Week 6_Reading 1

  

Emperor Wen, time and time again, received wrongdoing with kindness. He did this out of a concern for transforming “the people by means of virtue” (306m). While there were moments when this approach proved effective, there were several when it proved questionable.

 

The following few are examples of when Wen’s gentle, kind responses gave the wrongdoer room to “mend their actions and do good” (301tm). When Zhao Tuo, king of Southern Yue, declared himself emperor, Wen’s reply was to call Zhao’s brothers to court and treat “them with great honour” (305b-306t). Eventually, Zhao himself decided to abolish his plans and serve as a subject of Han. Emperor Wen gave Zhao the space to do so by choosing a teaching approach, rather than a punishing one—by showing Zhao that him and his are treated with kindness, he gave Zhao the chance to see for himself that there was no need for rebellion; that current circumstances were good and just (“…if the laws are just, the people will be obedient” (291t)). A similar case occurred when Wen's officials were accepting bribes, and instead of hauling them "before the law" (306m), Wen bestowed upon them gifts of gold, thus teaching them to feel ashamed (306m) of their unnecessary conduct.

 

But kindness has its limits, the following serving as a prime example. Emperor Wen knew full well that Liu Pi was feigning illness to avoid showing up to court (405m), but instead of exposing his lie, he presented him “with an armrest and a cane” (405mb) thus indicating that he had no interest in challenging Liu’s avoidance tactics. During Wen’s reign (and as a result of said response), Liu “relaxed his plans to take drastic action” (405mb), but when Jing became Emperor and began heeding Chao Cuo’s advice on reducing Liu’s territory, Liu “daily grew more wilful in his ways” (406tb). While Wen’s kindness tactic worked during his reign, it had consequences further down the line during Jing’s reign. Can Emperor Wen be held responsible for the way Liu’s affairs progressed with Emperor Jing?

 

This question is particularly interesting if we take into account why the throne was ceded to Jing. Early on in his reign, Wen was pressured by officials to name an heir apparent quickly (291m) in his eldest son, Liu Qi (292mb). Emperor Wen resisted on both counts: he aimed to take time with selecting an heir, and moreover he believed that selecting said heir from the wise and virtuous was much more prudent than appointing his son—an action Wen believed would effectively signal that he’d “forgotten the wise and virtuous” (292t). But Emperor Wen did not succeed in standing firm in his will; instead, when the officials equated passing over his son as “the rightful successor” with going against “the will of Emperor Gaozu” (292mb), Emperor Wen caved. This breed of compromise dovetails with Wen’s kind rulership, but it begs the question of whether the Chao Cuo/Yuan Ang/Liu Pi mess (which occurred during Jing’s reign and resulted in his regrets (465m)) would have happened at all had Wen stood firm and taken his time with selecting an unconventional, yet wise, heir. Moreover, while the Emperor sought to be “father and mother to his people” (301t) by teaching them “what is right” (301t), he failed to teach his son how to carry on said methods (the violent chess game incident serving as a prime example (404bm)). He thus stopped short of properly managing the consequences of ceding his will to the officials, bringing to light his incomplete understanding of why kindness might require temperance.