The Hanshu is a history of the Western Han dynasty composed by Ban Gu around 82 CE. Like Sima Qian (see source 1.8), Ban Gu inherited this project from his father Ban Biao (3-54 CE). The Eastern Han court was less tolerant of private history-writing, however, and arrested Ban Gu on suspicions of sedition around 60 CE. Due to the intervention of his twin brother Ban Chao (32-102 CE), Ban Gu was later released and allowed to continue the Hanshu project under official auspices. The work was essentially complete by 82 CE but was supplemented after Ban Gu’s death with chronological tables and a treatise on astronomy composed by his younger sister, Ban Zhao (ca. 49-ca. 120 CE).

Ban Gu’s preference for a non-expansionist policy in Central Asia was, ironically, undermined by his own brother. Ban Chao, the only Eastern Han military commander left in the Tarim Basin after 75 CE, spent the rest of his life gradually rebuilding Han influence in the region. By the time of his death in 102 CE, the Han protectorate in the Tarim Basin had been restored, although it collapsed once more in 107 CE and had to be reestablished again by his son Ban Yong in 123-127 CE.

Ban Gu himself eventually had a change of heart regarding war with the Xiongnu, perhaps due more to political expedience than true conviction. In 89 CE, a combined force of Eastern Han and Southern Xiongnu troops, commanded by Ban Gu’s political patron Dou Xian, invaded the steppe and permanently drove the Northern Xiongnu west into the Ili River region of Central Asia. Ban Gu accompanied this expedition and even composed a eulogy to Dou Xian’s victory to be inscribed on the Yanran (Khangai) Mountains in central Mongolia. Dou Xian’s moment of glory proved fleeting, however, and Ban Gu’s involvement in it proved fatal. In 92 CE, he fell victim to a political purge and committed suicide. In the fallout, Ban Gu was imprisoned and soon died from torture and mistreatment. In the passages below, Ban Gu’s rationalization of political separation (or “bridling”) between the Chinese on one hand and the Xiongnu and Central Asia on the other contrasts quite starkly with his positive depiction of the people of the Korean peninsula as uniquely moral and civilized barbarians who have been improved by Chinese rule. This suggests that Ban tailored his interpretations of foreign peoples to an anti-war and anti-expansionist agenda. He had no need to accentuate differences between the Chinese and Koreans because the former territory of Chaoxian (Joseon) was now securely under Han control.  

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From “Account of the Xiongnu: Appraisal”

The Documents warns of “Man and Yi invading the Xia [lands]”¹, and the Odes speaks of “smiting the Rong and Di.”² The Annals says, “[when a ruler] practices the Way, his defenses lie adjacent to the barbarians of the four quarters.”³ Thus the barbarians (Yi-Di) have been a threat to us for a long time indeed! … Therefore, the former kings surveyed their territory and established a capital at the center, dividing the subcelestial realm into nine regions and five zones of submission that presented local products as tribute with varying regularity, depending on whether they were inner or outer regions.⁴ …. Hence the Annals regards the Xia states as those inside [the boundary] and the barbarians as those outside.⁵

The barbarians are greedy and fond of pursuing profit. They leave their hair untied and fold their robes to the left.⁶ They have the faces of human beings but the hearts of animals. Their ritual clothing and customs differ from those of the Central Lands; their diet is unlike ours and their language is unintelligible to us. They live far in the remote north, in a cold, dewy wilderness, following their livestock in search of pasture and subsisting by hunting with bows and arrows. They are separated from us by mountains and valleys, blocked by curtains of sand. This is the means by which heaven and earth have cut the outer lands off from the inner lands. Therefore, the sage-kings reared them like animals, neither making covenants with them nor attacking them. When we make peace covenants with them, we buy them off at much cost, only to be deceived. When we attack them, we exhaust our armies and invite more raids. Their land cannot be plowed to grow food and their people cannot be cultivated as subjects.

That is why [the sage-kings] treated them as those outside [the boundary] and not those inside, keeping them far off and not letting them come close. They neither granted these people their governance and teaching, nor granted their country the official calendar.⁷ They smote and repelled them when they came [to invade], and [merely] guarded and defended against them after they fled. When they presented tribute out of admiration for our morality, [the sage-kings] then welcomed them with ritual propriety and forbearance, bridling (jimi) them and not cutting them off entirely, ensuring that any moral failing would be on their part and not ours. This, I suppose, was the constant Way by which the sage-kings controlled the barbarians (Man-Yi).

From “Account of the Western Regions: Appraisal”

Moreover, those who would pass through the Western Regions face, on the near end, the [White] Dragon Dunes and, on the far end, the Onion Range (Pamir Mountains), as well as the barriers of the Fever Slopes, the Headache Mountains, and the Hanging Passages.⁸ The King of Huainan, Du Qin, and Yang Xiong all argued that this is the means by which heaven and earth have marked the boundaries between regions and cut the outer lands off from the inner lands.⁹ … [The countries of the Western Regions] are separated from the Han by a great distance; it would bring no benefit to us to gain control over them, and we would lose nothing by abandoning them. We possess a great enough bounty of moral charisma and need not seek more from ruling them.

Therefore, since the Jianwu era (25-56 CE) [of Emperor Guangwu], the Western Regions have longed for the awesome might and moral charisma of the Han. All their states have happily sought to submit to our rule. Only small cities like Shanshan and Jushi (Turpan) are situated close to the Xiongnu and are still under their yoke. The large countries like Suoju (Yarkand) and Yutian (Khotan) repeatedly sent envoys and hostages to the Han, requesting that we establish a protectorate over them. Our sagely emperor has considered ancient and recent history and accommodated the needs of the present.¹⁰ Bridling (jimi) them but not cutting them off entirely, he has declined their request. The great Yu who brought order to the western Rong; the Duke of Zhou who declined a tribute of a white pheasant; Taizong (Han Emperor Wen) who turned down a tribute of a fine horse: how could our emperor’s act be any less admirable than all these deeds combined?¹¹

From “Treatise on Geography”

Xuantu and Lelang [commanderies] were established in [Han] Emperor Wu’s time. Their people are all barbarians (Man-Yi) of Chaoxian (Joseon), the Hui (Ye) and Mo (Maek), and Gouli (Goguryeo). When the Yin (Shang) dynasty declined, Jizi left and went to Chaoxian, teaching its people ritual propriety and moral duty, farming, sericulture, and weaving.¹² … This humane worthy’s transformative influence [on them] was precious indeed! Because of it, the eastern Yi have an innately gentle and submissive nature (xing), unlike [the barbarians] in the three other quarters of the world. That is why, when Confucius lamented that the Way was not being practiced and made plans to sail out to sea, desiring to live among the Yi peoples, he had good reason for it!¹³

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1. These words are attributed to Shun in the Documents chapter “Shundian” (Canon of Shun). ↩︎
2. Quoting the ode “Bigong” (see source 1.1). ↩︎
3. This is a loose and decontextualized quotation of the Governor of Shen’s words about defensive lines in the Zuozhuan (see source 2.1). ↩︎
4. See source 2.2. ↩︎
5. A decontextualized quotation from the Gongyang commentary to the Annals (see source 1.5) that ignores the commentator’s larger point that an inside-outside distinction is only temporary because a “true king” would desire to unite the Chinese and barbarian lands. ↩︎
6. An allusion to Analects 14.17 (see source 1.3). ↩︎
7. Countries that paid tribute to the Chinese ruler could be granted the official lunar calendar as a reward for their submission. ↩︎
8. The Hanging Passages (xuandu) have been identified as the Hunza Valley in Gilgit-Baltistan. The Fever Slopes and Headache Mountains were landmarks in the same area, so named for causing altitude sickness in travelers. ↩︎
9. Ban Gu is misleading here. The King of Huainan, Liu An (see source 1.7), sought to dissuade Emperor Wu from attacking the Yue kingdoms in the south, but is not known to have made any arguments regarding the Central Asian frontier. Around 27 BCE, the Western Han official Du Qin advised Emperor Cheng (r. 33-7 BCE) not to maintain relations with the kingdom of Gandhara (Jibin), arguing that the barrier of the Hanging Passages would both prevent Gandhara from threatening Han interests in Central Asia and prevent the Han from asserting true authority over Gandhara. But Du Qin did not claim that heaven and earth had created the Hanging Passages as a boundary between the Han empire and the barbarians. Yang Xiong did identify the White Dragon Dunes as a boundary beyond which the Han should not expand (see source 2.5) but he too did not speak of them as a barrier ordained by heaven and earth. ↩︎
10. Emperor Zhang (r. 75-88 CE) ↩︎
11. The reference to Yu bringing order to the western Rong alludes to the “Yugong” (Tribute of Yu) chapter of the Documents (see source 2.2). For the story of the Duke of Zhou and the white pheasant tribute, see source 2.7, note 3. For the story of Emperor Wen turning down a fine horse, see source 2.4. ↩︎
12. According to legends current in the Han, a Shang nobleman named Jizi migrated to the Korean peninsula and founded the kingdom of Chaoxian (Joseon) during the waning years of the Shang dynasty, although Chaoxian was ruled by the grandson of a later Chinese refugee named Wei Man by the time the Han conquered it in 108 BCE. ↩︎
13. This alludes to Analects 5.7 and 9.14 (see source 1.3). Ban Gu assumes, incorrectly, that the Yi peoples were in the Korean peninsula and that Confucius was talking about going to live with them when he lamented the state of the world and expressed a desire to sail out to sea on a raft. ↩︎