be addressed, and in the end, his theory is not flawless. At times Ban Gu’s reinterpretation of the Heaven’s Mandate paradigm has logical discrepancies, and he occasionally slipped into contradiction. Ban’s ideas on the Han Mandate were forced necessarily to reconcile seemingly opposed notions, and reconciling them meant his survival in the vicissitudes of court life. Traditionally the founders of dynasties, such as Tang who founded the Shang and King Wu who founded the Zhou, were viewed as moral paragons, held to be exemplars of the classical tradition. On the contrary, drunken men who imbibed immodestly and sought after the pleasures of the inner-chamber, such as Jie and Zhou, were described as “wicked last rulers” who had forfeited their right to rule. It is, therefore, unusual to find in the biography of a dynastic founder such a description as, “He was fond of wine and sex” 好酒及色; such a description never applied to any recipient of Heaven’s Mandate before the Han.528 Yet this is how Liu Bang is described. Emperor Gao’s proclivities for alcohol and women are among the first characteristics attributed to him in the

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Records of the Grand Historian and History of the Han. While the Zhou and Western Han notion held that Heaven responds to merit or demerit according to an intrinsic natural order or by a free but morally inclined personal agency, Ban Biao and Ban Gu held that a meritocratic basis of sanction retained an unacceptable fault. Such a system was unstable and impermanent. Ultimately, such an understanding is incompatible with an imperial system based upon inherited rulership; eventually a corrupt son is certain to be enthroned. However, neither Ban Biao nor Ban Gu completely jettisoned the expectation that a true ruler should display the moral merits honored by the Confucian intellectuals of the Eastern Han. The reader might here recall Huang Sheng’s axiom that “high” and “low” have their distinctions and are not interchangeable. For Huang, ministers and rulers could change their positions. His view does not mean that a ruler’s Mandate is necessarily permanent, but he did suggest that one’s destiny is fixed.529 Is such a view of destiny merely resignation, or is it a belief that actions are not correlative to one’s providence? Ban Biao responded to this question in his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” the only work explicitly identified as Ban Biao’s in the History of the Han. Understanding Biao’s essay is important to understanding Gu’s historical writing. Biao’s essay centers on Heaven’s selection of a ruler and functions to support the Liu clan’s rightful tenure of the Mandate. William Theodore de Barry, Wing-tsit Chan, and Watson said in their Sources of Chinese Tradition, It was on the basis of this conception of the divine election of Han Gaozu (Liu Ji) and his family as founders of the dynasty, that Ban Biao and his son, Ban Gu, set about to continue and rewrite the Shiji or Records of the Historian by their predecessor Sima Qian.530

Their assertion tallies well with one of my larger arguments, though I would add to this statement that Ban Gu’s attempts to glorify the Han rulers were also motivated by an impulse to protect his political career.

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Ban Biao’s essay is the first written work devoted exclusively to explaining the Heaven’s Mandate ideal, authored near the end of the politically turbulent period of the putative Xin dynasty. Biao probably wrote his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” while in the retinue of the warlord Wei Ao, after Ao had expressed his desire to seize the Mandate; and among his goals, it seems, was a desire to reconcile the paradoxes I have mentioned.531 Biao’s essay also appears to have influenced Ban Gu’s assertions that the Liu clan’s Mandate was derived from Yao and that their Mandate was permanent and nonmeritocratic. It begins with the statement that whereas the circumstances in which dynasties arise are different, the principles of receiving Heaven’s Mandate remain the same. That is, Ban Biao set out to solve once and for all precisely what the Mandate of Heaven theory is. Biao, prefiguring his son’s view, suggested early in his essay, 是故劉氏承堯之祚，氏族之氏，著乎春秋，唐據火德，而漢 紹之. In the same way the family of Liu [Han dynasty] inherited the blessing of Yao, as we see from its genealogy written in the Spring and Autumn Annals. Yao ruled by the virtue of Fire, which was handed down to the Han.532

Ban Gu’s father had already proposed the assertion that the Han’s Mandate was derived from their distant ancestor, Yao; Gu was only repeating it. Biao also recalled that the Yao/Liu Mandate rules by virtue of Fire, or Red, suggesting that the Liu’s inheritance of Heaven’s Mandate had passed from Yao through interim dynasties to the Liu clan of the Han. This view implies that whereas dynastic Mandates were transferred from one family to the next, the Liu’s Mandate remained valid—or extant— simultaneously as a single, although perhaps hidden, thread. The obvious problem with this supposition is distinguishing between a valid dynastic Mandate, such as that of the Zhou, and an invalid one, such as that of Wang Mang. In the former case, Yao’s Mandate was presumably subjugated, and in the latter, obscured. In any case, Biao suggested that the Liu clan’s claim to Heaven’s Mandate existed as a thread of validity

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despite another clan’s legitimate occupation or forceful usurpation of the court. Ban Biao also discussed Liu Bang’s slaying of the White Snake in his essay. He stated, “When the future emperor, Gaozu, first arose in the Marsh of Pei, the spirit of the old woman appeared weeping in the night as a sign from the Red [Fire] emperor” 始起沛澤，則神母夜 號，以章赤帝之符.533 Biao was, perhaps, paraphrasing the Records of the Grand Historian account, but he continued to assert that such signs were requisite to the appearance of a true ruler. According to Biao, the fact that spectacular events surround the life of someone such as Liu Bang was evidence of his eligibility—or selection—to rule with Heaven’s Mandate. Ban Biao did not, however, hold that such evidence proved the incipient ruler’s moral virtue. It was quite the opposite: Biao held that the Mandate was assigned to a person regardless of his or her exceptional wisdom or martial strength, asserting that it is incorrect to believe that the kingdom was like a deer. Rather, the Mandate to rule the empire was one’s destiny, regardless of his or her moral attributes. While according to Biao the fundamental evidence of someone’s eligibility to rule with Heaven’s Mandate could be observed and recorded, it was sometimes less evident who Heaven actually elected. In fact, for Biao, many of those who contended for the kingdom did not understand that according to the Mandate theory, only someone who is destined to the throne has a right to occupy it; it was not a prize: 世俗見高祖興於布衣，不達其故，以為適遭暴亂，得奮其 劍，游說之士至比天下於逐鹿，幸捷而得之，不知神器有 命，不可以智力求也．悲夫！此世所以多亂臣賊子者也．若 然者，豈徒闇於天道哉？又不賭之 於人事矣！ The people see that Gaozu arose from among the common men and they do not comprehend the reasons for his rise. They believe that, happening upon a time of violence and disorder, he was able to wield his sword, as the wandering political theorists compare the conquest of the empire to a deer chase in which success goes to the luckiest and swiftest. They do not understand that this sacred

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vessel, the rule of the empire, is transmitted according to destiny and cannot be won either by craft or force. Alas, this is why there are so many rebellious ministers and evil sons in the world today. To be so mistaken one would have to be not only blind to the way of Heaven, but totally unobservant to human affairs as well.534

The reader is told that human agency has little effect on the will of Heaven. Ban Biao was arguing against political theorists who claimed that Heaven’s Mandate was merely attainable by the winner. Having already stated who had the rightful ownership of Heaven’s support, his critiques of those who usurped the Liu family’s claim are quite acrimonious. As if to answer Yuan Gu’s position in his debate with Huang Sheng, Ban Biao offered an analogy, arguing that in the end, the retention or transference of the Mandate is predetermined by Heaven rather than simply transferred to a more virtuous clan. The traditional requisite moral qualities for receiving Heaven’s Mandate are absent from Biao’s essay. In fact, he suggested that the Mandate to rule the empire was determined by Heaven outside of moral qualities. Ban Biao wrote, 夫餓饉流隸，飢寒道路，思有裋褐之褻，儋石之畜，所願不 過一金，然終於轉死溝壑．何則？貧窮亦有命也．況虖天子 之貴，四海之富，神明之祚，可得而妄處哉？ Now when famine comes and the people wander from place to place the starving and cold fill the roads. They think only of getting a coarse coat to cover themselves and a measure of grain to nourish life. Their desires go no further than a few coins, and yet they die and end tumbled in a ditch. If in this way even poverty and misery are meted out by destiny, how much more so the honor of the throne, the riches of all within the four seas, and the blessing of the gods. How could one recklessly try to arrogate to oneself such a position?535

Despite one’s willingness to receive a paltry offering to maintain one’s life, destiny is destiny. Even a poor man who would be satisfied with course garments or a small amount of money cannot alter his destiny if it

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is to starve to death. Virtue cannot alter the contingencies of fate. Hence, a ruler’s destined Mandate was unalterable. Biao’s most adamant claim, however, is that people who were destined to forever occupy lower positions could not hope to rightfully enjoy the imperial prerogative.536 Some persons, Biao insisted, were unworthy to claim Heaven’s Mandate, and he recounted the stories of two men and their mothers who lived prior to the Western Han to illustrate his point. During the end of the Qin, Chen Ying 陳嬰 (?–162 BC) was made king by a group of his supporters.537 His mother warned against accepting the title on the grounds that when she married into his family, they were poor and humble; for them to become suddenly prosperous and wealthy would be inauspicious since it was not their destiny. Furthermore, she recommended that he entrust the command of his army to someone else, saying that “if you are successful you may receive somewhat less profit, but if things go badly then misfortune will fall on someone else” 事成少受 其利，不成禍有所歸.538 In the end, Chen Ying followed his mother’s advice, and Ban Biao stated that the Chen family, thus, lived in peace. Biao’s second example of people who recognized destiny is Wang Ling 王陵 (?–181 BC) and his prescient mother.539 Wang’s mother foresaw Xiang Yu’s fall and the Lius’ rise to power. After Xiang Yu’s army captured her while Wang Ling was serving as a general under Liu Bang, a Han emissary was dispatched to Chu to see Xiang Yu. When Wang’s mother saw him, she said, “I beg you to tell my son that the king of Han is a superior man and will surely become ruler of the empire. My son should serve him with all diligence and not be of two minds on my account” 願告吾子，漢王長者，必得天下，子謹事之，無有二心.540 After making her request to the emissary, she killed herself with a sword to solidify her son’s resolve to serve the Han. Biao concluded his account of the two mothers stating, 是故窮達有命，吉凶由人，嬰母知廢，陵母知興，審此四 者，帝王之分決矣. Therefore, though failure and success rest ultimately with destiny, yet it is up to men to choose between the lucky and unlucky.

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Chen Ying’s mother understood what would decline; Wang Ling’s mother perceived what would prosper. By judging of these, the disposition of the rulership can be determined.541

Thus the privileged position of ruler is predetermined in much the same way as poverty and wealth are. Destiny is set in advance, and wise discernment dissuades attempts to change it. In addition to his view that Heaven’s Mandate is predestined, Ban Biao also shifted away from the Zhou conception of a Heaven that sanctions a moral exemplar. Despite Liu Bang’s faults outlined in the Records of the Grand Historian and History of the Han, Biao suggested that his rise to power and receipt of the Mandate were supernaturally predetermined. His essay notes that Liu Bang’s election could be verified on five counts, and rather than justify Liu’s right to rule by highlighting his moral strengths, Biao illustrated how his Mandate could be verified through special signs. 一曰帝堯之苗裔，二曰體貌多奇異，三曰神武有徵應，四曰 寬明而仁恕，五曰知人善任使. First, he was a descendant of Emperor Yao. Second, his body and face showed many strange markings. Third, there were omens testifying to his divinely inspired conquest. Fourth, he was liberal and of a keen mind, humane and merciful. Fifth, he understood men and knew well how to use their services.542

While the fourth and fifth features are matters of behavioral virtue, the first three are, nonetheless, divine. I have already noted the assertion that the ruling efficacy of the sageking Yao had been transmitted to Liu Bang. Liu Bang’s second quality, unusual physical distinctions, verified his eligibility to have Heaven’s Mandate. In the opening lines of the “Basic Annals of Emperor Gao” Liu Bang is said to have been born with “an eminent nose, a dragon on his forehead…and seventy-two moles on his left thigh” 隆準龍顏…左 股有七十二點子.543 The dragon represented the imperial prerogative; the seventy-two moles, Dubs suggested, represented the number of days

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attributed to each of the Five Phases within a single year.544 The moles may also have indicated the number of kings who had performed the Feng Shan sacrifice prior to Emperor Gao.545 Verifying signs of his spiritual subjugation of the kingdom are shown in such events as his miraculous conception, that is, his mother’s impregnation by a scaly dragon floating above her. Not only is Liu Bang’s clan lineage traced back to an honored sage-king, Yao, but also his body was marked with signs specifically alluding to his imperial destiny. Omens also verified his election; the dragon observed flying above Emperor Gao’s mother was an omen. Biao recounted how two women who sold him wine, Wang Ao 王媼 and Wu Fu, 武負 witnessed oddities above him while he slept and how Duke Lu 呂公, skilled in physiognomy, offered him his daughter after seeing Liu’s face.546 The Qin king traveled east to suppress Liu Bang’s qi 氣 (force of influence/emanation). Furthermore, Biao recalled the alignment of five stars—planets?—when Gao arrived at Ba Shang 霸上 as an omenological verification of his election. Ban Biao’s account of the unusual signs and events surrounding Emperor Gao’s rise to the throne is impressive, and examples where these are mentioned in Ban Gu’s History of the Han are too numerous to enumerate here. One could argue that Gao’s supernatural manifestations are no different from those of Yao and Shun, who are also noted to have had miraculous births. Their birth accounts, however, are intended to support their eligibility to receive Heaven’s sanction. Yao and Shun were perfectly moral men; Liu Bang was not. Ban Biao’s inventory of verifications does not merely establish eligibility; it suggests proof of his divine election. Ban Gu was keen to insert accounts supporting his father’s thesis into his writings. For example, in Ban Gu’s biography of Wang Mang he included an account of a diviner, Wang Kuang, who during the interregnum between the Western and Eastern Han, states in a prognostication that “the Han family is certain to rise again.”547 Prescient scholars are, in the History of the Han, sharply aware that Wang Mang did not really supplant the Liu clan’s Mandate. Why would Biao assign so many supernatural verifications to Emperor Gao if not to distinguish his Mandate as validly bestowed to

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him by Heaven? And why would Biao formulate a Heaven’s Mandate paradigm without moral requisites if not to suggest that the Liu clan’s Mandate was not subject to removal? While Biao was temporarily in the retinue of the ambitious Wei Ao, Ao asked him a clearly pointed question intended to discern Biao’s opinion as to whether the Liu clan’s Mandate could be seized. Ao asked, “Must the right to the throne devolve in turn onto one man [i.e., a Liu]?” 將承運迭興在於一人也.548 After all, Ao asserted, the state of the kingdom at the time of his interview with Ban Biao was grim. Had not the Liu clan’s poor rulership caused the recent dynastic collapse? Ban Biao replied that the situations of the Zhou and Han are not the same, asserting that 周之廢興與漢異．昔周立爵五等，諸侯從政，本根既微，枝 葉強大，故其末流有從橫之事，其勢然也．漢家承秦之制， 並立郡縣，主有專己之威，臣無百年之柄，至於成帝，假借 外家，哀，平短祚，國嗣三絕，危自上起，傷不及下. the rise and fall of the Zhou is not like the Han. Formerly, the Zhou established the five noble ranks,549 and the feudal lords accordingly governed the state. After the roots had grown weak, the branches grew strong. For this reason, in the end there were the affairs of shifting alliances; such was the configuration of things.550 The Han inherited the institutions of the Qin, and likewise established the commanderies and districts. The rulers held authority exclusively themselves and ministers did not have one hundred years of power. Once we arrive at the reign of Emperor Cheng, he borrowed from the distaff families,551 and the imperial tenures of Ai and Ping were truncated. The state’s inheritance was broken off three times. Perils arose from above [i.e., the emperor], but no harm was done to those below [i.e., the commoners].552

While, during the Zhou, the “root,” that is, the central polity, was weak and the “branches and leaves,” that is, officials and nobles, were strong, the Han represented an opposite reality. Despite the problems outlined by Biao—Emperor Cheng’s misrule and the three emperors without heirs, for example—the results of their misbehavior did not reach the

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people. The previous view that a ruler’s actions affect the common people was here discarded. Ban Biao simply adduced, “Perils arose from above (i.e., the emperor), but no harm was done to those below (i.e., the commoners).” The moral improprieties of the emperor have no bearing on the common people, nor do they affect his tenure of Heaven’s Mandate. Ban Gu inserted statements into the narrative of his History of the Han that reinforce his father’s belief in the Han’s permanent tenure of the Mandate. I have already discussed one example of Gu’s use of this theory: after Emperor Yuan had installed one of his sons, Liu Kang 劉 康, by a consort, Fu Zhaoyi 傅昭儀, as the incumbent heir apparent, his mother began to receive growing imperial favor. One of his ministers, Kuang Heng 匡衡, presented a memorial to the emperor enjoining him to be attentive to the problems in court. Kuang stated, 臣聞治亂安危之機，在乎審所用心．蓋受命之王務在創業垂 統傳之無窮. I have heard that the key to controlling rebellion and settling danger lies in the investigation of one’s aims. In general, the principle business of a king who has received the Mandate lies in seeing to it that his enterprise will enjoy endless and unchanging permanence.553

There are notable assertions here. First, as Loewe suggested, this passage represents an entirely new trend in Han politics, that is, a more Heaven-focused view of governance.554 Second, it may be the earliest statement suggesting that a ruler must occupy himself to the task of “transmitting” his Mandate “forever.” Passages in Zhou texts normally function as admonitions: be wary lest you lose the Mandate. Here a minister is voicing his view that the duty of a ruler is to perpetuate his rule for all times. In addition to passages in which Ban Gu echoed his father’s belief that the Liu Mandate was permanent, Gu often supported Biao’s assertion that the Liu clan’s Mandate was verifiable by special signs. That is, despite the Liu emperors’ behaviors, good or bad, physical

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signs distinguished them as divinely chosen. One sees it recorded, for example, that Emperor Xuan 宣帝 (r. 73–49) had signs to verify his divine appointment, while Wang Mang’s rule was merely a usurpation of the throne without the blessing of Heaven. In Ban Gu’s biography of Emperor Xuan, he wrote, 身足下有毛，臥居數有光燿．每買餅，所從買家輒大讎，亦 以（自是）〔是自〕怪． On his (Emperor Xuan’s) whole body and even the bottoms of his feet there was hair. Where he slept and dwelt there were frequently lights and shinings. Whenever he bought cakes, the shop from which he bought made great sales. Because of these things, even he marveled at himself.555

There are other emanations connected to Emperor Xuan discussed in the History of the Han that highlight his divine appointment, such as an appearance of “heir apparent energy” 太子氣 that appeared above the prison where he was kept.556 Wang Mang is compared negatively to the legitimately verifiable Liu clan. Wang is depicted unfavorably, and as I noted earlier, his claim to the throne was specious. Ban Gu made a curious assertion in his final remarks on Wang Mang, suggesting that Wang’s usurpation was indeed a fate set by Heaven, just as the Mandate was fated for the Liu clan. Ban Gu wrote that it was due to the Han’s weakness and administrative decay during the reigns of Emperors Cheng, Ai, and Ping, that Wang was able to seize the throne. In Gu’s comments that conclude his biography of Wang Mang, he wrote, 遭漢中微，國統三絕，而太后壽考為之宗主，故得肆其姦 慝，以成篡盜之禍．師古曰：「肆，放也，極也．」推是言 之，亦天時，非人力之致矣． The Han dynasty became weak in the midst of its period and the dynastic succession was thrice broken, so that in her old age the Empress Dowager nee Wang became the mistress of the imperial clan, hence Wang Mang was able to give free reign to his

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Ban Gu suggested that Wang Mang’s usurpation was facilitated by the Han’s decay and the determination of Heaven. Just as Gu’s father stated in his “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” that human effort cannot precipitate or influence Heaven’s decrees, so too it seems that some calamities are fated by Heaven.558 It remains odd, however, that Heaven would allow a divinely and permanently appointed clan’s Mandate to become obscured beneath the usurpation of a pretender, but this had happened before, for from Shun until Liu Bang, the Mandate of Yao was hidden. Liu Bang’s rise to authority was, in effect, a “return of the true king,” so often written of in Western works. Biao and Gu have done what any polemicist must do, they have responded to real and potential counterarguments. In light of Ban Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate” and the strands of its arguments that are woven through Ban Gu’s writing, a picture of the History of the Han’s ideological bias emerges. Ban Gu’s History of the Han purports to restate the honored ideal of Heaven’s Mandate and provide an interpretation wherein the Liu clan could be expected to rule indefinitely. By assigning the phase Red to the Liu clan’s reign-authority, Ban Gu discredited Wang Mang’s claim to have inherited Heaven’s Mandate under the aegis of Earth, the cyclical successor to the phase Fire. By arguing that the Han’s reign-authority is by virtue of Fire, it stands to reason that Mang’s claim to the phase Earth was specious; Fire’s reign was usurped rather than displaced. Ban Biao and Ban Gu also responded to the assumption that only a person of virtue could attain the Mandate. Attachments to wine and sex were the traditional faults ascribed to last rulers who had lost the Mandate to more moral aspirants. This ideal was common from perhaps the beginning of the Zhou and lasted until the Western Han. Ban Biao and Ban Gu discarded the idea of the Mandate based on moral requisites in favor of one based on destiny. Heaven assigned the Mandate because it

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had earlier determined to do so; no longer could the Mandate of Heaven be won by the most virtuous and militarily keen. Biao and Gu employed the Five Phase theory in two ways. On the one hand, it was used to support the Han’s inheritance of Heaven’s Mandate based on the natural cycle of the phases, and on the other, it was reinterpreted to remove the necessity of a continual cyclical transference of Heaven’s Mandate. The phases were to be used to impart judgment—does a ruler’s action follow or contradict a phase’s intrinsic nature? A curious and perhaps felicitous byproduct resulted from Ban Gu’s polemic for a destined and permanent Mandate. That is, the judgments of a historian could no longer be viewed as a threat to the ruling clan’s Mandate. According to Ban Gu’s paradigm, all criticisms of the Liu clan, no matter how acrimonious, could only be seen as a form of loyal remonstrance. In the end, the actions of the emperor affect the top but do not reach the common people below. Mencius’ view of a rule that transforms the people for good or bad was rejected. Gu’s narrative efforts to empower and legitimize the Liu clan are, at least, in part an attempt to position himself within a safe context, alleviating the normal suspicions rulers felt toward their ministers. As Samuel Butler noted, “Self-preservation is the first law of nature.”559

ZAN 贊: A FINAL APPRAISAL At this point I would like to leave the author and look at the text, that is, how have later generations viewed the History of the Han? Wei Zheng noted in his Suishu 隨書 (Records of the Sui) that of the Han histories, “only the teaching methods of the Records of the Grand Historian and History of the Han were transmitted along with commentaries…and those who transmitted the Records of the Grand Historian were very few” 唯史記，漢書，師法相傳，并有解釋...史 記傳者甚微.560 There is, in fact, good evidence that the History of the Han was the more honored of the two histories well into the late Imperial era. While the History of the Han clearly inherited its structural arrangement from Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, the

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subsequent Standard Histories have more closely followed Ban Gu’s modified structure. And while the History of the Han cannot rightly be referred to as a Dynastic History,” later historians viewed it as such, modeling their works on that assumption. Perhaps this suggests that Ban Gu’s permanent Han Mandate ideal was later rejected. Sima Qian’s record of the entire sweep of China’s history was the first and last of its kind, not including Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, which is in several ways quite unlike Sima Qian’s work.561 Ban Gu’s History of the Han, however, can accurately be called the template of official historical writing until the fall of imperial China in 1911. The lineage of official histories after Ban Gu’s death that were modeled after his work extends to the twentieth century, with the last of the Standard Histories, the Qingshi gao 清史稿 (Draft of the Qing History), making Ban Gu’s work the model for the structure and syntax of historical works for nearly two thousand years. Ban Gu’s literary merits, too, did not pass unnoticed in later generations. Liu Xie’s comments on Ban Gu’s literary qualities in his Wenxin diaolong 文心雕龍 (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons) are too numerous to adequately account for here, though several of his remarks show the extent to which Ban Gu’s writings were honored by later scholars. Liu’s work was China’s first book-length consideration of exclusively literary issues, and its pages are replete with mentions of Ban Gu and his works. Liu Xie commented, 二班，兩劉，奕葉，繼采，舊說以為固文優彪，歆學精向… 璿壁產於崑岡，亦難得而踰本矣. The two Ban [Biao and his son Gu] and two Liu [Xiang and his son Xin] exhibited great literary talent in two successive generations. According to an old opinion, Gu was said to excel Biao in literary quality, and Xin to excel Xiang in scholarship… . A fine piece of jade, however exquisite, owes its origin to the jade-producing Mount Kungang, and as a product it would be rather difficult for it to excel its source.562

Inscribing the State

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It is clear that the Bans and the Lius were considered to be fine examples of literary talent, and Liu Xie’s insistence that a son’s literary merits are owing to his father is a matter of respect. When he discussed the practice of citation and allusion in early Chinese writing, Liu Xie reserved special accolades for Ban Gu and his coterie of Eastern Han writers: 至於崔，班，張，蔡，遂捃摭經史，華實布濩；因書立功， 皆後人範式也. And when Cui Yin, Ban Gu, Zhang Heng, and Cai Yong began to select passages from the classics and histories, spreading their flowers and fruits far and wide, and established their reputations through writing, they became models who were imitated by later scholars.563

Ban Gu and his colleagues were praised as models of good writing. Of the four authors mentioned in this passage, Ban Gu has been cited the most and, perhaps, also critiqued the most. In Liu Xie’s chapter on historical writings, he recalled Zhang Heng’s 張衡 (78–139) critiques against historians such as Ban Gu who stretch their chronologies out too long and are careless about beginnings and ends.564 One is reminded of the Jin scholar, Zhang Fu 張輔, who rendered a caustic critique of Ban Gu for, among other things, being too wordy.565 It is quite easy to locate positive and pejorative comments about Ban Gu and his writings—including the putative statement by Ge Hong 葛 洪 (283–343) that claims Ban Gu did not actually write the History of the Han at all.566 We are, however, left wondering what effect Gu’s ideas had on later Chinese. There is certainly one historical reality that shows readers that Ban Gu and his father were wrong about at least one part of their intellectual position—the Han dynasty did not last but ended in 220. It may be, however, that the Mandate of Yao, held also by his descendants of the Liu clan, has yet to re-emerge and restore China to the “golden age” of the Han. Kuang Heng’s exhortation that “the principle business of a king who has received the Mandate lies in seeing to it

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that his enterprise will enjoy endless and unchanging permanence” was apparently not in the mind of Emperor Xian 獻帝 (r. 190–220) when he abdicated on December 11, 220, passing the Mandate of Heaven to Cao Pi 曹丕 (187–226), who thereafter ruled the new Wei dynasty (220–264) as Emperor Wen 文帝 (r. 220–226).567 The Han dynasty that Ban Gu had devoted his life and works to was over. Perhaps here Ban Gu would insert a positive note. The Han dynasty that we know today is in large part the Han dynasty that he has given us. China’s regard for its Han heritage is evident in the name given to China’s indigenous language and people—the “Han language” (Hanyu 漢語) and the “Han people” (Hanzu 漢族). These appellations are still in use today. Ban Gu’s pride in the dynasty he lived in remains a mark of modern China. Ban Gu’s History of the Han is more than merely a record of Han rule; it is a tribute to its privileged greatness and an argument for its permanence. But even more evident than Ban Gu’s accolades for the Han are his efforts to produce a work that creates a past in which his clan’s virtue and usefulness are inscribed. Like the Liu clan that inherited the Mandate of Yao, the Ban clan inherits a mandate of service to the court. If the Han’s Mandate is permanent, so too is the Ban family’s Mandate. Ban Gu has much to offer beyond merely what happened during the Han. We might benefit from reading Ban Gu’s History of the Han as an inscription, wherein the expectations of being a courtier in the early Eastern Han are written within the narrative. By reading the text for what lies beyond the text, perhaps we come closer to the author himself.

APPENDIX A

BAN CLAN FAMILY TREE (A DIAGRAM)

Ruo Ao Dou Bobi Dou Ziwen (d. c. 625 BC) Dou Ban (approximately four hundred years unaccounted for) Ban Yi Ban Ru Ban Chang Ban Hui Ban Kuang

Ban Jieyu

Ban Bo

Ban You

Ban Si

Ban Gu (AD 32–92)

Ban Chao (AD 32–102)

Ban Zhi

Ban Biao (AD 3–54)

Ban Zhao (AD 49–c. 120)

APPENDIX B

COMPLETE LIST OF BAN GU’S WORKS Ban Gu’s Literary Oeuvre: Including Complete and Fragmentary Works 1.

幽通賦

2. 3.

答賓戲 世祖本紀

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

神雀頌 兩都賦 明堂詩 辟雍詩 靈臺詩 寶鼎詩 白雉詩 白虎通德論

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

典引篇 終南山賦 覽海賦 遊居賦 竹扇賦 奏記東平王蒼 與竇憲牋 與弟超書 與陳文通 匈奴和親議 竇車騎北征頌

“Rhyme-Prose on Communication with the Hidden” “Response to a Guest’s Jest” Basic Annals of Guangwudi (with several other authors) “Hymns on the Spiritual Birds” “Rhyme-Prose on the Two Capitals” “Poem on the Ritual Hall” “Poem on the Hall of Learning” “Poem on the Spirit Terrace” “Poem on the Precious Tripod” “Poem on the White Pheasant” The Comprehensive Disquisitions at the White Tiger Hall “Elaboration on the [Yao] Canon” “Rhyme-Prose on Zhongnan Mountain” “Rhyme-Prose on Watching the Sea” “Rhyme-Prose on Travel and Respite” “Rhyme-Prose on the Bamboo Fan” “Memorial to Liu Cang, King of Dongping” “Correspondences with Dou Xian” “Letters to [Gu’s] Younger Brother, Chao” “Letter to Chen Wentong” “Deliberation on Relations with the Xiongnu” “Hymn on the Northern Expedition with General Dou”

Complete List of Ban Gu’s Works 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

東巡頌 南巡頌 封燕然山銘 高祖沛水亭碑銘 十八侯銘 難莊論 功德論 馬仲都哀辭 郊祀靈芝歌

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

擬連珠 奕旨文 詠史 漢書 白綺扇賦 耿恭守疏勒城賦

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“Hymn on the Eastern Tour” “Hymn on the Southern Tour” “Ceremonial at Yanran Mountain Inscription” “Gaozu Pei River Pavilion Stélé Inscription” “Eighteen Nobles Inscription” “Disquisition on Grave Misfortune” “Disquisition on Meritorious Virtue” “Ma Zhongdu Lament” “Song of the Suburban Sacrifice Sacred Fungus” “After Strung Pearls” “Composition on Great Intentions” “Song of History” Records of the Han “Rhyme-Prose on the White Silk Fan” “Rhyme-Prose on Geng Gong Defending the Fortress”

APPENDIX C

TRANSLATION OF THE HANSHU CHAPTER TITLES 本紀 BASIC ANNALS 卷一上高帝紀 Chapter 1 (A): “Annals of Emperor Gao” 卷一下高帝紀 Chapter 1 (B): “Annals of Emperor Gao” 卷二惠帝紀 Chapter 2: “Annals of Emperor Hui” 卷三高后紀 Chapter 3: “Annals of Empress Gao” 卷四文帝紀 Chapter 4: “Annals of Emperor Wen” 卷五景帝紀 Chapter 5: “Annals of Emperor Jing” 卷六武帝紀 Chapter 6: “Annals of Emperor Wu” 卷七昭帝紀 Chapter 7: “Annals of Emperor Zhao” 卷八宣帝紀 Chapter 8: “Annals of Emperor Xuan”

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卷九元帝紀 Chapter 9: “Annals of Emperor Yuan” 卷十成帝紀 Chapter 10: “Annals of Emperor Cheng” 卷十一哀帝紀 Chapter 11: “Annals of Emperor Ai” 卷十二平帝紀 Chapter 12: “Annals of Emperor Ping”

表 CHARTS 卷十三異姓諸侯王表 Chapter 13: “Chart of the Feudal Lords and Kings without the Imperial Surname” 卷十四諸侯王表 Chapter 14: “Chart of the Feudal Lords and Kings with the Imperial Surname” 卷十五上王子侯表 Chapter 15 (A): “Chart of the King’s Sons who were Feudal Lords” 卷十五下王子侯表 Chapter 15 (B): “Chart of the King’s Sons who were Feudal Lords” 卷十六高惠高后文功臣表 Chapter 16: “Chart of the Meritorious Ministers of Emperor Gao, Emperor Hui, Empress Gao, and Emperor Wen” 卷十七景武昭宣元成功臣表 Chapter 17: “Chart of the Meritorious Ministers of Emperor Jing, Emperor Wu, Emperor Zhao, Emperor Xuan, Emperor Yuan, and Emperor Cheng”

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卷十八外戚恩澤侯表 Chapter 18: “Chart of the Graciously Favored Feudal Lords Who Are Related to the Emperor by Marriage” 卷十九上百官公卿表 Chapter 19 (A): “Chart of the Various Nobles and High Officials” 卷十九下百官公卿表 Chapter 19 (B): “Chart of the Various Nobles and High Officials” 卷二十古今人表 Chapter 20: “Chart of Personages Past and Present”

志 TREATISES 卷二十一上律曆志 Chapter 21 (A): “Treatise on Melodies and Calendrics” 卷二十一下律曆志 Chapter 21 (B): “Treatise on Melodies and Calendrics” 卷二十二禮樂志 Chapter 22: “Treatise on Ritual and Music” 卷二十三刑法志 Chapter 23: “Treatise on Punishments and Laws” 卷二十四食貨志 Chapter 24: “Treatise on Foods and Commodities” 卷二十五郊祀志 Chapter 25: Treatise on State Sacrifices” 卷二十六天文志 Chapter 26: “Treatise on Astronomy”

Translation of the Hanshu Chapter Titles 卷二十七上五行志 Chapter 27 (A): “Treatise on the Five Phases” 卷二十七中之上五行志 Chapter 27 (B): “Treatise on the Five Phases” 卷二十七中之下五行志 Chapter 27 (C): “Treatise on the Five Phases” 卷二十七下之上五行志 Chapter 27 (D): “Treatise on the Five Phases” 卷二十七下之下五行志 Chapter 27 (E): “Treatise on the Five Phases” 卷二十八上地理志 Chapter 28 (A): “Treatise on Geography” 卷二十八下地理志 Chapter 28 (B): “Treatise on Geography” 卷二十九溝洫志 Chapter 29: “Treatise on Irrigation and Waterworks” 卷三十藝文志 Chapter 30: “Treatise on Classic Writings”

列傳 COLLECTED BIOGRAPHIES 卷三十一陳勝項籍傳 Chapter 31: “Biographies of Chen Sheng and Xiang Ji (Yu)” 卷三十二張耳陳餘傳 Chapter 32: “Biographies of Zhang Er and Chen Yu”

189

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卷三十三魏豹田儋韓王信傳 Chapter 33: “Biographies of Wei Bao, Tian Dan, and Han Wangxin” 卷三十四韓彭英盧傳 Chapter 34: “Biographies of Han Xin, Peng Yue, Ying (Qing) Bu, Lu Wan, and Wu Rui” 卷三十五荊燕吳傳 Chapter 35: “Biographies of Jing Wang (Liu Jia), Yan Wang (Liu Ze), and Wu Wang (Liu Pi)” 卷三十六楚元王傳 Chapter 36: “Biography of Chu Yuan Wang (Liu Jia)” 卷三十七季布欒田叔傳 Chapter 37: “Biographies of Ji Bu, Luan Bu, and Tian Shu” 卷三十八高五王傳 Chapter 38: “Biographies of the Five Kings Who Were Sons of Emperor Gao” 卷三十九蕭何曹參傳 Chapter 39: “Biographies of Xiao He and Cao Shen” 卷四十張陳王周傳 Chapter 40: “Biographies of Zhang Liang, Chen Ping, Wang Ling, and Zhou Bo” 卷四十一樊酈滕灌靳周傳 Chapter 41: “Biographies of Fan Kuai, Li Shang, Teng Gong (Xiaohou Ying), Guan Ying, Jin Xi, and Zhou Xie” 卷四十二張周趙任申屠傳 Chapter 42: “Biographies of Zhang Cang, Zhou Chang, Zhao Yao, Ren Ao, and Shentu Jia”

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卷四十三酈陸朱劉叔孫傳 Chapter 43: “Biographies of Li Yiji, Lu Jia, Zhu Jian, Liu (Lou Jing), and Shusun Tong” 卷四十四淮南衡山濟北王傳 Chapter 44: “Biographies of the King of Huainan (Liu Chang), the King of Hengshan (Liu Ci), and the King of Jibei (Liu Bo)” 卷四十五蒯伍江息夫傳 Chapter 45: “Biographies of Kuai Tong, Wu Pi, Jiang Chong, Xifu Gong” 卷四十六萬石衛直周張傳 Chapter 46: “Biographies of Wan Shi (Shi Fen and his Sons, Shi Jian and Shi Qing), Wei Wan, Zhi Buyi, Zhou Ren, and Zhang Ou” 卷四十七文三王傳 Chapter 47: “Biographies of the Three Kings Who Were the Sons of Emperor Wen (Liu Qi [future Emperor Jing], Liu Can, and Liu Yi)” 卷四十八賈誼傳 Chapter 48: “Biography of Jia Yi” 卷四十九爰盎晁錯傳 Chapter 49: “Biographies of Yuan Ang and Chao Cuo” 卷五十張馮汲鄭傳 Chapter 50: “Biographies of Zhang Shizhi, Feng Tang, Ji An, and Zheng Dangzhi” 卷五十一賈鄒枚路傳 Chapter 51: “Biographies of Jia Shan, Zou Yang, and Lu Wenshu” 卷五十二竇田灌韓傳 Chapter 52: “Biographies of Dou Ying, Tian Fen, Guan Fu, and Han Anguo”

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卷五十三景十三王傳 Chapter 53: “Biographies of the Thirteen Kings Who Were the Sons of Emperor Jing (Liu Che [future Emperor Wu], Liu Rong, Liu De, Liu E, Liu Yu, Liu Fei, Liu Duan, Liu Pengzu, Liu Sheng, Liu Fa, Liu Yue, Liu Ji, Liu Cheng, and Liu Shun)” 卷五十四李廣蘇建傳 Chapter 54: “Biographies of Li Guang and Su Jian” 卷五十五衛青霍去病傳 Chapter 55: “Biographies of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing” 卷五十六董仲舒傳 Chapter 56: “Biography of Dong Zhongshu” 卷五十七上司馬相如傳 Chapter 57 (A): “Biography of Sima Xiangru” 卷五十七下司馬相如傳 Chapter 57 (B): “Biography of Sima Xiangru” 卷五十八公孫弘卜式兒寬傳 Chapter 58: “Biographies of Gongsun Hong, Bu Shi, and Ni Kuan” 卷五十九張湯傳 Chapter 59: “Biography of Zhang Tang” 卷六十杜周傳 Chapter 60: “Biography of Du Zhou” 卷六十一張騫李廣利傳 Chapter 61: “Biographies of Zhang Qian and Li Guangli” 卷六十二司馬遷傳 Chapter 62: “Biography of Sima Qian”

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卷六十三武五子傳 Chapter 63: “Biographies of the Five Sons of Emperor Wu (Liu Ju [future Emperor Zhao], Liu Hong, Liu Dan, Liu Xu, and Liu Bo)” 卷六十四上嚴朱吾丘主父徐嚴終王賈傳 Chapter 64 (A): “Biographies of Yan (Zhuang) Zhu, Zhu Maichen, Wuqiu Zigan, Zhufu Yan, Xu Yue, Yan (Zhuang) An, Zhong Jun, Wang Bao, and Jia Juanzhi” 卷六十四下嚴朱吾丘主父徐嚴終王賈傳 Chapter 64 (B): “Biographies of Yan (Zhuang) Zhu, Zhu Maichen, Wuqiu Zigan, Zhufu Yan, Xu Yue, Yan (Zhuang) An, Zhong Jun, Wang Bao, and Jia Juanzhi” 卷六十五東方朔傳 Chapter 65: “Biography of Dongfang Shuo” 卷六十六公孫劉田王楊蔡陳鄭傳 Chapter 66: “Biographies of Gongsun He, Liu Quli, Tian (Che) Qianqiu, Wang Xin, Yang Chang, Cai Yi, Chen Wannian, and Zheng Hong” 卷六十七楊胡朱梅云傳 Chapter 67: “Biographies of Yang Wangsun (Gui), Hu Jian, Zhu Yun, Mei Fu, and Yun Chang (Wu Zhang)” 卷六十八霍光金日磾傳 Chapter 68: “Biographies of Huo Guang and Jin Midi” 卷六十九趙充國辛慶忌傳 Chapter 69: “Biographies of Zhao Changuo and Xin Qingji” 卷七十傅常鄭甘陳段傳 Chapter 70: “Biographies of Fu Jiezi, Chang Hui, Zheng Ji, Gan Yanshou, Chen Tang, and Duan Huizong”

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卷七十一雋疏于薛平彭傳 Chapter 71: “Biographies of Juan Buyi, Shu Guang, Yu Dingguo, Xue Guangde, Ping Dang, and Peng Xuan” 卷七十二王貢兩龔鮑傳 Chapter 72: “Biographies of Wang Ji, Gong Yu, the Two Gongs (Gong Sheng and Gong She), and Bao Xuan” 卷七十三韋賢傳 Chapter 73: “Biography of Wei Xian” 卷七十四魏相丙吉傳 Chapter 74: “Biographies of Wei Xiang and Bing Ji” 卷七十五眭兩夏侯京翼李傳 Chapter 75: “Biographies of Sui Hong, Xiahou Shichang, Xiahou Sheng, Jing Fang, Yi Feng, and Li Xun” 卷七十六趙尹韓張兩王傳 Chapter 76: “Biographies of Zhao Guanghan, Yin Wenggui, Han Yanshou, Zhang Chang, Wang Zun, and Wang Zhang” 卷七十七蓋諸葛劉鄭孫毋將何傳 Chapter 77: “Biographies of Ge Kuanrao, Zhuge Feng, Liu Fu, Zheng Chong, Sun Bao, Wujiang Long, and He Bing” 卷七十八蕭望之傳 Chapter 78: “Biography of Xiao Wangzhi” 卷七十九馮奉世傳 Chapter 79: “Biography of Feng Fengshi”

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卷八十宣元六王傳 Chapter 80: “Biographies of the Six Kings Who Were the Sons of Emperors Xuan and Yuan (Liu Qin, Liu Ao, Liu Yu, Liu Jing, Liu Kang, and Liu Xing)” 卷八十一匡張孔馬傳 Chapter 81: “Biographies of Kuang Heng, Zhang Yu, Kong Guang, and Ma Gong” 卷八十二王商史丹傅喜傳 Chapter 82: “Biographies of Wang Shang and Shi Dan” 卷八十三薛宣朱博傳 Chapter 83: “Biographies of Xue Xuan and Zhu Bo” 卷八十四翟方進傳 Chapter 84: “Biography of Zhai Fangjin” 卷八十五谷永杜鄴傳 Chapter 85: “Biographies of Gu Yong and Du Ye” 卷八十六何武王嘉師丹傳 Chapter 86: “Biographies of He Wu, Wang Jia, and Shi Dan” 卷八十七上揚雄傳 Chapter 87 (A): “Biography of Yang Xiong” 卷八十七下揚雄傳 Chapter 87 (B): “Biography of Yang Xiong” 卷八十八儒林傳 Chapter 88: “Biographies of the Confucians”

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卷八十九循吏傳 Chapter 89: “Biographies of the Upright Officials” 卷九十酷吏傳 Chapter 90: “Biographies of the Cruel Officials” 卷九十一貨殖傳 Chapter 91: “Biographies of the Parsimonious” 卷九十二游俠傳 Chapter 92: “Biographies of the Wandering Knights” 卷九十三佞幸傳 Chapter 93: “Biographies of the Obsequious” 卷九十四上匈奴傳 Chapter 94 (A): “Biographies of the Xiongnu (Huns)” 卷九十四下匈奴傳 Chapter 94 (B): “Biographies of the Xiongnu (Huns)” 卷九十五西南夷兩粵朝鮮傳 Chapter 95: “Biographies of the Yi (Southwest), Yue (Modern Guangdong), and Chaoxian (Modern Korea)” 卷九十六上西域傳 Chapter 96 (A): “Biographies of the Peoples in the Area of Central Asia/Dunhuang” 卷九十六下西域傳 Chapter 96 (B): “Biographies of the Peoples in the Area of Central Asia/Dunhuang” 卷九十七上外戚傳 Chapter 97 (A): “Biographies of the Emperor’s Relatives by Marriage”

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卷九十七下外戚傳 Chapter 97 (B): “Biographies of the Emperor’s Relatives by Marriage” 卷九十八元后傳 Chapter 98: “Biography of Empress Yuan” 卷九十九上王莽傳 Chapter 99 (A): “Biography of Wang Mang” 卷九十九中王莽傳 Chapter 99 (B): “Biography of Wang Mang” 卷九十九下王莽傳 Chapter 99 (C): “Biography of Wang Mang” 卷一百上敘傳 Chapter 100 (A): “Biographical Postface” 卷一百下敘傳 Chapter 100 (B): “Biographical Postface”

APPENDIX D

BAN BIAO’S “GENERAL REMARKS ON HISTORIOGRAPHY” 568

略論 (班彪著) 唐虞三代，詩書所及，世有史官，以司典籍，暨於諸侯，國自有 史，故孟子曰「楚之檮杌，晉之乘，魯之春秋，其事一也 」．定 哀之閒，魯君子左丘明論集其文，作左氏傳三十篇，又撰異同， 號曰國語，二十一篇，由是乘，檮杌之事遂闇，而左氏，國語獨 章．又有記錄黃帝以來至春秋時帝王公侯卿大夫，號曰世本，一 十五篇．春秋之後，七國並爭，秦并諸侯，則有戰國策三十三 篇．漢興定天下，太中大夫陸賈記錄時功，作楚漢春秋九篇．孝 武之世，太史令司馬遷採左氏，國語，刪世本，戰國策，據楚， 漢列國時事，上自黃帝，下訖獲麟，作本紀，世家，列傳，書， 表凡百三十篇，而十篇缺焉．遷之所記，從漢元至武以絕，則其 功也．至於採經摭傳，分散百家之事，甚多疏略，不如其本，務 欲以多聞廣載為功，論議淺而不篤．其論術學，則崇黃老而薄五 經；序貨殖，則輕仁義而羞貧窮；道游俠，則賤守節而貴俗功： 此其大敝傷道，所以遇極刑之咎也．然善述序事理，辯而不華， 質而不野，文質相稱，蓋良史之才也．誠令遷依五經之法言，同 聖人之是非，意亦庶幾矣．夫百家之書，猶可法也．若左氏，國 語，世本，戰國策，楚漢春秋，太史公書，今之所以知古，後之 所由觀前，聖人之耳目也．司馬遷序帝王則曰本紀，公侯傳國則 曰世家，卿士特起則曰列傳．又進項羽，陳涉而黜淮南，衡山， 細意委曲，條列不經．若遷之著作，採獲古今，貫穿經傳，至廣 博也．一人之精，文重思煩，故其書刊落不盡，尚有盈辭，多不 齊一．若序司馬相如，舉郡縣，著其字，至蕭，曹，陳平之屬， 及董仲舒並時之人，不記其字，或縣而不郡者，蓋不暇也．今此 後篇，慎覈其事，整齊其文，不為世家，唯紀，傳而已．傳曰： 「殺史見極，平易正直，春秋之義也．」

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“General Remarks [on Historiography]”569 Yao, Yu [Shun], and the Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, and Zhou), are accounted for in the Classic of Odes and Documents. Each generation has had its office of historian (shiguan),570 who was employed to manage the classic texts and documents.571 When we come to the feudal lords (nobles?), each had their own state historian (shi). Accordingly Mencius said, “The Taowu of Chu, the Cheng of Jin, and the Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu served a single purpose (i.e., to provide written records).”572 During the eras of Duke Ding (r. 509–495 BC) and Duke Ai (r. 494–468 BC) of Lu, the Gentleman of Lu, Zuo Qiuming, discussed and collected these writings, and produced the The Commentary of Mr. Zuo in thirty chapters. Moreover, he wrote of their differences and similarities in content and called his work the Discourses of the States in twenty-one chapters. From this, the accounts (i.e., histories) of the Cheng and Taowu were accordingly obscured, and only the The Commentary of Mr. Zuo and Discourses of the States were known. Also, there was a record that documented emperors, kings, dukes, nobles, and various officials from the time of Yellow Emperor to the Spring and Autumn Era, called the Shiben in 115 chapters.573 After the Spring and Autumn Era, the seven states all contended and the Qin unified the states of the feudal lords.574 Thus, there was the Intrigues of the Warring States in thirty-three chapters. The Han arose and stabilized the empire, and the grand palace grandee, Lu Jia (c. 228– c. 140 BC), recorded the merits of that time, producing the The Spring and Autumn Annals of the Chu and Han in nine chapters. During the time of Han Wudi (r. 140–87 BC), the prefect grand historian, Sima Qian (c. 145–c. 86 BC), extracted from the The Commentary of Mr. Zuo and Discourses of the States, and edited the Shiben and Intrigues of the Warring States, and relied upon the various state histories of the time of Chu and Han (i.e., the war between them just prior to the founding of the Han dynasty); he began at the time of the Yellow Emperor and ended with the capture of the unicorn (122 BC).575 He produced “Basic Annals,” “Hereditary Families,” “Collected Biographies,” “Documents,” and “Charts” totaling 130 chapters, and ten are missing from it.576

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That which Sima Qian recorded from the first year of the Han to the time of Wudi, from whence it discontinues, is the basis of his merit. But when he extracted from the classics, gleaned from biographies, and divided the affairs of the schools of thought, much of what he did was quite imprecise and not equal to his original sources. He devoted himself to hearing much and recording a broad history to accomplish his merit, but his disquisitions were shallow and incidental. His discussions of techniques and learning valorize Huang-Lao and slight the Five Classics. He gave a place to “Goods and Wealth” (Records of the Grand Historian 129) while treating lightly Benevolence and Righteousness, and he expressed shame for the poor and destitute. He spoke of “Wandering Knights” (Records of the Grand Historian 124) while demeaning those who held to principle and honoring those of common achievement. In this way, Sima Qian inflicted great harm to the Way, and for this reason encountered the extreme punishment of castration. Nevertheless, he was skilled at narration and the order of events in his records is reasonable. His discussions are not flowery and their substance is not crude, and the pattern and substance of his writing are balanced. Overall, these are the talents of a good historian. If Sima Qian had only been made to rely on the model words of the Five Classics and to agree with what the sagely men (Confucius?) considered to be right and wrong, his intentions would not have been far from success. Now, the records of the schools of thought still can be taken as a model. Works such as the Commentary of Mr. Zuo, Discourses of the States, Shiben, Intrigues of the Warring States, The Spring and Autumn Annals of the Chu and Han, and the The Book of the Lord Grand Historian (i.e., Records of the Grand Historian) are the means whereby this generation understands antiquity, and the means whereby later generations see the future; they are the ears and eyes of sagely men. Sima Qian ordered accounts of emperors and kings, and they were called the “Basic Annals.” The accounts of nobles whose states were inherited were thus called the “Hereditary Families.” The accounts of chamberlains and servicemen of special distinction were thus called the “Collected Biographies.” Moreover, Sima Qian advanced Xiang Yu and Chen She

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while devaluing the kings of Huainan and Hengshan, and his meticulous intentions became crooked, and his principles of organization were not standard. As for the writings produced by Sima Qian, he collected records of past and present, penetrated the Classics and commentaries, reaching expansively. With the intense effort of a single man, his writings were repetitious and his thoughts problematic. Accordingly, his book could be pared without end and there would still remain a surplus of words, and there would be many places where the text would not make a unified work. As for arranging the account of Sima Xiangru, Sima Qian mentions his commandery and prefecture, and makes a record of his style. But when he arrives at Xiao He, Cao Shen, and Chen Ping, as well as Dong Zhongshu, of the same era, he does not record their styles.577 There are some instances where he records the prefecture but not the commandery, and one generally finds no rest (in having to locate this information on one’s own).578 Now, in the following chapters579 I carefully investigate their affairs and put into order what has been written. I do not make a “Hereditary Families” section, but only “Annals” and “Biographies,” and that is all. A saying has been passed down which says, “Reducing superfluous wording in order to show the standard, and keeping it simple and direct, are the principles of the Spring and Autumn Annals.”580

PLATES

PLATE 1. Ban Gu’s tomb at Fufeng, Shanxi.

Source. Cang Xiuliang 倉修良, ed. Hanshu cidian 漢書辭典, (Jinan 濟南, China: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe 山東教育出版社, 1996), vi. Photographers. Zhao Wenrun 趙文潤 and Yang Dongyu 楊東宇.

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PLATE 2. Song woodblock print of Ban Gu’s Hanshu.

Source. Cang Xiuliang 倉修良, ed. Hanshu cidian 漢書辭典, (Jinan 濟南, China: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe 山東教育出版社, 1996), vii.

Plates

205

PLATE 3. Woodblock print of Ban Gu, originally from Mingdai gu shengxian huaxiang zan 明代古聖賢畫像贊.

Source. Cang Xiuliang 倉修良, ed. Hanshu cidian 漢書辭典, (Jinan 濟南, China: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe 山東教育出版社, 1996), iv.

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PLATE 4. Woodblock print of Ban Zhao.

Source. Shangguan Zhou 上官周, Wan xiao tang hua zhuan 晚笑堂畫傳, 1743.

NOTES 1. Cited in Richard W. Longstreth, On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 11. I should mention here that all Chinese translations in the text are mine unless otherwise noted. If I have added details in my translations, it has been to disambiguate the meaning of the original passage. I have also modified some of the translations I have used from other works. 2. Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols. (Norwalk: The Easton Press, 1956, 1974), 2428. 3. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 21. 4. On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang, Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), x. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., xii. 7. Ibid., xvi. 8. For another view of Ban Gu’s consideration of Dong Zhongshu, see Gary Arbuckle, “Restoring Dong Zhongshu (BCE 195–115): An Experiment in Historical and Philosophical Reconstruction” (PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 1991). 9. Ban Gu 班固, Hanshu 漢書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華 書局, 1962), 56.2526. Reprint, Beijing 北京: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1997. Hereafter HS. Citations of Chinese texts will be Romanized into pinyin rather than translated into English in order to facilitate convenient reference for the specialist. 10. While my point here is not to provide an extensive discussion of Dong Zhongshu, my aim is, rather, to illustrate how Ban Gu could insert his authorial bent through careful editing. 11. Wang Xianqian王先謙, Hanshu buzhu 漢書補注 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Yi wen yinshu guan 藝文印書館, 1996). The edition I used is the Yi Wen facsimile of the 1900 recension. 12. Hanshu: Bona ben ershisishi 漢書﹕百衲本二十四史, Jingyou Edition 景 祐本 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan shangwu yinshu guan gufen youxian gongsi 臺灣商務印書館有限公司, 1996).

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13. For a comparison of Sima Qian’s and Ban Gu’s works, see Scott W. Galer, “Sounds and Meanings: Early Chinese Historical Exegesis and Xu Guang’s Shiji Yinyi” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2003). 14. See Pan Ku, Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China, Burton Watson, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974); Clyde Sargent, Wang Mang: A Translation of the Official Account of His Rise to Power as Given in the “History of the Former Han” (Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1950); and Homer H. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 3 vols. (Baltimore, MD: Waverly Press, 1938, 1944, 1955). For a convenient list of Western translations of various chapters in the Hanshu, see Timoteus Pokora, “Pan Ku and Recent Translations of the Han Shu,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 98, no. 4 (October–December, 1978): 451–460. See, especially, pages 459–460. 15. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (Franklin Center, PA: Franklin Library, 1979), 296. 16. Ibid., 296. 17. Krystof Pomian, “L’histoire de la science et l’histoire de l’histoire,” Annales, E.S.C. 30, no. 5 (September–October 1975), 935–952. 18. “Hypothetical discourses” is how Dominik Declercq translated the term shelun 設論, or duiwen 對文. See Dominik Declercq, Writing against the State: Political Rhetorics in Third and Fourth Century China (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 1998). 19. Fan Ye 范曄 inserted Ban Gu’s biography within the biography of Ban Biao. Fan was the supervisor of instruction to the heir apparent under the Liu Song 劉宋 (AD 420–477) dynasty emperor, Wen 文帝 (r. AD 424–454), and he was eventually executed on the pretext of plotting treason. 20. Li Weixiong 李威熊, Hanshu dao du 漢書導讀 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Wenshizhe chubanshe 文史哲學出版社, 1977), 9–14. 21. Wang Mingtong 王明通, Hanshu daolun 漢書導論 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Wunantu chuban gongsi 五南圖書出版公司, 1991), 1–24. 22. Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary (Taibei, Taiwan: Ch’eng Wen Publishing, 1975), 640. 23. Nancy Lee Swann, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman of China (1932; repr., Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, the University of Michigan, 2001), 27–28. 24. Michael Loewe, A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Empires (221 BC–AD 24) (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000), 5–6. 25. Otto B. van der Sprenkel, Pan Piao, Pan Ku, and the Han History (Centre of Oriental Studies, Occasional Paper no. 3. Canberra: the Australian National University, 1964).

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26. Zheng Hesheng 鄭鶴聲, Han Ban Mengjian xiansheng Gu nianpu 漢班 孟堅先生固年譜 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan 臺 灣商務印書館, 1980) and Chen Qitai 陳其泰, Ban Gu pingzhuan 班固 評傳 (Nanjing 南京, China: Nanjing daxue chubanshe 南京大學出板社, 2002). 27. Another and perhaps more accurate way to translate “王命論” into English is “Essay on the Ruler’s Mandate.” I have, nonetheless, used the word “kingly” to retain the original sense of the graph. Certainly, by the Han, the institution of “king” 王 had been replaced with “emperor” 皇帝, so Ban Biao’s use of “王” is anachronistic. 28. I should note that suspicion regarding the sincerity of Ban Gu’s frequent accolades for the Liu clan is understandable in light of China’s long textual history of ruler-minister relations. The putative author of the Shenzi 申子 (Master Shen), Shen Buhai 申不害 (fl. sixth century BC), noted well the natural distrust rulers had for their ministers, stating, Now the reason why a ruler builds lofty inner walls and outer walls, looks carefully to the barring of doors and gates, is to prepare against the coming of invaders and bandits. But one who murders the ruler and takes his state does not necessarily climb over difficult walls and batter in barred doors and gates. He may be one of the ministers who by limiting what the ruler sees and restricting what the ruler hears, seizes his government and monopolizes his commands, possesses his people and takes his state 今人君所以高為城郭而謹門閭之閉者，為寇戎盜賊 之至也．今弒君而取國者，非必逾城郭之險而犯門閭之閉也．蔽 君之明，塞君之聽，奪君之政而專其令，有其民而其國矣. (Cited in Yuri Pines, “Friends or Foes: Changing Concepts of Ruler-Minister Relations and the Notion of Loyalty in Pre-Imperial China,” Monumenta Serica 50 [2002]: 35–74) Pines’ translation is modified from that of Herrlee G. Creel in Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century BC (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 344. Pines’ study of ruler-minister relations is a good introduction to the antagonisms between rulers and their ministers; however, it is focused on the pre-Han era. China’s early history justifies such suspicion, as ministers did, at times, feel compelled to remove their rulers for the sake of the “altars of soil and grain” 社稷 (i.e., the state). The Han had emerged after an era during which the hierarchical distinction between the two great ministerial values of loyalty (zhong 忠) and trustworthiness (xin 信) were quite unclear. Pines suggested that during the

210

29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), one’s responsibility to the state, which was represented by trustworthiness, was elevated above his responsibility to the ruler, which was seen in his loyalty. See Pines, “Friends or Foes: Changing Concepts of Ruler-Minister Relations and the Notion of Loyalty in Pre-Imperial China.” Monumenta Serica 50 (2002): 35–74. This idea is quite literally the opposite of Ban Gu’s view, which was that the state and ruler are inseparable. HS30.1715. This account, involving Duke Xian 獻公 (fl. seventh century BC) and his new wife, Li Ji 驪姬, is located in Guoyu 國語 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Hong ye shuju 宏業書局, 1980), chapter 7, 251–282. For a translation, see Cyril Birch, Anthology of Chinese Literature: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1965), 34–38. For this passage, see Mengzi 孟子, commentator Yang Bojun 楊伯峻 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Wu nan tushu chuban gongsi 五南圖書出版公司, 1992), 204. Mengzi, 204. For a translation of this passage, see Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 185. For Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 70–73. HS56.2498. For examples of portents employed by Wang Mang and his supporters to validate his mandate, see HS99A.4093–4095. In addition, Ban Gu’s “Treatise on the Five Phases” is replete with examples of “correct” omen interpretation. See HS27A–E.1315–1522. One finds, for example, successful omen interpretations by Dong Zhongshu in HS27A.1329. Daniel R. Robinson, Praise and Blame: Moral Realism and Its Applications (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), ix. Fan Ye 范曄, Hou Hanshu 後漢書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1996), 40A.1325. Hereafter cited as HHS. There are two translations of Ban Biao’s essay to date; see Édouard Chavannes, trans., Les Memoires historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien, vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1895), ccxl–ccxli and Nancy Lee Swann, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China 61–62. These two translations, however, are only partial. HS62.2737–2738. Translated in Burton Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 68. HHS40A.1325. Ibid.

Notes 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61.

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Ibid. For Xiao He 蕭何, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 603–605. For Cao Shen 曹參, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 20–22. For Chen Ping 陳平, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 35–37. See HHS40A.1325. The Chu-Han chunqiu 楚漢春秋 (Spring and Autumn Annals of Chu and Han), authored by Lu Jia 陸賈 (c. 228–c. 140 BC), a high official under Liu Bang 劉邦 (r. 206–195 BC), is a chronicle account of Liu’s rise to power and his conflicts with Xiang Yu 項羽 (232–202 BC) of the state of Chu. The text also appears to have included materials regarding the reigns of Emperor Hui 惠帝 (r. 194–188 BC) and Emperor Wen 文帝 (r. 179–157 BC). It is known that Sima Qian relied upon Lu’s work as a source for his Shiji, but unfortunately the Chu-Han chunqiu only exists today in a “recovered edition” 輯本, compiled from fragments. For Lu Jia, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 415. HHS40A.1325. HS62.2738. Translated in Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China, 68. HS62.2737. Translated in Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China, 68. See HHS40A.1386. HHS40A.1386. For Emperor Gao 高祖 (also Liu Ji 劉季 and Liu Bang 劉邦), see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 253–259. HS54.2469. Lunyu 論語. Yang Bojun 楊伯峻, commentator. Taibei 臺北: Hua zheng shuju youxian gongsi 華正書局有限公司, 1990. HS54.2469. For Emperor Jing (also Liu Qi 劉啟), see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 338–344. HS5.153. Lunyu, 15.25. “Making a book is a craft, as is making a clock; it takes more than wit to become an author.” Jean de la Bruyère, “Des Ouvrages de l’esprit,” Les Caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle (1688). In most English dictionaries, the word author simply implies one who writes a literary work or who creates or originates. In several early Chinese texts, curiously enough, the graph used to describe one who writes a manuscript is zuo 作, or “produce,” “make,” or “create.” Thus, in a broad sense, the English word author matches the early Chinese distinction well.

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62. Clyde Sargent, “Subsidized History: Pan Ku and the Historical Records of the Former Han,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 3, issue 3 (February 1944): 119–143. 63. See Martin Kern, “Methodological Reflections on the Analysis of Textual Variants and the Modes of Manuscript Production in Early China,” Journal of East Asian Archeology 4, 1–4 (2002), 143–181. 64. See Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史記 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1959, 1982), 121.3127–3128. Hereafter cited as SJ. 65. The “memorials,” or duice 對策, were documents commonly presented to an emperor in response to a particular inquiry, or zhi 制. The inquiries issued by the emperor generally concerned problems of governance, and the memorials in response functioned largely as résumés, often distinguishing the scholar and resulting in his advancement to a courtier. In this case, Dong’s Confucian legerdemain earned him a position as chancellor at Jiangdu. For Ban Gu’s biography of Dong Zhongshu, see HS56.2495–2526. 66. HS56.2526. 67. For Loewe’s discussion of “modernist” and “reformist” ideologies of the Western and Eastern Han, see Michael Loewe, Crisis and Conflict in Han China: 104 BC to AD 9 (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.), 1974. In short, Loewe argued that during the late Western Han period, an intellectual shift occurred that departed from a pro-Qin—legalistic and pragmatic— view to one that was pro-Zhou—classicist and religious. By the Eastern Han, the model of governance was based upon a somewhat utopian perception of what the early Zhou era was like. 68. See Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A Manual (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute, 2000), 273–274 for a brief account of the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao. He stated that the project was produced in 1771 at the command of the emperor, and more than 350 scholars compiled, reviewed, and commented on more than 10,000 volumes. Of these texts, only 3,461 works were selected for the imperial repository. The chief editor of the collection was the Qing scholar, Ji Yun (AD 1724–1805). 69. HS100A.4213. 70. While Ban Gu noted that he was “orphaned” when young, he, nevertheless, had a mother who lived and looked after Gu and his younger twin brother, Ban Chao (AD 32–102). See HHS47.1571. 71. HHS40A.1329. 72. Ibid., 1324. 73. For Feng Shang 馮商, see Loewe, A Biographical Dictionary, 100; Wei Heng 衛衡, 570 (appears only in Liu Zhiji’s 劉知幾 Shitong 史通); Shi Cen

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史岑, 473; Liang Shen 梁審, 238 (appears only in the Shitong); Si Ren 肆 仁, 483 (appears only in the Shitong); Jin Feng 晉馮, 195; Duan Su 段肅, 87; Jin Dan 晉丹, 195; Feng Yan 馮衍, 102 (appears only in the Shitong); Wei Rong 韋融, 575 (appears only in the Shitong); Xiao Fen 蕭奮, 603; Liu Xun 劉恂, 392 (appears only in the Shitong). 74. The large question regarding this passage is whether it implies that the scholars mentioned in the previous note wrote independent works that they entitled “Shiji” after Sima Qian’s work or whether they merely appended their works to the extant Shiji. 75. See Liu Zhiji 劉知幾, Shitong tongshi 史通通釋, Pu Qilong 浦起龍, commentator (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Li ren shuju 里仁書局, 1993), 338. 76. Hulsewé cautiously admitted both chapter numbers, stating, The latter [i.e., Ban Biao], dissatisfied with those parts of the Shiji that dealt with the history of the Han dynasty, wrote ‘several tens of pian’ (perhaps 65) called Hou zhuan 後傳 ‘Later traditions’. This work is lost, if it ever existed as an independent text, and a few passages in the present Hanshu are its sole testimony.

77.

78. 79. 80. 81.

See A. F. P. Hulsewé, “Hanshu,” in Michael Loewe, Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographic Guide (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1993), 129. I suggest that the “sole testimony” of Biao’s Hou zhuan that is located in the Hanshu suggests the work’s existence. The best evidence that Ban Gu was actually at the Grand Academy 太學 is located in Fan Ye’s biography of Cui Yin 崔駰, HHS52.1708. It is clear that Cui Yin, Fu Yin, and Ban Gu were school-brothers at the Grand Academy and distinguished themselves at the same time. In other passages, one located in Fan Ye’s biographies of the Confucians, for example, Ban Gu appears connected to other young scholars in the Grand Academy. His school-brothers included Li Yu 李育, Kong Xi 孔僖, Fu Yin 復毅, and Cui Yin. HHS40.1333. Shitong, 338. Or, alternatively, “He had not completely become an expert,” an allusion to Shiji, chapter 130. Ban Gu’s postface copies the structure of Sima Qian’s conclusion to his Shiji, chapter 130. HS100B.4235. For an alternative translation and discussion of this passage and its ramifications, see A. F. P. Hulsewé, “Notes on the Historiography of the Han Period,” in Historians of China and Japan, ed. W. G. Beasley and E. G. Pulleyblank (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 37. This essay contains much valuable information regarding the Hanshu in general.

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

82. HHS40.1334. 83. HHS40.1334. 84. It is well known that to refer to the “finalization” or “completion” of an early Chinese manuscript is problematic, as the continued accretion, commentarial insertions, and tampering involved with such early works as the Hanshu has caused such texts to remain plastic until the late Imperial era. Only then were these works codified to some degree. Even the twentieth-century punctuating of earlier Chinese classics has cast a hermeneutic overlay on these works, which can obviously either reflect or distract from their intended meanings. 85. HS100B.4235. See Hulsewé, “Notes on the Historiography of the Han Period,” 37, for an alternative rendering of part of this passage. 86. See Xiao Wuji 蕭嗚籍, “Siku tiyao zhong guanyu Hanshu guben wenti zhi fuzhu 四庫提要中關於漢書古本問題之附註,” in Hanshu lunwen ji 漢書論文集 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Mu duo chubanshe 木鐸出版社, 1976), 15. 87. HHS84.2784. 88. The line may also be read as “several passages that could not be understood.” 89. Xu Fuguan stated the Ma Xu was Ma Rong’s younger brother. See Xu Fuguan 徐復觀, Liang Han sixiang shi 兩漢思想史 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Xuesheng shuju 學生書局, 1979), 487. 90. HHS84.2785. 91. See Shitong, 339. 92. HHS40A.1334. 93. Shitong, 338. 94. See Lunyu, 7.8. 95. Wei Zheng 魏徵, Suishu 隋書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華 書局, 1973), 33.957. Hereafter cited as SS. 96. Poyang 鄱陽 was a Prefecture located in modern Jiangxi 江西. For this account, see Li Yanshou 李延壽, Nanshi 南史 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1975), 50.1251. Hereafter cited as NS. There exists another passage, located in the Liangshu 梁書 by Yao Silian 姚思廉 (AD 557–637), in which this account is discussed. In his “Biography of Xiao Chen,” Yao stated, 始琛在宣城，又北僧南度，惟賚一葫蘆，中有漢書敘傳，僧曰： 「三輔舊老相傳，以為班固真本．」琛固求之，其書多有異今 者，而紙墨亦古，文字多如龍之例，非隸非篆，琛甚祕之．及是 行也，以書餉鄱陽王范，范乃獻于東宮.

Notes

215

At first, Xiao Chen was at Xuancheng, and there was in the north a monk who was passing to the south. The monk only had been given a single calabash with a copy of the Hanshu postface within it. The Monk said, “The three-adjuncts of old transmitted it in turn, taking it to be the true edition by Ban Gu.” Xiao Chen resolutely sought to obtain it. The “true edition” contained several differences from the current edition, and its pages were darkened and old. Much of its writing and graphs were of the type proffered to the emperor, and not in “clerical” or “seal” script. Chen was deeply mystified by it. It was thus disseminated and presented to the king of Poyang, Fan, who then presented it to the Eastern Palace.

97. 98.

99. 100.

101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111.

Yao Silian 姚思廉, Liangshu 梁書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1973), 26.397. Hereafter cited as LS. NS50.1251. This historically unfounded claim was probably never made by Ge Hong but was a post-Tang fabrication. For a summary of the problem of the forged Ge Hong preface to the Xijing zaji 西京雜記, see William H. Nienhauser Jr., “An Interpretation of the Literary and Historical Aspects of the Hsi-ching Tsa-chi (Miscellanies of the Western Capital )” (PhD diss., Indiana University, Bloomington, 1972), 28–29, 42–44, 198–200. NS50.1251. Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao: wuying dian ben 四庫全書總目提要﹕武英 殿本, vol. 2 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan shangwu yin shu guan gufen youxian gongsi 臺灣商務印書館股份有限公司, 2001), 10. See also Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 (Hai Kou 海口, Shandong 山東, China: Hainan chubanshe ban faxing 海南出版社版發行, 1999), 258. NS50.1251. Siku quanshu, 10. See HS100B.4271. Siku quanshu, 10. HS100B.4235. Siku quanshu, 10. NS50.1241. HS100B.4235. Siku quanshu, 11. NS50.1241. The Siku quanshu editors provided several additional examples of how Liu’s record contradicts Ban Gu’s. For example, Ban Gu stated in his

216

112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118.

119.

120.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA postface that his “Biographies of the Five Kings (Sons of Emperor Gao)” is numbered eighth in his “Collected Biographies” section. See HS100B.4248. Also, Ban Gu wrote that his “Biographies of the Three Kings who were the Sons of Emperor Wen ([Liu Qi, future Emperor Jing,] Liu Can, and Liu Yi)” is numbered seventeenth. See HS100B.4251. These and other examples illustrate that either Liu did not consult or did not believe the order of the Hanshu as recounted by Ban Gu. NS50.1241. NS50.1241. HS100B.4246. Siku quanshu, 11. See Siku quanshu, 11. For Zhang Ba 張霸, see Loewe, A Biographical Dictionary, 674, or HS88.3607. Siku quanshu, 11. Since there exist several early commentaries that are connected to lines or passages in the current edition—some include commentators of the Eastern Han—one can assume that the edition they were reading was more or less the recension that is preserved and printed today. Regarding the difficulty in consulting the Hanshu, the problem is in extracting the bulk of the text’s information on a single topic or person. Since biographical information of an individual, for example, can be scattered throughout several chapters, one must consult the entire Hanshu in order to locate all available data on the person in question. The biographical and ideological information regarding Dong Zhongshu is an apt example of the difficulty. Beyond Dong’s biography in chapter 56, several of his interpretations of “portents” are included randomly throughout Ban Gu’s “Essay on Five Phases,” chapter 27. Shitong, 339. The Suishu bibliographic study of historical works comments on Emperor Xian’s reaction to Ban Gu’s writing style and his subsequent commissioning of the Hanji. The passage states, 起漢獻帝，雅好典籍，以班固漢書文繁難省，命潁川荀悅作春秋 左傳之體，為漢記三十篇. Once Emperor Xian had arisen as emperor, he delighted in classical works and considered the writing of Ban Gu’s Hanshu to be too florid and difficult to understand. He ordered Xun Yue from Yingchuan to produce the Hanji, styled after the Chunqiu Zuozhuan, in thirty chapters. SS33.959. Yingchuan 潁川 commandery was located in what is modern Henan.

Notes

217

121. The Suishu’s bibliographic treatise states, “Liu Zhen, Liu Ni, Liu Tao, Fu Wuji, and others, each in turn wrote at the Eastern Pavilion, and called their work the Hanji” 劉珍，劉毅，劉陶，伏無忌等相次著述東觀， 謂之漢記. SS26.957. Xun Yue is conspicuously absent from this Suishu list of authors. 122. Xun was an autodidact who eventually was favored by Emperor Xian; Fu authored a commentary on the Zuozhuan and later experienced political hardships; Ying, likewise, experienced difficulties after being accused of murdering a high official. 123. Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 278. 124. See Li Weixiong, 14. I am indebted to Li Weixiong in much of my discussion. 125. Li Weixiong, 14. 126. Xu Shen 許慎, Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字, Duan Yucai 段玉裁, commentator (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Wan juan lou tushu youxian gongsi 萬卷 樓圖書有限公司, 1991), 118. 127. Li Weixiong, 14. 128. I am using “Documents” in my translation of what is normally rendered as “Treatises” in order to distinguish Sima Qian’s use of the graph 書 from Ban Gu’s use of 志. 129. See HHS40A.1327; see also footnote 7, p. 1326, for a list of the missing chapters. See also HS62.2724. 130. The abandonment of the graph ji 記 is evident, for later histories such as the Hou Hanshu 後漢書, Jinshu 晉書, Songshu 宋書, Liangshu 梁書, and Suishu 隨書 have clearly opted to use shu 書, following Ban Gu’s example. Of course, this list is only partial. 131. HS100B.4235. 132. Li Weixiong, 13. 133. For a discussion, or rather cogent critique, of the dynastic cycle ideal, see Hans Bielenstein, “Is There a Chinese Dynastic Cycle?” The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, no. 50 (1978): 1–24. 134. HS1A.1. 135. See Li Weixiong, 15. 136. Sargent, “Subsidized History,” 129. 137. I should, at this point, direct the reader to an article by Hulsewé, in which the authenticity of certain Shiji’s passages is brought into question. Hulsewé suggested that certain portions of the Shiji may have been copies made from the Hanshu and later placed into an edition of the Shiji. The reader is cautioned to keep this in mind as I continue to outline the

218

138. 139.

140.

141. 142.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA possible sources of the Hanshu. See A. F. P. Hulsewé, “The Problem of the Authenticity of Shih-chi Ch. 123, the Memoir of Ta Yüan,” T’oung Pao 61, no. 1–3 (1975): 83–147. For an alternative view, see Lu Zongli, “Problems Concerning the Authenticity of Shih chi 123 Reconsidered,” Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, and Reviews 17 (1995): 51–68. Also, see David B. Honey, “The Han-shu, Manuscript Evidence, and the Textual Criticism of the Shih-chi: The Case of the ‘Hsiung-nu lieh-chuan’,” Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, and Reviews 21 (1999): 67–97. I recommend a careful reconsideration, however, of the appropriate uses of the difficilior lectio potior and brevior lectio potior text-critical methods when applied to the Hanshu. Also, it should be noted here that while some scholars, including Li Weixiong, hold that Hanshu’s chapters 5 and 6 used source materials from Shiji’s chapters 11 and 12, respectively, this may not have been the case. Indeed, chapters 11 and 12 of the Shiji are said to have been missing from the version of the Shiji extant during the time Ban Gu was writing his Hanshu. Ban Gu stated that ten chapters of the Shiji were missing in his biography of Sima Qian. See HS62.2724, including Zhang Yan’s note on the same page, no. 13. Thus, the reader is, here, warned that Ban Gu may have, in fact, not used Shiji’a chapters 11 and 12 as source materials for Hanshu’s chapters 5 and 6. HHS40A.1334. The exception to this might have been works contained in the Ban family’s personal library. In Hanshu 100, Ban Gu recalled that Ban You 班斿 so impressed Emperor Cheng by his intellectual acumen that the emperor “bestowed to him duplicate copies of the texts in his private collection” 賜以祕書之副. HS100A.4203. However, readers are also informed by Fan Ye that Ban Gu’s books were confiscated during his trial for authoring a “private history.” Whether his texts were restored to his estate is unknown. For a study of Ban Gu’s “Chart of Personages Past and Present,” see Wang Liqi 王利器, ed., Hanshu gujin ren biao shuzheng 漢書古今人表疏證 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Shi ya wenhua shiye youxian gongsi 實雅文 化事 業有限公司, 1990). See also Derk Bodde, “Types of Chinese Categorical Thinking,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 59 (1939): 200–219. See also A. F. P. Hulsewé, “Founding Fathers and Yet Forgotten Men: A Closer Look at the Tables of the Nobility in the Shih chi and the Han shu,” T’oung Pao 75 (1989): 43–126. See Li Weixiong, 22. Homer Dubs stated,

Notes

219

Pan Ku probably also had available some sort of annals kept at the imperial court, which listed such events as the Emperor’s travels in and out of the Palace and also portents, eclipses, drouths [sic], earthquakes, deaths of emperors, empresses, vassal kings, lieutenant chancellors, etc.

143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148.

149.

Homer H. Dubs, History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 1 (Baltimore, MD: Waverly Press, 1938), 215. See also Sargent, “Subsidized History,” 130, for a similar assertion. Sargent also suggested that the extensive use of quotations throughout the Hanshu supports this assumption. However, it is notable that Ban Gu was not actually consistent with quotes, that is, the same quote may appear quite dissimilarly in different parts of the text. For example, the same inquiry issued by Emperor Wu appears in two different forms; see HS56.2495–2498 and HS6.160–161. One must conclude after comparing these two versions of the same inquiry that Ban Gu either used two different sources—not likely—or he took liberties in paraphrasing. See Li Weixiong, 23. HS21A.955. See Li Weixiong, 23. Li Weixiong pejoratively remarked that this Treatise “mostly empty talk” 頗多空論. See Li Weixiong, 23. Jing Fang 京方 is known for his deliberations on the Yijing. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 199. Clyde Sergeant stated in his “Subsidized History” that the principle sources for Ban Gu’s Hanshu were the Shiji and the imperial archives. Moreover, he suggested that the Hanshu’s record of events before the Han conquest was based on Lu Jia’s 陸賈 (fl. second and third century BC) Chu-Han Chunqiu 楚漢春秋. He continued to state that the “Treatise on Punishments and Laws” drew from Liu Xin; the “Treatise on Classics and Other Writings” from Liu Xiang and Liu Xin; the “Treatise on Five Phases” from the Shangshu and Liu Xin’s essay, “Wuxing chuanji”; the “Treatise on Geography” from Liu Xiang; the “Treatise on Harmonies and Calendrics” from Liu Xin; and the “Treatise on Ritual and Music” from the Liji 禮記, Yiji 議記, Zhou li 周禮, and the Yuejing 月經 [sic, 樂經]. Finally, Sargent suggested that Ban Gu additionally consulted Wang Chong’s Lunheng. See Sargent, “Subsidized History,” 130–131. It is often debated whether the graph zhuan 傳 would best be rendered as “traditions,” which is, in fact, closer to its normative Chinese usage.

220

150.

151. 152. 153. 154. 155.

156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166.

167. 168. 169. 170.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA However, since the content of the zhuan chapters is clearly biographical, it is here, perhaps, best translated as “biographies.” Zheng Hesheng 鄭鶴聲 stated, “Accordingly, only an extremely small portion of Ban Biao’s Shiji hou zhuan in 65 chapters exists, which can still be seen in the Hanshu.” Zheng Hesheng, Han Ban Mengjian xiansheng Gu nianpu, 27. It is clear, then, that according to Zheng, the portions of the Hanshu biographies somehow connected to Ban Biao’s name are remnants of his original Hou zhuan. Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 484. HS9.298. Ibid. Ibid. For another brief discussion of this Eulogy and the issue of Biao’s authorship of Hanshu’s chapter 9, see Dubs, History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 2, 336, fn. 13.6. Regarding Fan Shupi 樊叔皮 and Jin Chang 金敞, see Loewe, Biographical Guide, 93 and 195, respectively. HS10.330. Ibid. HS73.3130. HS73.3131. For the appearance of Ban Biao’s name in the chapter 84 Eulogy, see HS84.3441; and for chapter 98, see HS98.4035. See “Entretiens sur Michel Foucault (directed by J. Proust),” La Pensée 137 (1968), 6–7 and 11. HS100B.4235. HS, iii. Ibid. For the Zhonghua editors’ discussion of these two stages of chapter division, see HS, iii. HHS40A.1334. Scholars such as Chen Hanzhang and Zheng Hesheng assumed that this statement implies that when Ban Gu began to receive summonses, that is, AD 58, he simultaneously began authoring the Hanshu. I believe that this is incorrect. Ban Gu’s summonses by Liu Cang in 58, and his completion of the Hanshu during the jianchu era, are separate topics. HHS84.2784. Cited in Zheng Hesheng, 65. HHS40A.1333–1334. Hulsewé stated, “Pan Ku started work on the Hanshu shortly after his father’s death in AD 54, but this was interrupted about AD 60.” Hulsewé, Han shu, 129.

Notes 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176.

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HHS40A.1324. HS100B.4235. Shitong, 388. Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 484. Shitong, 338. Regarding those who produced more detailed exegetical comments on materials included in Sima Qian’s Shiji, Xu Fuguan stated, 劉向等十五人所作，仍為班氏父子所資．劉向新序原三十卷，今 存十卷；其第十卷皆述漢事，其中有引自史記的，有補史記所缺 的．如「 孝武黃帝時，大行王恢數言擊匈奴 」條，較史記為詳 備，班固即取其中王恢的議論以入韓安國傳，即其一例. Liu Xiang was one of the fifteen who produced records mentioned in the Shitong, and there were moreover the contributions of Ban Biao and Ban Gu. Liu Xiang’s Xinxu originally contained thirty chapters, but now only ten are extant. The entire tenth chapter recounts Han history, and in it there are quotes from the Shiji that fill in its gaps. One example of how Liu Xiang’s text is more detailed and complete than the Shiji is the line, “During the time of Emperor Wu the Filial, the grand usher, Wang Hui, several times discussed the capture of the Xiongnu.” Ban Gu extracted the disquisitions of Wang Hui from Liu Xiang’s Xinxu 新序 and inserted them into his “Biography of Han Anguo [Chapter 52].”

Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 484. Liu Xiang, presumably relying upon records in the Shiji, expanded upon its accounts and wrote a record that is “more detailed and complete” than Sima’s. Ban Gu accordingly used Liu Xiang’s expanded version of pre-Emperor Wu accounts to write his Hanshu. For information about Liu Xiang’s moralistic Xinxu, see David Knechtges, “Hsin hsü,” in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographic Guide, ed. Michael Loewe (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2000), 154–157. For Wang Hui 王恢, see Loewe, Biographical Guide, 526. 177. HHS40A.1333. Regarding Ban Gu’s estimation of his father’s works, Xu Fuguan stated, 史記有紀，傳，表，書，世家五種體裁，班彪併世家為傳，尚有 四種體裁．彪所續者僅傳六十五篇，表書皆缺，而應有之傳亦不 僅六十五篇，姑固以為「未詳」. The Shiji consists of “Annals,” “Biographies,” “Charts,” “Documents,” and “Hereditary Families,” in five categories; Ban Biao

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BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA combined the “Hereditary Families” to make “Biographies,” leaving only four categories. That which Biao transmitted is only 65 chapters, and the total number of biographies received (by Ban Gu?) equaled more than 65. For this reason, Gu considered his father’s work to be ‘insufficiently detailed.’

178.

179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185.

Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 485. Xu Fuguan had apparently derived his information that Ban Biao was first responsible for combining the “Hereditary Families” section of the Shiji to make only a “Biographies” section from Biao’s “General Remarks on Historiography” 略 論 essay located in the Hou Hanshu. In this essay, Biao stated, “Now, in the following chapters [i.e., the Hou zhuan] I carefully investigate their affairs and put into order what has been written. I do not make a ‘Hereditary Families’ section, but only ‘Annals’ and ‘Biographies,’ and that is all” 今此後篇 ， 慎覈其事 ， 整齊其文 ， 不為世家 ， 唯紀 , 傳而已. HHS40A.2327. Since Zheng Hesheng did not believe Ban Gu began writing the Hanshu until after 58, he referred to these two periods of authorship differently. Regarding the time before 58, he stated that Ban Gu “privately wrote/ worked on his father’s works at his estate” 在家私撰父書 (Zheng, 34), and for later years, he wrote that “he wrote the Hanshu while an official at the Orchid Terrace” 在蘭臺官撰漢書 (Zheng, 34). What precisely Zheng meant by Ban wrote his “father’s works” is unclear. As I have already suggested, I believe that Ban Gu was already writing his Hanshu before 58. Zheng’s assertion that Gu’s writing became “official” after 62 is, nevertheless, correct. HHS40A.1333. HHS40A.1333. HHS84.2784. HHS84.2785. Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 487. Quoted in Zheng Hesheng, 66. The term recension here implies a text that has been produced after a process of reviewing extant copies and critical editing. As Holman and Harmon stated, “A recension is a critical text established after a thorough survey of all surviving sources.” See C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon, A Handbook to Literature, 6th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 396. In general, all copies of the Hanshu published after Ban Gu’s death can correctly be called recensions. Since the copies of the Hanshu

Notes

186.

187. 188.

189.

190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196.

223

discussed here qualify as “recensions” and “editions,” I employ both terms interchangeably. The Zhonghua shuju publishers issued a newer edition of the Shiji that consists of ten slender green volumes, published in June 1997. A facsimile of the Zhonghua edition was made in Taibei in 1999 by Dingwen shuju 鼎文書局, in which additional material was added at the end of the set. This four-volume Taiwan version is hard covered and printed on better paper. The pagination of the Dingwen edition is precisely the same as the Zhonghua edition, since it is merely a facsimile of the latter. The Hanshu has undergone a similar history. It was first published by Zhonghua in 1962, and a second printing was made in June of 1997, which consists of twelve slender green volumes. Dingwen also produced a fivevolume facsimile of the Hanshu Zhonghua edition in 1997 with added materials at the end. The Taiwan Dingwen edition of the Hanshu, like the Shiji, was printed in hardcover and on better paper than the Zhonghua edition. While the Dingwen edition is of better quality, the Zhonghua edition is easier to acquire, as it is sold in more locations throughout mainland China. See HS, vii. The Hanshu buzhu commentary on the Hanshu was first published during the twenty-sixth reign year (AD 1900) of the Qing emperor, Guangxu 光緒 (r. AD 1875–1908). See HS, iv. See Wang Xianqian, Hanshu buzhu. The edition I am using is the Yi Wen facsimile of the 1900 edition. Fu Donghua’s introductory remarks are extremely helpful in reconstructing the two lines of filiations; Loewe published a significantly more informative account. See Michael Loewe, “Some Recent Editions of the Ch’ien-han-shu,” Asia Major 10 (1963): 162–172. The reader will notice here my indebtedness to Fu and Loewe. Hanshu: Bona ben ershisishi, Jingyou Edition, 1321. See Loewe, “Some Recent Editions,” 165. Loewe provided more information about this edition than is given here. See Loewe, “Some Recent Editions,” 167. Ibid. The Wuying dian 武英殿 Hanshu edition was reprinted in the Sibu beiyao 四部備要 series, produced from AD 1927–1935. See Loewe, “Some Recent Editions,” 167. According to Arthur Hummel’s biographical sketch of Mao Jin, he was the son of a landlord and was able to collect a library of substantial size, holding some eighty-four thousand volumes. See Arthur W. Hummel,

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197. 198. 199. 200. 201.

202. 203. 204.

205. 206. 207.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644–1912) (Taibei, Taiwan: SMC Publishing, 1991), originally published by U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1943. For Mao Jin 毛晉, see also Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 565–566. See Loewe, “Some Recent Editions,” 168. Loewe noted that the Jinling edition “was made by using the original blocks of no. 4 (i.e., Jiguge edition), and the name jiguge is retained between each half folio of the print…” See Leowe, “Some Recent Editions,” 169. See Leowe, “Some Recent Editions,” 169. HS, iv. For two other sources wherein these textual filiations are charted, see Loewe, “Some Recent Editions,” 163 and Hulsewé, “Han shu,” 131. There are some subtle differences between Loewe’s and Hulsewé’s lists; my chart is closer to Loewe’s. See Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, 938. See Giles, 936. See also Yan Zhitui 顏之推, Yanshi jiaxun 顏氏家訓, annotation by Cheng Xiaoming 程小銘 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan guji chuban 臺灣古籍出版, 1996). In his preface, Yan Shigu stated, “Regarding all of the commentators, even though we can see their family names, degrees of nobility, and places of origin, several are difficult to identify and their transmissions are not extant. They are listed here…” 諸家注釋，雖見名氏，至於爵里，頗 或難知．傳無存如左…” HS, 4. Yan Shigu suggested that the received commentaries on the Hanshu were not necessarily complete at the time he produced his; his commentary includes the remarks of several of the scholars he included in his list of previous commentators. Those listed in Yan’s preface include Xun Yue 荀悅, Fu Qian 服 虔, Ying Shao 應 劭, Fu Yan 伏 儼, Liu De 劉 德, Mr. Zheng (Zheng De 鄭 德?), Li Fei 李斐, Li Qi 李奇, Deng Zhan 鄧展, Wen Ying 文穎, Zhang Sun 張損, Su Lin 蘇 林, Zhang Yan 張晏, Ru Chun 如淳, Meng Kang 孟康, Xiang Zhao 項昭, Wei Zhao 韋昭, Jin Zhuo 晉灼, Liu Bao 劉寶, Minister Zan 臣瓚, Guo Pu 郭璞, Cai Mo 蔡謨, and Cui Hao 崔浩. See HS, 4–6. See also Shitong, 340–341, for Liu’s comments on Yan’s preface and the commentators mentioned therein. Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 115. HS100A.4228. Attributing Ban Gu’s “xuzhuan” 敘傳 (chapter 100A, B) to a particular genre such as “biography,” “autobiography,” or “postface” is problematic. Since an autobiography is the written account of one’s life dictated by the

Notes

208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220.

225

subject of the biography, one cannot say that the conclusion of the Hanshu is purely an autobiography. In addition, since a biography is an account of one or more people’s lives written by another, the chapter cannot neatly be called a biography either. Finally, since a postface—normally called a “preface” in Western works and placed at a manuscript’s beginning— functions as an introduction to a text’s contents and objectives, the final chapter of the Hanshu cannot be understood simply as a postface. The final chapter, as Ban Gu structured it, is all three—a biography of his ancestors, an autobiography of himself, and an introduction to his text. Despite the fact that Ban Gu’s postface includes biographical, autobiographical, and introductory materials to his work, I follow convention and refer to the chapter as a “postface.” Nevertheless, Ban Gu structurally mimicked the autobiography, zixu 自序, of his admired predecessor, Sima Qian. Sima’s “Taishi gong zixu” 太史公自序 is structured into basic elements that Ban Gu saw fit to replicate, viz., Sima’s autobiography begins with an account of distant ancestors who lived in legendary times; continues with an essay by his father, a dialogue between Sima and his friend, Hu Sui 壺遂; and finally there is an outline of his work’s contents. Ban Gu included all of these elements in his postface chapter, with some notable differences; for example, Sima’s emotional dialogue with his dying father was replaced by Ban Gu with a long fu rhyme-prose, lamenting his father’s death. SJ130.3295. Ibid. Ibid. Xu Fuguan, Liang Han sixiang shi, 473. My discussion here is indebted to Xu’s monograph. Ibid. See Xu, 473, for a list of some of these passages. HS73.3130. For Wei Xian 韋賢, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 577–578. HS84.3441. For Zhai Fangjin 翟方進, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 669–671. HS10.330. HHS40A.1324. HS100A.4207. I have, at times, translated the graph shi 史 as astrologer but have chosen here to render it as historical since by Fan Ye’s time its meaning had likely changed to suggest that meaning. See Shitong, 338.

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221. Sima’s punishment perhaps compelled him to offer some excuse for making the decision to undergo castration rather than commit suicide; the completion of his father’s history was that excuse. Ban Gu was clearly aware of Sima Qian’s infamous affair, for he included Qian’s letter to Ren’an 任安—also Shaoqing 少卿—in his Hanshu. See HS62.2725– 2736. For a translation of Sima Qian’s letter to Ren’an, see Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien, 57–67. 222. Zhuan Xu 顓頊 is a legendary sky deity thought to be the ancestor of the people of Qin. See Anne Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1993), 91–96. 223. Ban Gu’s belief that his ancestry was connected to that of the Chu royal family is also mentioned in his “Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden” 幽通之賦, located in his postface. He began his rhyme-prose with the claim, “My lineage began with the obscure descendants of Gaoyang and Zhuanxu” 系高頊之玄胄兮. See HS100A.4213. David Knechtges noted, Gao-Xu is a combination of Gao Yang 高陽 and Zhuanxu, the clan name and reign name respectively of one of the Five Lords who reputedly ruled before the Xia dynasty. In Chinese correlative thought, Zhuanxu ruled by virtue of water, which was equated with north and the color black. He was considered the founder of the Chu house, to which the Ban family traced its ancestry.

224.

225. 226. 227.

See David R. Knechtges, Wen xuan or Selections of Refined Literature: Vol. 3 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 82. The Chu clan name was Mi 羋. Ziwen appears in Ban Gu’s “Chart of Personages Past and Present” 古今 人表 under the category of “wise” 智. See HS20.915–916. Ban Gu, thus, placed his ancestor in the same high category as such hallowed figures as Lao Peng 老彭 and Cang Jie 倉頡. Yan Shigu 顏師古 (AD 581–645) stated that Meng marsh is “Yunmeng marsh” 雲 瞢 (夢) 澤. See HS100A.4197. Yunmeng marsh was located in what is modern Hubei 湖北 province. A young man’s style, or zi 字, was the name assigned to him at his capping ceremony, or guan 冠, once he reached the age of 20. The Warring States state of Jin 晉 was located in what is modern southwest Shanxi 山西, and Dai 代 was the name of a commandery in what is now Hebei 河北. Ch’ü T’ung-tsu suggested that the Bans were relocated by the Qin authorities in order to keep a better watch over their activities. This, according to Ch’ü, was common practice during the Qin and Han

Notes

228.

229.

230. 231. 232.

233. 234. 235.

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periods as a means of checking the influence of “powerful families.” Ch’ü stated that “the Ban family, descendants of Ziwen, 子文 a top official of the state of Chu, was moved to the area between Jin and Dai, modern Shanxi,” as a measure to reduce their power. See Ch’ü T’ung-tsu, Han Social Structure (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), 164. For Ch’ü’s entire discussion of “powerful families” during the Han, see Ch’ü, 160–247. HS100A.4197. In Zheng Hesheng’s 鄭鶴聲 study of Ban Gu’s life, he noted that the Ban family was originally from the south but relocated to the north. He also reminded the reader that several generations of the Ban family lineage cannot be known and that the record restarts after the Qin had been founded. See Zheng Hesheng, 1. Pines set Ziwen’s death at c. 625 BC. See Yuri Pines, Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 BCE. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002), 311. The passage in the Zuozhuan wherein his birth account is narrated is a “flashback” and appears under the fourth year of Duke Xuan’s reign (r. 608–591 BC). Lunyu, 5.19. Notably, of all the people mentioned by Confucius, none are said to have been at all times “benevolent.” With this in mind, the Master’s exclamation, indeed, honors Ziwen and, by implication, the Ban clan. In early texts, the legendary figures Yao 堯, Shun 舜, and Yu 禹 are ascribed births that are unusual or miraculous, and the founder of the Zhou family, Hou Ji 后稷, is known to have had a miraculous birth. In the Shijing 詩 經 “Sheng min” 生民 poem, Hou Ji’s mother, Jiang Yuan 姜嫄, stepped in god’s footprint, whereupon she became pregnant and later bore a son (Mao, 245). After Hou Ji’s birth, his mother regarded the unusual circumstances of his conception as a bad sign and abandoned him. However, the newborn was protected by oxen and sheep. In the “Kongzi shijia” 孔子 世家 (Hereditary Family [Accounts] of Confucius) chapter of the Shiji, Sima Qian outlined Confucius’ strange birth. He stated that Confucius was illicitly conceived (“野合”) and later born with a head that was low in the middle with four high points, as a crown. He was accordingly named Qiu 丘, or “hillock.” See SJ47.1905. Yun 鄖 was located in modern Hubei 湖北. Chunqiu zuozhuan 春秋左傳, commentator Yang Bojun 樣伯峻 (Beijing 北 京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1990), 682–683. It is possible, but perhaps a stretch, to conclude that Ban Gu connected his family roots, by means of situational similarity, to Confucius, who also was conceived of in an “illicit” union.

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236. HS100A.4197. 237. Another way to explain the origin of the surname “Ban” is as follows: In the Zuozhuan account just mentioned, Ziwen is said to have had a son who received his post after his father’s death; he is named Dou Ban 鬥般. The Zuozhuan narrative states, “Upon the death of Ziwen, Dou Ban was made prime minister” 及令尹子文卒，鬥般為令尹. Zuozhuan, 680. The contemporary scholar, Yang Bojun stated, “Ban 般 sounds similar to ban 班; anciently, ban 班 was often used for ban 般.” Zuozhuan, 680. Yang, perhaps, implied that it was based upon the use of a loan graph that Ban Gu recorded that the people of Chu call tigers ban 般 in their dialect. This is to say that ban 班 may have been used to replace ban 般 when recording the name of Ziwen’s son. See Zuozhuan, 680. 238. There is an extended anecdote about Ziwen and his younger brother, Zi Liang 子良, under the Duke Xuan, fourth year passage in the Zuozhuan. The Zuozhuan states, 初，楚司馬子良生子越椒。子文曰：「必殺之！是子也熊虎之狀 而豺狼之聲；必滅若敖氏矣。諺曰：『狼子野心。』是乃狼也， 其可畜乎？」子良不可. Formerly, the Chu commander, Zi Liang, had a son named Zi Yuejiao. Ziwen, Zi Liang’s older brother, said, “You must kill him! This child has the strength of a bear or tiger and the voice of a wicked wolf. He is certain to destroy our Ruo Ao clan! There is a proverb that says, ‘A wolflike child has a wild heart.’ Being, moreover, wolf-like, can your son be reared?” Zi Liang could not do it. Zuozhuan, 679. As expected, the anecdote ends with the destruction of the Ruo Ao clan in Chu, just as Ziwen had presaged. From this passage, readers learn that Ziwen had a younger brother, Zi Liang, and a nephew, Zi Yuejiao, who he hated. 239. Qin Shi Huangdi 秦始皇帝 is otherwise known as Ying Zheng 贏政 or Zhao Zheng 趙政. He died in 210 BC, and thus, it must have been near this year that Ban Yi was moved to Loufan. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 654. 240. According to Yan Shigu, Loufan 樓煩鄉 was a district located in the commandery of Yanmen 鴈門. See HS100A.4198. Yan also stated that 墬 is the ancient character for 地. See HS100A.4198. Yanmen was in what is modern Shanxi 山西. 241. Emperor Hui reigned from 195–188 BC, and his mother, Empress Gao, otherwise known as Lü Zhi 呂雉, lived from 241–180 BC.

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242. What is, perhaps, suggested here is that before the Han court had established its various sumptuary laws, Ban Yi and his clansmen relocated from Loufan to the northern border regions and developed something of a kingdom in miniature. It may have been that the Ban clan’s wealth and power in the frontier during Ban Yi’s life was significant enough to have warranted the Han court’s attention. That is, the Ban clan’s wealth might have been viewed as a potential threat to the insipient power of the new Han court. Yan Shigu stated, “The nation had not [yet] established prohibitions regarding clothing, chariots, and banners, and thus the Ban clan used its great wealth to become a powerful family in the border region” 國家不 設衣服車旗之禁，故班氏以多財而為邊地之雄豪. HS100A.4198. 243. HS100A.4197–4198. 244. HS100A.4198. 245. Shanggu 上谷 was a commandery in what is modern Hebei 河北. 246. HS100A.4198. Zhangzi 長子 was a district that corresponded with modern Shanxi 山西. 247. HS100A.4198. 248. Ch’ü T’ung-tsu, 168. 249. Regarding Changling 昌陵, Loewe noted that the court was determined to build a tomb…lying far to the east of Chang’an, apparently with no consideration for the Zhaomu 昭穆 system. The new site was to be named Changling. Orders given in 19 provided for the migration of prominent families there and the allocation of sites for the burial of high ranking officials, nobles, and others. But the whole project was abandoned in 16.

250. 251. 252. 253.

Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 252. The original site was in Yanling 延 陵; indeed, Yanling is where Emperor Cheng was finally buried. According to Loewe, it was “in view of the popular hardships that were being involved in its construction” and because of the “migrants who had been displaced” that the scheme was finally abandoned. Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 53. HS100A.4198. Yan Shigu glossed the graph 占 as 度, or “measure/account for.” This last line suggests that a name registry occurred in the capital, Chang’an. HS56.2513. HS100A.4198. Hans Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 73. I have used Bielenstein’s translations of official titles throughout this study. This will facilitate convenient

230

254. 255. 256.

257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 262.

263. 264.

265. 266. 267. 268.

269.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA reference to his monograph for consultation regarding the details of the posts held by the historical figures discussed here. Ibid. For Shi Dan 師丹, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 475 and Loewe, Crisis and Conflict in Han China, 172. For Wang Feng 王風, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 520–521. Wang was the older brother of Wang Zhengjun 王政君 and, thus, the maternal uncle of Emperor Cheng. Ban Gu depicted him somewhat positively, perhaps because Wang recommended Ban Bo and Ban You. Zhang Yan 張晏 described Yanni Hall 宴昵殿 as a place where the emperor’s intimate kinsmen gathered for banquets. See HS100A.4198. For Zheng Kuanzhong 鄭寬中 and Zhang Yu 張禹, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 723 and 696, respectively. For Xu Shang 許商, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 622. See HS100A.4198. See HS100A.4199. The graphs 單于 are also Romanized as “chanyu.” The precise identities of the Shi 石 and Li 李 families mentioned in this passage are uncertain. Dingxiang 定襄 was a district located in what is now Inner Mongolia. Thus, the events outlined here occurred some distance from the central court and were near the borders of Han control. I have consulted the commentary of Yan Shigu for my reading of the Shi and Li family improprieties. Yan stated, “They harbored a private vengeance and killed a man. A petty official pursued them, and they killed him also” 報私怨而殺人，吏追捕之，又殺吏. HS100A.4199. HS100A.4199. It was pointed out to me by William Crowell and Stephen Durrant that this passage functions as good evidence of the Ban clan’s exceptional status in the frontier region to the north. It was, perhaps, for this reason that the Han emperors relocated the family closer to the capital. HS100A.4199. Ibid. Ibid. For Zhang Fang 張放 and Chunyu Zhang 淳于長, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 679 and 53, respectively. Emperor Cheng assumed the pseudonym, “relative of the noble of Fuping” 富平侯家人 while on his incognito travels. HS100A.4200.

Notes

231

270. As Yan Shigu suggested, this line is derived from the “modern text 今文” version of the Shangshu. See HS100A.4201. This precise quote does not appear in the old text version; yet, James Legge translated the entire new text version of the “Great Declaration” 泰誓. Ban Bo was here alluding to the new text passage, and if his allusion was directed toward Emperor Cheng, which it surely is, then the emperor must have felt somewhat chastised. The “Great Declaration” in the new text and old text versions is a battle cry for the troops of King Wen to rally behind the righteous overthrow of the corrupt Shang dynasty, then under the wicked rule of King Zhou. The new text passage attributes King Zhou’s misbehaviors to the fact that he listened to the ill advice of his consort, Dan Ji 妲己, rather than holding the reigns of court himself. The passage here quoted by Ban Bo is translated by Legge as, “Now, king Chou listens to the words of his woman:—he has cut himself off from Heaven; he has destroyed and ruined all his hopes from heaven or earth or men” 今殷王紂乃用其婦 人之言，自絕于天，毀壞其三正. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, 299. The critique that King Zhou’s misbehavior is derived from his obsession over Dan Ji is also found in the old text version, where it is stated, “He makes contrivances of wonderful device and extraordinary cunning to please his woman” 技淫巧以悅婦人. Shoo King, 295. Thus, it appears that Ban Bo is alluding to the dangers of allowing one’s fondness for a consort to influence one’s governance and the subsequent loss of Heaven’s Mandate as a result. 271. Here, Ban Bo is, again, pointing to the wicked King Zhou. He was alluding to Lunyu 19.20, wherein it is stated, “King Zhou’s wickedness is not as severe as they say; accordingly, the gentleman hates to dwell in low places because all the kingdom’s wickedness accumulates there” 紂之不 善，不如是之善也．是以君子惡居下流，天下之惡皆歸焉. 272. Ban Bo has alluded to the “Viscount of Wei” 微 子 chapter of the Shangshu. For Yan Shigu’s commentary on the line, see HS100A.4202. Legge rendered the Shangshu passage as, “…by our being lost and maddened with wine, we have destroyed the effects of his (i.e., the founder of the Shang) virtue in these after times” 我用沉酗于酒，用亂敗厥德 于下. James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, 273–274. Thus, Bo was attributing the problems of the Shang, and of Emperor Cheng for that matter, to the excesses of wine. 273. Ban Bo referenced Shijing Mao 255, another invective against King Zhou. Legge rendered the ode as, “But amid clamor and shouting, you turn day into night” 式號式瀫，俾晝作夜. James Legge, The Chinese Classics,

232

274. 275.

276. 277. 278. 279.

280. 281. 282. 283. 284. 285. 286.

287.

288.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA vol. 3, 508. Again, Bo’s allusion suggests that a ruler obsessed with wine approaches ruin. For “流連,” I am following Yan Shigu’s gloss as “嗟歎,” or “to deplore” or “lament.” See HS100A.4202. HS100A.4201. The term 更衣 sometimes is used as a euphemism for retiring to the lavatory. Several other court officials remonstrated against Emperor Cheng’s unkingly habits. A memorial by Gu Yong 谷永 appears in HS27B that is quite similar to Ban Bo’s, which criticizes the emperor in similar terms. See HS27B.1368. For an English translation of Gu’s memorial, see Wilbur, 420. See HS100A.4202. For Liu Xiang 劉向, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 372–375. HS100A.4203. For Liu Yu 劉宇, see Loewe, Bibliographical Dictionary, 401, entry 1. The state of Dongping 東平 was located in modern Shandong 山東. Yan Shigu suggested that this small anecdote is included to emphasize the special favor shown to Ban You. See HS100A.4203. HS100A.4203. Ibid. The terms 方直 and 自守 do not appear as Han categories of distinction used for recommending an individual to a particular post, such as 方正 or 孝廉. Thus, they are rendered here as descriptive adjectives. Ibid. Yan Shigu stated, “This says he was cautious” 言其慎. See HS100A.4204. For Liu Xin 劉欣, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 378–386. Guangping 廣平 was located in modern Hebei 河北. For Wang Mang 王莽, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 536–545. HS100A.4204. The term used here for mourning clothes is 緦 麻, which means literally that Wang Mang dressed in the mourning garments normally worn by a relative. In other words, Wang Mang’s relationship with the Ban clan was extremely close. Ibid. Here, Wang Mang was echoing the tradition that the poems of the Shijing were collected by the king in order to better understand the popular sentiments of the common people and, thus, be able to bring about peace. Such a collection of popular songs was also carried out earlier in the Han for the Music Bureau. Zhang Lie read the 行 in this passage to imply 巡視, or inspection tour. See Zhang Lie 張烈, Hanshu zhuyi 漢書 注意. 4 vols (Haikou 海口: Hainan guoji chuban 海口國際出版, 1997), 4.4137. I have chosen not to follow Zhang’s reading. HS100A.4204.

Notes

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289. Ibid. 290. Ibid. Yanling 延陵 was the tomb complex where Emperor Cheng was finally buried. 291. Ibid. 292. For Yang Xiong 揚雄, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 637–639. 293. For Huan Tan 桓譚, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 164. 294. See HS100A.4205–4206. 295. Wei Ao 隗囂 (?–AD 33) was a warlord who held control of part of the Gansu 甘肅 corridor. He led a separatist movement against Emperor Guangwu until 33, when he died of illness. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 568. 296. Emperor Guangwu 光武帝 (r. AD 25–57) was enthroned in 25 after defeating Wang Mang 王莽 (33 BC–AD 23). Jizhou 翼州 was a major administrative division located in what is modern Hebei. For Emperor Guangwu—appears as Liu Ji 劉秀—see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 389, entry 2, and for Wang Mang, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 536–545. 297. HS100A.4207. Gongsun Shu 公孫述 (?–AD 36) was a minister in the court of Emperor Ai 哀帝 (r. 6 BC–AD 1) who later served Wang Mang. After Wang Mang’s defeat, he set himself up with the title of Son of Heaven 天子 in 25. He died fighting the incumbent Emperor Guangwu in 36. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 130. Shuhan 蜀漢 is a general reference to what is now Sichuan 四川. 298. HS100A.4207. 299. The three adjuncts 三輔 were three officials who managed three metropolitan areas that divided the capital commandery. All three resided in the capital, and it is these three officials who are implicated in this passage. For a general description of the three adjuncts see, Hans Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times, 86–87. 300. Tianshui 天水 was located in modern Gansu 甘肅. 301. HHS40A.1323. 302. Otto B. van der Sprenkel, Pan Piao, Pan Ku, and the Han History, 4. 303. Ibid. 304. For Zhao Feiyan 趙飛燕 and Li Ping 李平, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 704 and 226, respectively. 305. Ban Jieyu was, indeed, rather highly placed among her colleagues in the inner courts and would have presumably been empowered to render nepotistic assistance to her family. 306. Ying Shao noted that the Zengcheng Lodge was the third of eight areas in the inner courts. See HS97B.3984.

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307. HS97B.3983–3984. Fan Ji 樊姬 was a consort of King Zhuang of Chu 楚莊王 during the Spring and Autumn era 春秋 (722–481 BC). Once the king had attained his position, he became fond of hunting. Fan Ji remonstrated unceasingly and refused to eat the meat of what he had killed on his hunts. The king thus stopped hunting and applied himself to the governance of his kingdom. The empress dowager’s comparison is apt. For an alternative translation, see Watson, Courtier and Commoner in Ancient China, 261–262. 308. Yan Shigu, regarding these monographs, stated that “the works, Yaotiao, Dexiang, and Nüshi, are all admonitory texts of antiquity” 窈窕，德象， 女師之篇，皆古箴戒之書. See HS97B.3984. Not knowing precisely what the contents of these three texts were, I can only estimate what the English translations might be. The graphs in the titles imply, however, that these monographs were respected for their ability to inculcate in women the valued mores of the time. 309. HS97B.3984. This passage provides a glimpse into the educational system provided to the children of the Ban family. Ban Gu’s younger sister, Ban Zhao, is another example that illustrates the classical education provided to the Ban family women. Also, see Watson, Courtier and Commoner, 262. 310. The Empress Wei alluded to here is Wei Zifu 衛子夫, a singing girl in the house of Pingyang Gongzhu 平陽公主 (Princess Pingyang), a sister of Emperor Wu. She was noticed by the emperor, who was, at that time, displeased with the empress for not bearing any sons, and taken into his inner-courts where she became favored. She eventually bore Emperor Wu a son. See HS97A.3949. Also, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 581. 311. For Xu Kua 許誇, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 620–621. 312. HS97B.3984. Also, see Watson, Courtier and Commoner, 262. 313. HS97B.3984–3985. Also, see Watson, Courtier and Commoner, 262–263. 314. HS100B.4267. Translated in Watson, Courtier and Commoner, 222. The commentator Ru Chun 如淳 wrote, “台，我也.” HS100B.4267. 315. For Ban Gu’s view of wandering knights in his Hanshu, see HS100B.4267. 316. Gong Kechang, Studies on the Han Fu, trans. and ed. by David R. Knechtges, et al. (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1997), 234. 317. HS100A.4213. 318. Liu Xie, 151. Translated in Vincent Yu-chang Shih, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Taibei, Taiwan: Chung Hwa Book Co., 1970), 127. 319. HS11.345. Translated in Homer Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 38.

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320. Ibid. 321. The term outside families 外家 implies the relatives of the imperial consorts. For example, Ban Gu’s great-aunt, the famous Jieyu—daughter of Ban Kuang—was a favored consort of Cheng. Thus, one of the outside families from which Cheng “borrowed” his efficacy, other than the Wangs, was the Ban family. However, this passage pejoratively implies that such reliance upon outside families results in the shortening of imperial tenure. Certainly, Ban Gu was suggesting here that the reigns of Cheng, Ai, and Ping were truncated due to their inappropriate reliance upon such ignoble consorts as Li Ping and Zhao Feiyan. 322. HS100A.4207. 323. In the Shuowen jiezi, the graph lu 祿 is glossed as “happiness/felicitation/ prosperity” (祿，福也). See Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 3. In addition, in the Shijing appears the line “Heaven covers you with favor” 天被爾 祿 (Mao, 247), leading the editors of the Zhongwen da cidian 中文大辭 典 to gloss lu as “Heaven’s favor.” See Zhongwen da cidian 中文大辭典 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Zhongguo wenhua daxue chubanshe 中國文化大 學出版社, 1973), 10305. 324. HS99B.4099. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 260. 325. Wang Mang previously had been granted a fief at Xindu 新都, and thus, he derived the name of his new dynasty from this previous fiefdom. This is similar to Emperor Gao, who derived the name Han from the area of which he was governor to name his new dynasty. It is incorrect to assume that Wang’s dynasty was named the “new” dynasty. 326. Ban Jieyu had a son who did not survive. While the cause of his death remains unclear, it is known that Cheng’s empress, Feiyan, murdered at least one of his sons. In the year 12 BC Ban Gu stated, “In winter, the twelfth month, on the xinhai day, the commander in chief great general, Wang Shang, died. And during that year, the brilliant companion, Zhao Feiyan, murdered a son of the emperor in the inner quarters” 冬十二月辛亥，大司馬大將軍王商 薨．是歲，昭億趙氏害後宮皇子. HS10.325. Thus, we are told of at least one possibility of how the imperial son by Ban Jieyu may have died. 327. Fu Zhaoyi, or Fu Taihou 傅太后, was one of Yuandi’s two most favored concubines, along with Feng Jieyu 馮婕妤. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 108. For a study of women in early China and how they were perceived, see Robert Joe Cutter and William Gordon Crowell, Empress and Consorts (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999). Pages 3–45 are particularly relevant to this study.

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328. See Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 3. 329. See HS11.335. 330. HS11.335. Yang’an 陽安 was located in modern Henan 河南, and Pingzhou 平周 was located in modern Shanxi 山西. For Ding Ming 丁明 and Ding Man 丁滿, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 63. 331. HS11.335. For Fu Yan 傅晏, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 110. Kongxiang 孔鄉 was located in modern Anhui 安徽. 332. HS11.335. For Zhao Qin 趙欽, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 710. Xincheng 新成 was located in modern Henan 河南. 333. HS11.338. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 26. The grand empress dowager’s kind treatment of the poor is highlighted in another passage, located in the “Annals of Emperor Ping.” Ban Gu stated, “The grand empress dowager economized such luxuries as foods and soups and relinquished ten counties, commissioning the grand minister of agriculture who normally kept outer accounts of incoming rents, to use them as succor for the poor people” 太皇太后省所食湯沐要 邑十縣，屬大司農，常別計其租入，以贍貧民. HS11.352. Compare this passage to the opening of the annals of Ai, wherein one finds Empress Dowager Fu essentially bribing Zhao Feiyan to earn favor for her grandson, Liu Xin. 334. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 4. 335. For Dong Xian 董賢, see Loewe, Bibliographic Dictionary, 67–69. 336. HS11.345. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 38–39. I have followed Dubs’ translation of 好色 as “fond of women.” However, it has been argued that this term can, otherwise, imply the fondness for male beauty. 337. For Xia Heliang 夏賀良, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 593–594. 338. Yunyang 雲陽 was located in modern Shanxi 陝西. 339. For Dong Gong 董恭, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 66. 340. HS93.3733. 341. Yunzhong 雲中 was located in modern Inner Mongolia. Baling 霸陵 is the name of the tombs of Emperor Wen and a county, both located in modern Shanxi 陝西. 342. HS93.3733. 343. One recalls that Emperor Cheng was remonstrated to by Ban Bo and the imperial consort, Ban Jieyu, for his indecorous activities connected with riding in his chariot. Ban Bo remonstrated regarding the painting suspended over his chariot depicting the inebriated King Zhou, and Ban Jieyu refused the emperor’s request that she ride with him in his chariot.

Notes

344.

345. 346.

347. 348. 349. 350. 351. 352.

353.

237

Ban Jieyu suggested to Cheng that upon ancient paintings, sagely princes are seen riding only with “reputable ministers beside them” rather than favored ones. See HS97B.3984. HS93.3733. Readers of Ming/Qing xiaoshuo will readily recognize this passage as being one cited as a euphemism for sexual partnerships between men. Li Yu 李漁 (AD 1611–1680), for instance, is known to have discussed the “joys of cutting the sleeve” in his writing. For an example of Li Yu’s use of this euphemism, see Li Yu, Silent Operas, ed. Patrick Hanan (Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990), 114. For an additional discussion of Dong Xian, including this passage and other male favorites during the Han, see Bret Hinsch, Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 34–54. SJ125.3191. Translated in Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian, 419. For information regarding the construction of the Weiyang Palace, see Wang Zhongshu, Han Civilization, trans. K. C. Chang (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982), 4–5 and Denis Twitchett and John K. Fairbank, eds., The Cambridge History of China: Vol. 1, The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 BC–AD 220 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 133–134. For Wang Quji 王去疾 and Wang Hong 王閎, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 548 and 524, respectively. HS93.3738. HS93.3739. Ibid. Ibid. Xia Heliang 夏賀良 was a retainer in waiting. According to Ying Shao’s commentary, this title applied to talented men who waited to be summoned to render advice. See HS11.340. They did not have normal posts. Heliang was a disciple of Gan Zhongke 甘忠可, who produced two works, the Tian guan li 天官曆 and the Baoyuan taiping jing 包元太平包元太平經, respectively. Gan had taught Xia the doctrine that the Han’s Mandate was expired and required renewal. Later, Liu Xiang argued that Gan was an occultist and was attempting to delude the ruler. Gan later died of illness before he was sentenced to execution. Heliang and his colleagues were all tried on similar charges. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 113, 593. HS11.340. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 29–31. The final line of this passage is the topic of some discussion

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in various commentaries to the Hanshu. Li Fei 李斐 suggested that the graph chen 陳 should be glossed as dao 道—to guide—thus, the title “Chen shen sheng liu” 陳神聖劉 should suggest that “the Liu family is who had obtained the spiritual guidance of the sages” 得神道聖者劉也. HS11.340. More interesting is the commentary of Ru Chun, who suggested that Chen 陳 is a descendant of the Sage-King Shun 舜 and that Wang Mang is a descendant of Chen. Ru continued to say that the title consisted of “deceptive speech employed to illustrate that Wang Mang should usurp the throne and establish himself, and that [its hidden meaning] was unknown” 謬語以明莽當篡立而不知. HS11.340. Wang Mang later used this title to justify seizing the throne. Wei Zhao 韋昭 stated that the title merely announces the Liu family’s virtue of sagely ordering. See HS11.340. The clepsydra is an ancient water clock. 354. HS11.340. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 32. 355. The question of whether Wang Mang’s arrogation of the throne was an usurpation or natural dynastic change is an important one. There can be little doubt that the Han court had become so weakened by its inept emperors that Wang Mang was, in several ways, a kind of political hero, saving the state from continued folly and decay. Scholarly opinion varies. Dubs adopted Ban Gu’s assessment of Wang Mang that he was a pretender who merely made a grand pretense of being a virtuous Confucian to solicit popularity and support from the key players in court. Dubs stated, “The reign of Ping (1 BC–AD 6), is the period in which Wang Mang consolidated his control of the government in such a fashion that he could not later be removed.” Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 44. He suggested, as did Ban Gu, that every move made by Wang Mang was calculated to accrue power in court. Wang had several “threatening” ministers executed and expelled several powerful women to stabilize his position. Most notoriously, he had his son executed for plotting with the Wei 衛 family, who Wang Mang perceived to be a threat to his rising status. While Dubs admitted that Wang Mang was a “whole-hearted Confucian,” he asserted that his “character was evil enough: he was callous to suffering, impatient of any opposition and ready to execute any subordinates and even his own children and grandchildren who presumed to oppose him or even make awkward suggestions.” Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 60. Dubs readily employed the term usurper when discussing Wang Mang. Sargent, in his study of the Wang Mang biography in the

Notes

239

Hanshu, endeavored to work against traditional attitudes that Mang was a “usurper” and “traitor.” Sargent proposed to “contribute to an ultimately realistic appraisal of Wang Mang,” one that “may serve to deflect subsequent investigators from a restricted, uncritical consideration of the traditional attitude as moulded by Ban Gu…” See Sargent, Wang Mang, ii. Sargent’s critiques in his monograph are directed mostly toward Ban Gu and not at Wang Mang, as in Dubs’ consideration. Bielenstein’s opinion of Wang Mang, and Ban Gu for that matter, are similar to Sargent’s. Bielenstein’s thoughts on the subject can be summarized in the following statement located in his discussion of Wang in the Cambridge History of Han China. He stated, Had he [Wang Mang] been successful, he would have basked in the glow of Heaven’s approval, and the ancient historian would have compared him to the great dynastic founders of the past. But with the collapse of his government and the restoration of the Han dynasty, Wang Mang automatically became a victim of historiography and was reduced from Son of Heaven to usurper. See Cambridge History, 223. 356. Ban Gu recorded that on the day of Emperor Ai’s death, the grand empress dowager 遣使者馳召莽．詔尚書，諸發兵符節，百官奏事，中黃門，期門 兵皆屬莽. sent a messenger galloping to summon Wang Mang. She issued an imperial edict to the Masters of Writing, declaring that the various insignia and credentials for mobilizing troops, the matters memorialized by the various officials, and the troops of the Palace Attendants Within the Yellow Gate and of the Attendants at the Gates should all be under the control of Wang Mang. See HS99A.4044. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 136. Thus, the reigns of governance were taken from Ai’s favorite courtier, Dong Xian, and given to Wang Mang, marking the beginning of Mang’s rise to power. 357. HS99A.4049. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 149. 358. For Wang Huo 王獲 and Wang Yu 王宇, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 527 and 562, respectively.

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359. For a discussion of these nine gifts, see Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 202–203. 360. HS99A.4074. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 207. 361. Much has already been said in other studies about the discovery of the unicorn during the fourteenth year of Duke Ai’s 哀公 reign, recorded in the Chunqiu. Confucius identified the unicorn as he wept and stated that it comes only when there is a true king. Thereafter the appearance of the mystical animal was understood as an augury suggesting a dynastic change. The “king,” of course, was Confucius himself. 362. For Zhai Yi 翟義, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 671–672. 363. For Liu Xin 劉信, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 377, entry 7. 364. For Ai Zhang 哀章, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 1. 365. For Li Zidu 力子都 and Fan Chong 樊崇, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 236 and 91, respectively. Langye 琅邪 was a commandery located in modern Shandong 山東. 366. HS99C.4154. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 379. 367. According to Ban Gu, the invasion was so extreme that there were masses of locusts inside the halls and on the pavilions of Weiyang Palace. See HS99C.4176. 368. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 115. 369. Dubs translated jiantai 漸臺 as “Tower Bathed by Water.” See Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 464–465 for Dubs’ translation of the account of the death of Wang Mang. There are several examples of funerary mingqi 明器 extant that shed some light on what a jiantai was. The models suggest that they were towers with motes around them used either as guard towers or for social gatherings. 370. Unlike Dubs, I would read 昆弟 as “brothers.” 371. For Zhu Bo Ziyuan 朱子元 (also 朱博), see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 738–739. 372. HS99A.4040–4041. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 128. 373. HS99A.4041. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 129. 374. For Kong Guang 孔光, Wang Shou 王受, Zhen Feng 甄豐, Zhen Han 甄邯, and Sun Jian 孫 建, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 207–209, no entry for Wang Shou, 718–719, 719, 498–499, respectively. 375. HS99A.4045. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 138.

Notes

241

376. Ibid. 377. HS99A.4090. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 243. 378. The Yellow Lord is more often called the Yellow Emperor, or Huangdi 黃帝. 379. Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 108. 380. See Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2004), 513. 381. For Gu Yong 谷永, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 132–133. 382. For Gan Zhongke 甘忠可, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 113. For evidence of Wang Mang’s reliance upon such memorials, see HS,99A.4094. 383. For Xie Xiao 謝囂 and Meng Tong 孟通, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 611. 384. The area Wugong 武功 was located in is modern Shanxi 陜西, ten li from the southern bank of the Wei River 渭河. 385. HS99A.4078–4079. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 218–219. 386. HS99A.4079. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 219. 387. For Liu Jing 劉京, Hu Yun 扈暈, and Zang Hong 臧鴻, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 320, entries 1, 162, and 668, respectively. 388. Changxing Ting 昌興亭 was located in modern Shandong 山東. For Xin Dang 辛當, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 613. 389. HS99A.4093. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 250. 390. The Ba commandery 巴郡 was located in modern Sichuan 四川. 391. HS99A.4094. 392. Ibid. 393. HS100A.4204. 394. There are scant English sources of biographical information on Ban Gu. Foremost to date is van der Sprenkel’s small study, Pan Piao, Pan Ku, and the Han History, itself relying mostly on Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu. Other English studies are limited to introductory treatment of Ban Gu’s biography, including Nancy L. Swann’s, Food and Money in Ancient China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950) and her other work devoted to Ban Zhao, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China. Several of Loewe’s works contain mentions of Ban Gu’s life, and smatterings of commentaries on him are found throughout. There are several excellent Chinese sources, the best of which is the nianpu 年譜 by Zheng Hesheng.

242

395.

396. 397.

398. 399. 400. 401. 402. 403. 404. 405. 406. 407. 408.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA However, anyone who sets out to reconstruct Ban Gu’s biography could not do so without Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu. The reader will recognize my debts to the works of Fan and Zheng in this book. The “Nine Philosophical Schools” are (1) Daoism 道, (2) Confucianism 儒, (3) Logicians 名, (4) Legalism 法, (5) Yin Yang 陰陽, (6) Agriculture 農, (7) Miscellany 雜, (8) Mohism 墨, and (9) Diplomacy 縱橫. The problem of what, precisely, were the “Hundred Schools” is one I do not take up here. HHS40A.1330. I am aware that Yan Shigu stated, “Ban Gu was twenty years old” 謂年 二十也. HS100A.4213. I presume that Yan Shigu conjectured this based upon the capping ceremony discussed in the Liji 禮記. The Liji states, “When a man lives to be ten he is called ‘young,’ 幼 and he studies; when he is twenty he is called ‘soft,’ 弱 and he is capped” 人生十年曰幼， 學，二十曰大弱，冠. See Liji 禮記, commentator Wang Wenjin 王文錦 (Beijing 北京: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 2001), 5. In another passage it is said that “a boy, when he is twenty, is capped and given a style” 男 子二十，冠而字. See Liji, 17. However, there is evidence that the term ruoguan 弱冠, here implies “young.” As Zheng Hesheng pointed out, Ban Gu is described elsewhere in the Hou Hanshu as “弱冠,” when he is twenty-seven. See Zheng, 24. Furthermore, Ban Biao was involved in events during the Eastern Han much later than Ban Gu’s twentieth year. Ban Biao died in AD 54, when Ban Gu was twenty-three years old, thus this term cannot mean that Ban Gu was twenty when his father died. On this point, Yan Shigu is found to be incorrect. HS100A.4213. HS100A.4225. See Sima Guang 司馬光, Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑒, 9 vols. (Beijing 北京, China: Gaige chubanshe 改革出版社, 1994), 791–793. For Dou Rong 竇融, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 76–77. See Zheng, 10. Hexi 河西 was located in modern Gansu 甘肅. HHS34.1166. For Liang Tong 梁統, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 238. HHS40A.1327. See HHS1B.71. HHS40A.1330. HHS49.1629. Wang Zhongshu renders taixue 太學 as “Imperial Academy.” I have used a more literal translation, and have rendered it as “Grand Academy.” Wang

Notes

409. 410. 411.

412. 413. 414. 415. 416. 417.

418. 419. 420. 421. 422. 423. 424. 425. 426.

243

stated that the Grand Academy was built at the Eastern Han capital, Luoyang, from AD 29 to 32. At times the enrollment exceeded thirty thousand. See Wang, 40. See Zheng, 18, for his reasons for placing her birth in this year. See HHS84.2784. Fufeng 扶風 was located in modern Shanxi 陜西. HHS84.2784. Swann translated this line as, “She displayed profound erudition and talent of a high order. After the early death of her husband, Pan Chao observed the canons of widowhood.” See Swann, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China, 40. See also Swann, 50, fn. 4. See Yang Yixiang’s 楊翼驤 biographical sketch of Ban Gu in Zhongguo shixue shi cidian 中國史學史辭典 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Mingwen shuju 明文書局, 1990), 293. HHS1A.40. HHS52.1708. HHS40A.1329. HHS40A.1333. Dongping 東平 was a commandery located in modern Shandong 山東 and, later, became a kingdom, Dongpingguo 東平國, once Liu Cang was elevated to the rank of King. Liu Cang 劉蒼 was a son of Emperor Guangwu. During the jianwu fifteenth year (AD 39), he was enfeoffed as the duke of Dongping, and when he was seventeen, he was advanced to the noble title of king, thus making Dongping (est. 52 BC) a kingdom. See HHS42.1433. The eastern portal 東閤 was a small doorway wherein special guests were welcomed. HHS40A.1330. Ibid. Quoted in Zheng, 33. HHS40A.1333–1334. See Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China (Taibei, Taiwan: SMC Publishing, 1985), 170, entry 1190. HHS40A.1334. This passage contains all that is known about Su Lang 蘇朗. HHS40A.1334. Dong Zhongshu was incriminated by an apparently envious scholar, Zhu Fuyan 主父偃, who surreptitiously entered Dong’s study and read his works on portents. Zhu pilfered the texts and presented them to Emperor Wu, who summoned his courtiers to investigate Dong’s works. Ironically, it was Dong’s disciple, Lü Bushu 呂步舒, who, not knowing whose manuscripts he was reading, claimed the works to

244

427.

428. 429. 430.

431. 432.

433.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA be “greatly ignorant” 大愚. Dong Zhongshu was demoted and placed in prison, but even though his crime “warranted death,” 當死 he was pardoned by the emperor. After this incident, Dong never again spoke of “calamities and oddities” 災異. For this account, see HS56.2524 and SJ121.3128. Zhu Fuyan was a Han scholar from a poor family who studied the Diplomatist school of stratagems. During his late years, he is said to have studied the Yijing, Chunqiu, and the sayings of the various schools. Lü Bushu held the post of counselor-in-chief. Otherwise, little is known about him. The Han guan yi 漢官儀 notes, “There are six men with the post of historian of the orchid terrace, each receiving an emolument of one-hundred dan” 蘭臺令史六人，秩百石. See HHS40A.1334. Bielenstein suggested that this line possibly “is garbled” and the passage should be read without the “人” as, “The Foreman Clerks of the Orchid Terrace ranked 600 shih.” See Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times, 173, n. 228. One other point is relevant to this passage about Ban Gu’s imprisonment and Ban Chao’s subsequent assistance in freeing him. The Hou Hanshu biography of Ban Chao recounts that in the Yongping fifth year (AD 62), Chao was made a gentleman collating books, and he and his mother moved to the capital, Luoyang. See HHS47.1571. This suggests that Ban Gu’s imprisonment occurred in the same year, that is, AD 62. HHS40A.1334. The Shizu benji 祖本記 was the annals of the first Eastern Han emperor, Guangwu. Zheng, 33. HHS, 1334. Zheng Hesheng posited that “Lie zhuan 列傳” and “Zai ji 載記” are manuscripts that Ban Gu produced, in twenty-eight chapters, that were together used to complete the Dongguan hanji 東觀漢記. See Zheng, 35. See HHS47.1572 for the entire record of this event. Guo Xun held the post of prefect of the household. HHS2.121. Fungi such as the glossy gandoderma were held to be auspicious as they were believed to contain properties that facilitated longevity or immortality when ingested. For a discussion of such events and hymns as the one authored here by Ban Gu et al., see Anne Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988, 1993), especially pages 66–68. See Wang Chong’s account quoted in Zheng, 50. See also Wang Chong 王充, Lunheng 論衡, commentator Yuan Huazhong 袁華忠 (Taibei 臺 北, Taiwan: Taiwan guji chubanshe 臺灣古籍出版社, 1997), 1428. For

Notes

434. 435. 436. 437.

438. 439.

440.

441. 442. 443.

245

an English translation of the passage, see Alfred Forke, Lun-Hêng, Part II (New York: Paragon Book Gallery, 1962), 274. Hymns that explained and celebrated miraculous events were intended to support the legitimacy of the Liu family’s claim to the Mandate. HHS40A.1334. Zhang Puti 張浦題, Ban lantai ji 班蘭臺集, in Han wei liu chao baisan jia 漢魏六朝百三家 (facsimile of the Ming manuscript, located in the National Library Rare Books Archive, Taibei 臺北, Taiwan 臺灣). HHS40A.1335. For an entire translation of Ban Gu’s “Rhapsody on the Two Capitals” and his preface as it appears in the Wenxuan, see David R. Knechtges, Wen Xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 93–173. HHS40A.1373. Bielenstein noted that there were several men in positions similar to the post of major of the black tortoise 玄武司 who were expected to guard the palace. He stated, “The Major of the Black Tortoise (Xuanwu sima) was stationed at the Gate of the Black Tortoise (Xuanwu men 玄武門), with 2 lesser officers and 38 Guards (weishi).” See Bielenstein, The Bureaucracy of Han Times, 33. The commentary of Xu Hanzhi 續漢志 provides the data for Bielenstein’s description. See HHS, 1374. HHS27B.1373. To establish the date of this meeting, we must turn to the “Basic Annals of Zhangdi,” where it was recorded that, “[During the jianchu era], fourth year (AD 78)…the emperor issued an edict that read…” [建初]四…詔曰…See HHS3.137. Then, after the lengthy edict about the importance of education in past eras, the emperor ordered the “grand master of ceremonies, generals, grandees, erudits, gentlemen consultants, gentlemen officials, students, and Confucians, to convene at White Tiger Hall to discuss and deliberate the distinctions between the Five Classics…”太常，將，大夫，博士，議郎，郎官，及諸生，諸儒會 白虎觀，講議五經同異…See HHS3.138. The proceedings at the White Tiger Hall are often compared to those at the Stone Canal Pavilion 石渠閣, which occurred in 51 BC and were, likewise, intended as a venue for discussing the classics. See Zheng, 57. Juyan Pass 居延塞 was an area in which irrigation channels were built, located in what is today Inner Mongolia. This area was often in need of a defensive military presence, as the Xiongnu were located nearby in the northwest. It would also have acted as a convenient meeting place for Ban Gu and the Xiongnu emissary since it was between the Han capital and

246

444. 445. 446.

447. 448.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA the tribal areas of the Xiongnu confederation. Two studies describe the turbulent relations between the northern nomads and the Chinese court. See Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992). See also Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For the details of these events, see HHS40B.1385–1386. HHS40B.1385–1386. For an explanation of the events surrounding Dou Xian’s fall, see Bielenstein, “Wang Mang, the Restoration of the Han Dynasty, and Later Han,” in The Cambridge History of China: Vol. 1, The Ch’in and Han Empires, 282. Also, see van der Sprenkel, 14, for an account of Dou Xian’s surreptitious maneuverings. Van der Sprenkel, regarding Ban Gu’s assistance to Dou Xian, made a rather unlikely assumption. He suggested, based upon the calumniation of some courtiers who hated Dou Xian, that Xian was intending to overthrow the dynasty as Wang Mang had done and that “the historian Ban Gu now decided to ally his fate with that of Tou Hsien, and accepted a post on his staff.” See van der Sprenkel, 15. In short, van der Sprenkel painted Ban Gu as a traitor, one with “incomprehensible political judgment.” See van der Sprenkel, 15. Nowhere does Fan Ye or any other scholar hint that Ban Gu had any motivation other than to render a service to the Han, as did his brother, Chao. HHS40B.1386. Van der Sprenkel stated, By ill chance it happened that the Prefect of Luoyang at this time, a certain Chong Jing 种兢, held a personal grudge against him. The biography limits itself to saying that “Gu died in prison in the sixty-first year of his age,” but it is clear that the evilly-disposed Prefect was responsible for his death.

See van der Sprenkel, 16. Van der Sprenkel did not explain the circumstances of the grudge and, thus, left out the most important detail of the event. Giles, in his biographical dictionary, mistakenly suggested that Ban Gu died in a prison in Mongolia. See Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, 611. 449. HHS40B.1386. 450. Ibid. 451. Ibid. This concluding remark by Fan alludes to a Qi 齊 emissary mentioned in the Shiji who went to Yue 越 and lamented the lack of

Notes

452.

453.

454.

455.

456. 457.

247

discerning wisdom, stating, “One can see fine hair [on others], but cannot see his own eyebrows” 見豪毛而不見其睫也. See the commentary in HHS40B.1387. Ban Gu’s construction of a stable Han state differs from Sima Qian’s construction of a unified Chinese cultural heritage. For Ban Gu, history began with Emperor Gao whereas for Sima Qian, it began with the Yellow Emperor. In several ways, Sima’s records are mythological whereas Ban Gu, for the most part, limited himself to more mundane considerations. The Roman divinity Janus is in an apt allegorical figure for Wang Mang. As the “god of good beginnings” normally invoked at Roman liturgical rites beginning each year, Janus represents the beginning of an era. Also, the image of Janus is two-faced, placed at the threshold of a gate in order to see who enters and who leaves. Wang Mang, too, may be said to have had a “good beginning” and to have been “two-faced,” at least according to Ban Gu’s representation of him. HS100C.4180. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 439–440. In this passage, I would rather translate “後宮” as “rear court” than “harem.” I have, however, followed Dubs’ translation for the sake of consistency. Birrell pointed out that Ban Gu employed portent theory in an inconsistent and contrived way to criticize Wang Mang. She showed that in his “Treatise on Five Phases,” Gu explicated a ditty, “Well-Water Overflows,” as a significant omen predicting Wang Mang’s imminent usurpation. In his preface to the ditty, Ban Gu claimed that that tune is a children’s ditty from the time of Emperor Yuan in the year 31 recalling a well that overflowed, releasing streams of water southwardly. Ban Gu suggested that the water “symbolizes the flourishing of Yin and the extinction of Yang, and corresponds to the usurpation of the throne.” See Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China, 103. In other passages, Ban Gu employed contradictory elements to symbolize the same usurpation. In the same Treatise, Ban Gu explained another ditty, “Swallow, Swallow,” to be a critique of the consort, Zhao Feiyan (“flying swallow”). This ditty, Ban Gu argued, was a prophecy of Zhao’s rise, fall, and eventual suicide. See Birrell, Popular Songs and Ballads of Han China, 105–106. Thus, Ban Gu was not afraid of doing just what Wang Mang did, producing portents to justify his position. HS100A.4207. HS40A.4208–4209. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 177–178. The original Chinese version includes the two graphs 神器. Thus, the added English, “the rule of the empire,” is added to the translation to disambiguate what the graphs imply.

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458. HS99C.4166. There is a passage in the Lunheng wherein Wang Chong argued that the Han is superior to previous states that received the Mandate of Heaven, because whereas other monarchs only received the Mandate once, the Han alone could claim to have received it twice. See Wang Chong, 1372–1373. Also, see Forke, vol. 2, 207. 459. In Lloyd Albert Johnson, A Toolbox for Humanity (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2004), 51. 460. It was during Ban Gu’s life, for instance, that the Lunyu was gaining currency as a text of near canonicity, and Confucian tenets were being reconfigured into a more codified and perhaps less debated form. See Mark Csikszentmihalyi’s discussion of the Lunyu’s role in Han intellectual life, “Confucius and the Analects in the Han,” in Bryan W. Van Norden, ed., Confucius and the Analects: New Essays (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 149–150. 461. Mengzi, 413. 462. Etymologically, the graph ming 命 is related to ming 名, “to name,” thus carrying with it the meaning of to designate. Xu Shen suggested that 命 consists of the elements kou 口, “mouth,” and ling 令, “to command.” See Xu Shen, 57. In Fr. Léon Wieger’s work, Caractères Chinois: Etymologie, Graphies, Lexiques, he explained that the graph’s etymology following Xu Shen and also suggested that the term “signifies the decree by which Heaven calls man to existence and fixes his destiny.” Fr. Léon Wieger, S.J., Caractères Chinois: Etymologie, Graphies, Lexiques, 7th Edition. (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Guangqi chubanshe 光啟出版 社, 1963), 47. 463. Deliberate interpretive ambiguities are a hallmark of ancient Chinese syntax. One finds, for instance, such an ambiguous line in Xunzi’s 荀子 (b. 310 BC) “Essay on Music,” wherein he states, “Now, music/delight is that which is delightful/musical” 夫樂者樂也. See Xunzi 荀子, Wang Zhonglin 王忠林, commentator (Taibei 臺北: Sanmin shuju yinhang 三 民書局印行, 2001), 339. 464. The impulse to construct “self-contained” intellectual paradigms is well attested in the West. For example, it was the view of several counter“reformation” thinkers that the theological system of St. Thomas Aquinas was safely “contained” and, thus, free from heterodox exegesis. Ban Biao’s “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” and the intellectual strands woven through the Hanshu, perhaps, functioned much in the same way the Summa Theologica did, that is, to provide a closed paradigm that acted as a safeguard against misinterpretation.

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465. There is a work purporting to uncover evidence in the Yijing of an omen— an eclipse—that King Wu apparently regarded as a sign of Heaven’s wish for him to invade the Shang, thus setting in motion the Heaven’s Mandate theory seen in the Shangshu. See S. J. Marshall, The Mandate of Heaven: Hidden History in the I Ching (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 466. I am aware that by using the term anthropomorphic, the reader may feel compelled to equate the Judeo-Christian view of an anthropomorphized God with the Chinese view of Heaven 天. My point here is to suggest that for Dong Zhongshu, Heaven was ascribed with something of a personality with agency, able to reward or punish. I do not assume that the Han view held that Heaven could be described, per se, as appearing human-like. 467. See David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2001), 184. I should state here that I read much of the Hanshu as a form of what Aristotle would describe as epideictic oratory. That is, Ban Gu is, throughout his works, concerned with the praise and censure of virtue and vice. For Aristotle’s discussion of epideictic oratory, see Aristotle, “Rhetoric,” in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 9, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), 608–609. 468. For an extensive discussion of the evolution and nuances of the term tianming 天命, see Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China, 421–456. Loewe’s study outlines well how the term tianming vacillates between periods of political and personal relevance. His consideration may be summarized in the opening remarks of his chapter, where he stated, The term tianming is used in two distinct senses. In many instances it signifies the particular life span to which an individual is subject and to which he or she has no power of appeal. In a particular sense it is applied to the fate of dynastic houses, ascribing their institution, survival or ruin to the will exercised by Heaven, and it is the second of these uses that has long called for scrutiny and comment. Traceable as this concept is to early texts and applied as it is to the Three Dynasties of pre-imperial times, it was not until late in the Western Han that it was invoked to support the authority of the Han emperors. Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China, 421.

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469. Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince,” in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 23 (Chicago: William Benton, 1952), 9. 470. For a clear synopsis of Shang history, especially the battle at Mu Ye, see David. N. Keightley, “The Shang: China’s First Historical Dynasty,” in The Cambridge History of China: From its Origins of Civilization to 221 BC, ed. Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 232–291. It is unfortunate that, as Keightley stated, “the historicity of many of these accounts [i.e., the battle at Muye] is uncertain…” Keightley, 234. Nonetheless, the traditional belief in what occurred at past events influenced how tianming theory was transmitted and transformed. 471. Julia Ching, Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 31. 472. In Wang Aihe’s study of cosmologies as they affect political ideologies in ancient China, she stated, Claiming the absolute supremacy of an abstract, universal Heaven, which absorbed the Shang concept of the high god Di, provided the foundation for the Zhou’s legitimization for replacing Shang—the moral and political concept of Heaven’s Mandate. The Zhou claimed that Heaven had shifted its Mandate away from the Shang and given it to the Zhou king, the Son of Heaven, and that the Zhou’s conquering the Shang only served to realize this intention of Heaven.

473. 474.

475. 476.

Wang Aihe, Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 59. Edward L. Shaughnessy, “Western Zhou History,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 BC, 292. Ching, 63. Ching continued to outline an important aspect of tianming theory that figured significantly in the Mengzi. She stated, “Heaven is not merely the protector of the ruling house, but the Lord and protector of all the people, whose well-being, indeed, takes precedence over that of the ruling house.” Ching, 63. That Heaven gives precedence to the people’s welfare is quite the opposite of Biao’s and Gu’s paradigm, for according to the Bans, the condition of the people was, perhaps, contingent upon the stability of the Liu clan’s persistent tenure of the Mandate rather than the nature of their behaviors. Lunyu, 2.4. See Yang’s comments in Lunyu, 2.4.

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477. Lunyu xin jie 論語新解, commentator Qian Mu 錢穆 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Dong da tushu gufen youxian gongsi 東大圖書股份有限公司, 2000), 34. 478. Shijing jin zhu 詩經今注, ed. Gao Heng 高亨 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Han jing wenhua shiye youxian gongsi 漢京文化事業有限公司, 1984), 291. 479. Michael Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 88. 480. Shangshu jin zhu jin yi 尚書今注今譯, ed. Qu Wanli 屈萬里僄 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan shangwu yin shuguan faxing 臺灣商務印書館發 行, 1969), 49. For an alternative translation of this passage, see James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, 173. 481. Shujing, 141. See also Legge, vol. 3, 474. 482. Shujing, 142. See also Legge, vol. 3, 475–476. 483. Michael Nylan’s study of the Confucian classics contains a précis of Shangshu’s tianming paradigm that supplements well what I have suggested. She stated that Heaven is perfectly just—this the classicists could demonstrate by reference to Heaven’s commands (tianming 天命), which were first and most clearly articulated in the earliest stratum of the Documents, specifically those chapters that relate the circumstances of the Zhou conquest of Shang…Should a ruler neglect his solemn duty to care for the people, however, Heaven will promptly transfer its support to better men, even if from another ruling house.

484. 485. 486.

487. 488.

See Michael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 154. The notion that a ruler should “care for the people” figures especially in the political ideology of Mencius. Mengzi, 301. Martin J. Powers, Art and Political Expression in Early China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 197. I should mention here two studies on Heaven in ancient China that provide more in depth information on how tian 天 was defined and conceived: Giancarlo Finazzo, The Principle or Tien (Taibei, Taiwan: Mei Ya Publications, 1967) and Robert Eno, The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery (New York: State University of New York Press, 1990). HS88.3612. HS88.3612.

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489. Loewe pointed out that one problem this debate presents is that the Han may have “in fact been founded by force majeure, in the same manner as Ch’in.” Leowe, Divination, Mythology, and Monarchy, 86. That is, while some might hold that dynastic transference is precipitated by a particular king’s loss of favor among the people, another possibility is that the court was simply taken by force. This view, of course, places dynastic stability in uncertain territory. In actuality, few intellectuals were willing to admit that Heaven or virtue had nothing at all to do with dynastic legitimacy. 490. This point can be best supported by the fact that the signs included in Ban Gu’s “Treatise on the Five Phases” include a good number of omens and calamities, none of which are taken to mean that the Liu clan had lost its Mandate from Heaven. Rather, these signs were variously interpreted by ministers, such as Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xiang, or Liu Xin, as warnings against misbehaviors. They acted as a form of loyal remonstrance rather than warnings that the Han’s supernatural legitimacy was in jeopardy. 491. Stephen W. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 56. 492. For an account of the circumstances surrounding Dong Zhongshu’s memorials in response to Wudi’s inquiries, see Sarah A. Queen, From Chronicle to Canon: The Hermeneutics of the Spring and Autumn, According to Dong Zhongshu (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 21–25. 493. The “Three Dynasties” 三代 are the Xia 夏 (c. 2100 BC–c. 1600 BC), Shang 商 (c. 1600 BC–1045 BC), and Zhou 周 (1045 BC–221 BC). The period of the Three Dynasties is important to the subject of the biography of Dong Zhongshu for two reasons. First, by the time of the Zhou’s decline, it was believed to be the era of the most influential political and philosophical thought, and second, these three dynastic houses represent and embody, for Dong, a cyclical pattern of governance and Mandate theory. 494. HS56.2496. 495. HS56.2498. 496. HS56.2500. Alternatively read as, “It is that which he grasps and upholds that is contradictory and loses the link (with the past).” 497. HS56.2503. 498. HS56.2513. 499. For the dating of the imperial tour, see Zheng, 70. 500. Ban lantai ji, unpaginated.

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501. Fu Xi 伏羲 is a legendary emperor of ancient China reputed to have instructed the Chinese people how to hunt, cook, use a calendar, and so forth. He is additionally believed to have recorded the Eight Trigrams 八卦 after observing them on the back of a tortoise. He is traditionally dated to sometime around the third millennium BC. Shen Nong 神農 is said to date after Fu Xi and is known in China as the father of agriculture, herbal medicine, and barter. Huangdi 黃帝 is said to have invented pottery, various forms of transportation, and so forth. He remains today a popular deity in Chinese temples. Tang Yao 唐堯 is one of the two great kings canonized by Han Confucians, Yao and Shun 舜, who is putatively known to have ascended the throne in c. 2356 BC. Like all of the legendary figures mentioned here, Yao was believed to have been born under miraculous circumstances. 502. HS100A.4228. 503. The term wuxing 五行 has been translated in various ways. Perhaps the most common rendering is “Five-Elements,” which is probably influenced by the ancient Western conception of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Empedocles (c. 492–432 BC) first introduced the idea in the fifth century BC, and later a fifth immaterial element was amended to the other four by Aristotle (384–322 BC). The fifth element added by Aristotle is quinta essentia, which he believed permeated all that exists. Naturally, these Greek elements do not correspond to the Chinese wuxing model, which presupposes the transmutation of one phase into another. Also, the graph xing 行 suggests movement or transition. It is not a static term and does not connote merely a physical substance, as it does in the Greek understanding. I suggest the word phase best represents the Chinese conception of xing as it applies to the wuxing cosmology. In addition, hereafter, whenever I refer to the “White Snake” killed by Gaozu, I will capitalize the terms “White” and “Snake” to distinguish this serpent from others. 504. HHS40A.1334. The graph, yun 運, is glossed by Xu Shen as “transferred or turned to” 運，迻徒也. Xu Shen, 72. However, the graph may be read as 運命, which is perhaps its connotation in this passage. 505. For this Eulogy see, HS1B.81–82. The Yao Tang clan-name’s connection to Yao is explained in various ways by commentators. Xun Yue stated, “Tang was the Emperor Yao’s imperial appellation” 唐者，帝堯有天下 號. HS1B.81–82. On the other hand, the commentator, Wei Zhao, claimed, “Yao 陶 and Tang 唐 are names of states, and moreover, Tang 湯 describes the Yin/Shang dynasty indeed” 陶 唐 皆 國 名，猶 湯 稱 殷 商 矣. HS1B.81–82. Similar to Wei Zhao, Chen Zuan asserted, “Yao originally

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dwelled at Tang, and later at Yao; accordingly, it says Yao Tang” 堯初居於 唐，後居陶，故曰陶唐也. HS1B.81–82. Finally, Yan Shigu contended that Xun, Wei, and Chen Zuan are all incorrect. Rather, Yan recalled Xu Shen’s Shuowen jiezi statement that Yao 陶 was a hillock at Jiyin 濟陰 (located in modern Shandong). The place was called Yaoqiu 陶丘 and nearby was a place called Yaocheng 陶城, where Yao 堯 once lived. Later, Yao moved to Tang 唐. Hence, Xu Shen concluded that Yao’s appellation was for this reason made Yao Tang 陶唐. Yan Shigu asserted, “This is indeed how he obtained the appellation Yao Tang” 斯得之矣. HS1B.81– 82. In the end, all agreed that Yao Tang referred to the Sage-King Yao, and three out of four commentators agreed that the appellation “Yao Tang” was derived from locations where Yao was believed to have lived. 506. Ban Gu noted, 大夫范宣子亦曰：「祖自虞以上為陶唐氏，在夏為御龍氏，在商 為豕韋氏，在周為唐杜氏，晉主夏盟為范氏. The grandee, Fan Xuanzi, moreover stated, “My ancestor from before the time of Yu Shun was Yao Tang. During the Xia there was Yulong, during the Shang there was Shiwei, and during the Zhou there was Tangdu. When the state of Jin was in charge of oath-making in China, there was the Fan clan.” HS1A.81. 507. Daliang was a city located at what is now the northwest part of Kaifeng 開 封, in Henan 河南. 508. HS1B.81–82. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 1, 150. 509. HS100B.4236. Taking 纂 as 纂臨, and reading 緒 to imply the “remnants” or “thread” of Yao’s Mandate. 510. HS100B.4236. 511. Ibid. 512. See Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 1, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 159. 513. Shangshu jin zhu jin yi, 76. Also HS27A.1318. 514. Although the ordering of the phases is different in various models, one can see that the pattern of growth or conquest is theoretically the same. Qi Bo 岐伯 explained the cyclical pattern of the Five Phases in the Huangdi neijing suwen 黃帝內經素問. Qi Bo stated,

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When the element of wood reaches the element of metal it is felled; when the element of fire reaches the element of water it is extinguished; when the element of earth reaches the element of wood it is penetrated; when the element of metal reaches the element of fire it is dissolved; and when water reaches the earth its flow is interrupted and cut off. Although the living creatures are the utmost (in perfection), they cannot overcome exhaustion.

515.

516.

517. 518.

519. 520.

521.

Ilza Vieth, Huang Ti Nei Ching Su Wen—The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), 215. Cited in Fung, 161. For the original passage, see Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏 春秋, commentator Lin Pinshi 林品石 (Taibei 臺北, Taiwan: Taiwan shangwu yin shuguan gufen youxian gongsi 臺灣商務印書館股份有限 公司, 1985), 333–334. HS1A.7. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 1, 34–36. See also SJ8.347. For an English translation of the Shiji passage, which is the basis of Ban Gu’s account, see Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian, 53–54. HS1A.1. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 1, 28–29. Zhang Cang 張蒼 was initially an erudite minister under the Qin but was accused of a crime, precipitating his later alliance with Liu Bang. He is said to have opposed an attempt by Gongsun Chen 公孫臣 to change the Han’s phase to Earth in 166 BC. See Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 675–676. See also HS42.2093; 30.1733; and 88.3620. In the Eulogy located in HS25B.1270, it is stated that “Zhang Cang held that the Han ruled according to the virtue of the Phase Water” 張蒼據水德. More on Zhang can be found in Shiji, chapter 96. HS25B.1271. There are earlier examples of persons who believed that the Han had inherited its Mandate from Yao, such as Liu Xiang, Liu Xin, and Wang Mang. However, perhaps the earliest person to state this view was Sui Hong 睢弘, a student of Dong Zhongshu. See HS27B.1400; 30.1751; and 75.3153–3154. See also Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 496 and Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China, 441. Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China, 55. Loewe’s discussion regarding the Five Phase theory as it was employed during the Western and early Eastern Han provides a more complete outline of the issues than I have produced here. See the second chapter of his

256

522. 523. 524. 525. 526. 527. 528. 529.

530. 531. 532. 533. 534. 535.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA monograph entitled, “Water, Earth, and Fire: The Symbols of the Han dynasty,” 55–60. Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China, 55. For further discussion on this topic, see Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China, 424. HS99A.4095. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 255. HS27B.1316. The “they” referred to in this passage are the subsequent amendments made to the Diagrams and Documents by such men as King Wen and Confucius. HS27B.1318. HS27B.1320. Ibid. SJ8.343, and HS1A.2. A view of an unalterable destiny is exemplified in Emperor Gao’s response when struck by an arrow in battle. Gao was struck by a stray arrow while fighting with Qing Bu 黥布, also called Ying Bu 英布, and his wound became infected. Sima Qian recalled that Gao became increasingly ill, until his consort finally summoned a doctor. After the physician reported that his wound could, indeed, be cured, Gao scolded the doctor saying, “I used to be a commoner, and obtained the kingdom using my threefoot sword; was this not due to Heaven’s Mandate? My Mandate resides in Heaven; even if the famous doctor Bian Que were to treat me, what use would it be?” 吾以布衣提三尺劍取天下，此非天命？命乃在天， 雖扁鵲何益? SJ8.391, and HS1B.78–79. Thus, Sima Qian and Ban Gu recalled Emperor Gao’s belief in irrevocable destiny, albeit one in this case not explicitly involving political destiny. William Theodore de Barry, Wing-tsit Chan, and Burton Watson, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), 176–177. The Hou Hanshu clearly outlines Wei Ao’s intention to seize the Mandate of Heaven. See HHS13.539. See also Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China, 449. HS100A.4208. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 177. Ibid. HS100A.4208–4209. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 177–178. HS100A.4209. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 178.

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536. Ban Biao stated, 又況幺酰，尚不及數子，而欲闇奸天位者虖！是故駑蹇之乘不騁 千里之塗，燕雀之疇不奮六翮之用，楶梲之材不荷棟梁之任，斗 筲之子不秉帝王之重．易曰「鼎折足，覆公餗」，不勝其任也. How much more damned would be a mean and insignificant man who could not match even these and yet in his blindness hoped to contend for the throne of the sovereign? As a man cannot ride a thousand-mile journey on a crippled jade, as the little swallows and sparrows cannot soar with the great-winged flocks, as the timbers used for corbels and joists cannot bear the weight of beams and ridgepoles, no more can any mere dullard shoulder the burden of imperial rule. The Book of Changes says: “If the leg of a cauldron is broken, the lord’s porridge will spill out.” That is, the pot is not fit for the purpose.

537. 538. 539. 540. 541. 542. 543. 544. 545. 546. 547. 548. 549. 550.

HS100B.4209–4210. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 178. Thus, Ban Biao suppressed the ambitions of those who would arrogate the throne without the Mandate. Chen Ying 陳嬰 was eventually enfoeffed as a noble at Dongyang 東 陽, which was located in what is today Anhui 安徽. For Chen Ying, see Loewe, Biographical Dictionary, 42–43. HS100B.4210. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 178. Wang Ling 王陵 was one of Liu Bang’s great ministers during his campaign against Xiang Yu 項羽, though he later died in the emperor’s disfavor. See Leowe, Biographical Dictionary, 535. HS100A.4210. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 179. HS100A.4211. Translated in de Barry, Chan, and Watson, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 179. HS100A.4211. HS1A.2 and SJ8.342. See Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 1, 29, n. 2. Ibid. See SJ8.343; HS1A.2; SJ8.344; and HS1A.4. HS99C.4166. HS99C.4207. The “五等” are the 公, 侯,伯,子, and 男. Fung Yu-lan translated “從橫家” as “Diplomatists.” See Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 1, 21. However, here Ban Biao

258

551.

552. 553. 554. 555. 556. 557. 558.

559.

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA referred to the “從橫之事,” that is the lateral and horizontal alliances of the Warring States era. He was not referring to a specific philosophical school. The term distaff families implies the relatives of the imperial consorts. As we have seen, Ban Gu’s great-aunt, the jieyu (daughter of Ban Kuang), was a favored consort of Emperor Cheng 成帝 (r. 32–7 BC). Thus, one of the distaff families that Cheng “borrowed” his efficacy from was the Ban family. However, this passage pejoratively implies that such reliance upon distaff families resulted in the shortening of imperial tenure. Certainly, Ban Biao was suggesting here that the reigns of Cheng, Ai, and Ping 平帝 (r. AD 1–5) were truncated due to their inappropriate reliance upon such ignoble consorts as Li Ping and Zhao Feiyan. HS100A.4207. HS81.3338. See Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy, 91. HS8.237. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 2, 203. See HS8.236. HS99C.4194. Translated in Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, vol. 3, 471. There are other passages where Ban Gu attributed bad events to the determination and timing of Heaven. For example, in Ban Gu’s Eulogy at the conclusion of chapter 63, “Biographies of the Five Sons of Emperor Wu (Liu Ju [future Emperor Zhao], Liu Hong, Liu Dan, Liu Xu, and Liu Bo),” Gu wrote, “Is not the calamity of the witchcraft case (92–91 BC) pitiable indeed! It was not that Jiang Chong alone was guilty, but it was also a time set by Heaven and not brought about by human effort” 巫蠱之禍，豈 不哀哉！此不唯一江充之辜，亦有天時，非人力所致焉. HS63.2770. It seems, then, that Heaven plays a role in the workings of humanity by determining the time of, and persons involved in, certain events. Such passages reveal Ban Biao’s influence upon his son, who often reminded his reader that Heaven’s will supersedes human agency. See HS66.2891 for further evidence of this belief represented in the Hanshu. For a discussion of Ban Gu’s view of Heaven’s determining role in historical events, see Wang Mingtong, 144–148. See also HS56.2500 for Dong Zhongshu’s statement that human effort cannot play a role in the acquisition of Heaven’s Mandate. Indeed, Dong’s memorial contains similar phrasing to Ban Gu’s statements where Gu makes similar claims. In Daniel Starch, et al., Psychology in Education (Haverhill, MA: D. AppletonCentury, 1941), 82.

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560. Wei Zheng 魏徵, Suishu 隋書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1973), 33.957. 561. The Zizhi tongjian is like the Shiji in that it covers several dynasties but is different in that it is not universal. 562. Liu Xie, 474. Translated in Shih, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, 358. 563. Liu Xie, 382. Translated in Shih, 288. 564. See Liu Xie, 149–150. For Zhang Heng 張衡, see Herbert A. Giles, 22–23. 565. Zhang Fu 張輔 stated, 遷之著書，辭約而事舉，叔三千年事唯五十萬言；班固叔二百 年事乃八十萬言，煩省不同，不如遷一也．良史述事，善足以 獎勸，惡足以監誡，人道之常．中流小事，亦無取焉，而班皆書 之，不如二也．毀貶晁錯，傷忠臣之道，不如三也．遷既造創， 固又因循，難易益不同矣．又遷為蘇秦，張儀，范睢，蔡澤作 傳，逞辭流離，亦足以明其大才．姑述辨士則辭藻華靡，叔事錄 則隱核名檢，此所以遷稱良史也. In Sima Qian’s writing (i.e., the Shiji), his words are concise and accounts are complete; he wrote about 3,000 years of history in only 500,000 words. Ban Gu wrote about 200 years of history, and yet he used 800,000 words that are difficult to understand, and unlike Sima Qian’s. This is the first way that Ban Gu’s work is not equal to Sima Qian’s. When the good historian (i.e., Sima Qian) records affairs, the sufficiently excellent are used to encourage, and the sufficiently depraved are used to admonish in light of the standard (constant?) Way of humanity. Those who are average and of petty accounts are, moreover, not taken as subjects of historical record, and yet Ban Gu records everyone indiscriminately. This is the second way that Ban Gu’s work is not equal to Sima Qian’s. Sima Qian critiqued Chao Cuo for doing harm to the Way of loyal ministers, and Ban Gu’s assessment is the opposite of Sima’s. This is the third way that Ban Gu’s work is not equal to Sima Qian’s. Sima Qian encountered the punishment of castration, and Ban Gu followed after him (i.e., suffered unjust recrimination), finally dying in prison. Ban Gu was unlike Sima Qian in that he could not change his difficulty into a profitable situation. Moreover, Sima Qian produced biographies of Su Qin, Zhang Yi, Fan Sui, Cai Ze, in which outrageous words are excised; this is sufficient to illuminate his great talent. Accordingly, when he

260

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA writes about polemicists, florid diction is discarded. In his writing the truth is recorded, and so what is hidden is investigated and names are scrutinized. This is the basis upon which Sima Qian is acclaimed as an excellent historian. Jinshu 晉書 (Beijing 北京, China: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1974), 60.1640.

566. For Ge Hong 葛洪, see Giles, 372 and Robert Ford Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 13–17. It has been claimed that Ge Hong suggested that Liu Xin, rather than Ban Gu, was the true author of the Hanshu in 100 chapters. This historically unfounded claim was probably never made by Ge Hong but was a post-Tang fabrication. For a summary of the problem of the forged Ge Hong preface to the Xijing zaji, see William H. Nienhauser, Jr., “An Interpretation of the Literary and Historical Aspects of the Hsi-ching Tsa-chi (Miscellanies of the Western Capital ),” 28–29, 42–44, 198–200. 567. For an account of the circumstances of Emperor Xian’s abdication, see Carl Leban, “Managing Heaven’s Mandate: Coded Communication in the Accession of Ts’ao P’ei, AD 220,” in Ancient China: Studies in Early Civilization, 315–339. See also Twitchett, Denis, and Fairbank (eds.) The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, 355–356. 568. This translation has benefited greatly from the comments and corrections of Durrant and He Jianjun. 569. There is really nothing in the original Hou Hanshu passage in which Biao’s essay appears to suggest that Lüelun 略論 necessarily be read as a title. The term may simply mean “general remarks.” The original passage reads, “其略論曰,” which may mean, “In his general remarks he said…” See HHS40A.1324. That said, I have rendered it as a title, which reflects only my opinion that it is such. There are two translations of this passage to date; see Édouard Chavannes, trans., Les Memoires historiques de Sema Ts’ien, vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1895), ccxl–ccxli and Swann, Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China, 61–62. However, these two translations are not complete, and I have completed the last portion. 570. I render the graph shi 史 as “historian” rather than “scribe” in order to emphasize the larger topic of this essay, viz., historiography and those who record it. 571. Ban Gu echoed his father’s statement in his “Treatise on Classics and other Writings,” Hanshu 30, wherein Gu stated, 古之王者世有史官，君舉必書，所以慎言行，昭法式．左史記言， 右史記事，事為春秋，言為尚書…

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Each generation of the kings of antiquity had its own office of the historian. The ruler’s deportment was certain to be recorded, and accordingly he was cautious in his speech and behavior, and his model methods were illuminated. The historian of the left recorded his words, while the historian of the right recorded his affairs. Records of affairs were produced in the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals) and records of words were produced in the Shangshu (Classic of Documents)…See HS30.1715. 572. See Mengzi, 192–192, no. 8.21. The syntax of this line in the Mencius differs from the quotation of it in Biao’s essay. The original Mencius line reads, “晉之乘，楚之檮杌，魯之春秋，一也.” According to Yang Bojun, the Cheng, Taowu, and Chunqiu are merely generic names for historical records in these respective states. See Mengzi, 192. 573. Swann suggested in her translation of this passage that the Shiben mentioned here was authored by Zuo Qiuming. See Swann, Pan Chao, 61. 574. Swann translated, “…and Ch’in conquered the feudal lords.” See Swann, Pan Chao, 62. 575. See note no. 6 in HHS40A.1326. 576. The ten missing chapters include the “Annals of Emperor Jing” 景紀, “Annals of Emperor Wu” 武紀, “Treatise on Ritual” 禮書, “Treatise on Music” 樂書, “Treatise on the Military” 兵書, “Chart of the Annual Activities of Generals and Ministers” 將相年表, “Biographies of the Soothsayers” 日者傳, “Hereditary Families of the Three Kings” 三王世 家, “Biographies of the Plastromancers” 龜策傳, and the “Collected Biographies of the Parsimonious” 傅靳列傳. See note no. 7 in HHS40A.1326 for this account of the “missing chapters” of the Shiji. 577. Xiao He 蕭何 and Cao Shen 曹參 are traditionally mentioned together as two of the most important supporters of Liu Bang; Chen Ping 陳平 was also one of Liu’s supporters. 578. Sima Qian’s formula for outlining a biography has been closely adopted by Ban Gu. In Shiji 117, the “Biography of Sima Xiangru,” Sima Qian first recorded Xiangru’s commandery, Shu 蜀 (modern Sichuan); then his prefecture, Chengdu 成都; and finally his style, Zhangqing 長卿. See SJ117.2999. Ban Gu generally recorded the person’s style first and then his geographic origins. See, for example, HS73.3101, 74.3133, or 75.3153. 579. The term 後篇 could here be read as a book title, that is, as a variation of the title of Biao’s work the Houzhuan 後傳. 580. HHS40A.1325–1327. This line probably refers to Confucius’ literary injunction in Lunyu 6.18. Taking sha 殺, “to kill,” as shai, “to reduce.”

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Zhang Lie 張烈. Hanshu zhuyi 漢書注意. 4 vols. Haikou 海口: Hainan guoji chuban 海口國際出版, 1997. Zhang Liezhan 張烈點, ed. Liang Hanji 兩漢紀. 2 vols. Beijing 北京: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 2002. Zhang Puti 張浦題. Ban lantai ji 班蘭臺集. In Han wei liu chao baisan jia 漢魏六朝百三家. Facsimile of the Ming manuscript, located in the National Library Rare Books Archive, Taibei 臺北, Taiwan 臺灣. Zhang Shunhui 張舜徽, ed. Hou Hanshu cidian 後漢書辭典. Jinan 濟 南: Shandong jiaoyu chuban faxing 山東教育出版發行, 1994. Zhang Yiyan 章詒燕. Du shi zhengyan 讀史諍言. Shanghai 上海: Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館, 1935. Zhanguo ce 戰國策. Tainan 臺南: Da fu shuju 大孚書局, 2001. Zhao Yi 趙翼. Ershier shi zhaji 二十二史劄 記. Taibei 臺北: Dingwen shuju 鼎文書局, 1975. Zheng Hesheng 鄭鶴聲. Han Ban Mengjian xiansheng Gu nianpu 漢班 孟堅先生固年譜. Taibei 臺北: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan 臺灣商 務印書館, 1980. ———. Shi Han yanjiu 史漢研究. Shanghai 上海: Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館, 1930. Zhongguo shixue shi cidian 中國史學史辭典. Taibei 臺北: Mingwen shuju 明文書局, 1990. Zhongguo tongshi lunwen xuan 中國通史論文選. Taibei 臺北: Hua shi chubanshe 華世出版社, 1979. Zhouyi xin yi 周易新譯. Xu Zhirui 徐志銳, commentator. Taibei 臺北: Li ren shuju yinhang 里仁書局印行, 1991. Zhuangzi jin zhu jin yi 莊子今主今議. Chen Guying 陳鼓應, commentator. Hong Kong 香港: Zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1990. Zufferey, Nicolas. To the Origins of Confucianism. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2003.

INDEX (Chinese names are rendered in pinyin, last name first) Ai, Duke, 199, 240 Ai, Emperor (Liu Xin), xvii, 22, 29, 42, 53, 80–82, 94–107, 109–110, 118, 134, 136, 159, 162–163, 175, 177, 187, 219, 232–233, 235–236, 239–240, 252, 255, 258, 260 ascension to throne, 80 Ai Zhang, 110, 135, 240 Analects of Confucius (Lunyu), 13–14, 211, 214, 227, 231, 248, 251, 262, 276 ancestors, 5, 64–65, 68, 90, 117, 132, 137, 144, 148, 157, 225 Anhui, 236, 257 Annals of Emperor Guangwu (Shizu benji), 39, 125–126, 244 anxieties, xiv–xv, xviii, 2, 79, 86, 89 of court, 4–5, 89, 94 astrologer. See grand astrologer auspicious portents. See omens author, xi, xvi, 5, 18, 20, 29, 44, 46, 49, 65, 129, 169, 181, 211, 260 as compiler, xvii, 18, 30, 55 as critical scholar, 6, 8, 18–19, 33, 35, 141 as individual, xiv, 2, 46, 91, 182 mind of, xiv–xv, 17, 46 authority, 8, 99, 109, 151, 156, 175, 250 legitimacy of, xv, 153, 156, 178 authorship, 2, 5, 18–21, 27, 43, 49, 52–54, 66–67, 125, 129, 222

authorship (continued ) and concept of self, 62 and editing, 18–19, 207 and ideologies, 2, 5, 66 and quoting, 14, 19, 65, 219 notions of, 18 autobiography, xv, xix, 61–62, 119, 224–225 Ba Shang, 174 Baling, 102, 236 Ban Biao, 3, 10–13, 20–22, 24, 30–31, 37, 43–46, 51–56, 65–67, 82–86, 95–96, 117–118, 120–121, 123, 132, 134–136, 141, 143–144, 146, 150, 154, 157–58, 163, 165, 168–172, 174–176, 178, 183, 198–201, 210, 213, 220–222, 242, 257–258 as author of History of the Han, 43–46 as chen (minister), 44 as Fan Shupi, 44–45, 220 death of, 20–23, 43, 51, 119, 123, 132, 220, 242 works by “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” 20, 43, 67, 84, 118, 141, 157, 169, 178, 249 Later Biographies, 21–22, 53, 66 See also “General Remarks on Historiography,” “Essay on the Kingly Mandate”

288

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Ban Bo, 73–79, 82, 90, 96, 98, 117, 143, 183, 230–232, 236–237 Ban Chang, 71, 183 Ban Chao, 24, 120, 126, 183, 212, 244 Ban clan, 5, 61, 63, 67, 71–74, 78–79, 81–83, 86–87, 89–90, 96, 117–118, 182–183, 227, 229–230, 232 Confucian orthodoxy, 66 family biography, 61–66, 91, 224–225 family principles, 116–118, 144 genealogy of, 67–71 origins of, 70, 228 privileged position of, 62, 74–75, 82–83, 142 rise to power, 172, 211 Ban Gu, xiv–xix, 2–182 passim, 183–185, 207–210, 212–262 passim. See also “Basic Annals of Emperor Gao,” “Biography of Dong Zhongshu,” “Communicating with the Hidden,” History of the Han, “Hymn on the Southern Tour,” “Response to a Guest’s Jest,” “Treatise on State Sacrifices,” and “Treatise on the Five Phases” as compared to Sima Qian, 25, 36–39 as historian, xvi, xviii, 4–5, 18, 39, 51, 62, 67, 75, 117–118, 125, 133, 156, 179 as individual, xviii–xix, 4, 18, 54 as Mengjian, 3–4, 119 commissioner over the army, 130 death of, 26–29, 50, 55, 125, 131, 180, 222

Ban Gu (continued ) imprisonment of, 33, 124–125, 131–133, 244, 246–247, 259 major of the black tortoise, 129, 245 mourning, 20–22, 51, 123, 129, 132–133 Ban Gu pingzhuan (Critical Biography of Ban Gu), 4, 209 Ban Hui, 71, 183 Ban Jieyu, 73–74, 81, 86–90, 96, 98, 107, 117, 134, 143, 183, 233, 235–237 Ban Kuang, 65, 71–73, 78, 86, 183, 235, 258 Ban lantai ji. See Collected Works of the Historian of the Orchid Terrace Ban Gu Ban Ru, 71, 90, 183 Ban Si, 83–84, 118, 183 Ban Yi, 70–71, 90, 183, 228–229 Ban You, 78–80, 82, 87, 96, 117, 183, 218, 230, 232 Ban Zhao, 33, 56, 183, 242 Fan Ye’s biography of, 26–27, 29, 50, 55, 122 Ban Zhi, 65, 73, 79–83, 88, 90, 96, 117–118, 183 banquets, remonstrations at, 75, 77, 87, 98, 104, 117 baobian. See “praise and blame” barbarian. See Xiongnu de Barry, William Theodore, 168 “Basic Annals of Emperor Gao,” 158, 173 “Basic Annals of Emperor Guangwu,” 122 “Basic Annals of Emperor Zhang,” 129, 245 Beasley, W. G., xviii

Index Beijian recension, 57–58 Bielenstein, Hans, 73, 239, 244–245 biographies [personal], 21–23, 32, 39, 43–44, 46, 54, 120, 126, 189, 213, 219–220, 222, 260 “Biography of Dong Zhongshu,” xvii, 19, 212 Bona ben ershisishi series, xviii, 57 books. See also text as individual creation, 18 original draft of, 20, 25, 27–28, 33, 47, 49, 55 “true edition” of, 20, 28–34, 215 border region, 62, 126, 229–230 Butler, Samuel, 179 Caesar, Julius, xv Cai Mo, 157, 224 Cai Yong, 181 calamities. See omens Cao Cao, 109 Cao Pi, 182 Cao Shen, 11, 190, 201, 211, 261 career maneuvering, 4, 75–76, 80, 83, 85–86, 89, 106, 108–109, 134, 137, 168 Chan, Wing-tsit, 168 Changling, 72, 229 Changxing Ting (commune), 115, 241 Chao Cuo, 42, 259 “chapter and verse” style, 119, 121–122 chasing deer, 135–136, 166, 170 Chavannes, Edouard, xviii Chen Hanzhang, 50, 220 Chen Ping, 11, 190, 201, 211, 261 Chen Qitai, 4, 209 Chen Ying, 172–173, 257 Chen Zong, 39, 125

289

Cheng, Emperor, 40, 44–46, 65, 72, 75, 77–80, 82, 86–89, 94–99, 109, 117–118, 134, 136–137, 143, 175, 177, 187, 218, 229–233, 235–237, 258 Chengdu, 261 Chijingzi, 106 Chong Jing, 131, 246 Chu Shaosun, 40, 54 Chu, state of, 67–70, 211, 226–228 Chun qiu Zuo zhuan. See Mr. Zuo’s Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Chunqiu. See Spring and Autumn Annals Chunyu Zhang, 77, 230 Classic of Changes, 123 Classic of Odes (Shijing), 6–7, 23, 33, 74, 77, 87, 117, 141, 146–147, 149, 199, 227, 231–232, 235 Collected Works of the Historian of the Orchid Terrace Ban Gu (Ban lantai ji Chu-Han chunqiu), 127 commentaries. See text, commentary of See also History of the Han Commentary of Mr. Zuo (Zuozhuan), xix, 12, 34–35, 68–71, 78, 141, 199–200, 217, 227–228 “Communicating with the Hidden,” 20, 68, 91, 119, 123, 184, 226 Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government (Zizhi tongjian), 120, 180, 242, 259 Confucian, 10–14, 22, 41, 62, 66–67, 76, 78, 83, 88, 96, 105, 108, 111–112, 119, 129, 132–135, 137, 140, 143, 149, 168, 195, 212–213, 238, 242, 245, 248, 251

290

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Confucian (continued ) Classics, 10–11, 25, 107, 129, 200–201, 245 false, 108, 111, 135 morality, 7, 11, 13–15, 62, 67 virtue, 14, 62, 68 Confucius, 6–8, 10–11, 13–14, 28, 62, 69, 73, 112, 145–146, 200, 227, 240, 256, 262 teachings of, 10, 13, 28 quoting, 13–14, 68 consorts, distractions by, 77, 87, 98, 117, 231, 247 cosmology, 159, 253 court, dangers of 79–81, 89–90, 155 etiquette, 107 failures of, 139 historian(s), 4, 156 life, 4, 74, 105, 155, 167 officials, 4, 67, 72, 78, 100, 232 women’s control of, 98–100 Cram, Ralph Adams, xiii criticism, allegory as, 6–8. See also emperor, criticisms of; remonstrations, loyal Cui Yin, 122–123, 181, 213 Cultural Revolution, 9 “cut-and-paste.” See text, cutting and pasting of cutting the sleeve, 101–107, 237 Daliang, 157, 254 Dan Ji, 231 Derrida, Jacques, 35 destiny, 105, 136, 140, 142, 146, 149–151, 166, 168, 170–174, 178–179, 248, 256 Ding Man, 99, 236

Ding Ming, 99, 236 Ding Tao, Dowager/Empress, 99–100 Dingxiang, 75–76, 117, 230 Discourses of the States, 141, 199–200 Discourses Weighed in the Balance, 127 Disquisitions of the States (Guoyu), 6, 210 divine right, 139 “Documents,” 35–37, 199, 217 Documents (Shangshu), 7, 23, 25, 33, 37, 42, 74, 77, 96, 108, 117, 141, 143, 146–148, 159, 165, 199, 219, 231, 249, 251, 256, 261 Dong Gong, 101–102, 104, 236 Dong Xian, 100–106, 109, 236–237, 239 fall from power, 106 Dong Zhongshu, xvii, 7–8, 11, 19, 39, 42, 72, 125, 137, 141, 151–154, 192, 207, 210, 212, 216, 244, 249, 252, 255, 258 Dongfang Shuo, 128, 193 Dongping, king of, 79, 124, 184, 232, 243 Dou Ban, 68, 70–71, 183, 228 Dou Bobi, 69–70, 183 Dou Rong, 120, 132, 242 Dou Xian, 130–131, 184, 246 Dou Ziwen, 68–71, 183, 226–228 Draft of the Qing History (Qingshi gao), 180 dragons, 32, 110, 113, 157, 161–162, 173–174 Dubs, Homer, xviii, 35, 100, 110, 113, 173, 218–219, 238–239 Durrant, Stephen, xviii, 151, 230

Index

291

dynastic cycle, 38, 133, 159–163, 165–166, 217 dynastic history, 37–38, 180

eunuchs, 103, 130–131 Explanation of Writings and Graphs (Shuowen jiezi), 36, 235, 254

Eastern Han, xiv, 28, 31, 34–35, 57, 60, 126, 128, 132, 140, 149, 159, 162, 168, 174, 181–182, 212, 242–244, 256 Eastern Palace, 28, 89, 121, 215 Eastern Pavilion, 26, 55, 217 Eastern Zhou, 71 editions. See specific names editors, xiv, 20, 28–34, 36, 47–48, 58, 122, 215, 220, 235 Eight Trigrams, 165, 253 emanations. See omens emperor. See also specific names actions/behavior of, 4, 7–8, 15, 33, 77–78, 95, 142–143, 149–151, 154, 166–168, 175–176, 179, 231, 251–252, 261 and chariots, 75, 86–87, 102, 117, 143, 229, 237 as last ruler, 144, 147, 167, 178 criticisms of, 4, 6–8, 77, 87, 146, 179 empress, 39–40, 46, 70–71, 73, 81–82, 87–89, 97–100, 105, 109, 112–113, 115, 130–131, 134, 164, 177, 186–187, 197, 219, 228, 234–236, 239. See also specific names “Essay on the Kingly Mandate,” 5, 20, 43, 67, 84–85, 96, 118, 136, 141–142, 157, 168–169, 178, 149 Eulogy (zan), xvii, 13, 44–46, 179, 220, 253, 255, 258

Family Instructions of the Yan Clan (Yanshi jiaxun), 60 famine, 110, 171–172 Fan Chong, 110, 240 Fan, King of Si at Poyang, 28, 214–215 Fan Shupi. See Ban Biao Fan Xuanzi, 157, 254 Fan Ye, 13, 21–23, 26–27, 39, 43, 49, 51–52, 66, 84–85, 120, 122–128, 130–132, 156, 208, 210, 218, 246 Feng Shan sacrifice, 43, 63, 174 Feng Youlan, 159 filial piety, 23–24, 44, 46, 64–65, 72, 118, 121 Five Classics, 11, 25, 129, 133, 200, 245, 251. See also Confucian, Classics Five Phases (wuxing), 159, 219, 253 nourishment cycle of, 159–160 Phase Earth (Yellow), 114, 159–160, 162–164, 166, 178, 253, 255–256 Phase Fire (Red), 113–114, 156, 158–160, 162–166, 169–170, 178, 256 Phase Metal, 159–160, 166, 255 Phase Water, 159, 162–163, 226, 253, 255 Phase Wood, 159–160, 166, 255 Flattery, 62, 94, 105, 117, 124, 135, 141, 155 Foucault, Michel, 46

292

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

fu. See Rhyme-Prose Fu Donghua, 56, 223 Fu, Dowager, 98–99, 134, 236 Fu Qian, 35, 224 Fu Xi, 41, 155, 165, 253 Fu Yan, 99, 224, 236 Fu Yi, 123, 127 Fu Zhaoyi, 98, 176, 235 Fufeng, 20, 121–122, 124–125, 243 Gan Zhongke, 114, 237, 241 Gao, Emperor, 13, 25, 31, 35, 37, 39–40, 104, 142, 150, 156–158, 161–162, 164, 167–170, 173–174, 186–187, 190, 211, 216, 235, 247, 256. See also Han Gaozu; Liu Bang Gao, Empress (Lü Zhi), 39–40, 70–71, 186–187, 228 Gao Yang, 68, 226 Gardner, Charles S., xviii Ge Hong, 29, 34, 181, 215, 260 Genealogies (Shiben), 12, 67, 69–70, 113, 169, 199–200, 261 General and Virtuous Disquisitions at White Tiger Hall, 129 General Catalog of the Four Treasuries, 20, 28–29, 33–34 “General Remarks on Historiography,” 10, 198–201, 202 Generalities on Historiography (Shitong), 21, 34, 53, 67, 213, 221 gengshi era, 84, 110 Gibbon, Edward, xiii Giles, Herbert A., xviii, 3 Gong, Dowager/Empress, 99 Gong Kechang, 90, 234 Gongsun Hong, 81, 192

Gongsun Shu, Emperor, 84, 126, 233 Gou Hutu, 68, 70 Grand Academy, 20, 22–23, 51, 72, 121–123, 132, 154, 213, 243 grand astrologer, 63–64, 225. See also Sima Qian; Sima Tan grandee, post of, 76, 78, 102, 199, 245 Great Leap Forward, 8 “Great Plan,” 42, 159, 165–166 Gu Jiegang, 56 Guangping, 80, 232 Guangwu, Emperor, 31, 39, 84, 120–122, 125–126, 128, 159, 162–163, 184, 233, 243–244 Guangxu, Emperor, xviii, 223 Guanzhong, 128 Guo Xun, 126, 244 Guoyu. See Disquisitions of the States Hai Rui Dismissed from Office, 8 Han Ban Mengjian xiansheng Gu nianpu (Annals of the Life of Mr. Ban[Gu] Mengjian), 3–4 Han dynasty, collapse, 107, 112–113, 116–118, 134, 144, 175 interregnum, 97, 119, 132, 142, 174 perpetual continuation of, 38, 95, 181–182. See also Eastern Han; Western Han Han Gaozu, 136, 157–158, 160–162, 168, 170, 185, 211, 233. See also Gao, Emperor; Liu Bang Han Records (Hanji), 34–36, 216–217 Han ruling family. See Liu ruling family

Index Han Yushan, xviii Hanji. See Han Records Hanshu. See History of the Han Hanshu daodu (Guide to Reading the History of the Han), 3 Hardy, Grant, xviii harem, imperial, 45, 63, 65, 71–73, 88, 134–135, 247 He, Emperor, 26, 55, 130–131 Heaven (tian), 7–8, 113–115, 141–155, 158–182 passim, 248–252, 258. See also Mandate of Heaven and fate, 89, 140, 146, 154, 172, 177–178, 249 anthropomorphized, 249 as deity, 141, 145, 147, 151, 251 censure by, 7–8, 113, 153–154 Heaven’s Mandate. See Mandate of Heaven Hebei, 226, 229, 232, 233 Heidegger, Martin, 60 Henan, 216, 236, 254 heping era, 75 high antiquity (shanggu), xiv decay of (shuai), xiv historians, task of, xiv–xvi, 25, 64, 66, 117, 181. See also court, historians; Orchid-Terrace, Historian of historical record(s), xiv–xv, 2, 5–7, 19, 47, 51–52, 66–67, 77, 134, 140 Historiographical Dictionary of Chinese History, 122 historiography, [Chinese], xv, xviii–xix, 2–3, 249 History of the Former Han (Qian Hanshu), 35–36

293

History of the Han (Hanshu), xv–xix, 2–182 passim, 186–197, 207–261 passim. See also postface accretions of, 17, 34–35, 49, 52, 55–56, 59–60 ancient edition of, 28–33 as dynastic history, 37–38, 180 list of chapter titles, 186–197 commentaries of, 17, 28, 32, 35, 45, 56, 59–60, 129, 224, 238 compared to Records of the Grand Historian, xvii, 19–20, 36–42, 63–65, 159–160, 168, 179–180 development of, 19, 49, 52–56 drafts of, 20, 25–28, 33, 44, 47–52, 55 number of chapters in, 21–22, 34–53 passim, 213, 218 Qing editors, 20, 29–34, 47 revisions of, 26–28, 34, 50, 54–58 structure of, 30, 34–38, 63, 67, 81, 83, 86, 93–97, 111, 142– 143, 180, 213, 225 versions of, 26–27, 32, 44, 48–49, 56–60, 219 History of the Later Han (Hou Hanshu), 3, 24, 26–27, 29, 36, 42, 45, 50, 66–67, 84–85, 120–123, 127–129, 131–132, 210, 217, 222, 241–242, 244, 256, 260 History of the Sui (Suishu), 28, 31, 47–48, 179, 216–217 Homer, xix homosexuality. See cutting the sleeve Hou Feng, 127 Hou Hanshu. See History of the Later Han

294

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Hu Yun, 115, 241 Huan Tan, 83, 233 Huang Sheng, 149–150, 168, 171 Huangdi. See Yellow Emperor Huanglao, 12 Hui, Emperor, 39–40, 70–71, 186–187, 211, 228 humaneness (ren), 68–69, 173 Hundred Schools (baijia), 119, 123, 242 Hymns, 81, 126–127, 129, 133, 155, 184–185, 244–245 “Hymn on the Southern Tour,” 155, 185 Imperial Academy. See Grand Academy imperial archives, xvii, 19, 25, 39, 41, 51, 54, 57, 67, 78, 219 imperial family, 62–63, 95, 97, 124, 132 identity, xix, 62, 108 Inner Mongolia, 80, 230, 236, 246 Intrigues of the Warring States (Zhanguoce), 12, 199–200 Ji Yun, 212 Jia Kui, 127 Jia Yi, 42, 137, 162, 191 Jianan edition, 57, 59 jianchu era, 27, 29, 49–52, 220 Jiang Rubi, 57 Jiangdu, 212 Jiangxi, 214 jianping era, 107 Jiantai (Terrace of Permeation/ Bathing), 110, 240 jianwu era, 21–22, 120, 122–123, 243 Jie, King, 147, 150, 167

jieyu (favored beauty), 45, 65, 86, 88, 235. See also Ban Jieyu Jiguge edition, 58–59, 224 Jin louzi. See Master of the Golden Tower Jin Zhuo, 45, 224 Jing, Emperor, 14, 27, 39–40, 150, 155, 186–187, 191–192, 211, 216, 261 Jing Fang, 42, 194, 219 Jingyou edition, xviii, 57–59, 207, 223 jingyou era, 57 Jinhua Hall, 74 Jinling edition, 58–59, 224 Jiu Tangshu. See Old Tang History Joyce, James, xix juan (chapters), 22, 31, 47–48 judgments moral, xv–xvi, 7, 10, 13, 93 rendered, xvi, 13–14, 33, 141 Juyan Pass, 130, 246 Kaifeng, 254 Kern, Martin, 18 killing snakes, 155, 159–160, 162. See also White Snake, slaying of kingdom, like a deer, 135–136, 170 Kong Guang, 112, 116, 195, 241 Kong Jia (Kong Shen), King, 157 Kong Xi, 123, 213 Kongxiang, 99, 236 La Bruyère, Jean de,17, 211 last rulers, 144, 147, 167, 178 attachment to wine and sex, 167, 178, 231–232 Later Biographies, 21–22, 53, 56, 66. See also Ban Biao Li Ping, 86, 88–89, 98, 233, 235, 258

Index Li Si, 7 Li Weixiong, 3, 35–37, 41, 208, 217–219 Li Yanshou, 28, 33 Li Yu, 123, 213, 237 Li Zidu, 110, 240 Liang Tong, 120, 242 Liang Yuandi, 36 Lin Pinshi, 255 The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (Wenxin diaolong), 180 Liu Bang, 142, 151, 157–160, 165, 167, 170, 172–174, 178, 211, 255, 257, 261. Gao, Emperor; Han Gaozu Liu Cang, king of Dongping, 50, 124, 184, 220, 232, 243 Liu clan. See Liu ruling family Liu Ji. See Han Gaozu Liu Jing, 115, 195, 241 Liu Kang, 176, 195 Liu Lei, 157 Liu ruling family, 5, 9, 15, 24, 37, 82, 97, 110, 118, 131–132, 134, 156–157, 171, 209, 245 and the Five Phases, 156–166 moral claims, 90, 95, 97, 107, 117, 134–135, 143, 238 reinstatement of, 9, 83, 85, 94–96, 107–108, 118, 134–135, 137, 140, 142–143, 156, 166–169, 174–182, 251–252 Liu Xiang, xvii, 22, 42, 53, 78, 159, 162–163, 180, 219, 221, 232, 237, 252, 255 Liu Xie, 93, 137, 180–181, 234, 259 Liu Xin. See Ai, Emperor Liu Xuan, 110

295

Liu Zhiji, 21–23, 27, 33–34, 41, 43, 52–53, 212–213 Liu Zhilin, 28–34 Liu Zhiwen, 57. See also Jianan edition; Qingyuan edition Loewe, Michael, 3, 19, 35, 57, 146, 163, 176, 212, 229, 242, 249, 252, 256 Loufan, 228–229 loyal. See remonstrations, loyal Lü Bushu, 244 Lu, Duke, 174 Lu Jia, 199, 211 Lü Zhi. See Gao, Empress Lunyu. See Analects of Confucius Luo River, 165 Luoyang, 63, 120, 122, 128, 131–132, 244, 246 Ma Ban zuo shi niansui kao. See Yearly Account of the Historical Works of Sima Qian and Ban Gu Ma Rong, 26–27, 33, 55–56, 214 Ma Xu, 26–27, 33, 42–43, 55–56, 214 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 144 Mandate of Heaven, 4–5, 9, 84–85, 90, 94–97, 106–109, 110, 113–116, 134–155 passim, 158, 163–179 passim, 182, 231, 249–251, 256, 259. See also Heaven and the common people, 95, 136, 147–148, 154, 176, 179 as form of legitimacy, 7, 94, 114, 137, 139, 144, 150, 245, 252 as permanent, 95, 118, 136, 142, 149–151, 155, 160, 167–169, 176, 178–179, 182

296

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Mandate of Heaven (continued ) as renewable, 146, 237 as transferable, 142, 145–148, 154, 169–171, 251–252 during Western Zhou, 96 ideal, restructuring of, 117, 136, 140–142, 144–145, 151, 166, 169, 178, 180, 217 losing, 87, 96, 107, 117, 137, 142–143, 145–147, 178, 252 meaning of, 145–146 perennial, 6, 9, 38, 63, 96, 137, 176 predestination of, 5, 142, 151, 153–155, 173 sanction of, 96, 116, 134–136, 141–143, 146–150, 168, 174 winning, 136, 171, 179 Mandate of Yao, 23–24, 127, 142, 148, 156–158, 162–165, 169, 178, 181–182, 254–255 Mao Jin, 58, 223–224 Mao Zedong, 8–9 Master of the Golden Tower (Jin louzi), 36 Master Zhuang (Zhuangzi), 83 Melville, Herman, 1 memorials, xvii, 7, 19, 39, 42, 51, 109–110, 112–115, 121, 123–124, 141, 151–153, 176, 184, 212, 259 Mencius, 6, 140, 148–150, 154, 167, 179, 199, 251, 261 Meng Ji, 125 Meng Tong, 114–115, 241 Mengjian. See Ban Gu ming (destiny), 136, 140, 248. See also Mandate of Heaven Ming dynasty, 8, 57–58, 237 Ming, Emperor, 20, 51, 54, 119–120, 124, 127–128

minister(s) relationship with ruler, 4–9, 15, 87, 101–103, 141–142, 150–152, 166, 209–210 self-protection of, 4, 15, 74, 179 wise and loyal, 5, 7, 13, 67, 78, 87–88, 126, 141–143, 154, 166, 175, 187, 237 miraculous birth, 161–162, 174, 227, 253 Miscellanies of the Western Capital, 34, 215, 260 morality. See emperor, actions/ behavior of; judgments, moral Mount Kungang, 180 Mr. Zuo’s Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn (Chun qiu Zuo zhuan), 35 Mu Ye, battle of, 144–145, 250 Music Bureau (Yuefu), 127, 232 myth, of family origins, 70, 247 Nanjian edition, 57, 59 Nanshi. See Southern Histories narrative, skills, 11–12. See also text New Tang History (Xin Tang shu), 47 Ng, On-cho, xv Nian’er shi zhaji. See Notebook on the Twenty-two Histories Nine Philosophical Schools, 119, 242 Ningzong, Emperor, 57 Northern and Southern dynasties, 34 Northern Song dynasty, 57–59 Notebook on the Twenty-two Histories (Nian’er shi zhaji), 49 objective history, xiv–xv official. See minister

Index Old Tang History (Jiu Tangshu), 47–48 omens, 7, 81, 108–110, 113–116, 135, 141, 143, 151–152, 157, 164–166, 173–174, 210, 216, 219, 248, 252 and calamities, 7–8, 152–153, 166, 178, 244, 252 and portents, 7, 81, 97, 106, 108–110, 113–116, 132, 135, 164–166, 210, 216, 219, 244, 248 and signs, 8, 113, 116, 151, 170, 173–174, 176–177, 252 auspicious, 81, 110, 113, 158, 172 cloudless, 114 dreamed, 115, 161 eclipse, 114, 219, 249 emanations, 177 fungus, 127, 185 unicorns, 110, 113, 135, 199, 240 Orchid-Terrace, Historian of, 25, 39, 51, 125–126, 133, 222, 244 orthodoxy, political, xvi “Palace” edition. See Wuying dian recensions palace library. See imperial archives Pan Ku. See Ban Gu Paris, Matthew, xvi Peng Dehuai, 9 Ping, Emperor, 22, 25, 31, 37, 53, 81, 95–96, 108–110, 112–113, 134, 175, 177, 187, 235–236, 258 Ping Lin, 126 Pingzhou, 99 Plutarchus, Mestrius, xv Pomain, Krystof, 2 portents. See omens

297

postface (xuzhuan), 5, 23, 25, 30–32, 36, 52, 62–70, 74, 79, 81–82, 86, 89–90, 94, 118–119, 132, 137, 143, 157–158, 197, 213, 215–216, 224–226 Powers, Martin, 148 Poyang, 28, 214–215 “praise and blame” (baobian), xv–xvi, 9–10, 15, 158, 167 predestination. See Mandate of Heaven, predestination of Pullyblank, Edwin, xviii Qi Bo, 255 Qi Shaonan, 58 Qian Hanshu. See History of the Former Han Qian Mu, 146, 251 Qin dynasty, 7, 12, 68, 70, 150, 157–158, 162–163, 174, 199, 226–227 Qinshi Huangdi, 24 Qing Bu, 256 Qing dynasty, xviii, 20 Qingshi gao. See Draft of the Qing History Qingyuan edition. See Jianan edition qingyuan era, 57 quoting, act of, xvii, 14, 19, 65, 68, 157, 166, 219 rear court. See harem Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), xvii, xix, 10, 14, 19, 21–23, 28, 36–42, 46, 52–54, 56, 63, 66, 79, 103, 141, 159–160, 168, 170, 173, 179, 200, 211, 213, 217–223, 227, 247, 259, 261 as general history, 12, 36–38, 179

298

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Records of the Grand Historian (continued ) as source document for History of the Han, xvii, 19, 36–46 passim, 52–55, 159–160, 170, 179, 259 Records of the Sui (Suishu), 28, 179, 216–217 Records of the Three States (Sanguo zhi), 36 Red Eyebrow uprising, 110 remonstrations, loyal, 4–9, 15, 76–78, 82, 87–88, 104, 117, 128, 141–143, 151, 179, 252, 236–237, 252 ren. See humaneness Renzong, Emperor, 57 representation, xii, xiv, 17, 56, 60–63, 77, 86, 91, 117, 133, 143 “Response to a Guest’s Jest,” 119, 155, 184 Rhyme-Prose, 20–21, 68, 90–91, 119–120, 123, 127–129, 184–185, 225–226 “Rhyme-Prose on Communicating with the Hidden,” 20, 68, 91, 119, 123, 184, 226 “Rhyme-Prose on the Two Capitals,” 127–128, 184, 245 Robinson, Daniel, 9 Ru Chun, 44–45, 224, 234, 238 rule, legitimacy of, 7, 94, 114, 137, 139, 144, 150, 245, 252. See also emperor Ruo Ao, 69–71, 183, 228 Ruzi Ying, 113 sage-kings, 24–25, 64, 142, 150, 154, 156–158, 162, 164–165, 167, 173–174, 237–238, 254

sagely men (shangren), xiv, 11–13, 66, 84, 146, 200 Said, Edward, xiv Sanguo zhi. See Records of the Three States Santayana, George, 12 Schaberg, David, xi, 78, 141 scribe. See historians self, inscription of, xv, xix, 17. See also representation serpent. See White Snake, slaying of shamans, 157 Shao, Duke, 124, 147–148 Shandong, 232, 240–241, 243, 254 Shang dynasty, 144–145, 167, 231, 250, 252, 254 Shangdi, 144–145 Shanggu, 71, 229 Shangshu. See “Documents” Shanxi, 226–229, 236, 241, 243 Shaughnessy, Edward, 145 Shen Buhai, 209 Shen Nong, 155, 253 Shi Dan, 74, 195, 230 Shiben. See Genealogies Shiji. See Records of the Grand Historian Shijianguo era, 97 Shijing. See Classic of Odes Shitong. See Generalities on Historiography Shizu benji. See Annals of Emperor Guangwu Shou Wang, 128 shu. See “Documents” Shuowen jiezi. See Explanation of Writings and Graphs Sichuan, 233, 241, 261 signs. See omens

Index Sima Guang, 120, 180, 242. See also Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government Sima Qian, xiv–xv, xvii–xix, 2, 4, 10–13, 19, 22–25, 28, 36–43, 46, 52–55, 62–68, 90, 93, 96, 103, 124, 131–132, 141, 143, 159, 162, 168, 179–180, 192, 199–201, 208, 211–213, 217–218, 221, 225–227, 247, 256, 259–261. See also Records of the Grand Historian castration of, 4, 132, 200, 226, 259 literary merits of, 10–12 Sima Tan, 63–66. See also grand astrologer Sima Xiangru, 11, 128, 192, 201, 261 Sima Zhen, 38 Son of Heaven, 104, 110, 150–151, 233, 239, 250. See also specific emperors Song Qi, 57 Southern Histories (Nanshi), 20, 28, 33 Southern Song dynasty, 57 Spencer, Herbert, 139 Spirit Mother, 158, 162 Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu), 6, 169, 199, 201, 240, 244, 261 Spring and Autumn Annals of the Chu and Han (Chu-Han chunqiu), 12, 199–200, 211, 219 Spring and Autumn era, 157, 199, 210, 234 Standard Histories, 28, 38, 47, 57, 180 state archives. See imperial archives style. See specific name Su Lang, 125, 243 Su Wu, 13–14

299

subtle speech (weiyan), 6–7 Sui dynasty, 47, 59–60 Sui Hong, 194, 255 suicide, 106, 109, 131, 172, 226, 248 Suishu. See Records of the Sui Suizhu. See History of the Sui Sun Jian, 112, 241 Swann, Nancy Lee, 3, 35, 243, 262 sycophancy, 2, 4, 9, 15, 94, 124, 135, 166 Tacitus, Cornelius, xv taichu era, 21, 24, 52–53, 55, 66 Tang dynasty, 21, 43, 59 Tang Taizong, Emperor, 59 Tang Yao, 155, 253 text. See also book; narrative accretions on, xiv, 17, 34–35, 49, 55, 60, 214 as edited, 5, 17–20, 56–58, 119–120 commentary of, 10, 12, 17, 19, 25, 28, 32–33, 35, 44–45, 47–48, 56–60, 88, 123, 129, 146, 179, 201, 214, 216–217, 224, 238, 254 content of, 11, 25, 30, 52, 84, 225 context of, xiv, xviii, 2, 52, 117, 133–134 corruption of, xiv, 26 cutting and pasting of, xvi–xvii, 22, 46 Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou), 14, 23, 87, 152–153, 199, 250, 252 Three Kings, 72, 154 throne abdicating, 101, 104 usurping, 110, 112–113, 143, 177–178, 238, 247

300

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

tian. See Heaven tianming. See Mandate of Heaven tombs, 71–72, 76, 100, 103, 114, 229, 233, 236 Tongzhi, Emperor, 58 traditions. See biographies “Treatise on State Sacrifices,” 43, 162, 188 “Treatise on the Five Phases,” 8 “Treatises,” 25–27, 29, 31, 37, 39, 41–43, 47, 50, 52, 55, 141, 159, 162, 165–166, 188–189, 217, 219, 247, 252, 261, 263. See also “Documents” Twitchett, Denis, xviii usurpation. See throne, usurping; Wang Mang van der Sprenkel, Otto B., 3, 85–86, 241, 246 virtue, womanly, 100 Voltaire, 139 wandering knights ( youxia), 12, 90, 196, 200, 234 Wang Ao, 174 Wang Chong, 121–122, 127, 219, 245, 248 Wang Feng, 74, 79, 230 Wang Hong, 104, 107, 237 Wang Huo, 109, 240 Wang Ji, 42, 194 Wang Kuang, 136, 174 Wang Ling, 72–173, 190, 257 Wang Mang, Emperor, 8, 37, 80–84, 94–100, 105–120, 132–143, 156–179 passim, 197, 210–241 passim, 246–248.

Wang Mang, Emperor (continued ) See also Han dynasty, interregnum and the Five Phases, 113–115, 163–164 mourning, 80, 232 usurpation, 81–83, 95–97, 100, 106, 108, 110, 112–114, 117, 119, 134, 140, 143, 177–178, 238–239, 247 Wang Mingtong, 3, 49, 258 Wang, Q. Edward, xv, xviii Wang Quji, 104, 237 Wang Shou, 112, 241 Wang Xianqian, 56, 58–60 Wang Yu, 109, 240 Wang Zhengjun, Dowager/Empress 46, 80–82, 97, 99–100, 107, 115, 230 Warring States, 85, 136, 226, 258 Watson, Burton, xviii, 35, 168 Wei Ao, 83–86, 95, 120, 132, 135–136, 169, 175, 233, 256 Wei dynasty, 182 Wei Xian, 45, 65, 194, 225 Wei Zheng, 28, 179, 214, 259, 283 Weiyang Palace, 104, 163–164, 237, 240 Wen, Emperor, 39, 44, 182, 186–187, 191, 211, 216, 236 Wen of Lu, Duke, 157 Wenxin diaolong. See The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons Western Han, xvii, 31, 53, 98, 106, 108, 117–118, 127, 137, 145, 149, 151, 165, 168, 172, 174, 178, 212, 250, 256 White Snake, slaying of, 156–162, 170, 253

Index White Tiger Hall, discussions at, 51, 128–129, 133, 184, 245. See also General and Virtuous Disquisitions at White Tiger worthies, 84, 166 writing act of, 3–5, 10–11, 15, 120, 142, 259–260 motivation for, xiii, xvi, 20–21, 23, 25, 30, 54, 62 Wu, Emperor, 21, 42, 52–53, 55, 63, 88, 94, 152–153, 193, 219, 221, 234, 258 Wu Fu, 174 Wu Han, 8 Wu of the Zhou, King, 144, 167, 249 Wugong, 114, 241 wuxing. See Five Phases Wuying dian edition, 57–59, 223 Xia dynasty, 64, 147, 157, 226, 252, 254 Xia Heliang, 101, 106, 236–237 Xian, Emperor, 34, 182, 216 Xiang Yu, 24, 43, 158, 172, 200, 211, 257 Xiao He, 11, 190, 201, 211, 261 Xiao Wuji, 26–27, 50, 214 Xie Xiao, 114–115, 241 Xihe, 80 Xin Dang, 115, 241 Xin dynasty, 22, 94, 116, 118, 136, 169 Xin Shi, 126 Xin Tang shu. See New Tang History Xincheng, 99, 236 Xindu, 105, 235 Xiongnu, 75, 126, 130, 184, 196, 221, 246

301

Xu Shang, 74, 230 Xu Shen, 36, 217, 235, 248, 253–254 Xu (Xu Kua), Empress, 88, 234 Xuan, Duke, 69, 227–228 Xuan, Emperor, 40, 79, 94, 177, 186–187, 195 Xun Yue, 34–35, 216–217, 224, 253 Xuzhuan. See postface Yan Shigu, 33, 35, 38, 41, 45–49, 59–60, 224, 226, 228–232, 234, 242, 254 Yan Zhitui, 60, 224 Yang Bojun, 146, 210–211, 227–228, 261 Yang Xiong, 22, 53, 83, 137, 195, 233 Yang Zhong, 127 Yang’an, 99, 236 Yanmen, 228 Yanni Hall, 74, 230 Yanshi jiaxun. See Family Instructions of the Yan Clan Yao as ancestor, 142, 157–158, 162, 164, 169, 173, 253–254 clan, 157 Mandate, 127, 165, 169, 178 Yao and Shun, 23–24, 72, 154, 174, 227, 253 Yaocheng, 254 Yaoqiu, 254 Yearly Account of the Historical Works of Sima Qian and Ban Gu (Ma Ban zuo shi niansui kao), 124 Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), 96, 113, 155, 160, 164, 199, 241, 247 Yellow River, 43, 165

302

BAN GU’S HIS ORY OF EARLY CHINA

Yin Min, 39, 125 Yin Yang School, 159, 165, 424 Ying Bu, 32, 190, 256 Ying Shao, 35, 44–45, 224, 234, 237 yongping era, 27, 29, 49–50, 119, 124, 244 Yu Jing, 57 Yuan, Emperor, 44–46, 176, 247 Yuan Gu Sheng, 149–150, 171 Yunzhong, 102, 236 Zang Hong, 115, 241 Zengcheng Lodge, 86, 234 Zhai Yi, 110, 112–113, 240 Zhang Ba, 33, 216 Zhang Bangqi, 57 Zhang Cang, 162, 190, 255 Zhang, Emperor, 33, 128–129 Zhang Fang, 77–78, 230 Zhang Fu, 181, 259 Zhang Heng, 181, 259 Zhang, imperial granary director, 127 Zhang Yan, 32, 218, 224, 230 Zhang Yu, 74, 195, 230 Zhao Feiyan, Empress, 86, 88–89, 98–100, 134, 143, 233, 235–236, 247, 258

Zhao Qin, 99, 236 Zhao Yi, 41, 49, 55 Zhaojun, 135 zhaoyi (brilliant companion), 103 Zhen Feng, 81, 112, 241 Zhen Han, 112, 241 Zheng Hesheng, 3, 50–51, 54, 120, 124–125, 209, 220, 222, 227, 242, 244 Zheng Kuanzhong, 74, 230 Zhonghua shuju edition, xviii, 47–48, 56, 58, 122, 220, 223 Zhou, Duke, 109, 124, 147 Zhou, King, painting of, 77, 87, 117 zhi. See “Treatises” Zhu Bo Ziyuan, 111, 240 Zhuan Xu, 67–68, 226 Zhuang of Chu, King, 234 Zhuangzi. See Master Zhuang Ziwen, Prime Minister, 68–70, 183, 226–228 Zizhang, 68–69 Zizhi tongjian. See Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government Zou Yan, 156, 159 Zuo Qiuming, 199, 261 Zuozhuan. See Commentary of Mr. Zuo