Emperor Wu of Han

Emperor Wu of Han

Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87 BC), formally enshrined as Emperor Wu the Filial (Chinese: 孝武皇帝), born Liu Che (劉徹) and courtesy name Tong (通), was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty of ancient China, ruling from 141 to 87 BC. His reign lasted 54 years – a record not broken until the reign of the Kangxi Emperor more than 1,800 years later and remains the record for ethnic Chinese emperors. His reign resulted in a vast expansion of geopolitical influence for the Chinese civilization, and the development of a strong centralized state via governmental policies, economical reorganization and promotion of a hybrid Legalist–Confucian doctrine. In the field of historical social and cultural studies, Emperor Wu is known for his religious innovations and patronage of the poetic and musical arts, including development of the Imperial Music Bureau into a prestigious entity. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Emperor Wu of Han has received more than 1,056,352 page views. His biography is available in 62 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 59 in 2019). Emperor Wu of Han is the 542nd most popular politician (down from 520th in 2019), the 39th most popular biography from China (down from 38th in 2019) and the 20th most popular Chinese Politician.

Emperor Wu of Han is most famous for the establishment of Confucianism as the official state philosophy and the establishment of Confucian scholars as the ruling class of China.