Gongsun Hong

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Gongsun Hong was born in 200 BCE, the seventh year of Emperor Gaozu of Han, in Xue County of Zichuan Kingdom. As a young man he served as a prison clerk in Xue County but was dismissed after violating the law. Having lost his post and fallen into poverty, he made a living herding pigs near the coast. Only after the age of forty did he take up books and begin studying various interpretations of the Spring and Autumn Annals, eventually concentrating on the Gongyang Commentary. He was exceptionally filial toward his stepmother and observed three years of mourning after her death. During the reign of Emperor Jing of Han, the Erudite Huwu Sheng, an expert in Gongyang learning, returned to Qi in old age to teach, and Gongsun Hong repeatedly sought instruction from him.

First Summons and Setback

In the tenth lunar month of 140 BCE, the first year of the Jianyuan era, Emperor Wu ordered the recommendation of men deemed Worthy and Upright. At age sixty, Gongsun Hong was recommended by Zichuan Kingdom and went to Chang'an, where he was appointed Erudite. In Chang'an he met Yuan Gu, who had also been recommended and was then over ninety years old. Yuan Gu warned him to speak according to correct learning and not distort scholarship merely to flatter the age. Gongsun Hong was then sent on a mission to the Xiongnu. His report upon returning did not accord with Emperor Wu's expectations, and the emperor considered him incapable. Gongsun Hong therefore pleaded illness, left office, and returned home. For several years afterward he remained out of government.

Second Recommendation and Policy Examination

In the eighth lunar month of 130 BCE, the fifth year of the Yuanguang era, Emperor Wu again ordered the recommendation of men of worth and literary learning. The people of Zichuan Kingdom insisted on recommending Gongsun Hong, despite his reluctance, and he returned to the capital. More than one hundred candidates submitted policy responses under the Court of Imperial Sacrifices. That office initially ranked Gongsun Hong's response among the lower group, but Emperor Wu reviewed it and raised it to first place. After meeting Gongsun Hong and finding his appearance distinguished, the emperor appointed him Erudite and summoned him for service at the Golden Horse Gate. Gongsun Hong later submitted a memorial praising the government of the Duke of Zhou. When Emperor Wu asked in an imperial document how his abilities compared with those of the Duke of Zhou, Gongsun Hong replied that even a transformation within a single year would seem too slow to him, an answer that greatly surprised the emperor.

Rise in Office

After his service at the Golden Horse Gate, Gongsun Hong became Left Metropolitan Governor. At the time the Han government was extending its reach among the southwestern peoples, causing hardship in Ba and Shu. Emperor Wu sent Gongsun Hong to inspect the region, and after returning he strongly opposed continued expansion there. In 126 BCE, after Censor-in-chief Zhang Ou left office, Gongsun Hong succeeded him. He repeatedly advised ending the southwestern campaigns and abandoning Canghai Commandery. Emperor Wu ordered Zhu Maichen and others to challenge him with arguments for the benefits of creating Shuofang Commandery. Unable to answer, Gongsun Hong apologized and recommended concentrating resources on Shuofang instead. Ji An, Commandant of Nobles, once accused him in court of hypocrisy for using a cloth quilt despite holding high office. Gongsun Hong openly acknowledged the charge rather than defending himself, which Emperor Wu interpreted as humility and rewarded with even greater favor.

Appointment as Grand Councilor and Enfeoffment

On the yichou day of the eleventh lunar month in the fifth year of the Yuanshuo era, December 11, 125 BCE, Emperor Wu dismissed Xue Ze as Grand Councilor and appointed Gongsun Hong to the office, enfeoffing him as Marquis of Pingjin with a fief of 650 households in Pingjin Township of Gaocheng. This made him the first Western Han commoner to become Grand Councilor and receive a marquisate, establishing the precedent of honoring Grand Councilors with noble titles. Gongsun Hong opened the eastern gate of the chancellery to receive capable men and discuss state affairs with them. He memorialized in favor of prohibiting common people from carrying bows and crossbows, but Wuqiu Shouwang opposed the proposal and Gongsun Hong was unable to respond when questioned by the emperor. In 123 BCE, the kings of Huainan and Hengshan plotted rebellion. Gongsun Hong, then ill, requested resignation, but Emperor Wu refused, gave him cattle, wine, and cloth, and allowed him to resume office after several months of recovery.

Later Years and Death

Gongsun Hong was suspicious by temperament, outwardly generous but inwardly calculating. He recommended Dong Zhongshu as Chancellor of Jiaoxi Kingdom in part to remove him from court, and he proposed transferring Ji An to the office of Right Metropolitan Governor partly out of resentment. On the wuyin day of the third lunar month in the second year of the Yuanshou era, April 7, 121 BCE, Gongsun Hong died at the age of eighty and received the posthumous name Xian. His son Gongsun Du inherited the title Marquis of Pingjin but was later convicted of an offense. During the Yuanshi era under Emperor Ping of Han, an imperial edict praised Gongsun Hong's frugality and granted his descendants the rank of Marquis Within the Passes.

Early Life, Teachers and a Parting Gift

Gongsun Hong (200-121 BC), whose courtesy name was Ciqing (some say Ji), was a man of Xue in the kingdom of Zichuan. As a young man he served as a prison clerk at Xue, was dismissed for an offence against the law and, being poor, made a living herding pigs by the sea; only past forty did he take up his books to study the miscellaneous traditions of the Spring and Autumn, finally settling on the Gongyang commentary, of which the aged Erudite Humu Sheng, back teaching in Qi in Emperor Jing's time, was his frequent instructor. He served his stepmother with great filial piety and mourned her three years. Too poor to buy books, he cut bamboo in the grove where he herded pigs and copied texts on slips; Lu Wenshu similarly copied books on rushes, and the two were remembered for their diligence. When he was recommended to the capital a second time, his fellow-townsman Zou Changqian, seeing him poor, gave him his own clothes to wear, took off his shoes and cap for him, and presented him with a bundle of fresh grass, a length of undyed silk and a clay money-box, writing that the grass, though base, does not demean a gentleman — "a bundle of fresh grass, and the man is like jade"; that five threads make a unit, and the doubling of units shows how small things become great, so that a scholar's merit and fame are built likewise, whence the silk; and that the money-box, being clay with an inlet but no outlet, is smashed when full, so that a scholar who hoards and never gives out will meet the money-box's fate. The letter does not survive.

The First Summons and Its Setback

In the tenth month of the winter of the first year of Jianyuan (140 BC) the emperor ordered the court and the governors of the commanderies to recommend men of "worth and uprightness" and of "outspoken remonstrance", and Gongsun Hong, then sixty, was sent up by the kingdom of Zichuan as "worthy and good" and made an Erudite. In the capital he met Yuan Gu, likewise recommended and already over ninety, and, out of respect for age, did not dare look at him; Yuan Gu told him that "Master Gongsun, you must serve your lord according to the Confucian teaching, and not bend your learning to suit the world". At that time the Marquis of Weiqi and the Marquis of Wu'an favoured Confucianism, promoting Zhao Wan and Wang Zang, inviting the Duke of Shen from Lu, wishing to establish the Bright Hall, send the marquises to their fiefs, abolish the frontier passes and regulate dress by the rites; but the Empress Dowager Dou loved the words of Huang-Lao, and in the second year of Jianyuan, when Zhao Wan asked that memorials no longer be submitted to the eastern palace, she was enraged and drove out Zhao Wan and Wang Zang, dismissed the chancellor and the grand commandant, and the two marquises retired to their fiefs. Gongsun Hong was sent as envoy to the Xiongnu, and on his return what he reported did not please the emperor, who thought him incapable, whereupon he pleaded illness and went home.

The Examination of 130 BC and the First Place

In the fifth year of Yuanguang the emperor again called for the worthy and good, and the people of Zichuan insisted on sending Gongsun Hong, who, unable to refuse, came to the capital once more. Asked in the emperor's edict about the roots of Heaven and man, the signs of fortune and misfortune, the causes of the floods and droughts of Yu and Tang, and how benevolence, righteousness, ritual and wisdom should be applied, he answered that under Yao and Shun "men were not urged to goodness by rank nor restrained from crime by punishment", because the ruler "set the example of rectitude and met the people with good faith", while in a declining age "rich rank and heavy reward do not move men to goodness nor do deep punishments stop wickedness", for the ruler is not upright nor his dealings faithful; hence "neither rich reward nor heavy punishment suffices to encourage good and forbid wrong; good faith alone can". He then set out eight foundations of governing the people: appointing by ability, so that duties are well divided; discarding useless words, so that facts emerge; making no useless instruments, so that taxes are light; not seizing the farming seasons nor exhausting the people's strength, so that the people are rich; advancing the worthy and retiring the unworthy, so that the court is honoured; raising the meritorious and lowering the undeserving, so that ministers keep their distance; punishing according to the crime, so that wickedness ceases; and rewarding according to worth, so that officials are encouraged. He argued from "harmony", that like qi follows like and like sound answers like, so that if the ruler is harmonious in virtue above, the people are harmonious below — the heart harmonious, the qi is harmonious; the qi harmonious, the form; the form harmonious, the sound; and the harmony of Heaven and Earth responds; hence yin and yang in tune, wind and rain in season, sweet dew and abundant grain, "the utmost of harmony". He defined benevolence as loving, righteousness as fitting, ritual as what is trodden, and wisdom as the source of method, these four being "the root of government and the use of the Way". Finally he said that when Yao met the great flood he had Yu control it, and no flood of Yu's is heard of, while Tang's drought was the lingering flame of Jie, so that "Heaven's virtue knows no partial kin: with the compliant harmony arises, with the contrary harm is born". The grand master of ceremonies, reading the replies of more than a hundred worthies, thought Gongsun Hong's commonplace and ranked him last; but when the memorials were presented the emperor raised his to the first place and summoned him, and finding him old yet of handsome appearance made him once more an Erudite in attendance at the Golden Horse Gate. He memorialised in praise of the rule of the Duke of Zhou, saying that the emperor had "the position of a sage sovereign without the name, and the people of a sage sovereign without the officials"; asked how he compared with the Duke of Zhou, he answered that he was too shallow to compare himself with him, but that "a year and the change is wrought — and I, Hong, would still think it slow", at which the emperor marvelled.

Left Interior Secretary, the Southwest and Shuofang

At court discussions he would "set out the alternatives and let the sovereign choose, refusing to contradict or contend in the hall"; the emperor, observing his prudence, his powers of argument and his mastery of legal and administrative documents, which he adorned with Confucian learning, was pleased, so that "in two years he reached the office of left interior secretary". When the roads to the southwestern peoples were being opened and Shu was suffering, several years passing without the roads being completed and many dying, the emperor sent him to inspect; he returned and argued strongly against the enterprise, but the emperor did not agree. In the second year of Yuanshuo, after Wei Qing's campaign and the taking of the land south of the Yellow River, when the building of Shuofang was proposed and the ministers all objected, Gongsun Hong said that "in Qin's time three hundred thousand were once set to wall the northern bend of the river, and it could never be completed and was abandoned", but the emperor used Zhufu Yan's plan and established Shuofang. In the third year of Yuanshuo, when Zhang Ou was dismissed and Gongsun Hong made censor-in-chief, with roads to the southwest, the new Canghai commandery in the east and Shuofang in the north all under construction, he repeatedly remonstrated that this "exhausted China to serve useless lands", and the emperor had Zhu Maichen and others dispute the benefits of Shuofang, putting ten propositions to him of which he could not answer one; he then apologised, saying that he was a rustic of Shandong who had not known how advantageous it was, and asked that the southwestern and Canghai works be stopped to concentrate on Shuofang, which the emperor granted, Canghai being abolished that spring and the southwestern works after nine years. The Book of Balance records that the roads cost tens of thousands of labourers, that grain had to be carried a thousand li at ten measures to deliver one, that the building of Shuofang used more than a hundred thousand men, and that "all Shandong bore the toil" and the treasury was emptied. He also opposed the restoration of Ning Cheng as a governor, saying that his rule was "like a wolf herding sheep"; and he urged the execution of Zhufu Yan, saying that "the King of Qi killed himself without heirs and his state became a commandery; Yan was the chief criminal, and unless he is executed Your Majesty cannot answer to the realm", whereupon Zhufu Yan was put to death with his clan. In the case of the knight-errant Guo Xie, when the officials reported him innocent, Gongsun Hong held that "Xie, a commoner, practised chivalry and wielded power, killing for the least grudge; though he did not know of it, his crime is greater than if he had killed the man himself", and Guo Xie was put to death with his clan.

Chancellor, Patron of Worthies and Feuds at Court

Ji An accused him in open court of "sitting among the three excellencies with a large salary yet using a cloth quilt", which was hypocrisy; Gongsun Hong admitted it, saying that none of the nine ministers was closer to him than Ji An, that the accusation had truly touched his fault, and that "but for Ji An's loyalty Your Majesty would not hear these words"; the emperor, taking it for modesty, favoured him the more, and he became chancellor and Marquis of Pingjin. Since Han practice had been to make marquises chancellors and he had no title, the emperor decreed that "six hundred and fifty households of the Pingjin township of Gaocheng" be given him, and thereafter it became the rule that a chancellor be enfeoffed, "the enfeoffment of chancellors beginning with Hong". In office he built a hostel and opened the eastern court to welcome worthies and consult them, and practised frugality as an example: "one meat to a meal, husked rice", his salary going to dependants and guests, "nothing left in the house". The Miscellany of the Western Capital describes three hostels — one for the greatly worthy, one for great talent, one for men of a single skill — while his old friend Gao He, given husked rice and a cloth quilt, complained and spread word that Gongsun Hong wore fine silk within and hemp without and had five cauldrons in his kitchen but one dish on his table, so that the court suspected him of pretence, and he sighed that "rather meet a bad guest than an old friend". Ji An attacked the Confucians for "harbouring deceit and adorning cleverness to win their lord", and Gongsun Hong, as chancellor, advised that the right interior secretaryship, covering the noble and royal houses, needed a man of weight, and had Ji An moved there. To Dong Zhongshu he was hostile, and because the Prince of Jiaoxi, Liu Duan, was murderous and had killed several chancellors, he recommended that only so great a scholar as Dong Zhongshu could fill the post. When Bu Shi offered half his fortune for the frontier, Gongsun Hong said that "this is not human nature; a man outside the rules cannot be made an example, for he would disturb the law", and the emperor did not answer him. His proposal to forbid the people to carry crossbows, since "ten robbers with crossbows and a hundred officers dare not advance", was answered by Wujiu Shouwang, who argued from the ancient purposes of weapons, the decline of Zhou and the fall of Qin, and from the rite of the great archery, that good men need bows for defence, and that "to forbid them vexes the wicked and takes from the people their means of help"; the emperor put this to him and he yielded. He once agreed a proposal with the ministers and then, before the emperor, went back on it to suit the imperial wish, and Ji An accused him of deceit; he answered that "those who know me count me loyal, those who do not count me disloyal", and the emperor approved, favouring him the more whenever favourites slandered him. The King of Huainan, contemplating rebellion, feared Ji An as "a man who loves blunt remonstrance and would die for right, not to be tempted by unjust means", but said that to persuade the chancellor would be "like lifting a cover or shaking down a withered leaf".

Institutionalising Confucianism, Illness and Death

In the fifth year of Yuanshuo (124 BC) he proposed and drafted the establishment of discipleships for the Erudites of the Five Classics and the rules by which serving officials should be promoted and appointed on the standard of Confucian learning and ritual: fifty disciples for the Erudites, chosen by the grand master of ceremonies from men of eighteen and over of upright appearance; an unlimited number of "attending as disciples" recommended by commanderies and counties as "fond of letters, respectful to elders, reverent toward government teaching, obedient in their districts"; an annual examination after which those who understood one classic filled vacancies as literary assistants, the best becoming palace gentlemen, the dull and those understanding no classic being dismissed; and appointment on the standard of understanding one classic or more, preference to those who could recite most, the higher ranks to the left and right interior secretaries and the grand masters' staffs, the lower to the prefectural or frontier prefectural staffs. In the sixth year of Yuanshuo, when the kings of Huainan and Hengshan rebelled and their associates were being prosecuted, he fell gravely ill and could not attend to business. Feeling that he had been enfeoffed without merit and that the princes' treason showed the chancellor's unfitness, and fearing to die without discharging his duty, he asked to surrender his marquisate and retire, discoursing on the five universal relations and the three universal virtues of wisdom, benevolence and courage, and on the sayings that "the practice of them is near to benevolence, the love of asking near to wisdom, the sense of shame near to courage", and that "self-government must precede the government of others". The emperor answered that "of old merit was rewarded and virtue honoured, and in keeping what is won letters are prized while in adversity arms are put first", that "if you, my lord, walk carefully, I am ever at your side", and bade him take thought and medicine, granting him leave with oxen, wine and silk; in a few months he recovered and returned to duty. In the third month of the second year of Yuanshou (121 BC) he died in office at eighty with the posthumous name Xian; his son Gongsun Du inherited the marquisate and lost it after some ten years as governor of Shanyang. Under Emperor Ping, in the Yuanshi era, his descendants were again granted the rank of marquis within the passes with three hundred households, the decree praising him as one who, "though a chancellor and a marquis, used a cloth quilt and husked rice and gave his salary to old friends and guests, leaving nothing", unlike "those who are rich within and wear strange clothes without to fish for empty praise". Of his tomb, the Tale for the Long Night places it northwest of the Maoling, while excavation has shown it to lie some distance west of the Maoling; in December 1982 the Xianyang government designated a round mound a kilometre south of Chenwang village in Nanwei township, Xingping, as his tomb, though archaeologists have not settled the matter, and the mound was badly damaged in the Cultural Revolution. A Zichuan tradition places the tomb fifteen li south of the county seat at Gongsun village, with a broken stele and a rebuilding by a magistrate in the Jiajing period; in March 2009 a survey found the site at Hansheng village in Longquan township, whose older name was Gongsun village and whose bridge was once called the Pingjin bridge. A terrace at Chengfu hill in Weixian is also said to mark his place of study.

Major Activities

Literary Contributions

Gongsun Hong was credited with ten chapters titled Gongsun Hong, now lost. He specialized in the Gongyang Commentary. His examination response systematically presented Confucian ideas of government, emphasizing benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and wisdom as foundations of rule and advocating the appointment of officials according to ability and the avoidance of disruptions to the agricultural calendar. Emperor Wu ranked the response first, and Gongsun Hong's career helped expand the role of Confucian learning in government.

Political Activity

After becoming Grand Councilor, Gongsun Hong opened the eastern gate of the chancellery to receive talented men and participated in major policy decisions. He opposed continued expansion among the southwestern peoples and the creation of Canghai Commandery, and advocated concentrating state resources on Shuofang. He memorialized for restrictions on common possession of bows and crossbows but was unable to answer Wuqiu Shouwang's objections. His recommendations concerning Dong Zhongshu and Ji An also reflected personal rivalries.

Travels and Places

Gongsun Hong herded pigs near the coast in his youth, later went to Chang'an in response to imperial recommendations, traveled as an envoy to the Xiongnu, and was also sent to inspect the southwestern regions. His movements therefore extended across Qi, Guanzhong, Ba, and Shu.

Relations with Contemporaries

Gongsun Hong had scholarly ties with Yuan Gu and Huwu Sheng. He was at odds with Dong Zhongshu and Ji An, debated court policy with officials such as Zhu Maichen, and disputed policy with Wuqiu Shouwang.

The Philosophy of Harmony and His Programme of Government

The highest category in Gongsun Hong's thought was harmony. He held that any two things are at once opposed and united, and that the basis of their union is harmony: in politics ruler and people are opposed, yet if the ruler "harmonises in virtue" the people will be harmonious, reaching a peace under heaven; in the individual, heart, breath, form and voice are opposed, yet if the heart is harmonious the breath is, and so the form, and so the voice. Linking man with Heaven and Earth, he concluded that "when the voice is harmonious the harmony of Heaven and Earth responds", reaching the union of Heaven and man. Harmony, he held, exists in nature as well as society — "when yin and yang are harmonious, wind and rain are in season, sweet dew descends, the five grains ripen, the six domestic animals multiply, auspicious grain springs up, vermilion grass grows, the hills are not bare nor the marshes dry: this is the utmost of harmony" — and only a ruler who grasps harmony can bring about the appearance of the phoenix and the unicorn, the dragon in the marshes, the chart from the Yellow River and the writing from the Luo, and the homage of distant princes. From harmony he drew eight points on governing the people, in effect two: that the state should be frugal, lighten taxes and spare the people's strength, giving them good conditions of production and life; and that office should be given by ability, the worthy advanced and reward and punishment made clear, so that each office is properly filled. Rulers, he held, must first win the people's trust, and only by "giving them work, ordering things rightly, observing the rites and loving them" can the people be kept "from contention, from resentment, from violence, and attached to their rulers"; ritual and righteousness alone are not enough, and only with reward and punishment "in accord" will the people refrain from breaking the law, whence his conclusion that "law is not far from righteousness and harmony not far from ritual" — joining ritual and righteousness to penal law. By nature his thought neither denies benevolence and righteousness nor ignores law; he affirms virtue and holds that "Heaven's virtue knows no partial kin: with the compliant harmony arises, with the contrary harm is born" — a fairly typical Confucian position, into which he wove the methods of the Legalists, so that he was neither purely Confucian nor purely Legalist. On the frontier he was conservative: from his first embassy to the Xiongnu, whose report displeased the emperor, through his inspection of the southwest and his opposition to the roads, to his resistance to the commanderies of Canghai, Shuofang and Wuyuan, he always put the hardships of the frontier people first, repeatedly asking that the frontier works be halted. In the third year of Yuanshuo, newly made censor-in-chief, he again proposed stopping the works in the southwest, Canghai, Shuofang and Wuyuan; defeated in argument by Zhu Maichen, he still would not give up, retreating to agree to Shuofang while asking that the southwestern and Canghai works cease, which the emperor granted.

Writings, His Service to Confucian Learning and Later Judgments

Gongsun Hong composed ten chapters, listed among the Confucian writers in the bibliographical treatise of the History of the Han, now lost; he was a deep student of the Gongyang commentary and set out Confucian principles of government in his examination answer, which the emperor raised to the first place. The disciple regulations and the rules for promotion by classical learning which he drafted in 124 BC made the promotion of letters and learning a lasting ordinance. Later judgments differ: the History of the Han's postface describes him as "scrupulous, late to enter the golden gate, and once in rank and title giving his emoluments to worthies, clad in cloth and eating coarse food, by frugality correcting himself"; Xun Yue, discussing the three rovers of the age — the knight-errant, the rhetorician and the wanderer of reputation — called them the robbers of virtue and the source of disorder. Wang Fuzhi, in his discourses on the Comprehensive Mirror, said on the one hand that "Gongsun Hong asked for the execution of Guo Xie, and the harm of the knights-errant did not spread through the realm: magnificent indeed", noting that chivalry arose because "the state could not nourish the people and the knights did"; and on the other hand criticised him for "adorning administrative business with Confucian learning", holding him no true Confucian. The Records of Reading History defended him, saying that "it was by Gongsun Hong's strength that Emperor Wu promoted Confucian learning; he asked for the disciples of the Erudites and graded them to fill the offices of palace gentleman and literary assistant, and made those who understood one classic eligible for appointment, so that the institution of encouraging learning descended to all ages. Its origin was his, and he may be called a benefactor of classical learning; the world merely takes his crooked learning and false feeling to belittle his chancellorship, and does not record his merit — which is no balanced judgment". Others mocked him in verse, saying that his cleverness sufficed to gloss over wickedness and please his age, in contrast to the uprightness of Dong Zhongshu and Yuan Gu, and that "let them laugh or scold as they will, the good official keeps his place" — men like him being found in every age. Under Emperor Ping and in the dowager empress's decree, however, he was praised for "remaining a chancellor in a cloth quilt with husked rice and but one meat, restraining himself within and conforming without", unlike "those who are lavish within and wear strange clothes without to fish for empty praise".

His Manner of Service and Character

Gongsun Hong's way of conducting himself under Emperor Wu is instructive. At court discussions he "set out the alternatives and let the sovereign choose, refusing to contradict or contend in the hall", never quarrelling to a man's face but laying out options for the emperor to take or leave; and he "mastered legal and administrative documents, adorning them with Confucian learning", so that he was taken as the type of one who "adorns administrative business with Confucian learning". He was adept at suiting the times and the imperial wish: having agreed a proposal with his colleagues, he would go back on it before the emperor to comply with his wishes, and when Ji An accused him in open court of the deceit of the men of Qi, he answered that "those who know me count me loyal, those who do not count me disloyal", which the emperor approved. Outwardly generous and inwardly deep, he bore grudges: his recommendation of Dong Zhongshu to be chancellor of Jiaoxi and his proposal to move Ji An to the right interior secretaryship contained an element of pushing them out, while in the cases of Zhufu Yan and Guo Xie he urged severity. In his person he remained in a cloth quilt and ate husked rice as chancellor, so that Ji An suspected him of pretence, while the History of the Han and the decree of the Yuanshi era judged him to have "reduced himself below the standard and led the way in solid customs", unlike "those who are lavish within and wear strange clothes without to fish for empty praise".

Two Images in Later Historiography

Later judgments present two images. One attends to his conduct: Sima Qian in his biographies of the Marquis of Pingjin and Zhufu Yan records that "his conduct of righteousness, though cultivated, also met the times", and that "the Han had flourished more than eighty years, and the emperor inclined to letters, summoning men of talent to spread Confucian learning, and Hong stood first among those recommended"; the History of the Han's postface describes him as "scrupulous, late to enter the golden gate, and once in rank giving his emoluments to worthies, clad in cloth and eating coarse food, by frugality correcting himself". The other attends to his mind: Zhu Xi and Wang Fuzhi criticised him for "crooked learning to suit the world" and for "adorning administrative business with Confucian learning", Li Zhi listed him among the "pleasing ministers", while the Records of Reading History defended him, that "it was by Gongsun Hong's strength that Emperor Wu promoted Confucian learning... the world merely takes his crooked learning and false feeling to belittle his chancellorship, and does not record his merit — which is no balanced judgment". Modern scholars such as Qian Mu take him as representative of the "commoner as minister", holding that his chancellorship and marquisate mark the opening of Han government to commoners, while Lü Simian judged his examination answer to have "no striking insight, yet to fit the times", affirming his political practicality. Both images rest on the same body of fact, differing in whether they weigh his conduct or his mind.

The Significance of the Erudite Discipleships

The system of discipleships for the Erudites which Gongsun Hong drafted was the beginning of official education under the Han. The chapter on Confucian scholars in the History of the Han records his rule that "at the end of a year each shall be examined, and those who understand one classic or more shall fill the vacancies of literary assistants, the highest grades becoming palace gentlemen, the grand master of ceremonies reporting their names; those of exceptional talent shall be specially reported; and those who do not study, or are of inferior capacity, or cannot understand one classic, shall be dismissed, while those who can be recommended shall take their places". Thereafter the Imperial College grew steadily and Confucian scholars became one of the chief sources of officials, so that "understanding the classics" was directly joined to "entering office", furnishing a precedent for the later selection of officials by classical learning. His contemporary Dong Zhongshu is famous for "rejecting the hundred schools and honouring the Six Classics", but it was Gongsun Hong who turned Confucian learning into a workable system of training and appointment — the basis for the judgment in the Records of Reading History that "it was by Gongsun Hong's strength that Emperor Wu promoted Confucian learning".

Personal Relations

• Teachers and associates: Huwu Sheng, from whom he studied Gongyang learning; Yuan Gu, who was recommended with him and admonished him on scholarly integrity
• Ruler–subject: Emperor Wu of Han, who repeatedly promoted and relied on him
• Colleagues: Zhu Maichen, with whom he debated policy; Wuqiu Shouwang, who opposed one of his proposals
• Conflicts: Dong Zhongshu, whom he sought to remove from court; Ji An, who accused him of hypocrisy
• Family: Gongsun Du, his son and successor to the marquisate

Historical Assessment

Han Period / Contemporaries

• Ji An accused Gongsun Hong of occupying one of the highest offices and receiving a large salary while still using a cloth quilt, calling this deceptive behavior, according to the Book of Han.
• An edict of Emperor Ping of Han praised Gongsun Hong for holding the grand councilorship and a marquisate while eating coarse food and using simple bedding, and for spending his salary on old friends and guests rather than accumulating wealth.
• Sima Qian included him in the biography of the Marquis of Pingjin in the Records of the Grand Historian and described him as suspicious by nature, outwardly broad-minded but inwardly calculating.

Wei–Jin Through Tang

• Liu Xie, in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, praised Gongsun Hong's examination response as sound in principle and elegant in diction.
• Histories compiled in the Tang, including the Book of Jin, largely followed the accounts in the Records of the Grand Historian and Book of Han and treated him as a model of the commoner who rose to the grand councilorship.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang recorded Gongsun Hong's career in the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance without offering a distinctive judgment.
• Zhu Xi criticized him in the Classified Conversations of Master Zhu for bending scholarship to flatter the age and regarded him as flattering Emperor Wu.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wang Fuzhi, in Du Tongjian Lun, criticized him for using Confucian learning to ornament bureaucratic practice and did not regard him as a true Confucian.
• Li Zhi, in Cangshu, placed him among ministers skilled at pleasing rulers and considered him adept at ingratiation.

Modern Period

• Qian Mu, in Outline of National History, treated Gongsun Hong as a representative “commoner minister” whose rise to the grand councilorship and marquisate symbolized the increasing openness of Han government to men of non-aristocratic background.
• Lü Simian, in History of the Qin and Han, judged that Gongsun Hong's policy answers lacked striking originality but suited the needs of the time, emphasizing his political pragmatism.