1. Allegedly, Emperor Jing, father of Emperor Wu, had a dream in which the late Emperor Gaozu suggested this name. Zhi means "pig", "hog".
2. Had his name changed into the more suitable Che when he was officially made crown prince in April 150 BC.
3. This courtesy name is reported by Xun Yue (荀悅) (148-209), the author of Records of the Han Dynasty (漢紀), but other sources do not mention a courtesy name.
Emperor Wu of Han (156 BC*–March 29, 87 BC), personal name Liu Che, was the sixth emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty, ruling from 141 BC to 87 BC. A military compaigner, Han China reached its greatest expansion under his reign, spanning from Kyrgyzstan in the west, Northern Korea in the Northeast, to Northern Vietnam in the south. He was best known for his role in expelling the nomadic Xiongnu from the boundary of China. The Han people named themselves after him.
Emperor Wu adopted the principles of Confucianism as the state philosophy and code of ethics for his empire. He started a school to teach future administrators the Confucian classics.
Emperor Wu dispatched his envoy Zhang Qian in 139 BC to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi of modern Uzbekistan. Zhang returned in 123 BC and Emperor Wu then sent many missions per year to Central Asia.
During the end of his reign, his power was severely weakened. Open war broke out between rival families of the Empress Wei and the Li clan. The Li family killed most of Empress Wei's family and forced Empress Wei to commit suicide; during this time, Wu was forced to flee. In the end, Wu was too weak to even name his own successor, who was chosen two days before Wu's death.
HanWudi, son of Emperor Jin, carried out a series of reforms and devoted himself to military conquests and territorial expansion.
HanWudi's most important military campaigns were against the Hun, an ancient tribe that lived in North China who posed a powerful threat to the Han Empire.
As a military campaigner, Emperor Wu brought Han China to its greatest expansion, with borders spanning from Kyrgyzstan in the west, Northern Korea in the Northeast, to Northern Vietnam in the south.
The Han ambassador Tang Meng (唐蒙) was able to secure the submission of these tribal kingdoms by giving their kings gifts, and Emperor Wu established the Commandery of Jianwei (犍為, headquarters in modern Yibin, Sichuan) to govern over the tribes, but eventually abandoned it after being unable to cope with native revolts.
Later that year, one of the co-kings of Minyue (modern Fujian), Luo Yushan, fearful that Han would next attack his kingdom, made a preemptive attack against Han, capturing a number of towns in the former Nanyue and in the other border commanderies.
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