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AP World History
The Magnificence of the Han
Reading and Writing to Learn
Name: _____________________________
The Han Dynasty is one of China’s longest and most formidable dynasties. Lasting for
approximately 450 years during the tumultuous classical period (the Axis Age) in World
History, it achieved remarkable things.
At its height, the Han Dynasty rivaled Classical Rome and Greece. It’s contributions to the
Eastern World are no less significance than the contributions of their sister civilizations in
the Mediterranean. In fact, it combined a little both—like the Greeks, the Han were known
for remarkable writings, abstract thought, and political innovations. The Romans are a good
comparison as well. Han society nearly matched their valiance in conquest, their courage in
combating nomads on their frontier, and like the Romans, they felt the need to try and
distance their population from a new “barbarian faith” that could bring ruin to the “people
of the Han”. History has a way of uniting strange bedfellows!
The Han dynasty was formed when an obscure Qin official named Liu Bang seized the
opportunity of the 1st Emperor’s death to found a dynasty and claim the Mandate of Heaven.
The dynasty’s founding was a bloody endeavor. One of Liu’s rivals captured his father and
demanded he pass the mandate to him, or his father would be boiled. Liu’s response could
not have been more clear: “send me a cup of the soup.” I guess the lions, not the gazelles,
write history! Liu’s rise to power was an unlikely one. He was not from the educated class;
in fact he was so distrustful of the Confucian scholars around him he famously grabbed one
of their identifying caps…I’ll let Sima Qian Han court historian finish the story: “He
immediately snatches the hat from the visitor's head and pisses in it." This doesn’t seem a
likely beginning for a dynasty that will embrace Confucianism as a political and moral edict
to govern a nation! The Han quickly reversed course on their earlier stance on
Confucianism—and by the reign of the famed martial emperor Wu, they had established
formal universities to train thousands of Confucian scholars for political employment. The
ideas of Confucianism quickly spread throughout the land and eventually became a staple of
East Asian cultures for over 2 millennia.
Han rulers didn’t dismiss the other philosophies that formed during the famed Warring
States Period. The Han quickly realized that the Qin punishments were not useful in their
political vision. They curtailed the “Five Punishments”, which included cutting off the nose,
castration, tattooing and mutilation, cutting off the left foot, and “quartering”. Despite this,
they recognized the need for elements of the political controls of the Qin. They preserved
much of the centralization and successes associated with centralization.
Daoists primary belief was to discourage man from his quest for wealth and political power,
to adopt a strategy that encouraged acceptance of the natural world. The transformation of
Daoism from a political philosophy to a religious one was well under way during the Han
Dynasty. Han rulers developed a great enthusiasm for Daoist sages and their ability to
apply their scientific knowledge of the natural world for personal gain. Daoist scholars
were asked to tackle scientific problems and of greater interest to Han elites they were
asked to predict the future by interpreting the movement of stars, a skill of which the
Daoists were renown.
Like their Roman counterparts, the Han faced enormous problems in dealing with the
nomadic peoples on their frontiers. No other Han ruler was as successful as combating this
scourge as Wu. During his reign of 54 years Wu spent much of his time trying to resolve
border issues with the Xiongnu Confederacy—despite the constant bribes, they continued
to raid the borders. The solution was clear—Sima Qian wrote of an army of over 100,000
put in place to do what the walls, cash payments, and marriage proposals couldn’t do; end
the threat. The result was an expanding Han state. The Han pushed the nomads far to the
West. By its zenith the Han state reached the Pamir Mountains in the west an astounding
2300 miles! The Han had an empire. An empire made up of remarkably diverse peoples.
In addition to conquest, the expeditions of Wu revealed something else: trade. The trade
with the West was so vigorous that the Roman Emperor Tiberius (4 C.E) forbade the
wearing of silk, as its cost was so great! The Silk Roads and their importance to human
history are difficult to transcribe in so short a work—but let’s put it this way: this network
of trade which extended from the lands east of the Han capital of Chang’an to Roman Europe
was an astounding highway of commerce, exchanging ideas, and devastating disease.
Among the revelations that this road revealed to Europe was a China of staggering
proportions! The China they met had developed paper, the census, and the seismograph.
The China they coveted possessed a stunning array of prized trading items including
precious metals, porcelain, spices, and of course silk.
China’s greatest import during the Silk Road years was Buddhism. A pair of monks brought
Buddhist teachings, statues, and relics into China sometime around the year 67 C.E. From
this beginning Buddhism began to surge to popularity. Chinese Buddhism became a unique
concept as they modified many of the Indian tenets of the faith to fit China’s unique cultural
background. Buddhism had taken its place among the sacred three teachings of China,
alongside Confucianism and Daoism. Buddhism offered something that no other belief
system had done in China; salvation. Buddhism promised a path to nirvana for those who
adopted its teachings and lived by its moral standards.
Despite the presence of multiple belief systems governing the moral conduct of Chinas
exploding population. The end of the Han was approaching. Cracks began to appear as
early as the year 9 C.E. when an ambitious official claimed the mandate of heaven for
himself under the banner of the endless plight of peasants. Wang Mang would no longer
tolerate the plight of the Chinese peasant. Mang intended to end the cycle of peasant
suffering at the hands of well-connected landowners who usurped all of the arable land in
China creating unspeakable poverty for the overwhelming millions of China. We have a firm
understanding of the numbers of poor because the Han were the first civilization to
calibrate its population into groups using a census. Unfortunately for Mang the Yellow
River didn’t cooperate. The later years of his reign were filled with devastating floods.
Angry and starving peasants, the same people he hoped to restore to prosperity, were done
with these reforms. The Red Eyebrow Rebellion was born as swaths of fleeing peasants
painted their foreheads red in unity and opposition to the current situation. Mang’s vision
of a China divided up into equal tracts of arable land would not last; by 23 C.E. the crimson
dissidents stormed the capital and beheaded him.
The Han saw a window of opportunity to reclaim power. Liu Xie a ninth generation of the
founder of the dynasty crushed the red eyebrows into submission and moved the capital to
the more fertile rice bearing regions of the South. The Han would begin a new existence—
like their Roman counterparts the empire would continue from a new geographic and
political center. As Rome and Chang’an were the western manifestations of great empires,
they would continue from a fractured eastern counterpart in Byzantium and Luoyang.
A movement of capitals didn’t solve the Han problems, they held on for another two
centuries but the Eastern Han was a shell of the former greatness of their Western Han
ancestors. The social divisions in China were devastating China. Diseases poured in from
Silk Road trade routes, claiming as many as 50% of impacted areas. Meanwhile the peasant
scourge continued. Peasant conditions were dire, they returned to pre-Wang Mang levels of
landlessness, hopelessness and desperation. So desperate were many peasants that they
sold themselves into slavery and in many tragic cases they sold themselves into prison—the
Eastern Han had a provision that allowed for a wealthy man to buy a substitute for prison
terms they had earned!
Confucian scholars protested by the thousands, students at the universities filled the
streets. The Eastern Han had lost the mandate of heaven. The dynasty was now marked by
corruption, indifference, and ineptitude. Nomadic groups were pouring into China’s
northern frontiers. In the wake of the disaster a nearly 400 year struggle would emerge for
the next group to successfully unify China under the banner of heaven.
What were three ideas expressed above that are “essential”?
What ideas were new to your understanding and contributed to your knowledge of Chinese
History?
What is the greatest legacy of the Han?
Where did the Han fall short? As a Han advisor recommend what could have been done
differently?
What did this essay reveal about the patterns of Chinese history?
How might this information be used in the following AP contexts:
1. Change over time (from the start of the Han to the end)
2. Comparison to another culture?