In my dissertation I reconstruct the social status and political power that Han Confucians as a group possessed through a statistical investigation of the social origins, intellectual orientation, and patterns of advancement of high officials from Emperor Wu's reign till the end of Western Han dynasty. In a finding that contradicts the dominant assertion that Emperor Wu promoted Confucians to power, I demonstrate that they amounted to a tiny minority in the upper levels of the bureaucracy. Socially and politically weak, Confucians painfully navigated officialdom, competing with powerful officials who had enjoyed power and privileges for generations. Sima Qian skillfully reproduced this struggle when he wrote "The Collective Biographies of Confucians" (Rulin liezhuan) in The Grand Scribe's Records (Shiji). Not until Emperor Xuan came to power, approximately twenty years after Emperor Wu's reign, did Confucians gradually become a fairly competitive group in the high levels of officialdom. During the transition between Emperor Wu and Emperor Zhao, membership of the upper-level ruling class had undergone fundamental changes. The most powerful official families who had dominated the court for decades were almost all eradicated during the witchcraft scandal towards the end of Emperor Wu's rule. Under the regency of Huo Guang and Emperor Xuan, a new ruling class, among whom was a group of Confucians, rose to fill this power vacuum and entrenched their positions in the high levels of bureaucracy until Wang Mang usurped the Han throne.
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