#207 The Idealist: Wang Mang 王莽 and the Pursuit of Confucian Perfection

Student presentation (Addison Oberting).

Overview:

• Review:
  
  • Han Gaozu (漢高祖, r. 202-195 BCE)
    
  • Empress Lü (呂后) and rise of “outside relative” (waiqi 外戚) influence
    
  • Period of Daoist non-intervention
    
  • Han Wendi (漢文帝, r.180-157 BCE)
    
    • Moral exemplar
      
    • State Confucianism
      
    • Civil service examination
      
  • Han Wudi (漢武帝 r.141-87 BCE)
    
    • Increasing taxation
      
    • Military campaigns in the north (Xiongnu 匈奴), east (Korea), south (Vietnam), and west (Central Asia)
      
• By the time of Wang Mang, had entered another period of strong outside relative influence; he was brother of a future wife of an emperor
  
• Wang Mang
  
  • Confucian policies. What were these and why were they Confucian?
    
  • Retreat from civil service examination and restoration of hereditary rule.
    
  • Yellow River flooding overwhelms the capacity of the state.
    
• Foundations of Han rule shaken with Wang Mang’s interregnum
  
• Restored in Luoyang with the remote relative of the Liu family, Liu Xiu (劉秀) in 25 CE. Restored dynasty known as the Later Han (Hou Han 後漢) or the Eastern Han (Dong Han 東漢).
  
• Relative stability lasts until 184 CE with an uprising of religious Daoists known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion (Huangjin qiyi 黃金起義)
  
• Dynasty falls in 220 CE, leading to a period of division.
  

Discussion:

• How do we know what we know about Wang Mang? What sourcing challenges does Wills navigate as he seeks to make sense of Wang Mang?
  
• How do we measure “good” governance? Is that even the right question for us as historians to be asking?
  
• What was “idealistic” about Wang Mang’s policies? If educated men of his day had been advocating for similar policies for much of the past century, why did they fail to have the desired effects?
  
• Politically, how might you classify Wang Mang today?​

Homework: Assignment #301