Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
production and distribution of essential commodities such as salt and
iron. His official government monopolies over salt and iron enabled
him to sell these commodities at artificially high prices, thus driving
salt and iron merchants out of business and guaranteeing the
government a steady stream of tax revenue. Wudi also launched a
very aggressive campaign against the Xiongnu who lived along
China's northern borders in the steppes and constantly attacked China
for material advantage. His warfare against them led to the expansion
of China's borders and to the eventual submission of the Xiongnu,
although not during his lifetime. Wudi also ruled during a time of
great cultural efflorescence. He was the emperor who made Confucian
thought China's official state ideology, and during his reign he sought
to foster Confucian education for government employees. The great
Chinese historian Sima Qian wrote the first comprehensive history of
China during this time.
Han power declined after the death of Wudi, and his successors
were mostly mediocre men who lacked vision and the instinct to gov-
ern effectively. By the time of Christ, landlordism was rearing its ugly
head once again, with wealthy merchants buying up huge tracts of
land and charging the peasantry exploitive rents. These huge rents
meant that the government had to charge less in taxes, and as
government revenue dried up, social chaos ensued. Some became con-
vinced that the Liu family's mandate to rule Han China had finally
evaporated, and in A.D. 9 an ambitious and fanatical Confucian literal-
ist named Wang Mang usurped the Han throne and sought to remake
China into the literal image of Confucius's vision of the early Zhou
period. Wang named his regime the Xin dynasty (“xin” means “new”
or “renewal”). In his efforts to make China all over again, he bungled
badly, and his attempts to mimic early Zhou feudal institutions only
made a bad situation worse. Wang Mang, China's Oliver Cromwell,
also created many new problems for China, not the worst of which
was a huge wave of internal rebellion. Even nature itself did not co-
operate with him: the Yellow River broke through its dikes. Rebellion
against his regime had emerged by A.D. 18, and by A.D. 23 he and
his government had been overthrown.
A descendant of the Han royal family reestablished the dynasty in
A.D. 25, but this time the capital was farther to the east in Loyang,
instead of Chang'an, where it had been located during the first half
of Han rule. Thus the restored Han dynasty is sometimes called “Later
Han” or “Eastern Han.” The founders of the late Han virtually played
back early Han history, wrestling with greedy merchants and once
again subduing the Xiongnu. A long twilight period of Han rule
