MANG AND HIS FORBEARS: THE MAKING OF THE MYTH

BY

MICHAEL LOEWE

Assessments of Wang Mang vary widely. As against the view of official Chinese historiography, which cannot avoid seeing him as a usurper, Hans Bielenstein has vindicated his achievement, and explains the reasons for his fall as due more to misfortune than poor policies. Hu Shih's belief, that he could almost be described as a socialist, may be matched by the stress that he placed on the traditional values represented in the ideals and models of the kings of Zhou.' However, whatever the view that is taken of Wang Mang's integrity or his achievements, the accounts that we possess record a number of actions whereby he sought to display the legitimate nature of his exercise of imperial power. In doing so he found it necessary to prove his descent from a recognized line of mon- archs or heroes; and the line needed to be more convincing than that of the family of Han, which was hardly taken further back than Liu Bang's own immediate ancestors. In his search for a genealogy that would both merit respect and overshadow that of his predecessors, Wang Mang fastened on Huangdi and particularly on Shun whose rise to power could be brought 198 to compare with his own; and in doing so he set his descent sepa- rately from a slender claim to be made later, that the house of Liu could be traced to Yao. To establish his genealogy, Wang Mang varied from the accounts of early heroes that are given in the Shiji, and he may have been calling on statements of the . He incorporated the person of Shao Hao >'M and altered the ancestry set out in the Shiji for Yao and Shun. Finally, he constructed nine shrines for the performance of services to his nine carefully chosen ancestors, thereby exceeding the figure of seven that had been accepted as the limit hitherto. The general account of Wang Mang's political and dynastic ventures is clear enough and requires no more than a summary here, as the background to the steps that he took to create a genealogy that would be convincing and authoritative. (a) Wang Mang's family rose to prominence thanks in the first instance to the influence of his aunt who joined the complement of Yuandi's women's quarters in 54 B.C., to become his empress in due course; a series of members of the Wang family held office as regents during the succeeding reign of Chengdi (33-7 B.C.). (b) Wang Mang was appointed regent in 8 B.C. and again from 2 B.C. to A.D. 5, having in the meantime received the noble title of Han An gong fi%§k (A.D. 1). (c) On 10 January A.D. 9 he took the final step of proclaiming the establishment of his own dynasty, under the name of Xin WT. (d) This dynasty came to an end when Wang Mang was put to death on 6 October A.D. 23. Wang Mang's concern with his genealogy may be seen in the context of at least two other developments. These included the search for historical authority in the form of a precedent, either in the person of Zhou Gong lBl§k or Shun * , and the substitution stage by stage of services to Wang Mang's chosen ancestors in place of those acknowledged for the house of Liu I,] . The four passages of the Han shu which concern these aspects of Wang Mang's reign show how a measure of simplification was intro- duced in the line of his ancestors, together with a studied concen- tration on a single lineage that had originated from Huangdi There is a significant difference in the references made to ear- lier heroes or paragons, as between the time when Wang Mang was regent and when he became emperor. Between A.D. 1 and 9 there are repeated references to Zhou Gong, who constituted the obvious model and precedent that would justify a regent's author- ity ; and there are also some to Huo Guang 1i:J'é, who fulfilled the