魏绾 / Wei Wan (Western Han)

Overview

魏绾 / Wei Wan is a Western Han official promoted from 御史大夫 to chancellor under 汉景帝 and later credited by Hanji 249 with proposing an ideological screen for recommended candidates in the early 汉武帝 court.

Current Profile

Hanji 249 places Wei Wan at a transition in court ideology. He reportedly asks that recommended worthies who study Shen Buhai, 韩非, 苏秦, or 张仪 and use those teachings to disturb government be dismissed, and Wudi approves the proposal.

The episode then places this act beside 董仲舒’s policy answers and later popular memory of “罢黜百家，独尊儒术.” The current profile keeps their roles distinct: Wei Wan supplies the explicit personnel-screening proposal in this source, while Dong supplies a broader Confucian policy argument. Wei Wan is removed from the chancellorship later in the same episode, but no causal link between the two events is established.

Hanji 244 supplies the earlier office transition: after Liu She is removed, Jingdi promotes Wei Wan from 御史大夫 to chancellor. The source does not describe his policy role in that appointment scene, so it establishes chronology rather than an explanation for selection.

Key Characteristics

• Promoted from 御史大夫 to chancellor under Han Jingdi and retained into the early Wudi court.
• Proposes an ideological screen for recommended candidates.
• Names Shen Buhai, Han Fei, Su Qin, and Zhang Yi traditions as grounds for exclusion when used to disrupt government.
• Receives imperial approval for the proposal in the episode’s account.
• Is later removed from office without an established connection to the approved measure.

Evidence

Ideological personnel screen:

• Hanji 249 attributes the exclusion proposal to Wei Wan and says Wudi approves it.

Office transition:

• Hanji 249 later records Wei Wan’s removal before Dou Ying becomes chancellor.
• Hanji 244 says Jingdi elevates Wei Wan from 御史大夫 after removing Liu She.

Qualifications

Both sources are short popular-history episodes. They do not independently establish the appointments’ exact dates and titles or the exclusion proposal’s exact text, scope, implementation, and relationship to Dong Zhongshu’s policy answers. Exclusion from recommendation is not equivalent to the disappearance of the named traditions, and the sources do not show why Jingdi selected Wei Wan or why Wudi later removed him.

What Changed

• Added Wei Wan’s earlier promotion from 御史大夫 to chancellor under Han Jingdi, completing the office sequence without assigning a motive.
• Created a bounded profile separating Wei Wan’s exclusion proposal from Dong Zhongshu’s broader ideological role.

Relationships

• 汉武帝 - ruler who approves Wei Wan’s proposal in the episode’s account.
• 汉景帝 - predecessor who promotes Wei Wan to the chancellorship in Hanji 244.
• 董仲舒 - neighboring but distinct contributor to the source’s Confucian-turn narrative.
• 韩非 - named intellectual tradition targeted by the proposed personnel screen.
• Outer Confucian Inner Legalist Governance / 外儒内法式帝国治理 - later governance pattern that qualifies any claim of complete Legalist disappearance.