Moral Cosmology and Emperorship: A Review

The philosopher Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒, who may be called the father of “ominous politics”, is famous for his claim that natural phenomena are Heaven's response to moral behaviour in the human realm.Footnote ⁷ A well-known passage in Luxuriant Gems of Spring and Autumn (Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露) reads:

This is a powerful tradition with a pedigree stretching back to stories recorded in The Documents (Shangshu 尚書) and poems in The Songs (Shijing 詩經).Footnote ¹⁰ Already at the time of the Zuo Chronicle (Zuozhuan 左傳), political actors had started to offer a fairly complete description of the theory: Grand Master (dafu 大夫) Wenshi Bo 文士伯 said, “If a state does not implement good policies and employ good people, it will invite upon itself such disasters as solar and lunar eclipses 國無政, 不用善, 則自取謫於日月之災”.Footnote ¹¹

Han scholars elaborated the theory, defining the emperor as the primary agent connecting human society with cosmic power, an agent whose behaviours and decisions were being judged and punished by Heaven through various natural catastrophes. As the messages of Heaven were thought to have been recorded above all in the ru classics, specialists in those works—generally also known as ru— were supposed to offer unmatched insights into heavenly omens. By connecting abnormal phenomena and disasters with current politics, they were able to criticise the emperor—as modern scholars have claimed.Footnote ¹² Ru thus created a moral cosmology that set ethical limits on political power and reinforced their own access to authority. As Aihe Wang argues, “Han omen discourse reflects a heightened tension between the ruler as the responsible agent for cosmic-social order and the scholar-officials as prescribers of this order”.Footnote ¹³

The idea that bookish men might shed light on the causes of freak events developed into an influential part of political discourse during the Western Han. As a large body of scholarly literature shows, talk of natural warnings to earthly rulers drove the movement to have emperors publicly accept responsibility when disasters struck—typically they called for advice from scholars. Ru also composed lengthy essays to explain the aberrant phenomena recorded in the classics and to probe the political significance of disasters in their own day. It seems to be not much of an exaggeration to say that this phenomenon—‘omen discourse’—constructed a public sphere in which scholar-officials could negotiate with political authority.

Some modern scholars claim that moral cosmology endows traditional Chinese politics with a graceful balance between the absolute power of the emperor and the moral authority of officials. According to this theory, advanced knowledge of the ru classics and a superior morality allow scholar-officials to explicate authoritatively the political significance of the omens and thereby admonish the emperor and restrain his absolute power.Footnote ¹⁴ What follows, however, will present a more complicated picture. As we shall see, antithesis between an emperor and his officials was not necessarily a historical actuality or reality; rather it was an idealised situation. In reality, scholar-officials never constituted a coherent group, nor were they unquestionable defenders of moral virtues. The ruler and his officials were not necessarily two opposing camps either. When moving from theory to daily politics, it transpires that rather than admonishing the emperor and contesting his political power as moral cosmology promised, various parties used omens simply to undermine their political enemies. The interpretative authority of omens was not determined by one's morality or by one's expertise in the ru classics. That the morally more accomplished person gave a better reading of an omen was often no more than a theoretical illusion without any practical value in real politics; there is no transcendental agent or established principles to make an objective judgment of men's morality and classical learning. Instead, it was brutal political power that decided whose interpretation of omens would be accepted by the court, and thereby affect contemporaneous politics. In short, there existed an intriguing gap between the theory of omen discourse and its political implementation, a contradiction that forces us to ask how and why a moral ideology was not able to defend its autonomy, ended up betraying its original purpose, and became an instrument serving those in power.

Omen Discourse that Accomplished Action

Our knowledge of the Western Han dynasty primarily derives from The Grand Scribe's Records (Shi ji 史記), written by Sima Qian 司馬遷 around 100 bce and The History of the Western Han (Han shu, 漢書), which Ban Gu 班固 wrote around 90 ce. The latter records a large number of cases in which omens were used to shuffle power in the central court.Footnote ¹⁵ While assuming that Ban Gu did not intentionally fabricate any stories, we at the same time should realise that this historian spun his materials to suit his various agendas. He often presented the same event from different perspectives in different contexts. Comparing the multiple layers of a story, we can discover the polyphonic voices in our sources and appreciate the historical event in a more complicated way. Let's move to an event, which involved significant political strife, during which omen theory played a crucial role in undermining one's rivals.

When Emperor Yuan 元帝 (49–33bce) took the throne, several of his closest advisers were nursing a plan to drive rivals from the court. On one side were the Superintendent of the Imperial Household (Guanglu xun 光祿勳) Xiao Wangzhi 蕭望之, the Junior Tutor (Shaofu 少傅) Zhou Kan 周堪, and the Director of the Imperial Clan (zongzheng 宗正) Liu Xiang 劉向; they hoped to convince the emperor to break ties with two imperial families—the Shi 史 and the Xu 許—and to remove eunuchs Shi Xian 石顯 and Hong Gong 弘恭, both of whom were Palace Secretaries (zhongshu 中書), from power. When news of the conspiracy leaked out, their rivals successfully impeached the trio. Xiao was dismissed from his position, and Zhou and Liu were imprisoned.

Emperor Yuan appears to have been somewhat sympathetic to their plight. An earthquake had occurred in the spring, and at the same time a “guest star” (kexing 客星, presumably a comet or supernova) had appeared. The emperor believed that these events attested to the innocence of Xiao's group and therefore issued a decree ennobling Xiao, who became a Marquis of Within the Passes (guannei hou 關內侯); Zhou and Liu both returned to work in the court as Inner Gentlemen (zhonglang 中郎). In the winter, another earthquake occurred. When the news reached the court, Xiao Wangzhi and Liu Xiang were regarded by some as the root cause of the event. Scared, Liu asked a relative to submit a memorial blaming the Shi group for the earthquake:

Shi Xian and Hong Gong promptly requested that the throne investigate the memorial, and soon enough Liu's role came to light. He was thrown into prison again and Xiao Wangzhi, also impeached, committed suicide.

This, however, did not put an end to the factional strife. Xiao's death touched the emperor, who promoted Zhou Kan to the office of Superintendent of the Imperial Household; he made Zhou's disciple Zhang Meng 張猛 Imperial Household Grandee (Guanglu dafu 光祿大夫). Liu Xiang thought that he stood a chance of regaining favour and hence submitted a lengthy memorial. With eloquent language, lavish historical anecdotes, and rich allusions to the classics, Liu explained many of the disasters of his age, contending that these inauspicious phenomena indicated the emperor did not trust the talented and moral, but employed the wicked and petty.

Liu's memorial did not persuade anyone and only further irritated Shi Xian and Hong Gong. When that summer was cool and the sun was “black without brilliance” (日青無光), Shi and Hong both blamed Zhou and his follower. After consulting two other officials, Emperor Yuan demoted Zhou, who took on the governorship of Hedong (Hedong taishou 河東太守) while Zhang was sent to serve as the magistrate of Huaili (Huaili ling 槐里令).Footnote ¹⁷

Three years later, a fire damaged the shrine erected to Emperor Xuan, and a solar eclipse soon followed. The heavenly message was clear: punishments had been disastrously handed out. The emperor therefore called to account those who had reprimanded Zhou and Zhang, and he summoned his wronged officials back to the court:

These events added up to one of the great factional struggles of the Western Han. While omen discourse played a significant role in reconfiguring power at court, it never aimed to restrain the emperor, who acted both as a manipulator of this discourse and as an arbitrator in the overall dispute. Twice the emperor used omens—an earthquake and a solar eclipse—as excuses to promote the Xiao group, insisting that these events had been triggered by the mistreatment of his loyal and talented officials. When each side blamed the other, the emperor had to decide whose interpretation he would adopt. But the ultimate authority, as Emperor Yuan explicitly noted, was “popular opinion” (zhen po yu su 朕迫于俗).Footnote ¹⁹ The emperor was expected to implement the action called for by the interpreter of omens. Instead of being judged and controlled by the omen discourse, he became its executor.

More interestingly, whereas modern scholars celebrate omen discourse as enabling scholar-officials to constrain the emperor's power, Han Ru blamed high officials for bad omens.Footnote ²⁰ In a memorial, the army's Commander-in-Chief (dasima 大司馬), Wang Feng 王鳳, noted that “According to the commentaries and sub-commentaries of the Five Classics, and according to the master's teachings, what the solar eclipse indicates is that the minister is the not right person” 五經傳記，師所誦說，咸以日蝕之咎在於大臣非其人.Footnote ²¹ Omens and their fallout turned out to be handy devices for an emperor who wished to reprimand and control his officials, as the following passage from The Outer Commentary on the Han Edition of “The Songs” (Hanshi waizhuan 韓詩外傳) makes clear:

Similar messages can also be found in The Great Commentary on “The Documents” (Shangshu dazhuan 尚書大傳).Footnote ²³ Blaming high officials for the disasters or solar eclipse, Emperor Yuan forced Chancellor Yu Dingguo 于定國 to resign;Footnote ²⁴ Emperor Cheng 成帝 dismissed three chancellors, Wang Shang 王商, Xue Xuan 薛宣, and Zhai Fangjin 翟方進;Footnote ²⁵ and Emperor Ai removed Grandee Secretary Shi Dan 師丹, and Chancellor Kong Guang 孔光 from power.Footnote ²⁶ Four of these were privileged ru officials. When calamities occurred, emperors dismissed officials—sometimes because they needed a scapegoat, sometimes simply because they did not like that person and, thanks to omen discourse, had a brilliant excuse. Soon enough it was a tradition for ministers to assume responsibility for bad omens. Commentaries on the Rites of the Han Dynasty (Han yi zhu 漢儀注) even noted that when a massive calamity happened, the sitting chancellor should resign his office.Footnote ²⁷

If, in the midst of this strife, the tensions did not lie between the political power of the emperor and the moral authority of the scholar-officials, might it have been a conflict between eunuchs and ru?Footnote ²⁸ In “The Biography of King Yuan of Chu” (Chu Yuan wang zhuan 楚元王傳), Ban Gu 班固, invites us to read it that way. Here, Shi Xian and Hong Gong, the two eunuchs who struggled with Liu Xiang, were presented as the leaders of one group, while their opponents—in particular, Liu, Xiao Wangzhi, and Zhou Kan—were identified as ru.

But elsewhere Ban presents a more complicated situation of this factional struggle, in which some ru directly contributed to the failure of the Xiao “group”.Footnote ²⁹ Wei Xuancheng 韋玄成 and Gong Yu 貢禹, renowned ru officials, participated in the interrogation of Xiao and Liu. Instead of expressing sympathy or support for their fellow ru, they proposed the impeachment that precipitated the suicide of Xiao. Later, before the emperor sided with Shi and demoted Zhou again, he consulted Zhuge Feng 諸葛豐. As a ru reputed to be upright and outspoken, Zhuge criticised Zhou.Footnote ³⁰ This animus is explained by scrutinising their career paths: Zhuge was a subordinate of Gong Yu, who ascended to the second highest position in officialdom, the Grand Secretary, thanks to Shi Xian's recommendation. It is also well known that Shi was an ally of Wulu Chongzong 五鹿充宗, a ru who occupied a number of high positions at the court for decades.Footnote ³¹

Eunuchs and ru had not clashed on ideological grounds. The latter accordingly cannot be described as the commanders of the moral discourse, nor can the former be described as petty abusers of political power. Ru never raised a concerted voice, and their interpretations of natural disasters invariably served whatever the political clique to which the interpreter belonged. It was convenient to blame whoever one wished for an earthquake or a heavenly event, which eventually led to the bankruptcy of moral cosmology in the Western Han.

Pitfalls in Omen Interpretation

Just as a tool's flaws show up when it is used, so the intrinsic weaknesses of omen discourse revealed themselves as it was applied in daily politics. Working from correlative cosmology, Han officials used two conceptual strategies when they applied omen discourse to politics. First, assuming Heaven to be a moral agent, they claimed disasters and abnormity as the message of Heaven, alerting the emperor to unjust policies and improper behaviours. The intention of Heaven, formerly mysterious and evasive, now became an unquestionable fact. This shift pushed religious specialists into the background for rites meant to communicate with Heaven and the professional knowledge needed to perform them became superfluous. Instead, to keep Heaven happy, one had to remain alert for unusual events, then figure out the causal defect in mundane politics, a task that every official felt he could perform, as a passage in Luxuriant Gems of Spring and Autumn shows:

Integrating Heaven with human affairs, omen theory transformed the prediction of a transcendent force into the debates of contemporary politics and evaluations of current officials.

In addition to thinking in terms of a moralising Heaven, Han officials turned to yin-yang theory to explain disasters. Its aetiology functioned along much the same lines: human actions could veer dramatically away from the ideal balance of yin and yang, precipitating calamitous or simply extraordinary natural events. The cure was familiar: identify the source of the disturbance and eliminate it. Again, omen discourse, disguised beneath transcendent power, addressed nothing but secular politics.

Equipped with a set of simple and clear-cut fundamentals, players had enormous freedom to associate the calamities that they selected with any policies and any political figures that they disliked. This led to different, sometimes even opposite, explanations of the same omen. For example, in the Western Han the occurrence of a solar eclipse was variously interpreted as a sign indicating the expansion of the power of government officials, the unjust treatment of government ministers, the unbridled behaviour of imperial concubines, and the incompetence of the chancellors.Footnote ³³ Precisely because of the rudimentary connection between omens and politics, rival groups blamed each other for causing natural catastrophes—rigorous argumentation was never even considered. While the flexibility of omen discourse allowed its players to criticise any political figure they liked, the loose explanatory mechanism deprived their interpretation of authority, causing endless disputes among rival parties.

To add weight to their explanations, sophisticated officials cited ru classics, especially The Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋), hoping stories recorded in those sacred works would serve as authoritative precedents. But even in the classics, interpretation over disasters had never established a fixed tradition. Ru claimed that when the sages recorded disasters and anomalies in The Annals they were indirectly criticising political events of that age. But this raised the question of which disaster was associated with which political event? Ru were far from reaching an agreement. The interpretation offered by a father differed from that of his son, and a master's differed from his disciple’s.

This point is illustrated by the statements regarding the solar eclipse that occurred in the twelfth month of the twenty-sixth year of Duke Yan 嚴公[namely Zhuanggong 莊公(693–662 bce)]. Dong Zhongshu declared that it indicated that both civil and martial ways had been abandoned — the central plain (that is, what would become Han China) was in decline. Liu Xiang thought that solar eclipse happened because at the moment that the Rong 戎 — an ethnic group dwelling to the east whom the central states considered barbarians—invaded Cao, was the same time that the adulterous wife of Duke Lu 魯夫人 planned to kill her husband. Liu Xin 劉歆 argued that it indicated the outbreak of hostilities between Chu 楚 and Zheng 鄭.Footnote ³⁴ Behind this variety of explanation lay the vicious hermeneutic cycle elaborated above: no rigorous theoretical scheme dictated the connections between disasters and political affairs. While such fluid discursive practice allowed interpreters — including the historiographer himself — to create historical precedents according to their own agenda, at the same time it meant that their invented historical precedents did not carry much weight. The meaning of omens remained hopelessly debatable.

Ru, it could be argued, should have recognised the pitfall facing them as they endeavoured to remedy the theoretical foundations of omen interpretation and limit the possible scope of historical precedents. They began with the “Great Plan” (hongfan 洪範) found in The Documents, borrowing its categories to systematise the correspondence between omens and political affairs. This effort culminated in Ban Gu's “A Treaty on the Five Phases” (Wuxing zhi 五行志) in The History of the Western Han Dynasty. In this work, the “Great Plan” was first celebrated as a blueprint for imperial rule initially laid out by divine powers and subsequently transmitted by sage kings. Then three categories of that “Great Plan”—five phases (wuxing 五行), five duties (wushi 五事), and the sovereign standard (huangji 皇極) — came to serve as the categories for organising calamities, abnormal phenomena, and their causes in human affairs.Footnote ³⁵ For example, in his discussion of metals, Ban informs us that “indulging in offensive warfare, ignoring the well-being of the people, adorning the city wall, or violating borders causes metal not to conform and change” 傳曰:“好戰攻，輕百姓，飾城郭，侵邊境，則金不從革.Footnote ³⁶ This was a well-ordered system, displaying a clear relation between imperial malfunctions and omens. But whereas these fixed correlations would remove the arbitrariness in interpreting omens, its rigidity hindered the interpreter from freely using omens to express his political opinions, the very thing he hoped to do. Furthermore, Ban's “Great Plan” was in fact no more than a dull and dry list. Little, if any, rationale was provided.

As a result, few followed this framework with any strictness. The inconsistency was fully revealed within “A Treaty on the Five Phases” itself. For each of his categories, Ban started from a work by Xiahou Shichang 夏侯始昌, A Commentary on “The Five Phases in the Great Plan” (Hongfan wuxing zhuan 洪範五行傳), which explains the correspondence between specific cosmic and political phenomena. Ban then proceeded to list many specific cases from both the Han and earlier periods. Rather than substantiate the theory, these examples diverged from it.Footnote ³⁷ For instance, the explanation of water, like metal a subcategory within the five phases, states that “failure to attend ancestral temples, failure to pray and offer thanks for the blessing, failure to perform the ritual sacrifices, and violation of the temporal order of Heaven. These keep the water from benefiting [those at] its terminus” 簡宗廟, 不禱祠, 廢祭祀, 逆天時, 則水不潤下.Footnote ³⁸ Among the cases that Ban went on to list were Dong Zhongshu's and Liu Xiang's explanations of a flood that occurred in the state of Song in the autumn of the eleventh year of Duke Yan 嚴. While Dong thought it happened because Song and Lu had been at war for years, causing commoners great suffering, Liu proposed that the flood indicated that the minister Song Wan 宋萬 would kill the arrogant and haughty Duke Min of Song 宋愍公(ca.691–682 bce).Footnote ³⁹ Obviously, neither interpretation had anything to do with the explanation for floods provided in A Commentary on “The Five Phases in the Great Plan”, which indicates that ru themselves did not invest this theory with much prestige and credibility.

In addition to trying to construct an interpretative scheme, some ru also sought to establish a more complicated theoretical foundation for omen interpretation. To integrate The Changes (Yijing 易經) and divination into omen interpretation, Jing Fang the younger 京房 divided the 360 days of the year among 60 hexagrams, and associated certain hexagrams with rulers and others with ministers. According to this system, changes in atmospheric phenomena indicated fluctuations in the power of the corresponding hexagram, which was keyed to the waning and waxing of the power of the lord and minister.Footnote ⁴⁰ Yi Feng 翼奉 likewise proposed a system in which six sentiments corresponded with six directions, which in turn corresponded with the date (calculated according to the “earthly branches” [dizhi 地支] system). Combining the directions with meteorological phenomena and auspicious and inauspicious dates and times, Yi created a system that could explain disasters and predict the future.Footnote ⁴¹ Although both Jing and Yi attracted the attention of Emperor Yuan, neither of their theories was widely acknowledged, let alone institutionalised, nor won prestige in their own age.Footnote ⁴²

This suggests the predicament that ru had encountered. Replacing the omen specialists, such as diviners (bu 卜) and astrologers (shi 史), ru officials pushed for a non-professional approach over disasters. But the moment that they claimed this discursive right, they lost the authority that accompanies professionalisation.

The tension between administrative officials and technical specialists can be traced back to Zuo Chronicles.Footnote ⁴³ As other scholars have pointed out, while mantic specialists monopolised omen reading and divination in the early Spring and Autumn period, nobles and ministers gradually appropriated their roles. By the middle of the sixth century bce, as Kidder Smith notes, mantic specialists had disappeared from accounts of the Changes divination and uses of the Changes texts. They had been replaced by educated noblemen and officials versed in the Five Classics.

This trend may also be traced for the later period covered in The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史記) and The History of the Western Han Dynasty. But there we discover that the victory won by the literati over the technical specialists, announced by the author of Zuo Chronicles, had a twisted consequence.Footnote ⁴⁴ As is well known, Sima Qian 司馬遷, author of The Grand Scribe's Records, inherited his father's position and served as grand astrologer (taishi 太史) under Emperor Wu. He was frustrated with his low social status, complaining bitterly that “the court's astrologers were close to diviners and seers, all of them something like musicians and jesters, labouring to amuse the emperor, despised by all others” 文史星曆近乎卜祝之間，固主上所戲弄，倡優畜之，流俗之所輕也.Footnote ⁴⁵ While official astrologers and diviners still performed mechanical tasks such as compiling calendars, tracing the movement of the constellations, providing advice regarding sacrifices, and performing divinations before military actions,Footnote ⁴⁶ they had lost the reputation of being knowledgeable persons who understood the Way of Heaven (tiandao 天道).Footnote ⁴⁷

In Zuo Chronicles, princes and dukes consulted astrologers and diviners regarding climatic disorders, natural catastrophes and celestial irregularities. By contrast, in The History of the Han Dynasty, when emperors encountered such things they turned to those who studied the classics (bo wen jingxue zhi shi博問經學之士), and officials were told to respond according to the classics (yi jing dui 以經對).Footnote ⁴⁸ Few astrologers or diviners left their names in The Grand Scribe's Records or The History of the Western Han Dynasty, while in the heated discussion of various omens their voices were totally muted. At several points, Ban Gu mentioned men who established their reputation as omen interpreters in the Western Han: without exception, they were ru who served as administrative officials or occupied advisory positions.Footnote ⁴⁹ Thus, on the one hand, textual classics replaced the esoteric knowledge of sacrificial and divinatory rites transmitted orally by technical specialists, and were supposed to serve as the paramount authorities in interpreting omens.Footnote ⁵⁰ On the other hand, ru officials had much to say about divination and astrology, transforming these institutionalised rites into individual pursuits.

The most famous case of a ru handling such matters is Dong Zhongshu's efforts to bring rain to a drought-ridden area when he served as the minister of Jiangdu 江都.Footnote ⁵¹ Liu Xiang was said to read the classics during the daytime and observe the movements of the stars at night.Footnote ⁵² Most of the star readings preserved in Western Han–era memorials were conducted by ru officials, none of whom ever occupied the position of astrologer.Footnote ⁵³ Indeed, those in power, ranging from emperor to prestigious princes to high officials, seemed to place a greater trust in ru than in technicians when it was time for divination.Footnote ⁵⁴ It is said that once when Emperor Xuan was on his way to offer sacrifices at the shrine of Emperor Zhao 昭帝, the sword of one of the emperor's mounted bodyguards leapt from its scabbard and hit the side of the imperial carriage, frightening the horses. The emperor, instead of summoning diviners or astrologers, asked Liangqiu He 梁丘賀, a gentleman-attendant who specialised in The Changes, to perform a yarrow-stalk divination. Liangqiu made an efficacious prediction, became the emperor's confidant, and later ascended to a high administrative position.Footnote ⁵⁵

Technical specialists performed divinations by following established routines, and they based their authority on their institutionalised positions. In sharp contrast, ru typically behaved like the quintessential amateur. This point is well demonstrated by the story of Zhang Yu 張禹, a specialist in The Changes and The Analects who served first as tutor of Emperor Cheng and later held the position of chancellor for six years. After retirement from the court, this respectable ru was accustomed to fast and perform divinations by means of yarrow stems when anomalies happened or he heard that the emperor was ill. When he obtained an auspicious hexagram, he would present it to the throne; if the outcome was less fortuitous, he would become emotional, wearing his worries on his face.Footnote ⁵⁶

Zuo Chronicles celebrates the ascendancy of officials over professional diviners, as the prophecies of the former, gracefully elaborated, were almost always fulfilled. Apparently the morally superior person made better readings of omens and divinations than professionals. As this particular text shows, a high moral character was needed to grasp the import of classical texts and to evaluate people's conduct. While quoting the classics enhanced one's credibility in omen interpretation, the action, instead of the intention of spirits, shaped the future. Correspondingly, grasping the signs revealed by Heaven no longer depended on appropriate sacrifices or obscure knowledge of diviners; it was determined by the intelligence and moral character of the prognosticators.Footnote ⁵⁷ This view, triumphant in Zuo Chronicles, encountered a tough reality in the Western Han. That was when classic texts and fine moral character ceased to grant special authority to ru.

Diviners and astrologers, educated by means of oral instructions and demonstrations, acquired their specialised bodies of technical lore after protracted apprenticeships. Their recognised authority was established both by their monopoly on special knowledge and by hereditary posts at court.Footnote ⁵⁸ With the dissemination of divination knowledge through classics in a written form, people no longer had to turn to those who enjoyed advantages due to membership in secretive traditions. As Lewis claims, this means that authority shifted from specialists to texts.Footnote ⁵⁹ If ru could now replace the technical omen specialists, they had by the same stroke been deprived of special discursive authority.

When classics were regarded as the keys to various enigmatic disasters and oddities, it followed that ru, the compilers and transmitters of those texts, could offer reliable explanations of those phenomena.Footnote ⁶⁰ But the practice proved far more complicated than that theory. Instead of hiding away their learning — as diviners had — ru spread their teachings to all who would listen. Confucius, who enjoyed the reputation of taking on every follower who showed interest, is said to have had three thousand students. In the Western Han, one of the criteria used to judge the popularity of ru scholars was to count those who flocked to popular teachers. Prominent thinkers — such as Wu Zhang 吳章 and Gong Sheng 龔勝 — were said to have hundreds, even thousands, of followers.Footnote ⁶¹ As their numbers swelled, ru did try to establish standard interpretations of the classics by emphasising the tradition of master rule (shifa 師法).Footnote ⁶² But without institutionalising rigid hermeneutic principles, even members of the same school had often wildly different understandings of the classics.

While technical knowledge possessed by diviners and astrologers was generally transmitted orally with writing serving merely as an auxiliary tool, classics — as the cultural heritage of literati — were written texts accessible by all educated men. No tangible restriction had ever been established on who could use the classics. Besides ru officials, other members of the court —whether the emperor, other members of the imperial family, eunuchs, or officials whose studies had focused on economics and laws — could all cite passages from The Analects or Five Classics to bolster their arguments. No acknowledged principles had been established to define a hierarchy of classical learning, let alone omen interpretation. No group ever monopolised the classics and their interpretation; and this meant that no group could claim undisputable authority over the texts. Ban Gu considered the learning of Gu Yong 谷永, Du Qin 杜欽 and Du Ye 杜鄴 to be coarse, and not to be compared with that of Liu Xiang, Liu Xin and Yang Xiong 楊雄. Yet, thanks to their proximity to power, the comments on omens offered by the first three were far more influential in their own time.Footnote ⁶³ The struggle between the Shi group and the Xiao group discussed above shows the same thing. Liu Xiang was a renowned ru scholar and had been celebrated for his ability to read omens since Ban Gu's time. However, his interpretations, which he supported with abundant examples drawn from the classics, had no persuasive power —the emperor trusted none of them. His rivals—eunuchs whom most ru despised — turned omens to their devices, interpreting them to their own advantage.Footnote ⁶⁴

Moral character and intelligence were no more effective in the hermeneutical war than familiarity with the classics. It is a theoretical illusion to equalize virtuous person with better interpreters of omens. Without transcendental agent, judgment on one's morality was always subjective and easily led to controversies. In fact, suggesting that one official possessed finer moral credentials than another could be rather absurd, as the emperor himself selected high-ranking officials and so might not have appreciated the suggestion that a confidant lacked integrity. As bitterly as Liu Xiang denounced Shi Xian, Emperor Yuan never rated Liu over his trusted eunuchs. A conversation that has come down to us also demonstrates this point. Jing Fang accused Emperor Yuan's trusted officials of wickedness, of causing various disasters. The emperor's reply: “How do I know who you are talking about? If I knew who was corrupt, would I still employ them?”Footnote ⁶⁵

Guarding their secrets and their grip on office, diviners and astrologers once created an institutionalised barrier to omen interpretation.Footnote ⁶⁶ Ru successfully broke this barrier, but the very devices that ensured their victory doomed it to fade: they had no way to keep competitors at bay.Footnote ⁶⁷ Once any talented individual was able to participate, omen discourse became a weapon in the clutches of political power.

Omen Interpretation: Enslaved by Political Power

Omen discourse was an important component of Western Han politics, but a given interpretation was only as effective as the political power and social hierarchy behind it. Who prognosticated was much more important than what was said. A number of cases related to the Wang Feng lineage illustrate this point.

Wang Feng was the brother of Empress Dowager Yuan 元 and hence the uncle of Emperor Cheng. Wang and his brothers controlled the operation of the state apparatus during the last third of the Western Han dynasty. Under Emperor Cheng, Wang Feng had a falling-out with Chancellor Wang Shang 王商. Through the Superior Grand Master of the Palace (taizhong dafu 太中大夫), Zhang Kuang 張匡, Wang Feng accused Wang Shang of causing a recent solar eclipse; the gambit was a success, and the emperor dismissed the chancellor.Footnote ⁶⁸ With the support of Wang Feng's brothers, Gu Yong and Du Qin used omens to lambaste Emperor Cheng's life style with impunity. Famously mild of character, the emperor usually tolerated their criticism. But when Gu interpreted the appearance of a black dragon as a warning that the Mandate of Heaven was slipping from his grasp, Emperor Cheng was outraged. Still, so powerful were the Wang brothers that Gu got away with such rash impudence.Footnote ⁶⁹ As Wang Feng and his relatives employed it, omen discourse actually legitimated their power struggle, since they used it to present the battle as a contest over values. However, the magic of omen interpretation would disappear when it was used by their foes. Without the endorsement of political power, omen discourse became simply inoperative.

The overwhelming power and extravagant existence of Wang Feng and his brothers prompted numerous complaints. In the late 20s bce, a series of solar eclipses and strong earthquakes occurred. Memorials from both commoners and officials insisted that those omens indicated that the power of the Wang lineage had overshadowed the throne. But Wang Feng's confidants, Gu Yong and Du Qin — both eloquent ru — wrote lengthy rebuttals, declaring the innocence of the Wang brothers. The aberrant phenomena, they explained, could only be blamed on Emperor Cheng's concubines.Footnote ⁷⁰ Fearing the power of the Wang brothers, some high officials defended them. When the emperor visited Zhang Yu (the sentimental prognosticator mentioned earlier), by then living in retirement, and showed him the memorials attacking the Wang brothers, the former chancellor replied:

Ban Gu commented that this old man, whose relatives stood a chance of winning offices at court, hoped to avoid the enmity of the powerful Wang brothers. His answer, which never alluded to the Wangs, appears to have distracted the emperor, possibly allaying his suspicions. This proved a shrewd course for the old official, as the Wangs received a full report of the interview. Quite pleased, they afterwards showed Zhang every possible courtesy.Footnote ⁷³

While some ru twisted omen theory to serve the powerful, those who used omens to impeach Wang Feng themselves became victims. The Metropolitan Governor (jingzhao yin 京兆尹) Wang Zhang 王章 is a typical example. According to Ban Gu, two years after the death of Wang Feng's rival Wang Shang—there was a solar eclipse and a strong earthquake. Wang Zhang, therefore, submitted a memorial in which he contended that Wang Shang had been blameless, whereas Wang Feng had triggered inauspicious phenomena by setting blinkers on the emperor and, from his position as Commander-in-Chief, seizing as much power as he could. This memorial seems to have persuaded Emperor Cheng, who considered relieving his commander-in-chief of his duties. When he learned which way the wind was blowing, Wang Feng sought the aid of ru officials who helped him draft an apologetic memorial in which he offered his resignation.

At this crucial moment, the emperor's mother, Empress Dowager Yuan, stepped in: she announced that if the emperor dismissed her brother she would starve herself to death. The sovereign had been outflanked. He drew up a decree—a response to Wang Feng's apology—in which he blamed himself for various disasters:

Wang Feng had won not just a reprieve but a stronger position than ever. He later found an excuse to have Wang Zhang executed and had his family sent into exile.Footnote ⁷⁶

Ban Gu had long recognised that omen discourse and the moral agency of Heaven could not grant its player either autonomy or power but instead were a smoke screen for factional fighting. He contended that the power of the Ding 丁and Fu 傅 clans—two imperial families that rose to power under Emperor Ai 哀帝—could by no means be compared with that of the leverage enjoyed by Wang Feng and his brothers. Still, Du Ye blamed Ding and Fu for interfering with politics and causing a solar eclipse. Du Qin and Gu Yong defended the Wang lineage: the family had nothing to do with any recent disasters, to hear them tell it. Ban commented that these situations were all the result of different configurations of power.Footnote ⁷⁷

In practical politics, therefore, discourse surrounding omens and their interpretation permitted officials to undermine rivals and advance their own interests. This tendency to offer interpretations designed to serve one's political interest casts doubts on the sincerity of the Western Han officials who subscribed to the discourse. When omen theory ran contrary to the interests of the prognosticators involved, they immediately expressed misgivings as to its reliability. During the tenure of Yang Chen 楊肜 (a relative of Wang Feng by marriage) as the governor of Langye 琅邪 county, fourteen disasters occurred. Chancellor Wang Shang spoke of impeachment. Wang Feng talked him out of it, on the grounds that “Disasters and aberrations are heavenly affairs, and men's powers do not cause them. Chen has always been a fine official; it is best to have him carry on”災異天事，非人力所為.肜素善吏，宜以為後.Footnote ⁷⁸ (As related earlier, Wang Feng later used omens to remove Wang Shang from the court.)

In The Debate on Salt and Iron (Yantie lun 鹽鐵論), a speaker refuses to see anything more in natural disasters than the operations of chance. According to Huan Kuan 桓寬, the officials represented by Sanghong Yang 桑弘羊 saw no resonance between Heaven and human society:

A sceptical attitude toward omens was also reflected in the deliberate fabrication of portents. In 19 bce, when erudites performed the spring rites — the Grand Shooting (dashe 大射) — pheasants gathered in the square, climbed the steps and entered the building. Later the pheasants gathered at the offices of the three dukes and also appeared on the roof of Chengming Palace 承明殿. Wang Yin 王音 considered this an omen meant to warn the emperor, who had failed to produce an heir after occupying the throne for years. However, when Emperor Cheng found out that some of the pheasants had damaged feathers, he concluded that they had been caught before and deliberately released in strategic locations. Still, Wang Yin's great leverage ruled out a thorough investigation.Footnote ⁸⁰

Such manipulations culminated during Wang Mang's reign. Besides the well-known auspicious omens that he subtly encouraged his subjects to fabricate, the usurper dared to label disasters as auspicious portents. In 22 ce, a fire destroyed Ba Bridge 霸橋. Wang Mang announced that this symbolised the unification of the Xin 新 imperial house, destined to reign forever.Footnote ⁸¹ In 16 ce the Jing River 涇水 changed course. Wang's officials promptly assured him that this could only mean that their enemies — the Xiongnu 匈奴 — would be vanquished.Footnote ⁸²

The political use of omens had thus changed from a language of consensus into a vocabulary of abuse, reduced to tactics and strategies exploited by rival factions who sought only power. Ultimately it came to express their irreconcilable opposition to each other.