The nine bestowments were awards given by Chinese emperors to officials, ostensibly to reward them for their accomplishments. While the nature of the bestowments was probably established during the Zhou dynasty, there was no record of anyone receiving them until Wang Mang. Thereafter, the nine bestowments became typically a sign of a powerful official showing off his complete control of the emperor and establishing his intent to usurp the throne. For the rest of Chinese history, it became rare for a usurpation to happen without the nine bestowments having been given sometime before. It was almost as rare for the nine bestowments to be given without an usurpation happening, though it did happen (as when Cao Pi gave Sun Quan the nine bestowments in 221 while Sun was briefly Cao Wei's vassal). Conversely, officials who made important contributions and were offered the nine bestowments would decline them to show their loyalty and lack of intention to usurp the throne.

The nine bestowments

The nine bestowments according to the Classic of Rites, and their meanings, explained in the Han dynasty commentary Bai Hu Tong:

Pronunciation

The reason why the character 錫 (usually pronounced xī in modern Mandarin and meaning "tin") is used, rather than the expected 賜 (cì, meaning "bestowment"), is that 錫 was used as a jiajie (假借, 'rebus') character for "bestowment", interchangeably with 賜 during the times when the ceremonies were first established in the Classic of Rites. Thus, the semantically correct modern reading should be jiǔ cì and not jiǔ xī.

List of recipients of the Nine Bestowments