The Influences Of Confucius' Thought On Han Dynasty

Our ancient social system had its great changes during the period of Chunqiu, the Confucius'thought was not suited to the social circumstances and not accepted by the rulers. The status of Confucianism, whose originator is Confucius, went up gradually after struggling with the thought of Taoists in the early days of Han Dynasty and Confucianism was set up as the official subject in the period of Emperor Wudi. As its status kept continuous steady, the thought of Confucius made a great influences upon political structure, law, morality and culture of Han Dynasty. It laid a steady foundation of civil government for the later society of China. it formed an interest group of hereditary system which took the study of Confucian classics as their political capital. It's quite popular that the government officials settled the lawsuit according to the Confucian classics, and regarded it as the highest judgment which led to the direct results that the judge act impetuously and at will, that broke the equality and objection of the law. As the status of filial piety went up and established, it was even mentioned in the same breath with The Spring and Autumn Annals of Wujing. Confucian classics also infiltrated into the system of Rites, a group of ministers who had a background of Confucian classics set up all kinds of system of protocol or reformed the traditional ones according to Confucian classics. The rulers thought it as the basic condition of becoming inheritor that if he had learned the masterpieces of Confucian classics. The rulers believed Wujing was the best and should be taught as the model for the dukes and princes, but the other various schools of thought and their exponents was unorthodox opinions.