Han Dynasty

汉朝 (Hàn Cháo)

206 BCE-220 CECapital: Chang'an (Western Han, 202 BCE-9 CE), Luoyang (Eastern Han, 25-220 CE)

Founded by Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu (汉高祖 Hàn Gāozǔ)

The Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) was the second imperial dynasty of China, founded by the commoner Liu Bang after the collapse of the Qin. Divided into the Western Han (capital Chang'an) and the Eastern Han (capital Luoyang) by Wang Mang's short-lived Xin dynasty (9-23 CE), it lasted four centuries, made Confucianism the ideology of the state, opened the Silk Road and gave the Chinese majority ethnic group its name.

Overview & Significance

The Han gave imperial China its lasting form. Its rulers kept the centralised administration of the Qin but ruled through Confucian scholars rather than Legalist enforcers, establishing the pairing of a strong throne with a literate bureaucracy that every later dynasty inherited. The Imperial Academy and the practice of recommending men for office on the basis of learning grew into the civil service examinations. Sima Qian and Ban Gu created the genres of Chinese historiography, and the canon of Confucian classics fixed under the Han shaped education until 1905. The Han state opened the Silk Road, fixed the calendar still used for Chinese festivals and issued the coin that circulated for seven centuries. Paper, the seismoscope, the wheelbarrow and improved iron casting all date from this period. The dynasty's four centuries of relative stability produced a population of nearly 60 million and a shared written culture from Korea to Vietnam. The Chinese majority ethnic group still calls itself Han, and the Chinese script is known as 'Han characters' (hanzi) in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

Key Emperors

Emperor Gaozu (Liu Bang)

Reign: 202-195 BCE (King of Han from 206 BCE)

Defeated his rival Xiang Yu at the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE and took the imperial title
Kept the Qin system of commanderies and counties but granted large kingdoms to relatives and allies
Reduced taxes and corvée labour and softened the harshest Qin penal laws
Concluded the first heqin marriage treaty with the Xiongnu after his defeat at Baideng in 200 BCE

Emperor Wen (Liu Heng)

Reign: 180-157 BCE

Cut the land tax to one-thirtieth of the harvest and at times suspended it entirely
Abolished mutilating punishments in 167 BCE and reduced the use of collective responsibility
Ran a frugal court that later historians held up as a model of benevolent rule
His reign and that of his son Emperor Jing are remembered as the 'Rule of Wen and Jing'

Emperor Wu (Liu Che)

Reign: 141-87 BCE

Made Confucianism the basis of state education by founding the Imperial Academy in 124 BCE
Launched the offensive wars against the Xiongnu that pushed Han power into the Hexi Corridor and Central Asia
Sent Zhang Qian west in 138 and 119 BCE, opening the routes later called the Silk Road
Introduced state monopolies on salt and iron in 119 BCE to fund his campaigns
Extended Han rule to northern Vietnam, Yunnan and northern Korea

Emperor Guangwu (Liu Xiu)

Reign: 25-57 CE

Restored the Han after the fall of Wang Mang and moved the capital to Luoyang
Defeated the Red Eyebrows and a dozen regional warlords to reunify the empire by 36 CE
Reduced the size of the army and the tax burden to allow recovery after two decades of war
Relied on scholar-officials from the great landed families, shaping the character of the Eastern Han

Emperor Ming (Liu Zhuang)

Reign: 57-75 CE

Traditionally credited with introducing Buddhism to the court and founding the White Horse Temple at Luoyang
Commissioned Wang Jing's repair of the Yellow River dykes in 69 CE, which held for centuries
Reopened the Western Regions with the campaigns of Ban Chao from 73 CE
Enforced strict discipline on relatives of the empress and on the bureaucracy

Timeline

Liu Bang enters the Qin capital Xianyang and is enfeoffed as King of Han

206 BCE

Traditional starting date of the dynasty, though Liu Bang did not take the imperial title until 202 BCE

Impact: Began the four-year Chu-Han contention between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu

Battle of Gaixia; Xiang Yu dies and Liu Bang proclaims himself emperor

202 BCE

Reunification of China after the Qin collapse

Impact: A commoner founded a dynasty, which later rulers cited as proof that the Mandate of Heaven was open to anyone

Xiongnu under Modu besiege Gaozu at Baideng

200 BCE

Showed the limits of Han military power on the steppe frontier

Impact: Led to the heqin policy of marriage alliances and tribute that lasted until the 130s BCE

Rebellion of the Seven States crushed under Emperor Jing

154 BCE

Ended the threat of the semi-independent kingdoms granted at the founding

Impact: Allowed Emperor Wu to reduce the kingdoms further and centralise the empire

Zhang Qian travels to the Yuezhi and Ferghana in Central Asia

138-126 BCE

First recorded Chinese diplomatic contact with the western oasis states

Impact: Opened the overland trade routes later known as the Silk Road

Wei Qing and Huo Qubing defeat the Xiongnu in the Ordos and Hexi Corridor

127-119 BCE

Reversed a century of Han weakness on the northern frontier

Impact: Han garrisons and settlers moved into Gansu; the Xiongnu confederation split in 60 BCE

Sima Qian completes the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji)

c. 94 BCE

First comprehensive history of China from the legendary emperors to the author's own day

Impact: Its structure was copied by the 24 later dynastic histories

Wang Mang deposes the infant Ruzi Ying and founds the Xin dynasty

9 CE

Interrupted Han rule; Wang Mang attempted land nationalisation and currency reform

Impact: His reforms failed, Yellow River floods caused famine, and the Red Eyebrows rebellion broke out in 17 CE

Wang Mang killed in Chang'an; Liu Xiu takes the throne as Emperor Guangwu

23-25 CE

Restoration of the Han under a collateral line

Impact: The capital moved to Luoyang, so the restored dynasty is called the Eastern (or Later) Han

Cai Lun reports an improved papermaking process to Emperor He

105 CE

Paper made from bark, hemp and rags replaced bamboo and silk for writing

Impact: Paper spread across Asia and, by the eighth century, to the Islamic world

Envoys claiming to come from the Roman ruler 'Andun' reach the Han court

166 CE

Earliest recorded direct contact between China and the Roman world

Impact: Confirms that the Silk Road connected the two largest empires of antiquity

Yellow Turban Rebellion led by Zhang Jue

184 CE

Mass Daoist-inspired uprising in eastern China against a court dominated by eunuchs

Impact: The generals raised to suppress it became warlords who divided the empire

Dong Zhuo seizes Luoyang; Cao Cao takes control of Emperor Xian

189-196 CE

The Han emperor became a puppet of competing warlords

Impact: Cao Cao ruled northern China in the emperor's name while Sun Quan and Liu Bei held the south and west

Emperor Xian abdicates in favour of Cao Pi, who founds the Wei

220 CE

Formal end of the Han dynasty

Impact: China split into the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu for the next sixty years

Achievements

political

Combined Qin centralism with a milder legal code and Confucian ideology, creating the model of imperial government used for two millennia
Recruited officials through recommendation and examination at the Imperial Academy, the seed of the later civil service
Reduced the semi-independent kingdoms after the Rebellion of the Seven States in 154 BCE and the inheritance decree of 127 BCE
Maintained a census that recorded about 57.7 million people in 2 CE, the earliest surviving nationwide count
Divided the empire into commanderies and counties supervised by regional inspectors from 106 BCE

cultural

Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (c. 94 BCE) created the model for all later Chinese dynastic histories
Ban Gu's Book of Han (completed c. 111 CE) established the single-dynasty history as a genre
The Five Classics were canonised and engraved on stone at Luoyang in 175 CE (the Xiping Stone Classics)
The fu rhapsody and the yuefu ballad became the leading poetic forms of the age
Xu Shen's Shuowen Jiezi (c. 100 CE) became the first dictionary to analyse Chinese characters by component

technological

Cai Lun presented an improved papermaking process to the court in 105 CE, though earlier Han paper survives
Zhang Heng built a seismoscope in 132 CE and an armillary sphere driven by water
Cast iron ploughshares, the seed drill and the wheelbarrow spread through Han agriculture
The Taichu calendar of 104 BCE fixed the start of the year at the first lunar month, a convention still in use
Blast furnaces and water-powered bellows (attributed to Du Shi in 31 CE) raised iron output

military

Cavalry armies under Wei Qing and Huo Qubing drove the Xiongnu out of the Ordos and Hexi regions between 127 and 119 BCE
Han garrisons and beacon towers extended the Great Wall west to Dunhuang and the Jade Gate Pass
Ban Chao secured the Tarim Basin oasis states for the Eastern Han between 73 and 102 CE
The crossbow with a bronze trigger mechanism remained the standard infantry weapon

economic

Overland trade with Central Asia, Parthia and, indirectly, Rome carried Chinese silk west and horses, glass and gold east
Salt and iron monopolies (119 BCE) and the 'equable transport' system stabilised state revenue
The wuzhu coin, introduced in 118 BCE, remained the standard Chinese coin until the Tang
Large landed estates grew during the Eastern Han, concentrating wealth in a few clans

philosophical

Dong Zhongshu's synthesis of Confucianism with yin-yang and Five Phases cosmology became state orthodoxy
The Salt and Iron Debates of 81 BCE argued the role of the state in the economy
Wang Chong's Lunheng (c. 80 CE) attacked superstition and argued for a naturalistic view of the world
Buddhism arrived by the first century CE and the first sutras were translated at Luoyang

Artifacts & Archaeological Evidence

Mawangdui tombs (马王堆), Changsha

Three Western Han tombs sealed c. 168 BCE, containing the preserved body of Lady Dai, a painted silk funeral banner, silk maps and manuscripts of the Daodejing and medical texts

Significance: The best-preserved set of early Han burial goods and the most important cache of Han manuscripts yet found

Jade burial suits of Liu Sheng and Dou Wan, Mancheng

Suits of over 2,000 jade plaques sewn with gold wire, from the tomb of the Prince of Zhongshan (d. 113 BCE) and his wife

Significance: Illustrate Han beliefs that jade preserved the body and show the wealth of the princely kingdoms

Flying Horse of Gansu (铜奔马)

Bronze galloping horse balanced on a swallow, from an Eastern Han tomb at Leitai near Wuwei, found in 1969

Significance: Reflects the Han obsession with the 'heavenly horses' of Ferghana and the skill of Eastern Han bronze casters

Wu Liang Shrine reliefs (武梁祠), Shandong

Carved stone slabs from a family offering shrine dated 151 CE, showing historical exemplars, omens and scenes of daily life

Significance: A primary source for Eastern Han Confucian values, mythology and clothing

Xiping Stone Classics (熹平石经)

The authorised text of the Confucian classics carved on 46 stone stelae at the Imperial Academy in Luoyang from 175 CE; fragments survive

Significance: Fixed the official text of the canon and shows the state's role in defining orthodoxy

Fall of the Dynasty

The Eastern Han declined over a century as child emperors succeeded one another and power passed between the families of empresses and the palace eunuchs. Two purges of Confucian officials (166 and 169 CE, the 'Partisan Prohibitions') removed critics from government, while large estates absorbed the free peasantry whose taxes and labour supported the state. Drought, flooding and epidemics in the 170s and 180s fed the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 CE. To suppress it the court gave provincial governors military authority, and these men became warlords. In 189 CE the general Dong Zhuo seized Luoyang, killed the eunuchs and installed the boy Emperor Xian; the capital was burned in 190. Cao Cao took custody of the emperor in 196 and ruled the north in his name. After Cao Cao's death his son Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate in 220 CE, ending the dynasty and opening the Three Kingdoms period.