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Zhang Cang
Western Han chancellor from Yangwu, a Qin censor who under the early Han ran the accounts and fixed the calendar and statutes, was made Marquis of Beiping, and under Emperor Wen drafted with Feng Jing the penalties that replaced mutilation.
Mural of the event “Tiying Saves Her Father”, which this person took part in.
In 167 BCE, the thirteenth year of Emperor Wen of Han, Chunyu Yi, granary director of Qi, was convicted of an offence carrying mutilating punishment and taken to Chang'an. His youngest daughter Tiying followed him and memorialised the throne, offering to become a government slave to redeem his punishment. Moved by her plea, Emperor Wen abolished mutilating punishments, and the chancellor Zhang Cang and others then proposed the replacement penalties.
Also known as Marquis of Beiping · Chancellor Zhang Cang
Zhang Cang, of Yangwu, served the Qin as a censor in charge of documents. Joining Liu Bang's rising, he was made Marquis of Beiping, and in the early Han ran the empire's accounts as chancellor of revenue; skilled in calendars and calculation, he is traditionally credited with revising the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. He became chancellor in 176 BCE. When Emperor Wen abolished mutilating punishments in 167 BCE, Zhang Cang and the Imperial Counsellor Feng Jing proposed the statutes that replaced tattooing, nose-cutting and amputation with flogging and shaving with collars. He left office in 162 BCE and died in 152 BCE at over a hundred years of age, posthumously named Wen. His biography is in the Shiji, with the reform in the Hanshu treatise on punishments.
Life and times
Dates Birth unknown–152 BCE
- 167 BCETiying Saves Her FatherTook part
- 167 BCEEmperor Wen Abolishes Mutilating Punishments