The fall of Wang Mang’s Xin (New) regime in 23 CE was followed by a period of war between rival rebel groups, out of which Liu Xiu (Emperor Guangwu, r. 25-57 CE), a descendant of one of Emperor Wu’s brothers, emerged victorious and reestablished the Han dynasty with a new capital at Luoyang. This “Eastern Han” dynasty initially avoided foreign entanglements, focusing on internal consolidation and economic recovery. But by 73 CE, hawkish elements at court were again advocating war with the Xiongnu, who had enjoyed a brief resurgence during the civil wars in China, only to themselves split (again) into northern and southern factions in 48 CE. The Southern Xiongnu had submitted to the Eastern Han and received permission to resettle in the Ordos region. Their service as a new cavalry striking force greatly strengthened the Han military and stirred ambitions for a war to vanquish the Northern Xiongnu and restore the Western Han protectorate in the Tarim Basin that had lasted from 60 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang. In 73-74 CE, Han forces returned to Central Asia and reestablished the former protectorate, only to be overrun within a year by local revolts and a fierce Northern Xiongnu counterattack. In the wake of this fiasco, Emperor Zhang (r. 75-88 CE) reverted to a policy of peace with the Northern Xiongnu.

In 79 CE, the Eastern Han court convened a conference of ministers and scholars at the White Tiger Hall (Baihu guan) to resolve differences in interpretation of the “Confucian” classics. Ban Gu (32-92 CE) was later tasked with writing a comprehensive record of the conference and its findings, based on notes taken by the participants. This record came to be known as the Baihu tong or Baihu tongyi.¹

Among the many topics discussed at the conference was the question of whether there were any people in the world whom the emperor was not to regard as his subjects. The conference decided on three categories: the descendants of rulers from previous dynasties, the parents of the empress, and the barbarians. There were precedents for this position, but the face-saving emphasis on the barbarians’ unworthiness and inferiority and the use of the cosmological concept of qi endowment to explain it were all apparently original. It is quite probable that the anti-expansionist policy then favored by Emperor Zhang had something to do with this.

~~~~~

The lands of the barbarians (Yi-Di) are cut off from the Central Lands, and their customs are different. They are not born from balanced and harmonious qi and cannot be transformed by ritual propriety and moral duty. That is why [a true king] does not consider them his subjects. The [Gongyang] commentary to the Annals says, “When barbarians deceive one another, a noble man does not abhor it.”² The Great Commentary to the Documents (Shangshu dazhuan) says, “[The people of] countries that do not follow our official calendar—a morally superior ruler does not consider these as his subjects.”³

---

1. The only full translation of the Baihu tong is Tjan Tjoe Som trans., Po hu t’ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall (Leiden: Brill, 1949-1952). The translation here is my own. ↩︎
2. This quotes the Gongyang commentary (see source 1.5) for Lord Zhao, Year 16 (526 BCE), where the Chu ruler lures a Rong leader to a meeting and has him killed there. The commentator argues that Confucius does not demote the Chu ruler as severely as in an earlier case when he lured and killed the Lord of Cai, because both he and the Rong leader were barbarians: “When barbarians deceive one another, a noble man does not abhor it. Why does he not abhor it? To appear not to abhor it is itself to show abhorrence.” He Xiu’s subcommentary explains this convoluted logic as follows: “He treats it as the normal state of affairs [between barbarians], this being the very reason why they are wicked, and rebukes it only lightly because of their ignorance.” ↩︎
3. The Great Commentary was lost after the Tang dynasty and only fragmentary quotations, like this one, remain. The fragment here quotes words purportedly spoken by the Duke of Zhou upon receiving a tribute of a white pheasant from Yuechang (see source 2.4, note 3). According to longer versions of the fragment, the Duke of Zhou humbly tried to decline the tribute on the grounds that his moral authority and governance had not extended that far. After the Yuechang ambassador revealed that the elders of his country had discerned the presence of a sage in the Central Lands from the unusually good weather, the Duke finally relented and accepted the pheasant on behalf of King Ping (for whom he was regent). For a complete translation of the surviving Great Commentary fragments, see Fan Lin and Griet Vankeerberghen trans., The Great Commentary on the Documents Classic (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 2025. ↩︎