Emperor Wu of Han

Liu Che took the throne in 141 BC at a moment when northern raiders still threatened the frontier. He repelled the Xiongnu, then dispatched Zhang Qian west in 139 BC to find allies among the Greater Yuezhi and Kangju — missions that opened China to Central Asia and may have brought the first Buddhist statues into the empire, long before he could have understood what they were. At home he reorganized the economy, expanded the state apparatus, and adopted Confucianism as the official philosophy, founding a school to train administrators in the classics. The synthesis he forged — Legalist ruthles…