郑当时 / Zheng Dangshi (Western Han)

Overview

郑当时 / Zheng Dangshi is a Western Han official presented in the current source as an unusually active host and networker whose abundant guest traffic disappears after he loses rank and wealth.

Current Profile

Hanji 333-1 says Zheng served as a 太子舍人 under Emperor Jing and, on his five-day leave, traveled to the approaches around Chang’an to meet and see off guests without regard to day or night. The episode treats this habitual hospitality as the baseline that makes his later social isolation especially severe.

Paired with 汲黯, Zheng is described as a worthy senior official whose visitors multiply with authority and vanish after dismissal and impoverishment. The page therefore treats him as a case of hospitality embedded in unequal incentives, without assuming that every earlier guest was insincere.

Key Characteristics

• Western Han official said to have served as 太子舍人 under Emperor Jing.
• Portrayed as strongly committed to meeting, seeing off, and accommodating guests.
• Attains senior rank and receives many visitors while powerful.
• Loses guest traffic after dismissal and loss of wealth.
• Paired with Ji An in Sima Qian’s attributed judgment on power-contingent association.

Evidence

Early hospitality:

• Hanji 333-1 says Zheng uses regular leave to meet and see off guests around Chang’an, day and night.

Status reversal:

• Hanji 333-1 contrasts his many high-office visitors with abandonment after dismissal and poverty.

Historical evaluation:

• Hanji 333-1 attributes to 司马迁 a reflection that even worthy people such as Zheng and Ji An cannot escape status-dependent guest behavior.

Qualifications

The raw note writes the name as “郑当石”; this page normalizes it to 郑当时. It does not verify Zheng’s complete office history, the exact leave rule, route, nickname, finances, or number and motives of visitors. Active hospitality can build genuine relationships as well as instrumental ones, so later abandonment does not prove that every earlier connection was false.

What Changed

• Created the page from Hanji 333-1’s bounded account of hospitality and post-dismissal abandonment.

Relationships

• 汲黯 / Ji An (Western Han) - paired worthy official in the episode’s status-reversal reflection.
• 翟公 / Zhai Gong (Western Han) - parallel official whose visitor traffic also follows officeholding.
• 司马迁 / Sima Qian - historian to whom the episode attributes the comparative judgment.
• 权势依附型交往 / Power-Contingent Social Ties - mechanism that explains why some guests disappear when rank and wealth do.
• Emperor Wu of Han / 汉武帝 - reign context in which the episode places Zheng’s high office and dismissal.