population of the capital came to watch a wrestling competition three
years later.^20 The party atmosphere for foreign envoys was no doubt
helped by the“pools of wine and forests of meat”that accompanied the
Hundred Events.^21 A visit to the Han court allowed the emperor to display
the wealth, culture, and power of his empire and to provide an attractive
reward for envoys who cooperated with his wishes.
The sheer wealth of the Han emperor was probably stunning, but it was
also in keeping with more general rules of hospitality and etiquette. Foreign
envoys could see the Hundred Events as a display of military power. All
the martial arts displayed were familiar to them, forming a common cultural
touchstone that could be appreciated across differences in language and
custom. The very fact that the imperial court and the surrounding citizenry
all enjoyed martial competitions demonstrated the martial orientation of
the Han dynasty itself. These were not effete, sedentary littérateurs, but
martial men, who knew and valued martial skills. A skilled martial artist
could get noticed and rewarded at the Han imperial court and in Han
society. The performance of the martial arts for foreign envoys thus served
very directly to impress the martial vitality of the Han dynasty on its guests.
Wrestling was particularly associated with non-Han or non-Chinese men.
A belt ornament unearthed from a Han tomb in 1955 showed a struggle
between two wrestlers. The wrestlers have large noses and deep-set eyes,
clear indicators that they are not Chinese. For visiting foreign envoys, then,
the inclusion of wrestling may also have shown Chinese openness or appre-
ciation of foreign culture. A markedly Central Eurasian martial art was one
of the most avidly practiced and watched competitive events at the Han
imperial court. The Han court may have inherited this interest from the Qin
dynasty court, or perhaps wrestling had thoroughly permeated elite and
popular Chinese culture by the third and second centuriesbce.Chinese
culture and martial practice, we should keep in mind, was often quite
open to foreign and Central Eurasian influence. Wrestling, like the use of
chariots in warfare and cavalry, came from Central Eurasia and the steppe.
A wrestling competition was therefore a sign of cosmopolitanism at the Han
court and a marked lack of Chinese exclusion of foreign martial arts.
Wrestling was also useful outside the Hundred Events. Jin Midi, a
Xiongnu who had formerly been Heir Apparent of the Xiongnu king
Xiuchu and was subsequently forced into Han service as a teenager after
his father’s defeat, rendered his most important service to Han emperor
Wudi by preventing Mu Heluo and his brother Mu Tong from assassinat-
ing the emperor. Jin encountered Mu Heluo, armed with a knife hidden in
his sleeve, on his way to attack the emperor. Jin was able to seize Mang and
The Han Dynasty Hundred Events and Martial Arts 67