Dong Zhongshu, a "Confucian" Heritage and the Chunqiu Fanlu

20
chapter one
Secondly, however comforting it might be to claim or pretend that 
current imperial practice derived from the examples of a golden past 
over which men of holiness had presided, the differences between the 
strong and perhaps ruthless style of imperial Han, little different from 
that of Qin, on the one hand, and the ideals ascribed to rulers of days 
gone by on the other, would have been all too apparent. Furthermore 
there was a third problem. There was no single golden rule of conduct 
or single means of practising sovereignty to which the saintly kings 
had subscribed, and if the ways of each one of these had been so per-
fect, why had changes been necessary between the ways of Yao 
堯 and 
Shun 
舜, or those of Xia 夏, Yin 殷 and Zhou 周.
Early in Dong Zhongshu’s life, Jia Yi 
賈誼 (201–169) had given 
voice to a warning, which however does not seem to have affected 
official attitudes. He argued that, if it was to survive, the new impe-
rial government should avoid the mistakes or excesses committed by 
its immediate and short-lived predecessor. His essay perhaps reveals 
the underlying question of the ways by which Han could claim moral 
superiority over Qin and expect to set up a framework that would be 
more permanent.
2
For indeed imperial government was still a relatively new and untried 
concept. If, as is likely, Dong Zhongshu was born during the reign of 
Gaozu, little time had elapsed since centralised imperial rule had been 
established under the authority of a man who was entitled huangdi 
皇
帝, with no contending rivals ready to dispute his rule throughout the 
land. Not only was the institution new; it had yet to prove itself to be 
effective and successful, and as likely to be long-lasting. In addition, 
the events that had accompanied the transfer of rule from one huangdi 
chapter directs the argument to an unnamed dignitary worthy of address as Zuxia 
足下 
who can hardly be the emperor. Whereas the account in the two histories questions 
directly whether the actions of Tang and Wu amounted to murder of a monarch, the 
CQFL describes their actions in the term fa 
伐, which however Lu Wenchao and Su 
Yu (Chunqiu fanlu yizheng, p. 220) suspected to be in error for dai 
代; regicide is 
mentioned only in the concluding words of the pian. While the debate between Huang 
Sheng and Yuan Gu concerned specifically the probity whereby Han had achieved 
power, the CQFL concentrates on the characteristics of kingship and their possession 
by individual rulers. Su Yu (pp. 219, 221) believed that the chapter did not derive from 
Dong but was a later interpolation. For Huang Zhen’s criticism of a point of faulty 
argument in the chapter, see Chapter Five below, Appendix 1.
2
The title of Jia Yi’s essay ‘Guo Qin lun’ has been mistranslated by some as ‘The 
faults of Qin’, and is interpreted by Queen as ‘Surpassing Ch’in’ (p. 6). My own inter-
pretation is ‘An essay which identifies Qin’s excesses and faults’.

the historical and intellectual background 
21
to a successor could hardly give grounds for optimism; for so far from 
being smooth, such changes had been accompanied by the dangers 
of disruption or separatist attempts. Even in Jingdi’s reign (157–141 
BCE) it required no feat of outstanding memory to recall the violence 
and deception that had accompanied the deaths of the two emperors 
of Qin, the bid for power and its exercise by the Empress Lü and the 
attempt of Liu Xiang (2) 
劉襄, grandson of Gaozu, to take the throne 
at her demise, only to be foiled by Gaozu’s son, known to us as Wendi. 
We may wonder if, at the death of Jingdi in 141, there may have been 
some who were asking themselves whether the survival of the house 
of Liu was necessarily assured. It rested now under the aegis of the 
young, untried Liu Che 
劉徹 (posthumous title Wudi, reigned 141–87 
BCE), who had not been named as the first choice to follow Jingdi 
and whose familiarity with palace and government cannot have been 
extensive.
If the rule and ways of the holy kings (sheng wang 
聖王) were the 
ideal, could it be claimed that the contemporary rulers of Han were 
aspiring to emulate their example? The positive, forceful policies that 
had been implemented in the days of Jingdi and Wudi had resulted 
in bloodshed and the growth of the powers of senior officials at the 
expense of the latitude extended to close members of the imperial fam-
ily. Measures to co-ordinate the working effort of the population and 
to control their ways of life were giving greater power to provincial 
officials and interfering more frequently in the daily lives of farming 
families, whose standard of living was not necessarily being improved. 
Military ventures were taking their toll, demanding service spent in 
campaigning in strange climes, inflicting casualties and disrupting the 
seasonal work of the fields. Observers might well ask in what ways 
Han imperial government was in fact seeking to improve the welfare 
of the subjects of Jingdi or Wudi. And whatever supplications the rul-
ers of mankind made to superior powers of the universe or to their 
ancestors, whatever the rites they practised, these brought no relief 
from the sufferings brought about by the rough side of nature that 
could destroy a livelihood at a blow.
The three responses of Dong Zhongshu of perhaps 134 BCE,
3
and 
some of his other writings, suggest that he was aware of at least some of 
these problems. Perhaps it is too much to see him as a critical, dissatis-
3
For the dating of these responses see Chapter Two Appendix (1).

22
chapter one
fied and sceptical observer of contemporary affairs who saw through 
some of the pretensions of the day. On the positive side his reaction 
was to cite Kongzi with greater regularity and persistence than that 
seen in other writings of the time, and to search for an ordered system 
or unity, praised in the Chunqiu as yi tong 
一統. On the negative side 
he hoped to eliminate the teachings that had led to the current state 
of affairs. Clearly, the life, opinions and writings of Dong Zhongshu, 
together with the influence that he may have exercised in his own 
time and later, can be examined only within the broad context of the 
history of Western Han, and it will appear from the summary that 
follows that some fifty years elapsed before any sign can be traced that 
his ideas were likely to be acceptable. 
As is shown elsewhere,
4
the dynasty witnessed major and consistent 
changes—both in religious observances and intellectual developments, 
and in the view of the correct objectives to be sought by imperial gov-
ernment. From the outset of its reign, Han had adopted the purpose 
and methods of Qin’s government, striving for security and backed 
by a firm control of the people and the land. Its laws were no less 
multifarious, their punishments no less severe. A few men such as 
Jia Yi gave warning that Qin’s trust in its forceful or even ruthless 
imposition of official authority had led to its ruin and should not be 
followed, but as yet the example of the Qin empire remained domi-
nant. Han adopted the greater part of Qin’s institutions, and contin-
ued to maintain the same cults of state worship, albeit with two major 
changes.
5
The reign of Jingdi saw the adoption of strong measures to 
strengthen the authority of the emperor and his officials as against the 
ambitions of others and their potential dissidence; and it would seem 
that Jingdi himself was ready to take ruthless action to attain his ends. 
Sima Tan 
司馬談 and Sima Qian 司馬遷 seem to have been aware of 
such propensities. We have no clue, however, to show whether they 
had reached Dong Zhongshu’s knowledge. 
In this way the Han dynasty acquired strength and enriched its 
resources, to the point that from ca. 130 BCE the government could 
embark on expansionist moves to extend its influence ever more widely. 
Such moves intensified and accentuated the existing sense of purpose 
4
See Loewe, Crisis and Conflict in Han China (1974) pp. 11–3, Twitchett and 
Loewe (eds.), The Cambridge History of China volume I (1986), pp. 103–10.
5
The major immediate changes were those of the institution of the kingdoms in 
the provinces and the inclusion of the worship of the fifth di symbolised as ‘Black’ (see 
Chapter Three below, p. 114).

the historical and intellectual background 
23
that had been inherited from Qin. Fifteen or twenty years after 130 
new religious cults were established, with provision for a more regular 
attendance by the emperor. In terms of political thought, Qin remained 
the ideal. Dong Zhongshu lived when these events were taking place 
and may have realised, with others, that the days of expansion could 
not continue for ever, for the resources of the empire were limited and 
Han armies were no longer achieving their objectives. From perhaps 
90 BCE defensive policies and retrenchment replaced the expansionist 
policies of the earlier years of Wudi, and perhaps thanks to the active 
promotion of talent that was now bearing fruit and bringing men of 
ability into public service, there arose a criticism, perhaps severe, of 
the purposes sought and methods practised by the governments of Qin 
and Han. Somewhat slowly a major change was setting in.
The governments of Qin and of the first century of Han had striven 
to co-ordinate and control the work of the population; a move to leave 
the people to work without restrictions was now being voiced. Instead 
of seeing Qin’s example as the best way of controlling an empire, some 
of those in public life were looking for guidance in the ways ascribed to 
the kings of Zhou in the long centuries before the idea of empire had 
dawned. Possibly Dong Zhongshu had been one of the avant-garde 
observers who saw the need for the change; and a move from Qin to 
Zhou involved a change in the religious practices of the emperor. By 
31 BCE the cult of the wu di 
五帝 that Wudi had worshipped gave 
way to that of heaven, the god of Zhou. Concurrently and significantly, 
beliefs in an afterlife were shifting from the paradise of the east where 
the First Qin Emperor had sought the elixir of immortality to that of 
the west over which its Queen Mother presided.
As early as the reign of Gaozu, Lu Jia 
陸賈 (ca. 228–ca. 140 BCE) 
set out to describe the most commendable way of government. Much 
later his work was to draw marked praise from scholars of the Qing 
dynasty. They wrote that the Xin yu 
新語 was the work of the purest 
and most correct of the traditional scholars of Han times other than 
Dong Zhongshu.
6
As those scholars were elsewhere casting their doubts 
on the authenticity of all or some parts of the Chunqiu fanlu it would 
seem that their opinion of Dong Zhongshu rested on other evidence.
7
In Wendi’s reign Jia Yi had urged the importance of moral values in 
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