Dynasties of ChinaQin & Han · Foundations of a unified empire
14 Eastern Han emperors · AD 25—220 · 8 generations of succession
Emperor Guangwu restored the Han. Ban Chao expanded its influence in the Western Regions and Cai Lun improved papermaking, while factional struggles eventually fractured the empire.
Dynastic color · Russet
Eastern Han was the Han Dynasty rebuilt by Liu Xiu. It was named after its capital was Luoyang, which was located east of Chang'an, the capital of Western Han. It was also called the Later Han Dynasty. In the last years of Xinmang, the world was in chaos. Liu Xiu, a distant branch of the Western Han clan, emerged in the Battle of Kunyang. He proclaimed himself emperor in the 25th year and adopted the country's name of "Han". In the next ten years, he defeated the heroes and reunified the country. Emperor Guangwu released his slaves, appointed provincial governors, and established Yanwu Xiuwen. Together with Emperor Ming and Emperor Zhang, he created the "Guangwu Zhongxing" and the "Mingzhang Rule".
In the early days of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the country was strong. Dou Xian defeated the Xiongnu in the north, and Ban Chao managed the Western Regions for more than 30 years. Papermaking technology was improved, the armillary sphere and the seismograph were invented one after another, and famous works such as "Hanshu" and "Shuowen Jiezi" were written. However, since Emperor He, emperors often came to the throne at a young age or even died in infancy. The queen mother came to the court and her relatives were in power. When the emperor came of age, he used the power of eunuchs to kill his relatives. The relatives and eunuchs took turns to monopolize power, and politics became increasingly corrupt.
Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling were in power when eunuchs were in power. The two calamities of party control severely damaged the scholar-bureaucrats. Emperor Ling even openly sold his official position and obtained titles. In 184, Zhang Jiao led the Yellow Turban Uprising. The rule of the Eastern Han collapsed and various states were divided by their own troops. After Dong Zhuo entered Beijing and abolished the establishment, there was a scuffle among the heroes. Cao Cao welcomed Emperor Xian and moved the capital to Xu County, gradually unifying the north. In 220, Cao Piaccession following abdication proclaimed himself emperor, Eastern Han was destroyed, and history entered the Three Kingdoms period.
Emperor Guangwu issued many edicts to free slaves, prohibit the killing of slaves, carry out "land transfer", check land and household registration, and merge commanderies and counties, reduce officials, "retire meritorious officials and recruit civil servants", so that society can quickly recover after long-term wars.
Emperor Guangwu expanded the authority of the Shangshu, and most government affairs were handled by the Shangshu. The three ministers were in vain. This is the so-called "although the three ministers are appointed, all matters are handled by the minister". Imperial power was further concentrated, and the Chancellery became one of the sources of the three-province system in later generations.
The eunuch Cai Lun summarized the experience of his predecessors and used bark, hemp heads, rags, and old fishing nets as raw materials to make paper. In 105, he presented it to the imperial court, and it was known as "Cai Hou Paper" in the world. Paper gradually replaced bamboo slips and silk as the main writing material, and later spread throughout the world.
Zhang Heng made the water-borne armillary sphere and the wind-waiting seismometer, and wrote "Lingxian" to explain the theory of armillary sky; Zhang Zhongjing wrote "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" to establish the principle of syndrome differentiation and treatment; "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic" is generally believed to have been finally written in the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
According to legend, the Emperor Ming dreamed of a golden man at night and sent an envoy to the west to seek Dharma. He welcomed back monks from Tianzhu to take photos of Mo Teng and Zhu Falan, and built the White Horse Temple in Luoyang. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, early Taoist organizations such as Taiping Dao and Wu Dou Mi Dao emerged among the people.
Ban Gu wrote "Hanshu", creating a chronicle of chronological history; Xu Shen wrote "Shuowen Jiezi", which systematically analyzed the form and original meaning of Chinese characters; Zheng Xuan wrote extensively about the classics and integrated modern and ancient classics; in 175, he began to publish the Xiping Stone Classics, which stood outside the gate of Taixue.
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Wang Mang sent Wang Yi and Wang Xun to lead an army of more than 400,000 to besiege Kunyang. Liu Xiu led 13 cavalry to break through and fetch reinforcements. After returning to the division, he attacked the enemy's backbone with 3,000 men who dared to die, beheading Wang Xun, and the main force of Xinmang was destroyed. In the same year, the city of Chang'an was broken and Wang Mang was killed.
Liu Xiu managed Hebei Province and became emperor in Qianqiu Pavilion in Hacheng in the 25th year. He still used "Han" as the country's name and made Luoyang the capital in the same year. In the next ten years or so, he successively defeated Chimei and the separatist forces in various places. In 36 years, he attacked and destroyed Gongsun Shu, who was in Shu, and reunified the whole country.
The Japanese slave country sent envoys to pay tribute, and Emperor Guangwu gave him a seal and ribbon. In 1784, a gold seal engraved with "King of Han Wei Slave" was unearthed in Shiga Island, Fukuoka, Japan, which corroborated the records in the "Book of the Later Han" and was an early physical evidence of Sino-Japanese exchanges.
Ban Chao followed Dou Gu to attack the Northern Huns, and later led thirty-six people on an envoy to the Western Regions. They attacked the Huns' envoy at night in Shanshan. "If you don't enter the tiger's den, you won't get the tiger's cubs." After that, he managed the Western Regions for thirty-one years, and in 91 he was appointed the Protector of the Western Regions. More than fifty countries in the Western Regions surrendered to the Han Dynasty.
Emperor Zhang summoned all the scholars to the White Tiger Temple in Luoyang to discuss the similarities and differences of the Five Classics. Emperor Zhang personally made the decision, and Ban Gu was ordered to compile it into "White Tiger Tongyi". The conference further unified the interpretation of Confucian classics and officialized the thoughts of prophecy.
The cavalry general Dou Xian defeated the Northern Xiongnu. He climbed Yanran Mountain to carve stones to record his achievements, and Ban Gu wrote an inscription. In 91, the Han army defeated Northern Chanyu again at Jinwei Mountain, and the Northern Xiongnu was forced to move westward. In 2017, the cliff stone inscription "Feng Yanran Mountain Inscription" was confirmed in Mongolia.
After the death of Emperor An, Queen Mother Yan established Liu Yi as Marquis of Beixiang. Liu Yi died of illness soon after. Nineteen people including the eunuch Sun Cheng launched a coup, killed the Yan family members, and established the deposed Crown Prince Liu Bao as Emperor Shun. Nineteen people were all granted the title of marquis, and the power of the eunuchs flourished.
Taishi ordered Zhang Heng to make the wind-waiting seismometer, which was made of fine copper and shaped like a wine bottle, with dragon heads holding beads in each direction. In 138, a dragon spit out pearls but Luoyang was indifferent. A few days later, the messenger reported an earthquake in Longxi, and everyone was convinced of its wonder.
His relative, Liang Ji, had been in power for nearly twenty years. Emperor Zhi, who was only nine years old, called him a "domineering general" in public and was poisoned by Liang Ji. In 159, Emperor Huan conspired with the eunuch Dan Chao and other five people to kill the Liang family. The five people were made marquises on the same day, and the eunuchs had exclusive power from then on.
Scholar-officials and imperial students fiercely criticized the eunuchs for their power. In 166, eunuchs falsely accused Li Ying and others of forming a party to slander the court. More than 200 people were arrested and imprisoned for life. In 169, the Party Prison was re-established. More than 100 people, including Li Ying and Fan Pang, died in prison, and six to seven hundred people were implicated.
Zhang Jiao gathered people on the Taiping Road for more than ten years and proposed that "the sky is dead, Huang Tian should stand, and the age of Jiazi will bring good luck to the world." In 184, thirty-six parties started an uprising at the same time. The main force of the uprising was suppressed that year, but the imperial court allowed local recruitment of troops, which enabled the powerful states and counties to support themselves with troops.
After Emperor Ling's death, the general He Jin plotted to kill the eunuchs but was killed. Yuan Shao and others led their troops to kill the eunuchs. Dong Zhuo took advantage of the chaos and led his army into Luoyang, deposed the Young Emperor and established the Emperor Xian. In 190, he burned Luoyang and took the Emperor Xian with him to move west to Chang'an. In 192, Dong Zhuo was killed by Wang Yun and Lu Bu.
Emperor Xian returned to Luoyang from Chang'an, and Cao Cao welcomed him and moved the capital to Xu County. He gained the political advantage of "serving the emperor's orders but not serving as ministers". He also settled in Xuxia and accumulated grain, which laid the foundation for the unification of the north.
In 200, Cao Cao made a surprise attack on Wuchao in Guandu, defeating Yuan Shao, and then pacified Hebei and unified the north. In 208, Cao Cao went south, and the allied forces of Sun Quan and Liu Bei defeated Cao's army in Chibi with a fire attack, and the world was divided into three parts.
After Cao Cao's death, his son Cao Pi succeeded him as King of Wei. In the same year, he forced Emperor Xianabdication, that is, the emperor's throne, the country was named Wei, and Eastern Han was destroyed. Emperor Xian was named Shanyang Gong and died in 234.
A native of Caiyang, Nanyang, a distant branch of the Western Han clan, he worked in farming and studied in Chang'an in his early years. He became famous in the Battle of Kunyang, proclaimed himself emperor in 25 years, and reunified the country. During his reign, he suppressed military power, cultivated literature, streamlined institutions, and freed slaves, which was known as the "Guangwu Zhongxing" in history.
A native of Maoling, Fufeng, he surrendered to Emperor Guangwu and later conquered Longyou and pacified Jiaozhi, and was promoted to General Fubo. He determined that "a man should die in the wilderness, and his body should be wrapped in horse leather and his ears buried." At the age of sixty-two, he still went south to conquer the Wuxi barbarians in Wuling, and died of illness in the army.
A native of Shangyu in Kuaiji, he came from a humble background and once read many books in Luoyang bookstores. The author of "Lunheng", with the purpose of "eliminating falsehoods", criticized the superstition of heaven and man's induction and prophecy, and advocated that all things are naturally generated by "qi". He was the most critical thinker in the Han Dynasty.
Inheriting the legacy of his father Ban Biao, he spent more than 20 years writing the "Book of Han", creating a chronicle and chronological style of history; he also wrote "Liangdu Fu" and compiled "White Tiger Tongyi". Later, he was implicated in the Dou Xian case and died in prison. The Eight Tables of Hanshu and Astronomical Records were continued by his sister Ban Zhao and others.
Ban Gu's younger brother joined the army. He led thirty-six people on an envoy to the Western Regions and attacked the Xiongnu envoys at night with extraordinary courage. After that, he managed the Western Regions for thirty-one years, made more than fifty countries submit to him, and granted him the title of Marquis of Yuan Dynasty. In 97 years, Gan Ying was sent as envoy to Da Qin and returned to the West Sea.
A native of Zhaoling, Runan, he studied under Jia Kui and had extensive knowledge of classics. At that time, he was known as "Xu Shuzhong, the Unparalleled Five Classics". He is the author of "Shuowen Jiezi", which contains more than 9,000 characters. It is the first to organize it according to radicals and systematically analyze the glyphs and meanings. It is China's first systematic dictionary.
He was a eunuch from Guiyang and once served as Shang Fangling to supervise the production of palace utensils. He improved the papermaking technology and used bark, hemp heads, rags, and old fishing nets as raw materials to make paper. It was published in 105 and is widely used in the world. It is called "Caihou Paper". After Emperor An took office, he committed suicide by drinking medicine while being investigated for an old case.
Emperor and Queen. After the death of Emperor He, he successively supported Emperor Shang and Emperor An, and ruled as regent for sixteen years. She advocates frugality, contributes to local provinces, provides relief for floods and droughts, and resists Qiang invasion. She is a more accomplished female ruler in Eastern Han.
A native of Xi'e, Nanyang, he served as Taishi Ling twice. He created the water-borne armillary sphere and the wind-watching seismograph, and wrote "Lingxian" to analyze the theory of armillary sky and explain the causes of lunar eclipses. He is also a famous litterateur, and his "Er Beijing Fu" and "Guitian Fu" have been passed down to future generations.
A native of Xiangcheng, Yingchuan, when he was the captain of Sili School, the law was strictly enforced. Zhang Shuo, the brother of the eunuch Zhang Rang, was greedy and murderous, so he was taken from Zhang Rang's house and executed. When the scholars received him, they were called "Denglongmen". He bore the brunt of both party imprisonments and died in prison in 1699.
A native of Gaomi, Beihai, he studied under Ma Rong and returned to the east after completing his studies. During the period of the Party's imprisonment, he wrote behind closed doors, annotating the "Book of Changes", "Shangshu", "Mao Shi", "Three Rites", etc., integrating modern and ancient classics, and was known as "Zheng Xue" in the world. He was the master of classics in the Han Dynasty.
Chen Liuyu was a man of great erudition, proficient in diction, music and calligraphy. According to legend, he created the "Fei Bai Shu". In 175, he worked with other Confucian scholars to finalize the texts of the Six Classics, and personally wrote them in elixirs and engraved them on stone, which became the Xiping Stone Classic. Because Dong Zhuo sighed when he was killed, he was imprisoned by Wang Yun and died. His daughter Cai Yan is also famous for her poetry.
Julu people founded Taiping Taoism, used talisman water and incantations to cure diseases and preach religion. In more than ten years, there were hundreds of thousands of believers in Qing, Xu, You, Ji, Jing, Yang, Yan and Henan. In 184, he launched the Yellow Turban Uprising and called himself "General Tiangong". He died of illness in the same year.
Mingji, from Nanyang. Witnessing a large number of deaths in the family due to the epidemic, he "diligently studied ancient teachings and learned from many prescriptions" and wrote "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases", establishing the principle of syndrome differentiation and treatment, and was revered as a "sage of medicine" by later generations. According to legend, he once served as the governor of Changsha.