Download Social Order in the Han Dynasty

Social Order in the Han Dynasty
World History/Napp
“Chinese society under the Han Dynasty was highly structured. Just as Han emperors
tried to control the people they conquered, they exerted vast control over the Chinese
themselves. Because the Chinese believed their emperor to have divine authority, they
accepted his exercise of power. He was the link between heaven and earth. If the emperor
did his job well, China had peace and prosperity. If he failed, the heavens showed their
displeasure with earthquakes, floods, and famines. However, the emperor did not rule
alone.
The Chinese emperor relied on a complex bureaucracy to help him rule. Running the
bureaucracy and maintaining the imperial army were expensive. To raise money, the
government levied taxes. Like the farmers in India, Chinese peasants owed part of their
yearly crops to the government. Merchants also paid taxes. Besides taxes, the peasants
owed the government a month’s worth of labor or military service every year. With this
source of labor, the Han emperors built roads and dug canals and irrigation ditches. The
emperors also filled the ranks of China’s vast armies and expanded the Great Wall, which
stretched across the northern frontier.
Wudi’s government employed more than 130,000 people. The bureaucracy included 18
different ranks of civil service jobs, which were government jobs that civilians obtained by
taking examinations. At times, Chinese emperors rewarded loyal followers with
government posts. However, another way to fill government posts evolved under the Han.
This method involved testing applicants’ knowledge of Confucianism – the teachings of
Confucius, who had lived 400 years before.
The early Han emperors had employed some Confucian scholars as court advisers, but it
was Wudi who began actively to favor them.” ~ World History
Identify and explain the following terms:
Chinese Beliefs about Emperor – “Son of Heaven”
Mandate of Heaven and Chinese Emperor
Taxes Levied on Peasants
Taxes Levied on Merchants
Great Wall and Peasant labor
Emperor Wudi’s Bureaucracy
Government Posts and Confucianism
P R I M A RY S O U R C E
“Agriculture is the foundation of the world. No duty is greater. Now if [anyone] personally
follows this pursuit diligently, he has yet [to pay] the impositions of the land tax and tax on
produce. . . . Let there be abolished the land tax and the tax on produce levied upon the
cultivated fields.” ~ BAN GU and BAN ZHAO in History of the Former Han Dynasty
- Why do you think agriculture was considered so important during the Han Dynasty?
- If farmers were valued, why were they exploited (overworked and overtaxed)?
- A hierarchy is a ranking system.
- In a hierarchy, there are few people at the top and more people at the bottom.
- A triangle is often used to convey a hierarchy.
 Who was at the top of the hierarchy of the Han Dynasty?
 Where were peasants ranked in the hierarchy?
 Why were peasants ranked above artisans and merchants?
 Who was at the bottom of the hierarchy?
 Create a hierarchy for American society.
 How does the American hierarchy differ from the Han hierarchy?
 A male peasant could take an examination for government service. How would
passing the examination change his status in the hierarchy? Why is the examination
system referred to as providing a measure of limited social mobility?
Agriculture versus Commerce
“During the Han Dynasty, the population of China swelled to 60 million. Because there
were so many people to feed, Confucian scholars and ordinary Chinese people considered
agriculture the most important and honored occupation.
Although commerce was dismissed as the least important occupation, manufacturing and
commerce were actually very important to the Han Empire. The government established
monopolies on the mining of salt, the forging of iron, the minting of coins, and the brewing
of alcohol. A monopoly occurs when a group has exclusive control over the production and
distribution of certain goods.
For a time, the government also ran huge silk mills – competing with private silk weavers
in making this luxurious cloth. As contact with people from other lands increased, the
Chinese realized how valuable their silk was as an item of trade. Because of this, the
techniques of silk production became a closely guarded state secret. Spurred by the
worldwide demand for silk, Chinese commerce expanded along the Silk Roads to most of
Asia and, through India, all the way to Rome.” ~ World History
Identify and explain the following terms:
Agriculture from the Chinese Point of View
Commerce from the Chinese Point of View
Monopoly
Government Monopolies Established During the Han Dynasty
The Value of Silk
A Closely Guarded State Secret
In preparing governmental officials, the
imperial university of the Later Han
enrolled more than three thousand students,
with its curriculum primarily based on
A) The statecraft policies of Legalism.
B) Political science and the study of law.
C) Daoism.
D) Confucianism.
E) None of these answers is correct.
In order to enter the civil service in Han
society, a man needed to:
A) serve in the army for four years
B) be of noble birth
C) pass an examination
D) be related to a civil servant
Who was Confucius?
A) A scholar
B) Legalist philosopher
C) An emperor
D) A governor
The concept of the “mandate of heaven”
suggests that:
A) heaven chose the emperors to rule
China
B) peasants and slaves could not go to
heaven
C) all Chinese emperors could go to
Heaven
D) all Chinese citizens could go to heaven
Assimilation
- Expansion of the Han
empire brought people of
different cultures under
Chinese rule
- To unify the empire, the
Chinese government
encouraged assimilation, the
process of making
conquered peoples part of
Chinese culture
- To promote assimilation,
the government sent Chinese
farmers to settle newly
colonized areas. It also
encouraged them to
intermarry with local
peoples
Women
- A woman, Ban Zhao, wrote
a guide called Lessons for
Women, which called upon
women to be humble and
obedient but also industrious
Fall
- With small plots of land,
farmers had a hard time
raising enough food to sell or
even to feed the family
- Although Ban Zhao gained
fame as a historian, most
women during the Han
Dynasty led quiet lives at
home
- Because of this, small
farmers often went into debt
and had to borrow money
from large landowners, who
charged very high interest
rates
- Confucian teachings had
dictated that women were to
devote themselves to their
families
- If the farmer couldn’t pay
back the debt, the
landowner took possession
of the farmer’s land
- Yet a few empresses
wielded great power
- Large landowners were not
required to pay taxes, so
when their land holdings
- Government officials set up - Daoist – and later,
increased, the amount of
schools to train local people
Buddhist – nuns were able to land that was left for the
in the Confucian philosophy gain an education and lead
government to tax decreased
and then appointed local
lives apart from their
scholars to government posts families
- With less money coming in,
the government pressed
- Sima Qian, who lived from - Women in aristocratic and harder to collect money
145 to 85 B.C., is called the
landowning families also
from the small farmers
Grand Historian for his
sometimes pursued
work in compiling a history
education and culture
- As a result, the gap
of China from the ancient
between rich and poor
dynasties to Wudi
- Some women ran small
increased
shops; still others practiced
- To write accurately, Sima
medicine
- In addition, there were
Qian visited historical sites,
floods, famine, rebellions,
interviewed eyewitnesses,
- But overall, women had
and of course, invaders
researched official records,
very low status in society.
and examined artifacts
- Define assimilation and how the Han assimilated conquered subjects?
- Describe the status of women in Han China.
- Why did the Han Dynasty collapse?