Historical Culture Investigation Of The “Yellow-Family” Prophesy In The Late Han Dynasty

The “five virtues” theory had became official ideology in the period of the first Emperor of Qin Dynasty,but it wasn’t significant in the following earlier Han Dynasty,so that Emperors of earlier Han Dynasty hadn’t integrated different kinds of claims of Han’s virtue.Although the reform of Emperor the Wu had made yellow the noblest color,it didn’t mean that the crown had determined the “earth” as dynasty’s virtues,which was only a homage to Huangdi the Great.Only after Liu xiang,a great scholar majoring in the “five virtues” theory in the Late Western Han Dynasty,made reexplain of that theory and Liu xin,son of Liuxiang,developed a theory that Han dynasty’s virtue was “fire” as Yao the Great’s line,the “five virtues” theory became official ideology again.Wangmang used that theory for his campaign to purchase the crown and he succeed,so he implement this theory into National Sacrifice,so that theory had became more and more significant in official academic.The following Eastern Han Dynasty’s Emperors didn’t have great material power as their predecessors of Western Han Dynasty due to absence of the crown’s finance,so they changed their ruling strategy—they payed more attention to spiritual rule rather than material rule.Chenwei was a significant measure of spiritual ruling,so which acquired high academical position in Eastern Han Dynasty.There was a nationwide publishing of Chenwei during the ruling of Emperor the guangwu,but that publishing couldn’t make the Chenwei finial shaped,which was still growing during the Eastern Han Dynasty according to the cite of Chenwei of Eastern Han Dynasty’s scholars.Those non-Confucianism schools suppressed by “Confucianism Only” culture policy seen the still-growing Chenwei book as a significant opportunity to get official acknowledgement again,so they had tried every means to put their theory into the Chenwei book.Meanwhile they have to acknowledge the “five virtues” theory and cite it.So,the Chenwei books had became new text carrier of “five virtues” theory.Under the dark and atrocious reign of Emperor’s court,those scholar-officials who had suffered most form royal court’s rule had been growing an unorthodox thought to rebel the Emperor.They had tried to discover theorical proof and spiritual weapon form the Chenwei book,and Zhengxuan was a representative scholar among those men.They finally lifted the “yellow-family” Prophecy from the Chenwei book as their flag against Han Emperor.Meanwhile the growth of Chenwei book,the Ghost Theory,the origin of primordial Taoism,also had been slipping into the Chenwei book.Through the introduction of Chenwei,the primordial Taoism had accepted the“five virtues” theory,which was scholar-officials’ theory originally.During the social chaos of late Eastern Han Dynasty,the primordial Taoist had propagandized the“yellow-family” prophecy to the lower society,and they accepted that prophecy which originally only supported by scholar-officials.Then,the “yellow-family”prophecy had became a common view and an anti-emperor weapon range high society to lower society.As a result of that,the Eastern Han Dynasty had collapsed in the appeal and hail to the “yellow-family”.