The Han would rule China for more than 400 years, with an interruption of fourteen years. The first phase of Han rule, known to historians as the “Former Han,” lasted from 207 B. C. to A. D. 9. In the latter year, a usurper named Wang Mang (wahng MAHNG) took the throne and established the shortlived Hsin (DZIN) Dynasty. Fourteen years later, in a. d. 23, the Han regained control, ushering in the period known as the Later Han, which lasted until a. d. 220.
Beginning with the Han, the Chinese adopted a custom of naming their emperors posthumously (PAHS-chum-us-lee; that is, after their death.) Thus during his lifetime, Liu Pang never used the name by which he would become known to Chinese historians: Kao-tzu (gow-DZU). Kao-tzu (r. 207-195 B. C.) came from a background of extreme poverty and rose to his position through a combination of cleverness and strong will. Probably illiterate, he had little use for scholars. For this reason the followers of Confucius initially played little role in the Han government. He was a popular ruler nonetheless, a breath of fresh air after Ch'in oppression.
Kao-tzu and the emperors who followed him had to negotiate a difficult situation with the noblemen, eager to regain the power taken from them under Ch'in rule. Later, the emperor Wu-ti (woo-DEE; r. 141-87 b. c.) managed to replace
The authority of the noblemen with that of officials. The rise of these officials led to the triumph of Confucian scholars, who— because of their education, not to mention their philosophy, with its emphasis on order in the empire—were ideally suited to positions in the Han state. In 130 b. c., Wu-ti established a set of examination questions for civil servants. These would form the basis for a system of civil service exams, formally established in a. d. 600, that would continue to be used for more than a thousand years.
Though Han rule was more gentle than that of the Ch'in Dynasty, Han Wu-ti nonetheless reinforced the idea of government control over the economy. When people began to privately mint (produce) copper coins, this created a situation of inflation or rising prices. The Han treasury issued notes to buy back these coins and end the inflation. Usually the term “note,” when used in an economic sense, refers to paper money, but the Han notes were animal skins; in any case, like paper money today, they were a symbol of the government's economic power, which gave them their value. Han Wu-ti also sought control over industry (production and sale of goods) establishing a government monopoly (exclusive control), for instance, over the production of salt and iron.
In foreign affairs, Wu-ti was occupied, as were most ancient Chinese emperors, with the problem of the “barbarians,” a situation that would lead to additions to the Great Wall. In the 130s b. c., he sent a representative named Chang Chi'en to the west to try to play the Hsiung Nu off against one another. Along the way, the official came in contact with the Yueh Chih, a nomadic people who had absorbed aspects of Greek civilization from the Greco-Bactrians they had conquered. This was the first Chinese contact with another civilization; formerly, they had believed that there were no civilized peoples beyond their borders.
World History
