Wu-ti [key], posthumous temple name of the 5th emperor (140 b.c.–87 b.c.) of the Han dynasty. Wu-ti [Chin.,=martial emperor] ruled directly through a palace secretariat. During his vigorous reign he incorporated the native states of S China into the empire, drove the nomadic Hsiung-nu out of the Ordos region on the northern frontier, and extended Chinese rule to the Tarim basin of Central Asia (modern Xinjiang). Wu-ti was the first Chinese monarch to extend court patronage to Confucianism, although contemporary Confucian scholars emphasized cosmology and ritual rather than ethics.
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