Du Zhou (杜周) | 24 Histories

Overview

The translated histories identify Du Zhou as an official. This record brings together 19 passages from 3 chapters across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Du Zhou	杜周	Du Zhou
Personal name	Du Zhou	杜周	Dù Zhōu
Personal	Du Zhou	杜周	Dù Zhōu
Given	Zhou	周	Zhou

Identity

Historicity: Historical
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Strongly inferred · hanshu:070:s0210
Sex: male
Explicit · hanshu:102:s0117
Value: male
Strongly inferred · hanshu:070:s0001

Roles

Official

Career and standing

Palace Assistant Censor
Explicit · hanshu:027:s0180

Places and affiliations

Duyan in Nanyang / 南陽杜衍
Explicit · hanshu:070:s0001
Maoling / 茂陵
Explicit · hanshu:070:s0210
Place: Duyan / 杜衍
Explicit · hanshu:102:s0117

Events and relationships

Type: ancestor-of · Person Id: Du Yannian (杜延年)
Strongly inferred · hanshu:070:s0210

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

Book of Han, Chapter 27Volume 24b: Treatise on Trade 2 · 2 passages

Open chapter

而御史大夫張湯方貴用事，減宣、杜周等為中丞，義縱、尹齊、王溫舒等用急刻為九卿，直指夏蘭之屬始出。 At this time the Censor-in-Chief Zhang Tang was powerful and in charge of affairs. Jian Xuan and Du Zhou served as Palace Assistant Censors; Yi Zong, Yin Qi, Wang Wenshu, and others, who used harsh severity, became Nine Ministers; and direct investigators such as Xia Lan first appeared.

杜周治之，獄少反者。 Under Du Zhou, conviction rates were extremely high.

Book of Han, Chapter 70Volume 60: Du Zhou · 13 passages

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杜周，南陽杜衍人也。 Du Zhou came from Duyang in Nanyang commandery.

義縱為南陽太守，以周為爪牙，薦之張湯，為廷尉史。 When Yi Zong served as governor of Nanyang, he used Du Zhou as his enforcer and recommended him to Zhang Tang, who took him on as a clerk in the office of the commandant of justice.

周少言重遲，而內深次骨。 Du Zhou was a man of few words, slow and ponderous in manner, but his cruelty ran marrow-deep.

宣為左內史，周為廷尉，其治大抵放張湯，而善候司。 When Jian Xuan held the left metropolitan superintendency, Du Zhou became commandant of justice. His judicial style broadly followed Zhang Tang's, but he was even better at reading the court and shadowing suspects.

上所欲擠者，因而陷之； Anyone the emperor wanted ruined, Zhou would find a way to ensnare;

客有謂周曰：「君為天下決平，不循三尺法，專以人主意指為獄，獄者固如是乎？」 A visitor once asked him, "You hold the scales of justice for the whole realm, yet you ignore the statute bamboo in favor of the emperor's whim—is that what law is meant to be?"

周曰：「三尺安出哉？ Du Zhou replied, "Where does the written code itself come from?

至周為廷尉，詔獄亦益多矣。 Once Du Zhou took the commandancy, the number of cases tried on imperial warrant multiplied.

周中廢，後為執金吾，逐捕桑弘羊、衛皇后昆弟子刻深，上以為盡力無私，遷為御史大夫。 Du Zhou was briefly stripped of rank, then appointed chief of police for the capital. He hunted down Sang Hongyang and the sons of Empress Wei's brothers with pitiless zeal. The emperor judged him tireless and impartial and raised him to imperial counselor.

始周為廷史，有一馬，及久任事，列三公，而兩子夾河為郡守，家訾累巨萬矣。 He had begun as a clerk with a single horse to his name; by the time he sat among the three dukes, with a son governing on each bank of the Yellow River, his family fortune ran to hundreds of millions of cash.

延年居父官府，不敢當舊位，坐臥皆易其處。 He moved into his father's official mansion but refused to use the old reception rooms, changing every hall and chamber where Du Zhou had sat.

初，杜周武帝時徙茂陵，至延年徙杜陵雲。 Du Zhou's household had been relocated to Maoling under Emperor Wu; by Du Yannian's generation the family had settled at Duling—or so the note runs.

贊曰：張湯、杜周並起文墨小吏，致位三公，列於酷吏。 The historian concludes: Zhang Tang and Du Zhou both climbed from scribal obscurity to the three highest offices and earned their place among the "cruel officials."

Book of Han, Chapter 102Volume 90: Cruel Officials · 4 passages

Open chapter

而平氏硃強、杜衍杜周為縱爪牙之吏，任用，遷為廷尉史。 Zhu Qiang and Du Zhou became his enforcers and rose to clerks of the commandant of justice.

而杜周任用。 Du Zhou stepped into his place.

杜周從諛，以少言為重。 Du Zhou whispered assent and weighed silence.

湯、周子孫貴盛，故別傳。」 Zhang Tang's and Du Zhou's prosperous heirs earn separate chapters.”