first experts in the Legalist and Diplomatist texts were banned from govern-
ment positions; then in 136 b.c.e. the Erudites were reduced to five lecturers
on what henceforward became the paramount Confucian classics (Knoblock,
1988: 39–41).^11 A Confucian synthesis was put forward by one of the Erudites,
promoting simultaneously a divination scheme, a philosophical system, and
the new Confucian religion.
The individual whose fame arose through this intellectual coup is Tung
Chung-shu, although he was not alone in these maneuvers (CHC, 1986:
709–710; Knoblock, 1988: 38–39). Pre-Ch’in Confucian secularism was sub-
merged in Tung’s all-encompassing system of correspondences. The Five Agents
of the Yin-Yang school, not yet incorporated by the Confucian authors of the
Yi Ching Appendices, now were moralized into a social hierarchy: “Earth
serves Heaven with the utmost loyalty. Therefore the five agents are the actions
of filial sons and loyal ministers” (Chan, 1963: 279). The cosmos was moral-
ized and the human order described as a series of correspondences with natural
phenomena. Building on the doctrines of Tsou Yen’s school, Tung propounded
how each dynasty had its reigning element, its predominant color and quality;
government officials should have four ranks because there are four seasons.
These correspondences sanctioned establishing a bureaucratic structure, and
claimed for experts on natural portents a key place in government. All wrong-
doing by human officials, according to this theory of correspondences, was
connected to abnormalities in nature. Tung Chung-shu gave both a teleological
and a mechanistic explanation of the weather and other natural phenom-
ena, and incorporated many empirical observations along with references to
mythical creatures. Confucian officials were to scan both human and natural
worlds for signs of abnormalities and correct them by ritual and administrative
measures.
The intellectual effect of this realignment was to bring philosophy down to
a concrete and particularistic level. Divination systems bent philosophy to the
service of political legitimation and oriented intellectuals toward alliances with
political factions rather than toward the autonomy of intellectual issues. The
first Ch’in emperor adopted Tsou Yen’s system by taking water as the ruling
element of his new regime, replacing fire, the element of the Warring States
period. In the early Han, intellectual life was dominated by successive imperial
counselors propounding cosmological views as to what element (fire or water)
was the prevailing force of the new dynasty. The intellectual practice pioneered
by Tsou Yen and the Yin-Yang school now became Confucian practice as well.
To this drag on the intellectual world were added the liabilities of divination
on the political side: since portents could be manipulated by all political
factions, such as aspiring heirs or dissident branches of the nobility, they could
provide alternative legitimations carrying magical and emotional overtones
Innovation by Opposition: Ancient China^ •^155