10 Dynastic Rule and the Chinese

Dynastic Rule and the Chinese

Zhou dynasty declines | Warring States Period begins | Warring states | Shihuangdi's rule and beginning of the Han dynasty | Emperor Wen, Confucianism and a new order | Emperor Wu, expansion and decline |Failed reform and chaos | Return of Han rule and properity | Yellow Turbin Rebellion | End of Han rule |Three Kingdoms Period | Xiongnu in the north and Jin dynasty in the south | Genetic diffusions and religious rivalries in the 5th Century ..

In the 700s BCE the Zhou Dynasty began to decline in power. According to legend, a Zhou emperor named You Wang appointed the son of his concubine as his heir, rather than the son of his wife. This angered the queen, and she and her father allied themselves with a nearby nomadic tribe called the Chuanrong. You Wang is described as having wasted his energies on pleasures and as having neglected the defense of his realm. In 771 BCE, Chuanrong tribesmen overran the Zhou capital (in the Wei Valley near what in the coming centuries would be the city of Xianyang). They killed the emperor, and then with friendly wishes they sent the queen, her father and the queen's son away to a new capital, Luoyang, and the queen's son become the next Zhou emperor.   Local lords across the Zhou empire responded to the Chuanrong victory over You Wang by making themselves powers in their own right, and the new Zhou emperor and his successors were unable to recover their power over these local lords. The new Zhou emperors lost the revenues that previous Zhou emperors had received from the provinces, and they survived on the taxes they received from those who worked their personal, nearby lands. The Zhou emperors continued to issue edicts and to conduct religious ceremonies that according to custom they alone were allowed to perform. They also maintained at their court numerous officials and many priests, but they now ruled the Zhou empire in name only.   With the decline in power of Zhou emperors came wars between the local lords. Each local lord had his own army. Each jealously adhered to the formalities that symbolized his status, and each created his own court of law. Some local lords pursued vendettas against a neighboring lord, or one raided another lord's land in search of loot. Lords entered into alliances with each other, sometimes through marriage. They made treaties and exchanged goods. But for some lords war was a sport – better than a good hunt. Often wars were fought as a gentleman's activity, with battlefield courtesy such as letting an opponent cross a river and form ranks before attacking. They believed that heaven disapproved of extreme measures and that a ruthless victor might suffer from the displeasure of the gods.

Exercising what they believed was their religious authority, the Zhou emperors maintained a collection of scholarly specialists on morality, festivals and sacrifices. And local lords imitated the Zhou emperors and attracted scholars to their courts to conduct their sacrifices and funerals and to teach their children. A new age of scholarship had appeared, and among the scholars was a man named Kongfuzi, to be Latinized to Confucius.

Zhou Dynasty rule had broken up into various political entities that can be called states – a state commonly defined as a civil government, a political institution, that maintains a monopoly over the use of force within its territory.

Historians have been interested in the balance of power dynamics between the states that for a while prevented one state from growing in its ability to dominate or conquer all the other states. The balance of power worked as states that felt threatened by the growing power of the strongest and most aggressive state united against that state. Their combined power controlled the expansion of the strongest state, as did the costs that always accompanied attempts at expansion and the possibility of strong states to weaken themselves.

The state called Chu began as the most powerful of the states and the state others had to reckon with. Of 148 or so powers, Chu was the largest in the size of its territory and the richest in natural resources, and it was strengthened by a freedom from Zhou Dynasty feudalism – in other words, there was respect for centralized authority that is commonly diminished by feudalism. Chu expanded territorially and was the first of the states to appoint dependent officials tied to central authority rather than to create hereditary nobles as fiefs.

The Period of Warring States had begun. Weapons were of iron and steel. By the end of the 400s the power of the Chu state was in decline. The Chu government had become corrupt and inefficient. Much of the state's treasury paid for a large official retinue (advisors and such), with many officials having no meaningful task other than receiving money. Chu's corrupt and awkward bureaucracy reduced the quality of its military.

There were more aggressions. Historian Victoria Tin-bor Hui writes of 160 wars "involving great powers" between 656 and 357 BCE ^note10  Some of the powers had been gobbled up by others, and of the 148 or so powers that had existed, the tendency of big powers to absorb smaller powers reduced that number to something like seventeen, at the beginning of the Warring States Period, considered as having begun around the mid-400s BCE.

Among the Chinese states were alliances that contributed to holding in check any one power from becoming so big and powerful as to overwhelm the others. But the tendency of one power to emerge dominant remained as it had elsewhere in the world: in ancient Sumer, in Egypt and eventually with Macedonia dominating the city states of Greece. The balance of power among the Chinese states failed, and the state that would conquer the others was Qin (pronounced chin) – the word from which the state today called China gets its name).

Qin (pronounced chin) was a state in the Wei River Valley, where the Chuanrong had overrun the Zhou king in 771 BCE. It was seen by peoples of the other Chinese states as inferior and semi-barbaric because of the many Tibetan and Turkish people that it had absorbed. Qin retained the martial spirit and vigor of nomadic herdsmen, and Qin was a thoroughfare for trade between Chinese civilization and the tribal lands in Central Asia, a trade that contributed to Qin's wealth.

Before the Warring States Period began (475 BCE) Qin was one of the balancing powers, joining others to hold off domination by any one power. Between 413 and 409, Qin suffered losses in a conflict with neighboring Wei, but it turned itself around through reforms. Qin's ruler had an innovative chief minister, Shang Yang – philosophically aLegalist. He drew from the innovations of others, namely the state of Wei. Shang Yang borrowed Wei's idea of peasant-infantry soldiers and an elite professional standing army rather than an army of aristocrats in chariots. And Shang Yang's army had the horsemen common to tribal herdsmen.

Shang Yang moved to intensify the strength of his military and the strength of his Qin through incentives. He created a system of rewards and punishments that were clear to society members. As chief minister he rewarded battlefield heroism. He wrote of war as something people hate, and added that "a fearful people, stimulated by penalties, will become brave, and a brave people, encouraged by rewards, will fight to the death." He claimed that given these incentives, Qin would have no match. ^note7

Shang Yang applied his incentives to the development of Qin's economy. He convinced the ruler to apply law to all his subjects and to reward people for good service and merit rather than give favor according to kinship. Rather than Confucianism's disdain for commerce, he encouraged trade and work. He encouraged the making of cloth for export. He threatened with slavery any able-bodied man who was not engaged in a useful occupation.

He asked educated and talented persons from other states to move to Qin, and he offered farming people from other states virgin land and promised them exemption from military service. Many came to Qin, increasing Qin's manpower and food production and strengthening its military.

With commoners flooding into the army of Qin, the ruler of Qin was able to align himself more with common people and less with the wants of his warrior-aristocrats and nobles. In one revolutionary sweep the ruler of Qin divided his principality into counties and had these counties administered by appointed officials rather than by nobles. What is today thought of as modern state was in the making.

hang Yang introduced a range of administrative techniques: new methods to record available resources. He standardized measures and coinage, kept records of granary storage and initiated an accounting that prevented tax evasion – tax evasion being a threat to the state's growth.

When the ruler of Qin died, Shang Yang was left without protection at court, and jealous persons at court had Shang Yang executed. But his work lived on.

In 314 BCE – twenty-four years after the death of Shang Yang – the kingdom of Qin won a military victory over nomads to its north. In 311, Qin expanded southward onto fertile plane against more nomadic people and defeated a state called Shu, and a Qin general, Zhang Yi, founded a new city, Chengdu.

Other states were also expanding: Yan against so-called barbarians east of the Liao River, and Chu was expanding southward across the Yangzi River. War and conquest reduced the number of states to eleven.

One of the eleven, Wei, had been reduced as a power by its war againstQi (pronounced chi). Qi appeared to be the dominant power, and Qin joined a coalition of four other states against Qi, which the allies of Qin feared more than they did Qin.

Qi was well organized and densely populated relative to most other states. It was high in food production and had grown wealthy also from trade in iron and other metals, and, in 256 BCE, Qi absorbed Lu.

Qin expanded into Zhou family territory, an area around Luoyang containing about 30,000 people and thirty-six villages. A Zhou prince counter-attacked, trying to claim the Zhou throne for himself. Qin's army defeated him, and this brought the great Zhou dynasty, dating from 1045 BCE, to an end, 256 BCE.

In 246 BCE, Yong Zheng, the thirteen-year-old son of the ruler of Qin, succeeded his father. After sixteen years of rule, Zheng embarked upon the conquest of the remaining states that had been a part of Zhou civilization. According to Victoria Tin-bor Hui, the historian Mark Edward Lewis describes Qin, in his words, as having enjoyed "a splendid geographic situation... It was accessible from the East only through the Hangu Pass and from the southeast through the Wu Pass." And, writes Victoria Tin-bor Hui, Ralph D. Sawyer "similarly thinks that Qin occupied a 'virtually unassailable mountainous bastion'."

In the wars that led to a unification of what had been Zhou civilization, armies of hundreds of thousands were involved on both sides. Qin was driven by the fear that if it didn't defeat all of the others they would combine and crush it. Qin defeated one state after another: Han in the year 230, Zhao in 228, Wei in 225, the large but more sparsely populated and less tightly knit Chu in 223, Yan in 222 and Qi in 221. Occasionally, to eliminate possible military opposition, Qin's armies slaughtered all enemy males of military age.

The Warring States Period was over. Zheng had become ruler of all that had been Zhou civilization. He went to a sacred mountain, Dai Shan, where, it would be said, he received the Mandate from Heaven to rule the "entire world." He took the name Shihuang-di (di signifying emperor). He was also named Qin Shi Huang.

He then expanded his frontiers southward to Guangzhou and to Guangxi, creating what would thereafter be considered China. And he pushed into Annam, or northern Vietnam – an area the Chinese would hold only temporarily. Shihuangdi had become the first emperor of China.

The conqueror Qin Shi Huang, or Shihuangdi, had built an empire befitting his title and claim as First Emperor. Various areas were slow to end their resistance, and to further secure his rule he tried collecting weapons. He saw danger in what people thought, and in 213 BCE his agents began confiscating all books other than those on subjects thought practical, such as agriculture, forestry, herbal medicine and divination. The confiscated books were burned, except for one copy of each, which were to be kept from the public in the state's private library.

Among the burned books were the centuries old writings of Confucius and books by followers of Confucius. Future generations of Confucianists would see Shihuangdi as evil, and they would accuse him of having buried 460 scholars alive – a misunderstanding. Instead, it is said, he had merely had them executed. Rumor has it that he disliked hearing their complaints

Across China, Shihuangdi took powers away from the local nobles – as had been done in Qin the century before – ending feudalism. He divided China into thirty-six administrative units, each staffed by people appointed by and responsible to his administration. He took from noble families the right to tax and gave his administration that exclusive right and the right to mint coins, and 120,000 noble families moved from what had been their power base in the provinces to the capital, Xianyang.

Shihuangdi was hardworking, setting daily quotas of administrative tasks for himself and not resting until he had completed them. He habitually consulted with his ministers. He standardized Chinese script, weights and measures, and laws. Across China he spread the right of people to buy and sell land – which increased his revenues from taxation. He built magnificent public buildings in his capital and great palaces for himself. He expanded canals for irrigation and transportation, and to interconnect his empire he also had a system of highways built

Embittered aristocrats and oppressed intellectuals hated him, in part for his heavy taxation. And common people hated him for working them hard on his building projects. Fearing assassination, Shihuangdi had secret passages throughout his great palace and slept in a different palace apartment each night. It was not the serene life sought by the Taoists, but he was a man of religion, and he worried about the sexual morality of his subjects, believing that behavior displeasing the gods would adversely affect the well-being of his kingdom.

Shihuangdi liked touring his capital city incognito at night, and he liked to travel through his empire, to cities, mountains, rivers, lakes and to the shores of the sea. It was said that when a strong wind impeded his crossing a river, he sent 3,000 prisoners to deforest a nearby mountain that was believed to be the home of a goddess who had created the wind.

Later in his life, Shihuangdi travelled about looking for the location of the source of eternal life rumored among the Chinese. Before finding it he became sick on one of his journeys and died, in 210 at the age of forty-nine.

Shihuangdi had claimed that his dynasty would endure "for generations without end." His death, however, was followed by an exercise of power other than from within his family. Palace eunuchs attempting to hold onto their influence murdered some of Shihuangdi's top aids. They withheld news of Shihuangdi's death and sent a forged note to Shihuangdi's son and heir, ordering him to commit suicide, which he did. Then they elevated to the throne a younger son of Shihuangdi – a boy whom they hoped to control.

Some in areas that had been conquered by Shihuangdi saw in his death an opportunity to break from Qin rule, and some intellectuals came out against the rule of Shihuangdi's younger son. Peasants decided it was an opportune time to express their displeasure with imperial authority. Some commoners began killing local officials. Among common people arose local leaders who led them in rebellion. And in an attempt to regain their former powers, noble families began organizing their own gangs of armed men.

Early during the chaos, a middle-aged rebel leader and former Qin policeman named Liu Bang gathered an increasingly large army under him. He allied himself with a nobleman, Xiang Yu, who was hoping to re-establish the privileges of his family. Respecting the power of Liu Bang's force, Xiang Yu made Liu Bang prince of the district of Han.

In the year 206, the army under Liu Bang defeated an army under the authority of the eunuchs and the boy-emperor. Liu Bang entered the capital city, Xianyang, and there all members of the royal family were slaughtered, including the boy-emperor. Xianyang was burned to the ground, and historians speculate that the state library that contained the only copy of various forbidden books burned with it. The centuries old writings of Confucius and others would have to be recreated from memory and imagination.

With the Qin emperor defeated, sometime after 207 Liu Bang and his former ally, Xiang Yu, began to war against each other. Xiang Yu has been described as a brilliant general but as having relied too much on violence as a means of winning obedience. He slaughtered defeated troops, and in taking cities he looted and seized attractive women. Liu Bang was colorless but he made an effort to conciliate and convert those he defeated. He surrounded himself with men of intelligence. Liu Bang aimed more at winning hearts and minds than did Xiang Yu.

In an opera titled Farewell My Concubine, Liu Bang's rival, Xiang Yu, complains:

My strength could pull mountains, my spirit pales the world. Yet, so unlucky am I that my horse just refuses to gallop! What can I do if my horse denies me even a trot? Oh my dear Yu Ji, what would you have me do?”

His concubine, Yu Ji, replies:

The Han [Liu Bang] has invaded us. Chu’s songs surround us. My lord’s spirit is depleted. Why then should I still live?”

She commits suicide. Eventually, so too does Xiang Yu.

Having established military supremacy, Liu Bang, prince of the district of Han, made himself emperor of all China. The era of Chinese history called the Han had begun.

Liu Bang fought to consolidate his power across his empire. He had to fight numerous small wars, some against former allies. Another power consideration that Liu Bang faced was the confederation of tribes on China's northern border, led by a Turkish speaking people called the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu were nomadic herders with supplementary agriculture and some slaves. And like other nomads they had a warrior tradition and their warriors had grown up in the saddle. The Xiongnu had been making raids into China. Liu Bang believed that he was not yet strong enough to defeat the northern tribes, so he bribed the Xiongnu with food and clothing in exchange for their agreeing to no longer raid. And he gave the king of the Xiongnu a woman in marriage whom he claimed was a Chinese princess.

Liu Bang sought support also from China's small farmers – the peasants. He lowered their taxes, and in places he protected them from former nobles trying to retrieve lands they had lost. He made amends to peasants by not working them as hard as had the former emperor, Shihuangdi. And the peasants believed that because Liu had been a peasant that he would continue to govern in their interest.

Drawing on his peasant origins, Liu Bang demonstrated his disdain for scholars by urinating into the hat of a court scholar, but in trying to govern he came to see benefit in the use of scholars, and he made peace with them. Many scholars were Confucianists, and he began treating the Confucianists with more tolerance than had Shihuangdi while he forbade Confucianist denunciations of his policies

For Liu Bang, good government was a strong government – one that could maintain adequate submission. For centralized management of his empire he needed an army of civil servants. For reliable control, he installed his brothers, uncles and cousins as regional princes. He sought the continued support of local warlords who had been a part of his coalition in winning power, and those who had served him as generals or as chancellors he made lesser nobles. Those local Qin administrators who had supported him he left in place, and some friendly nobles he restored to their lands.

Liu Bang and his aides discovered that civil war comrades were inadequate administrators. He had little faith in the innate abilities of soldiers as administrators, and, like a lot of peasants, he distrusted merchants. So he turned to men from moderately wealthy landowning families. A new class was in the making – the gentry – which was to send its most able sons into careers in government and let its less able sons run the farm. And with a new interest in opportune marriages, the new class began that accorded its daughters more respect.

Liu Bang died in 195 BCE at the age of sixty, and in death he was given the honorific name Gaodi. The common problem with succession followed. Power remained with Liu Bang's wife, the Dowager Empress Lu. She removed members of Liu Bang's family from positions of power and replaced them with members of her own family. After five years of rule she died, and Liu Bang's relatives moved to take back their family's dominance, and they killed every member of Empress Lu's side of the family. A son of Liu Bang, born to a concubine, became emperor, reviving Han rule, and he became known as Wendi (Emperor Wen).

For a while, China had good fortune with Emperor Wen. He was known for his concern regarding the interests of his subjects. When famines occurred he provided famine relief. He provided pensions for the aged. He freed many slaves, and he abolished China's cruelest methods of executions. During his reign, economics was seriously studied, and Emperor Wen gave economic matters serious consideration. He helped the economy by reducing restrictions on copper mining, by spending money frugally and by keep taxes imposed on the peasantry relatively low. Under Emperor Wen, China enjoyed internal peace and unprecedented prosperity. With this came magnificent art that would dazzle people in modern times. And, with prosperity, China's population began to increase, and people pushed into and began clearing and cultivating new lands.

he gentry benefited from the economic boom, and many of them moved to the city. Gentry wished to be thought of as gentlemen like the nobles. This elitism, and the prosperity, benefited Confucianism. With time to read, the gentry became interested in the old scholarship. With a renaissance in scholarship, attempts were made to recreate the books that had been burned during the rule of Shihuangdi. Attracted to Confucianism's respect for authority and proper behavior, gentry intellectuals became predominately Confucian. Emperor Wen promoted Confucian scholars to his government's highest offices. He became the first emperor openly to adopt Confucian teachings – as Confucius had dreamed that emperors would.

In 156 BCE, a son of Emperor Wen succeeded his father and became Emperor Jing. He ruled sixteen years and attempted to extend his family's domination over noble families. War between these nobles and Emperor Jing ended in compromise, the nobles keeping some of their privileges and powers but no longer permitted to appoint ministers for their fiefs.

In 141 BCE, Emperor Jing was succeeded by his son, Emperor Wu, a bright and spirited sixteen year-old who enjoyed risking his life hunting big game. Emperor Wu prolonged the Han dynasty's good times. He began his rule with a hands-off approach to commerce and economic opportunity which allowed the growth of the economy's private sector.

Emperor Wu altered laws of inheritance. Instead of a family's land remaining under the eldest son, he gave all the sons of a family an equal share of their father's land, which did much to break great estates into smaller units.

Emperor Wu made Confucianism China's official political philosophy. Confucianism became dominant in the civil service. Examinations for China's 130,000 or so civil service positions tested an applicant's knowledge of Confucian ideology, knowledge of ancient writings and rules of social grace rather than technical expertise. Theoretically these examinations were open to all citizens, but in reality they were open only to those with adequate respectability, which excluded artisans, merchants and others of lesser status than the gentry.

Emperor Wu, meanwhile, sent China's first known explorer, Zhang Qian, to Parthia (today, northeastern Iran), to establish relations with the Kushan (Yuzhi). With economic prosperity, Emperor Wu believed he could be more assertive in foreign policy. He believed that he was strong enough to stop payments to the Xiongnu begun by Liu Bang. He was concerned that the Xiongnu might send an army into northern China's sparsely populated steppe lands or that they might ally themselves with the Tibetans, and he wished to make trade routes for commerce with Central Asia secure from assault. So Emperor Wu launched a series of military campaigns.

Emperor Wu's drive against the Xiongnu was costly in manpower but it pushed most of the Xiongnu back from China's northern frontier. Perhaps as many as two million Chinese migrated into the newly conquered territory, and there Emperor Wu created colonies of soldiers and civilians. Those Xiongnu who stayed behind were converted to farming, drafted for construction labor and employed as farm laborers. And some of them were drafted into China's army while their families were considered hostages to assure against treason.

The war against the Xiongnu stimulated exploration farther westward. After a thirteen-year absence and ten years of captivity by the Xiongnu, the explorer Zhang Qian returned to Emperor Wu's court and brought with him the first reliable description of Central Asia. Emperor Wu ordered Zhang Qian and assistants back to Central Asia, and they gathered information about India and Persia and explored the fertile farmlands of Bactria. Their explorations and China's success against the Xiongnu brought an exchange of envoys between China and states to the west, and it opened for the Chinese the 4000-mile trade route that would become known as the Silk Road. China began importing a superior breed of horses, and it began growing alfalfa and grapes. For additional revenue he demanded that neighboring states pay his empire to sell their goods to the Chinese, and he began military campaigns to force them to do so.

In 108 BCE, for the sake of control in the northeast, Emperor Wu conquered an iron-using kingdom in northern Korea. This was a kingdom equal in many ways to the Chinese states before the unification of China in 221 BCE, and it was a kingdom with many Chinese refugees from the previous century.

Emperor Wu sent his armies southward and conquered territory that China had lost during the civil war that had brought the Han dynasty to power. This included regaining the port town of Guangzhou. And Chinese migrants followed Emperor Wu's army.

Then, with heavy fighting, Emperor Wu's army conquered northern Vietnam, an area the Chinese called Annam, meaning "pacified south." Here, too, Chinese migrants came, and some would settle near the Annamite Mountains in the center of Vietnam. The Chinese introduced Vietnam to the water buffalo, metal plows and other tools, and they brought to Annam their written language. The Chinese began to change the people of Annam from slash and burn cultivators into a more settled life. They divided Annam into administrative areas, each administration responsible for collecting taxes and supplying soldiers for the central government. But Chinese rule in Annam would remain tenuous, its jungles and mountains giving sanctuary to Vietnamese who would conduct continuous raids and skirmishes against the Chinese

The cycle of economic prosperity and wars of expansion added to other concerns that weighed on China. Emperor Wu's maintenance of large armies of occupation more than offset the benefits from the increase in trade that followed his conquests. China's imports were contributing more to the pleasures of the wealthy than they were to China's economic vitality. Non-Confucianist government officials made matters worse. They were hostile to private tradesmen, and they led a drive for government control of the economy. Under their influence the government levied a new tax on boats and carts and took over trade in China's two most profitable industries: salt and iron. And with the rise of government involvement, the economy suffered.

The same move to larger land holdings that changed Roman agriculture was changing Chinese agriculture, except that in China the number of people in the countryside had been growing. With the size of lands of the wealthy increasing and the peasant population also increasing, a shortage of land developed. Gentry bureaucrats sought a hedge against insecurity by buying land and often taking advantage of their office to do so, and often they enjoyed tax exemption for their land, while ordinary peasants were paying a larger share in taxes, resulting in their greater need to borrow money, at usurious rates. Farming productivity declined. Many peasants were evicted or were forced to leave farming, making more land available for the gentry. Some were forced to leave farming, and they resorted to banditry, and some struggling peasants sold their children into slavery

Conscription into the military and conscription for labor added to the peasantry's discontent. China's most renowned Confucian scholar, Dong Zhongshu, was outraged by the plight of the peasants, and he led the way in expressing concern about a class conflict that he identified as social decay. He complained about the vast extent of lands owned by the wealthy while the poor had no spot to plant their two feet. He complained of those who tilled the land of others compelled to give up as much as fifty percent of the harvests they produced. Dong Zhongshu recognized the disadvantage faced by those farmers who could not afford to buy iron tools, who had to till with wood and to weed with their hands. He complained that common peasants had to sell their crops when prices were low and then had to borrow money in the spring in order to start sowing when interest rates were high. And he complained about the thousands put to death every year for banditry.

Dong Zhongshu proposed to Emperor Wu a remedy for the economic crisis: reduce the taxes on the poor; reduce the unpaid labor that peasants had to perform for the state; abolish the government's monopoly on salt and iron; and improve the distribution of farm lands by limiting the amount of land that any one family could own. Nothing came of Dong Zhongshu's suggestions. Emperor Wu wanted peasants to prosper, but he was often deceived by the gentry bureaucrats who governed at the local level. The drive for reform was being led by a Confucianist, but the Confucianist gentry did not rally against their own economic interests. Emperor Wu's only substantial response to the economic decline was to levy higher taxes on the wealthy and to send spies around to catch attempts at tax evasion. He chose to ignore land redistribution, not wishing to offend wealthy landowners, believing that he needed their cooperation to finance his military campaigns.

In 91 BCE, as Emperor Wu's fifty-four year reign neared its end, around the capital violent warfare erupted over who would succeed him. On one side was Wudi's empress and on the other was the family of one of Wudi's mistresses. The two families came close to destroying each other. Then, just before Emperor Wu's death, a compromise heir was chosen: an eight-year-old to be known as Emperor Zhao, who was put under the regency of Huo Guang, a former general.

Huo Guang sponsored a conference to inquire into the grievances of his emperor's subjects. Invited to the conference were government officials of the Legalist school and worthy representatives of Confucianism. The Legalists argued for maintaining the status quo. They argued that their economic policies helped maintain China's defenses against the continued hostility of the Xiongnu and that they were protecting the people from the exploitation of traders. They argued in favor of the government's policy of western expansion on the grounds that it brought the empire horses, camels, fruits and various imported luxuries, such as furs, rugs and precious stones. The Confucianists, on the other hand, made a moral issue of peasant grievances. Also they argued that the Chinese had no business in Central Asia and that China should stay within its borders and live in peace with its neighbors. The Confucianists argued that trade is not a proper activity of government, that government should not compete with private tradesmen, and they complained that the imported goods spoken of by the Legalists had found their way only into the houses of the rich.

Under Huo Guang's regency, taxes were reduced and peace negotiations began with the Xiongnu chieftains. Emperor Zhao died in 74 BCE at the age of twenty, and conflict erupted again at the palace. Zhaodi's successor was emperor for only twenty-seven days when Huo Guang replaced him with someone he thought he could control: Emperor Xuan, age seventeen. Six years later, the regent Huo Guang died peaceably, but palace rivalry led to charges of treason against Huo Guang's wife, son and many of Huo Guang's relatives and family associates, and they were executed

Emperor Xuan ruled for twenty-six years, during which he tired to reduce the corruption that had crept into government, and he tried to provide help in eliminating the suffering among the peasants. But his attempts were ineffective, and his son and heir, Emperor Yuan (age 27) in 48 BCE became the first of a string of dysfunctional monarchs – the chance of an inept monarch inheriting power again manifesting itself. Emperor Yuan was a timid intellectual who spent much time with his numerous concubines. Rather than govern, he left power in the hands of his eunuch secretaries and members of his mother's family.

Emperor Yuan's son became emperor Cheng in 32 BCE at the age of nineteen, and he also also had little enthusiasm for governing and was most concerned with personal pleasures, including visiting houses of prostitution at night. During Emperor Cheng's twenty-seven-year reign he sought guidance from omens, and to satisfy the jealousy of one of his women, he murdered two of his sons born to other women.

In 6 BCE, Emperor Cheng was succeeded by Emperor Ai, age twenty, who lived in the company of homosexual boys, one of whom he appointed commander-in-chief of his armies. With the decline in quality of monarchs following the reign of Wudi, some Confucian scholars declared that the Han dynasty had lost its Mandate from Heaven, and this became widely believed.

In the year 1 CE Emperor Ai was succeeded by a two year-old, Emperor Ping. Domination of the palace was under the widow of Emperor Yuan, and she made her nephew, Wang Mang, regent. Emperor Ping died in the year 6, and Wang Mang named his successor, Emperor Ruzi, the last of the dynastic chain of emperors created by Liu Bang 200 years earlier.

Wang Mang was a Confucianist, and many Confucianists looked to him with hope that China would be ruled again with moral purpose, and some looked to him to found a new dynasty. Encouraged by widespread support, in the year 9 CE Wang Mang declared himself emperor, ending rule by the Han dynasty. And Wang began a struggle for recognition of his legitimacy.

Wang Mang hoped that with reforms he could win more support. Like the Yawhist priesthood during the reign of king Josiah, Wang announced the discovery of important writings. These were books claimed to have been written by Confucius, supposedly discovered when Confucius' house had been torn down more than 200 years before. The discovered works contained declarations supporting the very kind of reform that Wang sought.

Wang defended his policies by quoting from the discovered works. Following what was portrayed as Confucian scripture, he decreed a return to the golden times when every man had his measure of land to till, land that in principle belonged to the state. He declared that a family of less than eight that had more than fifteen acres was obligated to distribute the excess to the landless. He moved to reduce the tax burden on poor peasants, and he devised a plan to have state banks lend money to whomever needed it at an interest of ten percent per year, in contrast to the thirty percent that was the going rate by private lenders. In order to stabilize the price of grain, he made plans for a state granary, hoping that this would discourage the wealthy from hoarding grain and profiting from price fluctuations. Wang also delegated a body of officials to regulate the economy and to fix prices every three months, and he decreed that critics of his plan would be drafted into the military.

Wang claimed that he was doing the will of Confucius. He announced that his rule was a restoration of the rule of the early Zhou kings – an age that the Confucian scholar Mencius had claimed was supposed to return every 500 years. It was about one thousand years since the beginning of Zhou rule and 500 years since Confucius had been at the peak of his powers.

Wang believed that his subjects would obey his decrees, but again gentry-bureaucrats gave less importance to their Confucianism than to their wealth. They and other owners of good-sized lands failed to cooperate in implementing Wang's reforms. Without newspapers or television, local people remained unaware of the reforms. Wealthy merchants that Wang Mang's government employed to pursue implementation of the reforms succumbed to bribery and proved interested mainly in enriching themselves. Wang needed a broad base of support and a force willing to move against those violating his land reform laws, but he didn't have it. The power of money was defeating Wang's reforms.

In the year 11 the Yellow River broke its banks, creating floods from Shandong north to where the river empties into the sea. The usual failure to store enough grain for hard times left people without food. In the year 14 came cannibalism. Believing that his reform program was a failure, Wang withdrew it. But already armed resistance to his rule had arisen. Rather than Wang having mobilized a peasant army to enforce his reforms, armies of peasants were mobilized against him.

In Shandong province, near the mouth of the Yellow River, Wang faced an organized movement of disciplined bands of peasants called the Red Eyebrows, led by a former brigand chief. In the neighboring province just to the north, another rebellion arose, and rebellion spread across China. In some places, rebel peasants were led by landlords. Some rebel groupings described Wang's rule as illegitimate. And one of the rebel groupings placed at its head a Han prince by the name of Liu Xiu.

Peasant armies murdered and plundered. They marched to the capital, killing officials as they went. The troops that Wang sent against the rebel armies joined the rebels or went on sprees of plundering, taking what little food they could find. The basic goodness of people that Confucianists had believed in appeared to have vanished. In the year 23, a rebel army invaded and burned China's great capital, Chang'an. Its soldiers found Wang Mang in his throne-room reciting from his collection of Confucian writings. He was silenced by a soldier cutting off his head.

In the five years following the death of Wang Mang, millions died fighting as rival factions vied with each other for power. The most successful of the rival factions was led by a member of the Han family, a prince by the name of Liu Xiu. He surrounded himself with educated men, and he was popular among his troops. His army was the only force that did not loot when capturing towns, and this helped him win hearts and minds. Liu Xiu took control of the ruined capital, Chang'an. He proclaimed himself emperor, restoring the Han dynasty – to be known as the Later Han, or East Han. He moved the capital eastward to Luoyang, and for eleven more years he had to combat rivals. He absorbed some bands of Red Eyebrow rebels into his army, and his army killed other Red Eyebrows in great numbers.

What had not been accomplished by reforms was accomplished by violence: so many had died in the upheaval that land had become available to anyone who wanted it, and with many money lenders among the dead, many more peasants had become free of debt. Liu Xiu helped the economy by lowering taxes, as much as he thought possible: to a tenth or thirteenth of one's harvest or profits. During his reign of thirty-two years, he attempted improvements by promoting scholarship and by curtailing the influence of eunuchs and some others around the royal family. He defended China's western and northern borders by launching successful military campaigns on these frontiers, pushing back the Xiongnu, enabling him to take control of Xinjiang (the extreme northwest of modern China). Also, he tightened China's grip on the area around the Liao River and northern Korea, and he was able to expand control over all that had been China. The restored Han dynasty appeared to have won back the Mandate of Heaven.

In 57 CE, Liu Xiu died. He took the posthumous title of Guangwu-di (di, as mentioned before, signifying emperor), and he was succeeded by his son Mingdi, who reigned eighteen years while China's economy continued to recover. Emperor Ming's rule has been regarded as harsh. He associated himself with Taoism and theological Confucianism, and he declared himself a prophet. He supported growth in what was considered education, and he lectured on history at Luoyang's new imperial university – a lecture attended by many thousands

Emperor Ming was succeeded by Emperor Zhang, who ruled from the year 75 to 88. He was succeeded by Emperor He, who ruled from 88 to 106. Despite Hedi's mediocrity, China continued to enjoy a rising prosperity. The university at Luoyang grew to 240 buildings and 30,000 students. China's trade reached a new height. Silk from China was becoming familiar to people as far as the Roman Empire – which was then in its so-called golden age. And in return, China was receiving glass, jade, horses, precious stones, tortoise shell and fabrics.

With prosperity came another attempt at expansion westward. A commander of a Chinese army, Ban Chao, led an army of 60,000 unopposed to the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea. He wished to send an envoy to make contact with the Romans. But the Parthians feared an alliance between Rome and China. They discouraged Ban Chao with tales of danger, so he turned back.

By the second century, China had caught up with and in some areas had surpassed Europe and West Asia in science and technology. Paper was coming into use in China. China had a water clock with an accuracy that Europeans would be without for more than a thousand years. China had a lunar calendar that would be consulted into the twentieth century. It had a seismograph that was invented in the year 132 – eight feet wide and made of bronze. The Chinese observed sun spots, which would not be observed by Europeans until Galileo in 1612. The Chinese charted 11,520 stars and measured the elliptical orbit of the moon. China had a machine that sowed seeds and a machine for husking grain. It had water pumps. And, unlike the Romans, the Chinese had wheel barrows. The Chinese had horse collars and by 322 at least a few had saddles with stirrups. They were improving their use of herbal medicines and learning more about human anatomy and the diagnosis of physical disorders. They were using minor surgery and acupuncture, and they were aware of the benefits of a good diet.

But life continued to be hard for China's common people – its peasants. Too much was still being taken from them in taxes. They still had to labor once a month for the emperor. Punishments were still harsh. For the sake of order a poor peasant could be executed for using the central part of a highway, which was reserved for the emperor. And not enough grain was being stored for emergencies.

China's prosperity had risen under Emperor He (reign 88-106), and the court of Emperor He had become in size and luxury equal to the courts of previous Han emperors. At He's court, hundreds of wives and concubines were accompanied by a great many eunuchs to guard them. Under Emperor He, eunuchs and family consorts had acquired greater influence, with eunuchs having the ear of the emperor.

Those involved in choosing who was to be a successor to the throne preferred children because children could be dominated more than an adult, leaving considerable power with those who did the choosing. All Han emperors since Emperor Ming (reign 58-75) had become emperors when adolescents, two of them as young as two, and most had begun their rule with their dowager empress mother serving as regent. These women remained isolated and dependent upon men – usually their male relatives. As an emperor grew into adulthood, if he rejected his mother's relatives as advisors he usually turned to the only other males with which he had contact – the eunuchs – and he appointed them to high positions as a counter to his mother's influence.

In the year 125, Emperor Shun succeeded his father, Emperor An. There was expectation that Shun-di would govern better than his father, but Shun-di turned out to be just as incompetent as his father. Corruption continued without abatement among eunuchs and officials, and word was spreading among China's peasants that Han emperors had again lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Shun-di died in 144, followed by Emperor Huan, age fourteen, 146, and political decline continued. In 159 the dowager empress died, and eunuchs around the emperor sensed opportunity and moved to eliminate rival influence by arranging the extermination of members of the empress' clan. Emperor Huan became dependent on the eunuchs. He delegated powers to them, and the eunuchs filled government positions with their kinsmen, receiving payoffs in gold

Emperor Huan died in 168, and the next day his young wife, now the empress dowager, agreed to the selection of a twelve-year-old from out of town as Emperor Huan's successor. The boy was a great-great-grandchild of Emperor Zhang, and he became Emperor Ling. During his reign, centralized governance continued to deteriorate.

A clash erupted between the eunuchs and Confucianist gentry-bureaucrats. The Confucianists had a long-standing dislike of the eunuchs, seeing them as lacking in education and as interfering with good government. War erupted between the eunuchs and the Confucianists over the influence of a Taoist magician. The magician prophesied that a general clemency was forthcoming, and he had his son murder someone to demonstrate his confidence in the prophecy. The magician's son was a henchman of the eunuchs, and the eunuchs stayed the magician's execution. The governor of the province executed the son anyway. The eunuchs accused the governor of violating an imperial decree and of conspiring with students and scholars to form an illegal alliance against the government. The eunuchs obtained a decree from Emperor Ling ordering arrests of the students who had been demonstrating and who had been attempting to deliver petitions to the emperor. And soon, many students died in prison.

In the provinces, men commanding troops were growing more independent. And local magistrates and governors were losing their authority to local men of wealth who often had influence through bribery with eunuchs at the emperor's court.

Adding to the political chaos was a movement led by a Taoist named Zhang Jue, who called himself "The Good Doctor of Great Wisdom." He had been moving about in the countryside offering magical healing, treating ailments with water and words. He called his method of healing the "Way of the Highest Peace." The good doctor spoke of Han rulers as having lost the Mandate of Heaven, and he proclaimed their imminent fall. Within ten years, his movement had grown to hundreds of thousands and had divided into districts, each led by a "deputy doctor." Zhang Jue's power and his view of the Han rule as weak and Han emperors as having lost the mandate of heaven inspired him to overthrow the Han dynasty.
The year of decision for Zhang Jue was 184. The fifth day of the third moon was fixed as the time for a general uprising in Luoyang and surrounding regions. But word of the plan was heard at the imperial court, and the authorities picked up local leaders of the revolt and executed them. Zhang Jue changed his plans and called for an immediate uprising, calling on his followers to burn down official residences and to loot towns. This was to be known as the Yellow Turban Rebellion, named after the headdresses of Zhang Jue's movement (yellow signifying their association with the element earth as opposed to the element of fire, which they associated with Han rule). The Yellow Turban Rebellion spread, and people from all corners of the empire began robbing, killing and heading toward the capital.
The eunuchs and intellectual bureaucrats in Luoyang forgot their differences in their mutual fear and opposition to the Yellow Turbans. Government forces erected fortifications around Luoyang, and the government authorized governors to organize their own armies to combat the rebels. Wealthy landowners also organized armies to defend themselves. But town after town fell to the Yellow Turbans, with governors and local magistrates fleeing before them to avoid being sacrificed to the god of the rebels.

With China weakened by chaos, the Xiongnu began making raids against the Chinese again. And in Korea, tribal warriors on horseback from the hills pushed against the Chinese there. The government in Luoyang sent no help, and the Koreans overran that portion of Korea ruled by Chinese.
In attempting to defend themselves, Han palace authorities drafted people into the military, establishing armies at great expense. The Han armies were weakened by inefficiency and corruption, but the Yellow Turbans were disorganized and ineffective. They had been led to believe that their gods had elected them as a force for good and were, therefore, invulnerable. They matched their lack of weapons with their belief that they didn't need weapons – a view not conducive to an efficient military operation.
For more than a decade war against the Yellow Turbans continued. Eight of China's provinces were devastated. Yellow Turban gangs were cut down one after the other. By the year 205 (21 years after it had begun) the Yellow Turban Rebellion was over, and rule by the Han family was shattered and at its end.
Peasant supporters of the Yellow Turbans had been returning to the business of surviving through work. Having lost hope in their uprising, they put their hope for a coming paradise in the world beyond.

Emperor Ling died in 188 or 189, at the age of thirty-three, while military governors were clinging to the greater independence that they had acquired during the war against the Yellow Turbans. A military general who was a popular figure and the half-brother of the dowager empress tried to assert leadership at the palace. He schemed against the court eunuchs and their supporters, and to combat them he invited to the capital general Dong Zhuo and his army from around the Great Wall in the north. But before Dong Zhuo arrived, fighting broke out at the palace. A eunuch murdered the general. The general's allies struck back and burned the palace, killing every eunuch they could find – or anyone who looked like a eunuch because of lack of beard. And more than 2,000 eunuchs, and supposed eunuchs, died.

Soon after, Dong Zhuo arrived in the capital and put to death both the reigning emperor, Shao, and the empress dowager. He chose a nine year-old prince as emperor and as a front for his rule, the boy acquiring the title Emperor Xian. Dong Zhuo swaggered about the court with his sword, behaving in a manner described as debauched and bestial, while his troops, many of whom were Xiongnu, ran about the capital, pillaging and murdering as they pleased.


Then Dong Zhuo went off to do battle with rival generals. The child emperor, Xian, and his following, including those who belonged to what had been an ineffective palace militia, burned Luoyang and began a trek westward to Chang'an.They took with them – the story goes – more than a million civilians, most of whom are said to have died of exhaustion and starvation along the way.

Dong Zhuo's lack of concern for hearts and minds worked against him. His bloodthirstiness and fits of temper alienated his subordinate officers, and in the year 192 his officers assassinated him and threw his corpse to a mob that hated him.
A war for supremacy was taking place among China's generals, and in 196 CE, another general, Cao Cao, found the boy emperor and declared himself the boy's "imperial minister." He declared himself the protector of the empire, and, in the name of Emperor Xian, Cao Cao drafted more men into his army.

Cao Cao was a vigorous, bright and able leader – and a poet. His army is said to have numbered as many as a million men. In bloody battles in northern China he defeated warlord after warlord and restored order there. In 208, Cao Cao marched south in an effort to reunify China. The ensuing battle of Jiangling, along the Yangzi River, became one of the best known in China's history. In that battle, Cao Cao confronted the allied armies of Liu Bei and Sun Juan, and that alliance defeated him, driving Cao Cao back north.


Liu Bei was a member of the Han royal family, and he was a man with a kindly disposition. He might have united China, but his ally, Sun Quan, broke with him, fearing that if Liu Bei were successful he would dominate him. Sun Quan established the kingdom of Wu in the south of China, and he allied with Cao Cao, who ruled the kingdom of Wei in the north (named after the Wei kingdom of the Warring States Period). Liu Bei built the kingdom of Shu, in Sichuan Province. The phase in China's history called the Three Kingdoms had begun.
Meanwhile, along the Yangzi River near Sichuan, a surviving Taoist cult with its own army had established a theocratic state. The cult's founder, Zhang Lu, miracle healings and he preached the message of physical and moral well-being, claiming that diseases were punishments for evil deeds and that diseases could be cured by remorse and ceremonial confessions. Zhang Lu's community had communal "friendship" meals, and he had a welfare system for his community and storage for grain and meat. He encouraged equality. His community offered the traveling homeless a place to stay and a meal. And it offered leniency to criminals.


Another Taoist, Zhang Xiu set up an independent state nearby. Despite their mutual devotion to Taoism, the communities of Zhang Lu and Zhang Xiu warred against each other – much as would Christians. And Zhang Lu, it is said, killed Zhang Xiu.
Soon thereafter, Zhang Lu had a more formidable opponent, Cao Cao. With his army, Cao Cao overran Zhang Lu's territory. Zhang Lu surrendered to Cao Cao and was rewarded with a fiefdom. It is said that Zhang Lu died shortly thereafter – in 217. And it came to be legend that twenty-six years after his death he was seen by many witnesses ascending to heaven. The legend held that when his grave was opened, in the year 259, his body was found wholly intact, meaning that he had died only in the sense that he had detached from his corpse and had entered paradise.

A famous fourteenth century novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, described the Three Kingdoms period as one of romance, heroism and chivalry. But it was not romantic for those who lived it.

Of the three kingdoms, Wei had the strongest military, a strength bolstered by its economy and water transport. The Kingdom of Shu was more sparsely populated, an area of mostly forest, and with many people who were not Chinese.

In 263, Wei overwhelmed and absorbed Shu, leaving Wei and Wu as rivals. In 265, Wei's ruler was overthrown from within. Wei's leading general, Sima Yan, of a powerful clan, took power. In 280 he overpowered and annexed the kingdom of Wu. China was now nominally united. Sima Yan became the first emperor of what was to be the Jin dynasty. He extended his power northward into central Korea and southward into Annam. The cycle between unity and disintegration had swung back to unity.
Forays against China by the Xiongnu and other tribal people ended for a while. And the policy of settling tribal people within China was resumed. There was hope for peace, unity and prosperity, and, as early as 280, Sima Yan began a program of disarmament. Troops were discharged and metal weapons of value were melted down for coin. Sima Yan, to be known as Emperor Wu of Jin (or Jin Wudi), wanted to be instrumental in a return to the great Han dynasties. He gave titles to his uncles, cousins, brothers and sons in hope of increasing the influence of the Sima family, and he gave them full authority and their own armies in their territories. He was distributing his power while enjoying the company of his 6,000 or so concubines. Court officials were members of privileged families. Officials and landlords were free to look out for their interests and intensify and misuse their power over peasants.

With the death of Emperor Wu of Jin came the old problem of the dynasty system: succession. The first emperor's son and successor, Emperor Hui, was mentally deficient. His wife, Queen Jia, ruled in his place. She was fearful and began arresting and executing anyone she saw as a threat to her position. This included a rival faction within the royal family. Warfare erupted. Several dukes and thousands of others were murdered. Queen Jia failed to kill all her opponents, and, in the year 300, a prince named Sima Lun led a coup that killed Queen Jia and many others. Lun made himself emperor, and he in turn was killed by Prince Lui. In 302 he was killed by Prince Changsha, who in 303 was killed by a prince called Donghai. In 306, two more princes fell. The feeble-minded Emperor Hui was murdered by poison in the year 307.
Drought and famine arrived. The cycle of unity and disintegration had swung back to disintegration

308, Xiongnu nobles along China's northern border met and chose one among them as their leader: Liu Yuan. He had acquired Chinese culture and claimed to be related to China's old Han royalty through marriage. And Liu Yuan claimed the heritage of his ancestors: Han family rule. But it was Liu Yuan's son, Liu Cong, who acted on his father's claim. Liu Cong had been brought up at the royal court. He had become a scholar, but he still had the vigor and strength of a Xiongnu warrior.

With the disintegration and weakness that had returned to China, Liu Cong saw opportunity. In 311 his army, supported by Chinese rebels, arrived at the capital, Luoyang, without warning. Liu Cong's army sacked the city and murdered more than thirty thousand people, including the Jin dynasy's crown prince. Luoyang's royal palace was burned. Imperial tombs were looted. The Jin emperor was carried off and forced to become a cupbearer, until Liu Cong had him executed.
In 316, Xiongnu cavalry passed through the city of Chang'an, and amid the ruins there another prince of the Jin family declared himself emperor. But before the year was over the Xiongnu returned, and the city surrendered. The newly declared Jin emperor was made to serve Liu Ts'ung as had his predecessor by rinsing cups during feasts, until he too was executed.
The remainder of the royal Jin family sought refuge south of the Yangzi River. There, in 317, in the city of Jiankang (modern Nanjing), a military commander who was a member of the royal family proclaimed the renewal of Jin rule and declared himself emperor, calling himself Jin Yuandi. Meanwhile, the Xiongnu invasions into northern China inspired millions of people to migrate to the south. Most of the north's Confucian scholars were among them. With the migrants were Taoist communities under the leadership of Taoist masters. Entire clans of northern Chinese migrated south, as did sixty or seventy percent of northern China's gentry. They brought with them what wealth they could while they believed that their stay in the south would be temporary.

The arrival of great numbers from the north was resented by indigenous southerners, and they refused to cooperate with the new government at Jiankang. But Jin Yuandi was patient. His regime avoided interfering with the privileges of the south's elite families, and eventually Jin Yuandi's regime persuaded this elite to cooperate with it. The regime at Jiankang also benefited from the wealth, experience and technical skills of the refugees. It set up administrative provinces for their settlement.