Han Dynasty
The Han empire began in 206 B.C. when Liu Bang, prince of Han, defeated the Qin army in the valley of Wei. The defeat was part of a larger rebellion that began after the First Emporer's death. The people were dissatisfied with the tyranny of the Qin leaders and their Legalist form of government. However, while traditional Chinese history portrays the Han as implementing immediate changes in government, evidence shows the Han continued to rule in the tradition of the Qin, and only gradually incorporated Confucian ideals into their Legalist form of government. Economic expansion, changing relationships with the people of the steppes, strengthening of the palace at the expense of the civil service, weakening of the state's hold on the peasantry, and the rise of the families of the rich and the gentry were all factors that led to the adoption of Confucian ideals..
Under this new form of Legalism and Confucianism, rewards and punishments were still used for common people. However, the administrators were judged based on Confucian principles with the justification for these different sets of standards as they were educated. As a last resort, the ruler could use punishment for both the people and the officials. It was believed that force alone was not a sufficient way to rule and so the emperor needed the help of the Confucianists to guide him morally. Evidence of rulers using their power to punish is found in the records of officials who were beheaded.
When Liu Bang conquered the Qin, he created his capital at Ch'ang-an. He kept most of the laws and regulations by the Qin and made many of his friends nobility and gave them fiefs. However, the land was still divided up into commanderies and prefectures. Even the fiefs given out were treated like commanderies. Han power was based on direct control of people by the state.
Like the Qin before them, the main goal of the Han was the unification of China. This goal led to the eventual breakup of the fiefs and the downfall of the imperial nobility. This process was finally complete during Wu Ti's reign (141-87 B.C.) His reign was a period of great military expansion. He expanded the borders into Vietnam and Korea and pushed the Hsiung nu south of the Gobi. Wu Ti transplanted an estimated 2 million people to the northwestern region in order to colonize these areas.
The expansion also led to trade with the people of inner Asia. Thereafter, the Silk Road was developed. The Silk Road actually consisted of more than one possible route through the mountains that the traders followed. Agriculture grew with the development of better tools. Iron tools were made of better quality, and oxen drawn ploughs were commonly used. Irrigation systems were increased to help develop the areas of North China. Crop rotation was also practiced from 85 B.C. onwards. The state attempted to monopolize the production of iron and salt, which were the two biggest sectors of the economy, but succeeded for less than a century. Silk weaving and copper work were also important activities.
Education became more important during this period, as a new class of gentry was introduced. A result of this was the compilation of many encyclopedias. The best known is the Book of the Mountains and Seas, which contained everything known at the time about geography, natural philosophy, the animal and plant world, and popular myths. Sima Qian, considered to be China's greatest historian wrote his famous Records of the Historian (Shiji) during this time. This history book became the model by which all other histories would follow. It was one of the first attempts in China to make a record of the past in a proper form.
The Han Dynasty is actually two separate dynasties. It is considered one dynasty by the Chinese because the second dynasty was founded by a member of the former Han dynasty who declared he had restored the Han Dynasty. The original Han Dynasty was overthrown when the wealthy families gained more power than the emperor. The families became allied with each other through marriages and were responsible for the selection of officials. The widow of the emperor Yüan Ti succeeded in placing all of her relatives in government positions and ruling in place of her son. Her nephew, Wang Mang eventually declared himself emperor of a new dynasty, the Hsing (New). His rise to emperor is unusual because he gained much public support on his rise and he began a ceremony in which a seal of precious stone was passed to the emperor. From then on, whoever held this seal was the official emperor. Wang Mang was overthrown by a secret society of peasants known as the Red Eyebrows, because they painted their eyebrows red. The descendents of the Han dynasty eventually joined in the uprising, and, it was the armies of these nobles, under the leadership of Liu Hsiu, who killed Wang Mang in 22A.D. The fighting continued until 25 A.D., when Liu Hsiu became the emperor. As an emperor he was called Kuang-wu Ti. Millions of people died during the fighting, leaving land for the peasants, and often, the freedom of debt as the lenders had died.
The second Han Dynasty had much success with their foreign policy. Part of this success was due more to luck than to anything the Han did. The Hsiung nu who had previously been one of the most dangerous enemies of the Chinese were defeated by the Hsien-pi and the Wu-huan. Half of the Hsiung nu moved south, and became part of the Chinese empire. The Hsiung nu appeared to be trying to reunite and form a large empire comprising all of Turkestan. Thus, in 73 A.D. the Chinese began a campaign in Turkestan. The whole of Turkestan was quickly conquered which would have ensured a trading monopoly, however, the emperor Ming Ti died and Chang Ti became emperor. He favored an isolationist policy so that much of what was gained in Turkestan was now lost. Pan Ch'ao, the deputy commander who had led the invasion, stayed in Turkestan to try and hold onto what had been won, and eventually in 89 A.D. a new emperor came to power with a renewed interest in holding Turkestan. Despite this military success, economic and political struggles arose within China. Internal struggles for power taxed the peasants, until in 184 A.D. when another peasant uprising occurred. This movement was begun by the Yellow Turbans. This uprising served to unite the factions who had previously been fighting one another because they needed to unite to defeat the Yellow Turbans. Despite conquering them, China did not return to a united state. Rather, three kingdoms emerged and the Han dynasty came to an end.
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty (simplifiedChinese: 汉朝;traditionalChinese: 漢朝;pinyin: Hàn Cháo;Wade-Giles: Han Ch'ao; 206 BCE–220 CE) was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum separates the Han into two periods: the Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE) and Eastern Han (25–220 CE). Spanning over four centuries, the period of the Han Dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history.[1] To this day, China's majority ethnic group refers to itself as the "Han people".[2]
The Han Empire was divided into areas directly controlled by the central government, known as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States. The Xiongnu, a nomadic confederation of Central Asian tribes[3] which dominated the eastern Eurasian Steppe, defeated the Han in battle in 200 BCE. Following the defeat a political marriage alliance was negotiated in which the Han became the de facto inferior partner. When, despite the treaty, the Xiongnu continued to raid Han borders, Emperor Wu of Han (r.141–87 BCE) launched several military campaigns against them, which eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal status as Han tributaries. These campaigns expanded Han sovereignty into the Tarim Basin of Central Asia, and helped establish the vast trade network known as the Silk Road, which reached as far as the Mediterranean world. Han forces managed to divide the Xiongnu into two competing nations, the Southern and Northern Xiongnu, and forced the Northern Xiongnu across the Ili River. Despite this victory, the territories north of Han's borders were quickly overrun by the nomadic Xianbei Confederation.
After 92 CE, the palace eunuchs increasingly involved themselves in court politics, engaging in violent power struggles between the various consort clans of the empresses and empress dowagers, causing the Han's ultimate downfall. Imperial authority was also seriously challenged by massive Daoist religious societies which instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion. Following the death of Emperor Ling (r.168–189 CE), the palace eunuchs suffered wholesale massacre by military officers, allowing warlords to divide the empire. When Cao Pi, King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, the Han Dynasty ceased to exist.
The Han Dynasty was an age of economic prosperity, and saw a significant growth of the money economy first established during the Zhou Dynasty (c.1050–256 BCE). The coinage issued by the central government mint in 119 BCE remained the standard coinage of China until the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE). To pay for its military campaigns and the settlement of newly conquered frontier territories, the government nationalized the private salt and iron industries in 117 BCE. These government monopolies were repealed during the Eastern Han period, and the lost revenue was recouped through heavily taxing private entrepreneurs. The emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government, but shared power with both the nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the scholarly gentry class. From the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 CE. Science and technology during the Han period saw significant advances, including papermaking, the nautical steering rudder, the use of negative numbers in mathematics, the raised-relief map, the hydraulic-powered armillary sphere for astronomy, and a seismometer employing an inverted pendulum.
History
Western Han
China's first imperial dynasty was the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE). The Qin had unified the Chinese Warring States by conquest, but their empire became unstable after the death of the first emperor Qin Shi Huangdi. Within four years the dynasty's authority had collapsed in the face of rebellion.[4] Two former rebel leaders, Xiang Yu (d.202 BCE) of Chu and Liu Bang (d.195 BCE) of Han, engaged in a war to decide who would become hegemon of China, which had fissured into 18 Kingdoms, each claiming allegiance to either Xiang Yu or Liu Bang.[5] Although Xiang Yu proved to be a capable commander, Liu Bang defeated him at the Battle of Gaixia, in modern-day Anhui. Liu Bang assumed the title 'emperor' (huangdi) at the urging of his followers and is known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu (r.202–195 BCE).[6]Chang'an was chosen as the new capital of the reunified empire under Han.[7]
At the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, thirteen centrally controlled commanderies—including the capital region—existed in the western third of the empire, while the eastern two-thirds was divided into ten semi-autonomous kingdoms.[9] To placate his prominent commanders from the war with Chu, Emperor Gaozu enfeoffed some of them as kings. By 157 BCE, the Han court had replaced all of these kings with royal Liu family members, since the loyalty of non-relatives to the throne was questioned.[9] After several insurrections by Han kings—the largest being the Rebellion of the Seven States in 154 BCE—the imperial court enacted a series of reforms beginning in 145 BCE, limiting the size and power of these kingdoms and dividing them into smaller ones or new commanderies.[10] Kings were no longer able to appoint their own staff; this duty was assumed by the imperial court.[11] Kings became nominal heads of their fiefs, and collected a portion of tax revenues as their personal incomes.[11] The kingdoms were never entirely abolished and existed throughout the remainder of Western and Eastern Han.[12]
To the north of China proper, the nomadic Xiongnu chieftain Modu Chanyu (r.209–174 BCE) conquered various tribes inhabiting the eastern portion of the Eurasian Steppe. By the end of his reign, he controlled Manchuria, Mongolia, and the Tarim Basin, subjugating over twenty states east of Samarkand.[13] Emperor Gaozu was troubled about the abundant Han-manufactured iron weapons traded to the Xiongnu along the northern borders, and he established a trade embargo against the group.[14] In retaliation, the Xiongnu invaded what is now Shanxi province, where they defeated the Han forces at Baideng in 200 BCE.[15] After negotiations, the heqin agreement in 198 BCE nominally held the leaders of the Xiongnu and the Han as equal partners in a royal marriage alliance, but the Han were forced to send large amounts of tribute items like silk clothes, food, and wine to the Xiongnu.[16]
Despite the tribute and a negotiation between Laoshang Chanyu (r.174–160 BCE) and Emperor Wen (r.180–157 BCE) to reopen border markets, many of the chanyu's Xiongnu subordinates chose not to obey the treaty and periodically raided Han territories south of the Great Wall for additional goods.[17] In a court conference assembled by Emperor Wu (r.141–87 BCE) in 135 BCE, the majority-consensus of the ministers was to retain the heqin agreement. Emperor Wu accepted this despite continuing Xiongnu raids.[18] However, a court conference the following year convinced the majority that a limited engagement at Mayi involving the assassination of the Chanyu would throw the Xiongnu realm into chaos and benefit the Han.[19] When this plot failed in 133 BCE,[20] Emperor Wu launched a series of massive military invasions into Xiongnu territory. The assault culminated in 119 BCE at the Battle of Mobei, where the Han commanders Huo Qubing (d.117 BCE) and Wei Qing (d.106 BCE) forced the Xiongnu court to flee north of the Gobi Desert.[21]
After Wu's reign, Han forces continued to prevail against the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu leader Huhanye Chanyu (呼韓邪) (r.58–31 BCE) finally submitted to Han as a tributary vassal in 51 BCE. His rival claimant to the throne, Zhizhi Chanyu (r.56–36 BCE), was killed by Chen Tang and Gan Yanshou (甘延壽/甘延寿) at the Battle of Zhizhi, in modern Taraz, Kazakhstan
A gilded bronze oil lamp in the shape of a kneeling female servant, dated 2nd century BCE, found in the tomb of Dou Wan, wife of the Han prince Liu Sheng; its sliding shutter allows for adjustments in the direction and brightness in light while it also traps smoke within the body.[23]
In 121 BCE, Han forces expelled the Xiongnu from a vast territory spanning the Hexi Corridor to Lop Nur. They repelled a joint Xiongnu-Qiang invasion of this northwestern territory in 111 BCE. In that year, the Han court established four new frontier commanderies in this region: Jiuquan, Zhangyi, Dunhuang, and Wuwei.[24] The majority of people on the frontier were soldiers.[25] On occasion, the court forcibly moved peasant farmers to new frontier settlements, along with government-owned slaves and convicts who performed hard labor.[26] The court also encouraged commoners, such as farmers, merchants, landowners, and hired laborers to voluntarily migrate to the frontier.[27]
Even before Han's expansion into Central Asia, diplomat Zhang Qian's travels from 139–125 BCE had established Chinese contacts with many surrounding civilizations. Zhang encountered Dayuan (Fergana), Kangju (Sogdiana), and Daxia (Bactria, formerly the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom); he also gathered information on Shendu (Indus River valley of North India) and Anxi (the Arsacid Empire). All of these countries eventually received Han embassies.[28] These connections marked the beginning of the Silk Road trade network that extended to the Roman Empire, bringing Han items like silk to Rome and Roman goods such as glasswares to China.[29] From roughly 115–60 BCE, Han forces fought the Xiongnu over control of the oasis city-states in the TarimBasin. Han was eventually victorious and established the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BCE, which dealt with the region's defense and foreign affairs.[30] The naval conquest of Nanyue in 111 BCE expanded the Han realm into what are now modern Guangdong, Guangxi, and northern Vietnam. Yunnan was brought into the Han realm with the conquest of the Dian Kingdom in 109 BCE and into the northern part of the Korean Peninsula with the colonial establishments of Xuantu Commandery and Lelang Commandery in 108 BCE.[31] In China's first known nationwide census taken in 2 CE, the population was registered as having 57,671,400 individuals in 12,366,470 households.[32]