班至 / Ban Zhi (Western Han)

Overview

班至 / Ban Zhi enters the wiki as the Guangping chancellor in Hanji 625 whose refusal or failure to report auspicious signs becomes dangerous under 王莽’s praise-heavy 5 CE court. His survival depends on 王政君’s distinction between non-praise and disaster fabrication, plus his own visible retreat into a lower cemetery-guard role.

Current Profile

The current source presents Ban Zhi as a nonconforming official rather than an open rebel. He does not join the courtwide production of auspicious reports and praise songs, which makes him vulnerable once 甄丰 encourages local accusations against him and 公孙洪.

Ban Zhi survives because his case has a protectable boundary. Wang Zhengjun remembers his family link to 班婕妤 and says that failing to publicize virtue is not the same as fabricating disaster reports. Ban Zhi then reads Gongsun Hong’s death as a warning, thanks the court, returns his chancellor seal, and asks to serve at Emperor Cheng’s Yanling. The episode treats this as survival through lowered visibility, not vindication of innocence by normal law.

Key Characteristics

• Guangping chancellor whose nonparticipation in auspicious reporting becomes politically exposed.
• Ban-family figure protected indirectly through Wang Zhengjun’s memory of Ban Jieyu.
• Survival case where an official avoids death by accepting demotion and reducing political visibility.
• Contrast figure to Gongsun Hong, whose more dangerous disaster talk and lack of protection end in execution.

Evidence

• Nonparticipation in praise: Hanji 625 says Ban Zhi never reports Guangping auspicious signs or local songs to the court.
• Accusation channel: Hanji 625 says Zhen Feng has subordinates induce local accusations against Ban Zhi and Gongsun Hong.
• Dowager distinction: Hanji 625 says Wang Zhengjun separates Ban Zhi’s non-praise from Gongsun Hong’s disaster-report accusation.
• Visible retreat: Hanji 625 says Ban Zhi thanks the court, returns his chancellor seal, and asks to serve as a Yanling yuanlang.

Qualifications

This page is source-bounded to Hanji 625. It does not reconstruct Ban Zhi’s full career, the exact legal status of the accusation, or whether his silence came from principle, caution, administrative habit, or factional distance.

What Changed

• Created from Hanji 625 as the official who survives praise-politics danger through dowager protection and visible retreat.

Relationships

• 王莽 - dominant power whose praise environment makes Ban Zhi’s nonparticipation risky.
• 王政君 - senior dowager whose intervention distinguishes Ban Zhi’s case and enables survival.
• 班婕妤 - family link that helps Wang Zhengjun recognize Ban Zhi as protectable.
• 公孙洪 - contrast official whose accusation ends in execution.
• 甄丰 - Wang Mang-aligned official who pushes the accusation channel.
• 颂圣不合群风险 - mechanism that explains why Ban Zhi’s silence becomes danger.
• 安全第一政治生存 - broader survival frame for Ban Zhi’s retreat.