Dong Zhongshu, the Han dynasty's great Confucian statesman, wove the master's ethics into a cosmology of Heaven, Earth, and humanity answering one another, and taught that Heaven warns a failing emperor through portents and disasters. His memorials urged the throne to dismiss the hundred schools and honor Confucian learning alone, and the imperial academy rose on his argument.
Tagged: Confucianism Imperial Confucianism
The Event
- Date
- c. 130 BCE (approximate)
- Era
- Han Orthodoxy; Standard periodization of Confucian history
- Location
- The Han court at Chang'an; today Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
- Traditions
- Confucianism
- Streams
- Imperial Confucianism
- Key figures
- Dong Zhongshu, Emperor Wu of Han
- Key texts
- Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals
Primary Sources
- The Book of Han (Hanshu).
Secondary Sources
- de Bary, Wm. Theodore, and Irene Bloom, eds. Sources of Chinese Tradition. 2nd ed., Columbia University Press, 1999.
- Yao, Xinzhong. An Introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Provenance: HIST-0706; confidence 0.85; accessed 2026-10-27.
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