After the ‘First Emperor’ died, his rigid Empire crumbled. His law-based system had created too many outlaws. He had instituted cruel punishments for mild infractions. Rather than submit, many went into hiding. It was these groups emerging from the state of Han who overthrew the Ch’in. The Han dynasty rejected the extreme sense of legalism of the brief Ch’in dictatorship but stood on the back of Shih Huang Ti’s political organization of China.
Before delving into the philosophical and religious developments in China during the Han, let us first establish a context.
Imagine yourself born in China about 250 BC. Social chaos reigned supreme, with war and banditry everywhere. All you and your family want is peace. The Ch’in dictatorship offers peace and social stability. You support the Ch’in. However they achieve social stability at the cost of personal freedom. You see many imprisoned and executed for trivial offenses. While not wanting to return to the chaos of the late Chou, you are not happy in this totally ordered society of the Ch’in. After nearly a decade of rule, the Ch’in Emperor orders all the books burned. This is the last straw. Law and order is one thing but book burning and culture destroying, has gone too war. Waiting patiently, the Emperor dies. The Time is Right. Time for revolt. Everyone is waiting for the sign.
We’re pointing out the context of the response. The Ch’in extreme legalistic Order was the proper response to the feudalistic Chaos of the Chou, while the Tolerant Han needed to follow the Rigid Ch’in. The tolerant Han dynasty could not have followed the chaotic Chou. The Han could only have followed after the unification of China achieved by the Ch’in. The correct response and philosophy is contextual rather than absolute. When things have gotten extremely out of hand an extreme response is called for which might be inappropriate in less extreme circumstances.
After the First Emperor died, a Ch’in regiment late because of mud realized that the penalty was death. They revolted successfully. All of China rose up to throw off the dictator who had created such miracles for the State at the expense of personal freedom. In the spontaneous revolt that followed, two achieved ascendancy, Hsiang Yu and Liu Pang.
Liu Pang to avoid a prolonged civil war between the revolutionary forces, deferred to the savage Hsiang Yu. Hsiang Yu made Liu Pang the king of Han on China’s western frontier, while he went home to Ch'u to rule the Empire. Eventually the violent excesses of Hsiang Yu turned the much more moderate Liu Pang into a rallying point for the disgruntled of China. Eventually after many twists and turns of fate, including Hsiang Yu threatening to boil Liu Pang’s parents unless he surrender. Liu Pang’s un-Confucian response was: “Send me some of the soup.” His outraged parents survived, the savage Hsiang Yu didn’t, and Liu Pang became the first emperor of the Han dynasty, but not the first emperor of China.
As a leader Liu Pang had always offered amnesty and had attempted to negotiate when possible. As a political opportunist he was not always completely scrupulous, but more often than not he chose the tolerant solution. Upon entering the capital of Ch’in he announced that all laws were abolished but three; don’t murder, don’t injure and don’t steal. During his tolerant reign he invited all the ‘men of wisdom and ability’ to join the government. He continued to run China under the structure that the Ch’in had set up. Ssuma Chien, China’s premier historian from the Han dynasty referring of the reign of Liu Pang says: “Ch’in’s earlier prohibitions against feudalism and arms, as it turned out, served only to aid worthy men and remove from their paths obstacles they would otherwise have encountered.” The Han dynasty stands upon the back of the Ch’in.
In your short life you have seen the Chaotic end to the Chou, you’ve seen the rigid Legalism of the Ch’in restore order and break the back of feudalism but at the expense of personal freedom. Now you’re 50 years old and in the middle of the Tolerant Han. You’re grateful. The Chinese were so grateful that they still consider themselves the Han peoples.
The Han dynasty followed a similar pattern to the Chou dynasty. During the early centuries of their dynasty they were strong and expansive. This period is referred to as the former Han. This would be the equivalent of the Western Chou. The empire was expanding globally.
Wang Mang, a social reformer, took over briefly, establishing the Hsin dynasty (9 to 23 CE). All classes of society resisted his reforms. This created a period of social chaos that disrupted trade.
Han descendants regained control for a few more hundred years. This period is known as the Later Han. This period corresponds with the Spring and Autumn Period of the Chou. The Han Imperial Government, while on the retreat from the nomads of the north, the Hsiung-nu, were still able to maintain nominal political control over traditional China which included both the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys. Simultaneous with the external attacks they were splintering internally into smaller internal areas of influence. An uneasy peace was maintained through military action.
Finally these Chinese warlords split traditional China into three kingdoms. This was fairly equivalent to the Warring States Era. The Kingdom of Wei in the north was the Ch’in equivalent. The Kingdom of Wu in the south was the inheritor of the Ch’u culture. The Kingdom of Shu Han was located in the western area of the Yangtze indicating the western agricultural diffusion of Chinese culture. Appropriately this is called the Three Kingdoms era.
As China was involved in these internal battles, the nomads on the borders were becoming stronger. They united to conquer parts of the Yellow River valley. Infighting led to the fragmentation of the north into many small kingdoms. While the north was fragmented the remains of the traditional Chinese Imperial dynasties tried to set up shop in the south, as far away from the aggressive nomads as possible.
Gradually the north began consolidating under a group of proto-Turkic tribes called the T’o-pa. Eventually this united the north to the extent that they were able to conquer the weak Chinese government in the south and establish the Sui dynasty. The Sui reordered Chinese society in a militaristic fashion to the extent that they have been compared to the Ch’in dynasty. Just as the Ch’in reforms laid the groundwork for the Han, so did the harsh reforms of the Sui dynasty lay the foundations for the Golden Age of the T’ang dynasty.
Reviewing this historical cycle we saw the vitality of the Western Chou replaced by the splintering of China in the Spring and Autumn Era. This splintering was followed by a consolidation of China under the semi-barbarian Ch’in of the north. Then the cycle began again. The Golden Age of the Former Han was replaced by the gradually splintering of the empire. First the warlords of the later Han splintered the Empire into three Kingdoms. Then nomadic tribes from the north further splintered northern China into 16 kingdoms. Then the consolidation began again culminating in the dictatorial Sui dynasty from the north uniting all of China. The tolerant T’ang, who began a new Golden Age for China, replaced them. The cycle is complete from western Chou to Former Han to the T’ang.
Liu Pang, known to historians as Han Kao-tsu, became the first Emperor of the Han. His success was based upon the military discipline of his troops combined with his tolerance to the vanquished[1]. As mentioned China’s agricultural peasantry, 90% of the population even unto the 20th century, wanted political stability first and foremost, to allow vital trade to flourish by maintaining river control through canals and irrigation projects. Remember that Yu established the first dynasty of China the Xia after controlling the Yellow River. Hence the whole country quickly ordered itself around Liu Pang because he offered order and tolerance, ideal traits in any political system.
While Liu Pang had conquered China on horseback, he couldn’t rule China from the back of a horse, (a popular Chinese expression). Furthermore Liu Pang, i.e. Kao-tsu came from a peasant background, which meant that he had no experience administering the large Empire that China had become. Also the First Emperor in his short reign had completely destroyed the feudal organization that had loosely held China together. Kao-tsu did the only thing that he could do under the circumstances. He sought advice from those around him. Further he established two precedents, which have been honored in Chinese politics, ever since. First, as emperor he didn’t initiate policy proposals himself. His able advisors initiated all policy. Second, the policy decisions of the Emperor were only acted upon after serious discussion and debate.[2] Kao-tsu maintained the Ch’in centralization of the Chinese government behind the Emperor and simultaneously opened up the Emperor for recommendations, discussion and advice. While autocratic in his powers the Chinese Emperor was expected to seek and accept counsel from his advisors.
Kao-tsu initially doled out eastern China to his generals, friends, and relatives, establishing a semi-feudal system with hereditary nobility, Chou style. However non-hereditary appointees of the Imperial Court administered the West – Ch’in style. China from the time of the Ch’in on needed an incredible number of able administrators to run the Empire. The Ch’in chose administrators by recommendation. To make the system accountable, the Ch’in also sent out imperial inspectors to make sure that everything was run fairly. If they were not they were removed from political office. Coming from the peasant class, Kao-tsu realized that people of quality came from every class of life. Kao-tsu, initially used this same system of recommendation in the west. In 196 BCE he sent out a directive asking local officials to recommend ‘worthy and talented men’.
By 165 BC this became new men capable of ‘speaking our forthrightly and remonstrating without inhibition.’ Furthermore this Emperor gave out the first written exams to ascertain aptitude and virtue. Later Han Emperors further developed the system into a systematic recruitment process.
In 154 BCE the princes in the east organized a revolt. The Imperial government was stable enough to quell the revolt. However, because of this the central government sent imperial administrators to run the east as they were doing already in the west.
Remembering the relatively recent revolt of princes, he immediately took measures to diminish their power. He would confiscate their land for seemingly trivial offenses, bringing more land under imperial control. He demanded expensive presents. Most importantly however, he made it a law that the land of the nobility had to be divided equally among the male heirs. With the large Chinese families, this reduced the nobility to peasantry within only a small number of generations.
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