Chapter 7 Section 1 A young man proclaims himself emperor, a great talent

In the first month of 141 BC, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty Liu Qi died in Weiyang Palace in Chang'an.His ninth son, Liu Che, was the emperor at the age of 16. This is Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.In the following year, the reign title was Jianyuan.Since then, Chinese feudal emperors have reign titles.From his ascension to the throne, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty died of illness in the Wuzha Palace (now Zhouzhisoutheast, Shaanxi Province) in the spring of 87 BC. He was 71 years old and served as emperor for a total of 54 years, accounting for more than a quarter of the entire Western Han Dynasty.During his career as an emperor for more than half a century, he was talented and general, carried out reforms, developed social production, opened up frontiers, and pushed the "rule of Wenjing" to a new stage of development, making the Han Dynasty a prosperous and vast eastern economy in the world. Great Feudal Empire.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne as an emperor as a young man, but he could not take care of the government himself.Please invite the East Palace for everything, and his grandmother, the Empress Dowager Dou, will be in charge of the power.She appointed her own nephew Dou Ying as the prime minister, and Tian Fu (fenfen), the younger brother of the Empress Dowager Wang, the biological mother of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, as the Taiwei to assist in the military and state affairs.Empress Dowager Dou believed in Huang Lao Taoism all her life, advocating quietness and inaction.Both Dou Ying and Tian Fu are disciples of Confucianism, advocating the Confucian way of governing the country in an attempt to change the old politics.After a long time, Queen Mother Dou was very unhappy.Then, Zhao Wan (wan Wan), a Confucian scholar recommended by them, went to the Shu and asked to stop playing the East Palace.This angered Queen Mother Dou.She dismissed Zhao Wan and removed Dou Ying and Tian Fu from their positions.At this time, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was not yet in power, and the main affairs of the court were still adjudicated by his grandmother, Empress Dowager Dou.

In May of the sixth year of Jianyuan (135 BC), Empress Dowager Dou died of illness.At the age of 22, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty began to rule in person.At this time, Tian Fu became the prime minister.Although he is short in stature and unattractive in appearance, he faces the court as an uncle and prime minister, and can speak eloquently, so he becomes increasingly arrogant.Many profit-seeking scholar-bureaucrats and officials stayed away from Dou Ying, who had lost power, and attached themselves to Tian Fu's sect. Most of the celebrities who advised Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were Tian Fu's guests.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had noticed that Tian Fu was close to each other and wanted to be authoritarian, and he didn't take the emperor seriously and threatened him directly.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not ignore the intensification of the contradiction between the power of the monarch and the power of the prime minister.Once, Tian Fu asked Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to appoint a group of officials by taking advantage of the opportunity.Emperor Wu of the Han said impatiently: "Have you finished talking about the officials you want to appoint? I also want to promote and reuse some people!" Tian Fu was surprised when he heard that.Once again, Tian Fu wanted to occupy the place of the kaogong (an official of the Shaofu, who mainly made equipment) under the Shaofu, expand his homestead, and petitioned the emperor for his permission.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty scolded angrily: "Why don't you take the arsenal?" Tian Fu hit a wall twice, knowing that it would be difficult, he retired to the forest and lived a luxurious life.From then on, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty monopolized the court and began to display his talents.

From the founding of the Han Dynasty by Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang in 206 BC to the proclaiming of Emperor Wudi Liu Che in 140 BC, the Han Dynasty has been in existence for 66 years.In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Bang attached great importance to the experience and lessons of the Qin Dynasty's "second generation's death". He not only inherited the Qin Dynasty's system, but also slightly changed it.According to the suggestion of the scholar Lu Jia, facing the dilapidated state and economic decline at that time, he referred to Confucianism and Huang-Lao theory, and took "governance by doing nothing" as the guiding ideology for the founding of the country.This means that "extreme martial arts" should not be used, and "tai chi punishment" should not be used. It is necessary to have a peaceful mind, develop production, and let the people live and work in peace and contentment.Liu Bang also formulated the policy of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business" and readjusted the taxation system, mobilizing the enthusiasm of farmers for production to a certain extent.After the chaos, after recuperating, the social economy is fully recovering, and the power of the central government is gradually strengthening.

During the reigns of Emperor Wen Liu Heng and Emperor Jing Liu Qi, some major policies during Liu Bang's reign were further revised.In 168 BC, Emperor Wen adopted the "expensive millet" policy proposed by the statesman Chao Cuo.Merchants competed to buy titles with grain, and the country's grain reserves increased, reducing rents and taxes.Food prices have increased and farmers' lives have improved.The implementation of this measure had a positive impact on the formulation of internal and external policies in the Han Dynasty.At the same time, in accordance with Chao Cuo's suggestion, the policy of "light corvee and low tax" of reducing land rent, reducing tax calculation, and corvee labor was generally implemented throughout the country, which promoted the liberation of productive forces, and the social economy quickly prospered. Surplus accumulation.The copper coins in the capital are huge, and the money bank is rotten because of the thread [minmin, rope] that wears the copper coins, and there are too many copper coins to calculate.The grain in Taicang could not be contained, so the grain was piled up in the open air, where it was exposed to the wind and the sun, making it rotten and inedible.This is the first peaceful and prosperous age "the rule of Wenjing" advertised by feudal historians.

The unremitting efforts of Liu Bang and other four generations of emperors laid a certain foundation for the Han Dynasty.However, what was placed before the young Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was by no means a scene of peace and prosperity.There were still several major problems in the society at that time: the power of the feudal princes and kings in the early days of the country was inflated. Although they had been cut down several times, they still had certain political and social forces. They threatened centralized rule and became an extremely unstable factor in national politics; Land annexation was serious, the conflict between peasants and landlords was sharp, and the society was turbulent; the Huns in the north often harassed the Central Plains, and the two Vietnams in the south kept provoking troubles, and the frontier wars continued.These urgent problems prompted Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to carry out further reforms, strengthen feudal autocratic rule, and make the Western Han Dynasty more prosperous and powerful.