Emperor Wu of Han - Legacy

Legacy

Historians generally treated Emperor Wu with ambivalence. On the one hand, he is recognized for neutralizing the Xiongnu threat and expanding the Chinese territory. During his reign, China roughly doubled her size, and most of the territories he annexed became part of China proper permanently. The empire that Emperor Wu created surpassed in size the contemporaneous Roman Empire. His other, perhaps greater, legacy was the promotion of Confucianism. For the first time in history, Confucianism became the dominant thought in the Chinese government, and it remained so until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1911.

On the other hand, many historians criticize Emperor Wu for his extravagance, superstition, and the burdens his policies forced on the population. As such he is often compared to Qin Shi Huang. Just like Qin Shi Huang he used a legalist system of rewards and punishments to govern his empire. The punishment for perceived failures and disloyalty was often exceedingly harsh. His father paroled many participants of Rebellion of the Seven States from execution, might make some work in his tomb. He killed ten thousands of people and their families related to cases of Liu An (淮南之獄), Hengshan (衡山之獄), and witchcraft prosecution (巫蠱之亂or巫蠱之禍) (also in Prince Ju revolt (戾太子之亂) first killed pro Prince Ju then the anti), tens of thousands people executed in each case. He used some of his wives' relatives to fight Xiongnu, many became famous generals, many's entire families (Wei(衛), Huo(霍), Li(李)) were killed in different political cases later. He also forced his last queen to suicide. Out of the twelve prime ministers appointed by Emperor Wu, three were executed and two committed suicide while holding the post; another was executed in retirement. He set many special prisons (詔獄) and caught nearly two hundred thousand people in it.

Emperor Wu's political reform resulted in the strengthening of the Emperor's power at expense of the prime minister's authority. Also, the post of Shangshu (court secretaries) was elevated from merely managing documents to that of the Emperor's close advisor, and it stayed this way until the end of monarchy era.

Modern Chinese people sometimes call Emperor Wu Han Wu the Great (漢武大帝).