In 134 BCE, Dong Zhongshu submitted his famous memorials (the "Three Responses on Heaven and Man," recorded in the *Hanshu*), and Emperor Wu's court moved toward the policy later summarized as "dismiss the hundred schools, honor only the Confucians." The standard story: the best idea won. The structural story is more interesting: the most *installable* idea won.

The Han empire needed three drivers. Legitimacy: a cosmology making the emperor the pivot of Heaven-Earth-Man — Confucianism, via Dong's synthesis, supplied one. Social order: a legible ethics for a vast agrarian bureaucracy — the three bonds and five constants were a firewall spec. Historical narrative: proof that unity was destiny — the *Chunqiu* tradition delivered a ready-made teleology. Daoism had offered rest; Legalism had offered efficiency. Only the Confucian package bundled all three — legitimacy, ethics, and history — in one installer.

Then Han classical scholarship began pruning. The *Hanshu·Yiwenzhi* taxonomy filed the hundred schools into "nine schools and ten lineages" — Confucianism as the Way, Daoism rebranded as "the ruler's south-facing technique," Legalism as administrative tooling. Competition became a division of labor. Three locks engaged permanently: the Five Classics as the only licensed source code; the Imperial University and its *wujing boshi* (Five Classics Erudites) converting the canon into the standard answers of office qualification; and the Hua-Yi / orthodoxy distinction defining deviation as static. Note the archive's scar: the Qin's Xieshu Law (book confiscation) was repealed only in 191 BCE under Emperor Hui — the multi-copy texts never came back.

**Discussion:** If you were a Warring States sovereign taking bids — ren-li, fa-shu-shi, universal care-meritocracy, or wu-wei — which contract do you sign, and what does each one cure?