"Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's standard of employing people is meritocracy, and during his reign, he issued two edicts to seek merit in the first year of Yuanguang and the fifth year of Yuanfeng."

"He discovered and tapped a lot of outstanding talents through these two consultations."

"The most typical representatives are Gongsun Hong and Dong Zhongshu."

"Gongsun Hong, who was born in poverty, participated in the first consultation of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and his essay was not valued by the examiners at first, and he was ranked last."

"But when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty personally read the papers, he found that Gongsun Hong's views were in line with his wishes, so he ranked Gongsun Hong's articles first."

"And immediately issued an edict to meet Gongsun Hong, the conversation between the two was very harmonious after meeting, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty valued Gongsun Hong's talent, and did not dislike him for getting older and older, and he has been reused since then."

In the fifth year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Gongsun Hong proposed and formulated measures to set up disciples for the "Doctor of the Five Classics", as well as formulated promotion methods and conditions for incumbent officials based on Confucian scriptures and etiquette. ”

"That is, it is mainly based on the general art and above, and the first to use the recitation more, among which the high grade can be appointed to the left and right internal history, the history of the Taixing pawn, and the low grade can also be appointed to the history of the county too shou or the history of the border county."

"Gongsun Hong also put the suffering of the border people in the first place, because he was born in poverty, and repeatedly proposed to strike the project of Nanyi and Canghai County, and finally got Emperor Wu's consent."

"He thinks that the cool officials are too cruel, and if they are appointed to the position of county warden, they will be unkind to the people."

"Therefore, he opposed Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to promote Ku Yanning to become a county guard, and he also put forward many good suggestions in the establishment of the central official school, the official evaluation system and the selection and recruitment of talents."

"Because of Gongsun Hong's contribution to the Han Dynasty, he later became the prime minister of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and he worked until he was nearly eighty years old before dying in office."

"Besides, Dong Zhongshu, he only appeared when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued the second edict to seek talents, because the Empress Dowager Dou, who was still old and hated Confucianism at the first time, was still alive, and he thought that the time was not ripe."

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty asked Dong Zhongshu three times in a row, and the basic content was the relationship between heaven and man, so it was called "three strategies of heaven and man".

In his countermeasures, Dong Zhongshu elaborated on the induction of heaven and man, discussed the relationship between divine power and monarchical power, and put forward the suggestion of "deposing the hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone". ”

"Dong Zhongshu's theory from the perspective of the ruler was deeply liked by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and gradually implemented in his later governance practice."

Moreover, the influence of "overthrowing a hundred schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone" on the national culture is particularly far-reaching, and the cultural thought represented by Confucianism has always been the mainstream culture of our country, which is entirely due to Dong Zhongshu. ”

"Besides, I don't need to say it to the generals, they are too famous, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing are famous heroes in the war against the Xiongnu, they conquered the Xiongnu Empire that the Han Dynasty has always feared for Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and made outstanding contributions to the expansion of the territory of the Han Dynasty and the opening of the Silk Road in the later period."

"It is especially worth noting that some of the generals appointed by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty are still Yue and Xiongnu."

"A captive of the Huns like Jin Riyan, a slave who had previously raised horses in the palace, was selected as the important minister of Tuogu together with Huo Guang and Shangguan Ji."

"In short, Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty reigned for fifty-four years, and adopted the method of reducing talents without sticking to one pattern, so that he was full of talents during his reign, thus creating the most prosperous period of the Western Han Dynasty."

"It's really the one who wins the talent and the world! Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's eloquence and martial arts made the Han Dynasty the most powerful country in the world at that time. ”

"Emperor Wu of the Inner Han Dynasty also issued a decree of tui'en, distributing a large number of fiefs to the sons of the princes and kings in order to weaken their power."

"Second, the centralization of power was strengthened, and two political institutions, the inner and outer dynasties, were set up, which were controlled by the emperor and the prime minister, respectively."

"Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty also set up the Imperial Historical Observatory and the Supervision Agency, and strengthened the supervision and management of officials."

"These are all political policies, of course, there are also economic ones, a "martial" word, a strong man, it shows that this country is inseparable from the war, and the war needs money! This is inseparable from economic development. ”

During the "reign of Wenjing", the Han Dynasty government accumulated a lot of wealth after decades of recuperation. ”

"During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, due to the continuous foreign conquest, many large-scale projects were built in China, which cost a lot of money, which caused a serious financial crisis."

"But Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty could not stop the construction of these wars and major projects, and he could not take the aspect of recuperation to solve the financial problems."

"In this regard, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty carried out a lot of economic and financial reforms to expand the sources of fiscal revenue."

"These fiscal measures brought abundant financial resources to the Han government, but they also caused some social problems."

"At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the state allowed the county to mint currency, and the people also made money privately."

"At that time, the county, the powerful, and the wealthy merchants occupied the copper mines to make money and make a fortune."

"The quality of these currencies varies, and some of them are grossly undervalued."

"The profiteers even scraped the copper scraps with files, which made the four-baht coins in the Han Dynasty thinner and thinner, and the value was seriously depreciated."

"In response to these phenomena, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty ordered a ban on private coinage, but the currency minted by the people was still in circulation until the beginning of Emperor Wu's rise to power."

"After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty came to power, he standardized the minting of currency."

"In the first year of the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty abolished the four-baht coin and implemented the three-baht coin."

"In the fifth year of Jianyuan, the four-baht money was restored."

"In the fourth year of Yuanzhen, in order to get the gold and silver in the hands of the princes and kings, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the princes and princes to use leather coins for the pilgrimage."

"The leather coin is the skin of the white deer in the royal forbidden garden, and the princes and clans must buy it in the royal family, and each deer skin is worth 400,000 yuan."

"This measure can indeed increase the source of finance, but it has made the currency circulating in the market even more chaotic, in addition to the four baht and three baht coins in the past, there are also platinum and leather coins."

"Less than a year after the order was issued, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty ordered the introduction of the five-baht coin to unify the various currencies."

"These measures of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty still cannot prohibit the private minting of currency."

"The Book of Han records that within five years after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented the five-baht coin, he pardoned hundreds of thousands of death row prisoners for privately coining money, and countless people were not pardoned."

"In order to completely monopolize the manufacture of currency, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set up the Shui Heng Duwei in the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty, and set up three officials: Junyi, Zhongguan and Copper."

"The agency mainly collects copper ore from all over the country and transports it to the central government for casting."

"In the same year, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued an order prohibiting the coinage rights of the county."

"This reform has put local copper resources in the hands of the central government, which has deprived the local government of the resources of private currency, and fundamentally stopped the spread of counterfeit money."

"After that, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty changed the phenomenon that the weight of the currency did not match the prescribed value in the past, and improved the process technology of currency production, so that the gains of those who made money privately outweighed the losses." (End of chapter)