魏尚 / Wei Shang (Western Han)

Overview

魏尚 / Wei Shang is the Yunzhong governor whose troop provisioning and punishment for a six-head reporting discrepancy let 冯唐 test whether the Western Han court makes successful frontier command usable or legally precarious.

Current Profile

In Hanji 225-1, Wei Shang directs collected revenue and part of his own salary toward food and rewards for Yunzhong troops. The episode credits that support with stronger morale and with deterring 匈奴 pressure around the commandery.

His downfall supplies the episode’s incentive problem. A report overstates the number of enemy heads by six, and the court removes his rank and imprisons him. Feng Tang does not argue that reporting accuracy is irrelevant; he argues that the punishment is grossly out of proportion to the commander’s accumulated frontier value and reveals a system that rewards too lightly while punishing too heavily.

Liu Heng accepts the criticism, sends Feng Tang with a tally to announce a pardon, and restores Wei Shang. Wei Shang’s wiki role is therefore narrower than a complete general’s biography: he is the concrete personnel case showing how central audit and field effectiveness can become destructive when minor error erases major service.

Key Characteristics

• Yunzhong frontier governor responsible for troops facing Xiongnu pressure.
• Commander who converts local revenue and personal salary into soldier food and reward.
• Strong-performance official exposed by a small but real military-reporting discrepancy.
• Test case for proportional discipline, command trust, and retention of frontier capacity.

Evidence

Frontier provisioning and deterrence:

• Hanji 225-1 says Wei Shang spends collected revenue and part of his salary on troop rewards and regular meat provisions.
• Hanji 225-1 attributes improved strength and local deterrence against Xiongnu forces to that support.

Punishment and correction:

• Hanji 225-1 says a six-head overstatement leads to loss of rank and imprisonment.
• Hanji 225-1 says Feng Tang’s argument persuades Liu Heng to pardon and restore Wei Shang.

Qualifications

This profile is bounded to one popular-history episode. The revenue source, salary contribution, provisioning cadence, deterrence claim, six-head discrepancy, legal basis, imprisonment, pardon procedure, restoration, and later career require comparison with transmitted records. The current synthesis does not excuse inaccurate reporting; it identifies proportionality and the preservation of effective command as the episode’s institutional issue.

What Changed

• Created the page from Hanji 225-1’s Yunzhong provisioning, reporting-punishment, and pardon sequence.

Relationships

• 冯唐 - remonstrant who uses Wei Shang’s case to challenge the court’s command and incentive design.
• 汉文帝刘恒 - ruler who first imposed or accepted the punishment and later authorizes pardon and restoration.
• 匈奴 - frontier opponent against which Wei Shang’s troop support is evaluated.
• 将权掣肘 - related failure when responsibility is not matched by usable resource and decision authority.
• 因功赏罚 - governing standard whose proportionality is tested by the six-head discrepancy.