by An Liu
Emperor Gaozu’s commitment to Western Zhou ideals of governance also is apparent in the court rituals he chose to follow and his choice to rule with the Potency of Water (in the political application of the Five Phases theory, according to which each dynasty was believed to rule, in succession, through the Potency of Earth, Wood, Metal, Fire, or Water). Those symbolic acts marked the Han as the legitimate successor to the Western Zhou.4 But the dangers of enfeoffment became increasingly clear to the emperor as a number of his regional kings revolted against the central court. In an effort to stave off the crisis, the emperor replaced the renegade rulers with members of his own family, but the potential danger was only diminished, not avoided entirely, as the history of the following decades would prove. Gaozu himself is said to have died from a wound received while fighting against Liu An’s earliest predecessor, Ying Bu, the first king of Huainan, who had revolted against the emperor.5
Following Gaozu’s death, the dynasty was plagued by a number of problems concerning dynastic succession. These included an attempted coup by Empress Dowager Lü, who seized power on the death of Emperor Hui in 188 B.C.E. and wielded de facto control during a confused interregnum until her own death in 180. As central power waned in the years after Gaozu’s death, the power of the kingdoms grew proportionately. By the time of Emperor Wen’s reign (180–157 B.C.E.), the kingdoms had become so powerful that a number of ministers began to advocate increased centralization to remedy the challenges posed by the fiefs. Thus began the policy of gradually reducing the size of the largest kingdoms.
The history of Huainan is an instructive example. The fief was first granted to Ying Bu (who was not a blood relative of the Liu clan) in 203 B.C.E. It was bestowed on Liu Chang, the seventh son of Emperor Gaozu (and, later, Liu An’s father), in 196, after Ying Bu’s rebellion and death; Liu Chang was still an infant when he became king of Huainan. Liu Chang’s brother Liu Ying (Emperor Hui) ascended the throne in 193 and ruled until 188. He was succeeded (after the Empress Dowager Lü’s interregnum) in 180 by another brother, Liu Heng (Emperor Wen). Unwilling to accept that he had been passed over as a potential heir of the throne and apparently dissatisfied with being only a territorial king, Liu Chang rebelled against Emperor Wen in 174, soon after reaching his majority. When the plot failed, Liu Chang was indicted and died on the road to exile. Many of his co-conspirators were executed, and the kingdom of Huainan was temporarily abolished, replaced by centrally administered commanderies. In 172, perhaps remorseful about the miserable death of his brother, Emperor Wen conferred fiefs on four of Liu Chang’s sons, with Liu An, then about seven years old, becoming lord of Fuling. In 164, the emperor reestablished kingdoms in what had been Liu Chang’s kingdom of Huainan but reduced their power by dividing the formerly massive realm into three: a smaller kingdom of Huainan plus the kingdoms of Hengshan and Lujiang. Liu An was then named the king of Huainan, succeeding at last to his father’s title. This development must have been bittersweet: on the one hand, Liu An was elevated to the status of king, but on the other hand, the territory over which he ruled was drastically reduced from what his father had administered in the heyday of his career.
The settlement of 164 B.C.E., moreover, seemed to stem only temporarily the tide of unrest within the imperial clan, and the situation of the unruly kingdoms grew to crisis proportions during the reign of Emperor Jing. Seven of the enfeoffed kings launched a revolt against the central court in 154. Significantly, Liu An did not join the revolt, opting instead to demonstrate his support of and loyalty toward the central court. Emperor Jing was successful in quelling the revolt and further reduced the power of the kingdoms by expanding the commandery system. Nevertheless, the tensions between the two most polarized competing visions of empire—the exclusively centralized and the largely decentralized models—were anything but resolved, leaving some room for the development of a third model that negotiated a middle ground. Liu An’s interest in making his influence felt at court during the reign of Emperor Jing was no doubt shaped by the complicated court politics and policies of that era. The Huainanzi, embodying Liu An’s own understanding of how an empire should be organized and ruled, was most likely written during those years and probably in response to current affairs.
When Liu Che (Emperor Wu) assumed the throne at about fifteen years of age (sixteen sui, in Chinese reckoning) in 141 B.C.E., much of the empire remained under the control of the enfeoffed kings, and it was not clear whether the young emperor (still dominated by his grandmother, Empress Dowager Dou) would continue the centralizing efforts of his predecessor or resort to the earlier policies of Emperor Gaozu. Liu An, by then known as both a patron of learning and an imperial kinsman, presented a book—the work in twenty-one chapters that we now know as the Huainanzi —to Liu Che shortly after he ascended the throne. The gift apparently was intended to impress the young emperor with Liu An’s particular vision of empire. The work reflects the interests of a royal relative whose primary concern was to preserve both the independence of his kingdom and his authority as its lord. The ideal empire was imagined in the Huainanzi as consisting of, first and foremost, a Zhoustyle realm in which royal relatives administered semiautonomous local kingdoms while giving their ultimate allegiance to the benevolent rule of an enlightened sage-emperor. Using the model of Emperor Gaozu’s integrative approach, Liu An and the authors of the Huainanzi also incorporated, on a more limited basis, different policies, techniques, and institutions characteristic of centralized as well as decentralized rule.
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At the beginning of the Han era, the eastern half of the empire was divided into semiautonomous kingdoms ruled by members of the Liu clan; the western half of the empire was under the direct rule of the emperor. At the time the Huainanzi was written (during the reign of Emperor Jing), many of the kingdoms had been extinguished and their territory converted into commanderies, governed by appointed officials who reported to the imperial administration. The kingdom of Huainan was abolished in 122 B.C.E. By the end of the second century B.C.E., the kingdoms had almost entirely disappeared; the most prominent exceptions were Changsha, south of the middle reaches of the Yangzi River; Guangling, in the lower Yangzi valley; and Yan, in the eastern Yellow River Plain. (Map by Sara Hodges, with data from the China Historical Geographic Information service [CHGIS], version 4, Harvard Yenching Institute, Cambridge, Mass., January 2007)
How to get the ruler to act on the vigorous arguments that the book made in defense of that vision, and the implicit and explicit claims concerning Liu An and his kingdom in this imagined realm, must have been Liu An’s most pressing concern during his time in Chang’an. As the emperor (relying, Liu An must have hoped, on his avuncular advice) struggled to find a secure footing from which to challenge and eclipse the power and influence of Empress Dowager Dou, it was unclear what the future would hold, which court factions would emerge victorious, and in what policy direction the central court would head. The time was ripe for Liu An to stake his claim to political and intellectual authority.
Liu An and the Huainanzi
When Liu An succeeded to his father’s throne in the kingdom of Huainan, he would have had two overriding policy goals and perhaps one covert ambition. The first goal would have been to remain in the good graces of his uncle Emperor Wen and later his cousin Emperor Jing, along with the latter’s mother, Empress Dowager Dou. (A formidable figure, she had become a junior consort of Liu Heng, the future Emperor Wen, in 188 B.C.E. and was a dominant presence behind the throne from the time of her husband’s accession in 180. She continued to wield power through the reign of her son Emperor Jing and into the reign of her grandson Emperor Wu, until her own death in 135.) The second goal would have been to promote policies, in whatever way Liu An could, that would preserve and expand the power of the Han kingdoms against the centralizing tendencies of the imperial throne. A possible covert ambition—one he could neither express nor pursue openly for fear of being accused of treason—might have been to position and promote hi
mself as a possible heir to the throne during the reign of Emperor Jing. It would not have been implausible for another member of that generation (the grandsons of the founder, Liu Bang) to be considered in line for the throne.
Pursuing the first objective (and the third, if Liu An did indeed see himself as a potential heir to Emperor Jing) was in large part a matter of lying low and biding his time and of not risking all on desperate adventures. Thus we see Liu An declining to be a part of the Revolt of the Seven Kings in 154 B.C.E. The second objective would have demanded the use of the arts of political persuasion, an area in which Liu An proved to be adept as he grew into manhood.
Liu An was an enthusiastic man of letters, whose interests ranged from administrative matters to cosmology, from rhetoric to poetry, from natural philosophy to the occult. He was a great patron of scholarship, and he attracted to his court and lent support to a large number of men of learning. He was known as a quick, adept, and prolific writer and is credited with having produced many original works, including more than eighty fu (poetic expressions); treatises on alchemy, music, and natural philosophy; and a commentary on the Chuci poem “Li sao” (Encountering Sorrow). He is also known as the author of the work that bears the name Huainanzi (Master of Huainan),6 although nowadays we would be more likely to use the term “general editor.”
The earliest description of the Huainanzi, from the “Biography of Liu An” in Ban Gu’s (32–92 C.E.) Han shu (History of the [Former] Han Dynasty), indicates that the work was the product of many hands. According to Ban Gu, Liu An summoned no fewer than “several thousand guests and visitors” to his court, including a group of men called “masters of esoteric techniques” (fangshushi), presumably to contribute to the work. Ban Gu also describes the work as having a tripartite organization: an “inner book” consisting of twenty-one chapters; an “outer book” with more chapters than the inner book but an unspecified total number; and a “middle book” consisting of eight sections (zhuan) comprising an unknown number of chapters. This last book, said to consist of more than 200,000 words, discussed alchemical techniques relating to the quest to become a spirit immortal (shen xian).7 Fragments of this lost work were compiled into reconstituted redactions by a number of Qing-dynasty scholars and show it to have been filled with the lore and recipes of the esoteric masters.8
In his preface to the Huainanzi (ca. 212 C.E.), the early commentator Gao You provides more detail:
Many of the empire’s masters of esoteric techniques journeyed [to Huainan] and made their home [at Liu An’s court]. Subsequently [Liu An], with the following eight men, Su Fei, Li Shang, Zuo Wu, Tian You, Lei Bei, Mao Bei, Wu Bei, and Jin Chang, and various Confucians [ru]9 who were disciples of the Greater and Lesser Mountain [traditions], together discoursed upon the Way and its Potency and synthesized and unified Humaneness and Rightness to compose this work.10
Ban Gu emphasizes the rich discussions and debates that animated Liu An’s court and likely engendered the content of some of the Huainanzi’s chapters. Chapter 13, “Fan lun” (Boundless Discourses), is an apt description of the essays that probably emerged from court discussions moderated by Liu An. On the basis of its content and formal characteristics, chapter 19, “Xiu wu” (Cultivating Effort), might be construed as a model of how to construct a successful debate or disputation. Still other chapters (for example, chapters 14, 16, and 17) appear to be collections of various types of performative literature and gnomic verse. Progress reports and chapter summaries also may have been presented orally and debated at court from time to time. The literary content and form of the majority of chapters, however, strongly suggest that the Huainanzi is predominantly the product of extensive compilation and composition from written sources. This observation tallies with Liu An’s reputation, as he is said to have had a splendid library at his palace.
Regardless of exactly how the chapters were written, it is impossible to say whether or not the men named by Gao You were really the authors of any of them. Likewise, Liu An’s exact role in compiling the book is unclear; it is possible that he was the author of some of the essays. Benjamin Wallacker suggests that he may have posed topics or prepared outlines on the basis of which his scholars studied, debated, and composed essays.11 It is at least probable that Liu An exercised some sort of editorial supervision and approved the essays in their final form. Even a casual reading of several chapters is enough to indicate that not all the essays were written by the same hand, although the book as a whole does have thematic coherence (as we discuss more fully later).
In the end, any discussion of authorship of the Huainanzi is necessarily inconclusive, so we are left with the already well-known fact that the Huainanzi as a whole is the product of a group of scholars working under the supervision and the patronage of Liu An. Nonetheless, what is clear from Ban Gu’s statements is that the text is a collaborative work that included Liu An in some manner and a number of men who were identified with differing areas of expertise and diverse specialties. Even though they drew on a wide range of sources and represented disparate points of view, the authors were chiefly concerned with forging a synthesis between the paired concepts of Way and Potency, on the one hand, and Humaneness and Rightness, on the other.
As noted previously, Liu An paid his respects at the court of Emperor Wu in 139 B.C.E., in the second year after the latter’s enthronement. On that occasion, he presented a book to the emperor, described in the History of the [Former] Han Dynasty12 as a work in twenty-one chapters (pian) entitled the Nei shu (Inner Book), which was duly added to the imperial library. Although some scholars have raised questions about exactly what Liu An presented to the emperor during his visit, most accept that it was something substantially identical to, or at least closely resembling, the work we now know as the Huainanzi.
That being so, we must ask again: For whom was the Huainanzi written? Many scholars have made the natural assumption that because the Huainanzi (or some version thereof) was presented to Emperor Wu, it must have been written for him. But on reflection, that seems improbable. First, before the year 141 B.C.E., there was no reason for anyone to think that Liu Che would succeed to the throne. His accession was a result of a complicated and bloody struggle at court waged on his behalf by his mother and Empress Dowager Dou, and no one could have seen it coming a long way off. But with that in mind, it also seems improbable that a work as long, complicated, and sophisticated as the Huainanzi could have been written and edited by Liu An and his court scholars between the time the news of Liu Che’s enthronement reached Huainan in 141 and the time Liu An left to make his respectful visit to the imperial court at Chang’an in 139. (It is possible that some of the work’s chapters were written earlier by the Huainan scholars as independent texts; if many chapters were already to hand, it might have been possible to compile what we know as the Huainanzi on a tight schedule between 141 and 139. But even if that were so, it would not contradict our view that most of the content of the Huainanzi predates 141. It also seems to us unlikely that a work as organizationally coherent as the Huainanzi could have been assembled quickly from preexisting components.)
We believe it is much more likely that the Huainanzi was written during the reign of Emperor Jing, when Liu An was a talented and ambitious young man with a case to make for his own importance as a member of the imperial family and the ruler of a territorial kingdom. The strong indebtedness to the Laozi that characterizes parts of the work, including very conspicuously chapter 1, supports this interpretation, as the Laozi enjoyed substantial imperial patronage at the time. If that is so, who was the intended audience? Perhaps Emperor Jing, Liu An’s cousin, in whose hands Liu An’s future as a potential heir to the throne principally rested. Perhaps the intellectual world of the Han imperial court, broadly conceived. Perhaps Liu An himself, who could have used the work as a manual for his own ambitions. Perhaps Liu An’s sons, who could inherit their father’s imperial ambitions if circumstances proved propitious.
We will return to the quest
ion of the Huainanzi’s intended audience. For the moment, we rest our discussion by noting that it seems most unlikely that the work was written specifically for Emperor Wu. Rather, we think that in presenting his work to the imperial throne, Liu An was responding to changed circumstances and making the best of things. The young Liu Che had become emperor; Liu An had not. It therefore was in Liu An’s interest to try to cultivate political and family influence over his young nephew13 and to persuade him, if possible, of the importance of governing an empire composed in large part of feudal kingdoms such as Huainan, rather than of bureaucratic commanderies. The presentation of the Huainanzi to Emperor Wu was an important event, and it is easy to surmise why Han historians and bibliographers would make a special effort to record, retrospectively, the circumstances of that event. That is all the more true given the pivotal role of this emperor and his reign not only in the changing relationship between the emperor and his royal relatives in the remaining local kingdoms but also in the related debates about centralized, decentralized, and mixed models of empire and competing theories of rulership.
