田延年 / Tian Yannian (Western Han)

Overview

田延年 / Tian Yannian enters the wiki through Hanji 412-1 as a trusted 霍光 confidant whose rapid Western Han rise ends in suicide after a corruption case. Hanji 407 now backfills why that trust matters: Tian is already the subordinate Huo consults when deciding whether and how to depose 刘贺, and he supplies both the Yi Yin precedent and the Weiyang Palace coercive push. Hanji 412-1 then makes the decisive later issue his denial to Huo Guang after evidence of embezzlement emerges.

Current Profile

Tian Yannian’s career is built on Huo Guang’s confidence. Hanji 407 shows him in the inner strategic position before the later office record: Huo asks him what to do about Liu He, Tian advises using the empress dowager to replace the ruler, and then frames Huo as a Han version of Yi Yin by citing Taijia’s removal. The same source also shows Tian as an enforcer of consensus: at the Weiyang Palace meeting, he threatens to execute the last minister who refuses to respond. Hanji 412-1 then explains the career built on that trust: Huo Guang recruited capable young men into his府 team, promoted Tian from ordinary staffer to longshi, and later gave him a high-risk first local post as Hedong taishou. Tian’s Hedong service is remembered as administratively effective but harsh: the episode says he selected capable people, punished local strongmen, and made wrongdoers afraid, while noting that Ban Gu placed him in the cruel-official tradition.

His fall comes while serving as da sinong during Han Zhaodi’s sudden death. The court lacks prepared mausoleum materials, merchants have stockpiled valuable funeral supplies, and Tian solves the immediate shortage by charging them with profiting from imperial death and confiscating the goods. The merchants then retaliate by exposing a more concrete fraud: Tian allegedly rents thirty thousand ox carts at one thousand cash each while reporting two thousand each to the court, pocketing about thirty million cash.

The episode’s core judgment is that Tian’s fatal mistake is relational as well as legal. Huo Guang asks him about the accusation, and Tian denies it. Once Huo Guang knows he has lied, the case is no longer only whether a patron can cover corruption. It becomes whether Huo can preserve an information order in which close subordinates tell him the truth. When Tian Guangming probes through 杜延年 about whether Tian Yannian’s past merit can justify a fine, Huo Guang signals public procedure instead of protection; Tian then kills himself.

Key Characteristics

• Huo Guang confidant whose rise depends on personal trust, staff proximity, high-stakes political usefulness, and exceptional promotion.
• Deposition-planning adviser who gives Huo Guang a Yi Yin precedent and helps force ministerial alignment.
• Effective but harsh administrator, with the episode placing his Hedong service near the cruel-official tradition.
• Fiscal official responsible for urgent funeral logistics after Han Zhaodi’s sudden death.
• Uses political accusation against merchants to solve a mausoleum-material shortage, creating enemies with motive to retaliate.
• Falls through a concrete embezzlement allegation involving inflated cart-rental accounts.
• Loses protection because he lies to Huo Guang when truthfulness to the patron matters most.

Evidence

Rise through Huo Guang’s trust:

• Hanji 407 says Huo Guang consults Tian Yannian privately after becoming disappointed with Liu He.
• Hanji 407 says Tian advises Huo to report to the empress dowager and install a worthier ruler.
• Hanji 407 says Tian cites Yi Yin’s handling of Taijia as a precedent and that Huo rewards him by making him jishizhong.
• Hanji 407 says Tian grips his sword before the assembled ministers and threatens the last person who refuses to respond.
• Hanji 412-1 says Huo Guang selects Tian Yannian into the great-general府 staff and promotes him to longshi after judging him clever, careful, and useful.
• Hanji 412-1 says Tian becomes Hedong taishou without prior local administrative experience, and that Hedong is Huo Guang’s home commandery.
• Hanji 412-1 says Tian later serves as da sinong and remains deferential to Huo Guang despite high office.

Effective but harsh governance:

• Hanji 412-1 says the historical record credits Tian in Hedong with selecting worthy people, eliminating local strongmen, and deterring illicit conduct.
• Hanji 412-1 says Ban Gu includes Tian in the cruel-official biographies, which the host reads as a sign of harsh methods.

Corruption, denial, and suicide:

• Hanji 412-1 says Tian confiscates merchants’ mausoleum-material stockpiles after charging them with profiting from the emperor’s death.
• Hanji 412-1 says the merchants then gather evidence that Tian inflated rental accounts for thirty thousand ox carts and kept about thirty million cash.
• Hanji 412-1 says Tian denies the accusation when Huo Guang asks, after which Huo Guang lets the case proceed and Tian kills himself.

Qualifications

This page is source-scoped to Hanji 407 and Hanji 412-1. It does not reconstruct Tian Yannian’s full biography, exact dates of appointment, complete legal record, all primary-source wording, or the full institutional procedure after Tian Guangming verifies the case. Hanji 407’s Yi Yin comparison is preserved as the episode’s legitimacy frame for Huo Guang, and Hanji 412-1’s interpretation that Tian might have lived had he confessed to Huo Guang is preserved as source judgment rather than independently proven counterfactual.

What Changed

• Added Hanji 407’s earlier deposition-planning role: Tian supplies precedent, receives promotion, and forces ministerial alignment before the formal removal.
• Preserved Hanji 412-1’s Tian Yannian career and downfall case.

Relationships

• 霍光 - patron whose trust enables Tian’s rise and whose withdrawn protection makes the case fatal.
• 张安世 - named by the source as another member of the Huo-centered governing triangle.
• 杜延年 - intermediary used by Tian Guangming to probe Huo Guang’s preferred handling of the case.
• 欺瞒式靠山信任崩塌 - concept directly created from Tian’s lie to Huo Guang.
• 西汉 - court and administrative setting.