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Despite the reality of interstate strife throughout the Eastern Zhou period, people retained the idea that “all under Heaven” should be ruled by the Son of Heaven. Unification was achieved through force of arms in the 3rd century bc, and from then until modern times, the norm for China was a unified, centralized government ruled by a monarch. No dynasty lasted for more than a few centuries, and disorder and disunity marked the decades or centuries between dynasties; each time, however, military strongmen eventually regained control and imposed centralized rule.
During the 4th century bc, the state of Qin, the westernmost of the Zhou states, embarked on a program of Legalist administrative, economic, and military reforms. The Qin abolished the aristocracy, granting power instead to appointed military heroes. The king had absolute power, and he ruled by means of strict laws and harsh punishments. During the 3rd century bc the states destroyed each other to the point where only seven states were still in contention for control of China. Then from 230 to 221 bc, Qin conquered the remaining states. In 221 bc the king of Qin decided that his title, wang (king), was inadequate. He invented the title huangdi (emperor) and called himself Qin Shihuangdi (First Emperor). Chinese historians later severely criticized Qin Shihuangdi, calling him a cruel and suspicious megalomaniac. With the assistance of the shrewd Legalist minister Li Si, Qin Shihuangdi welded the formerly independent states into an administratively centralized and culturally unified empire. He abolished the aristocracies and divided the empire into provinces. He appointed officials to administer the provinces and controlled the new administrators through a mass of regulations, reporting requirements, and penalties for inadequate performance. To guard against local rebellions, Qin Shihuangdi outlawed private possession of arms and ordered hundreds of thousands of prominent or wealthy families from the conquered states to move to the Qin capital, Xianyang (near modern Xi’an). To administer all regions uniformly, the Qin adopted a standardized set of written characters, as well as standardized weights and measures, and coinage. When Li Si complained that scholars were using records of the past to criticize the emperor’s policies and undermine popular support, Qin Shihuangdi ordered the burning of all writings that were not on useful topics like agriculture, medicine, and divination. More from Encarta Even after conquering all the Zhou states, Qin Shihuangdi took aggressive measures to secure and expand the size of his territories. He made several tours to inspect his new realm and awe his subjects. Qin Shihuangdi assumed that his dynasty would last for thousands of generations, but the stability of the Qin government depended on the strength and character of the emperor. After Qin Shihuangdi died in 210 bc, the Qin imperial structure collapsed. Qin Shihuangdi’s heir was murdered by his younger brother, and uprisings soon followed. In 209 bc a group of conscripted peasants, delayed by rain, decided to become outlaws rather than face death for arriving late for their frontier service. To their surprise, they soon found thousands of malcontents eager to join them. Soon Qin generals were defecting, and former nobles of the old states were taking up arms.
In 206 bc Liu Bang, a minor Qin official who had mobilized forces against the government, proclaimed himself king of Han, one of the states within the Qin empire. Four years later, after he had defeated his chief rivals, he took the title emperor. The Han dynasty that he founded is normally divided into two periods: the Western Han dynasty and the Eastern Han dynasty. The Western Han (also called the Former Han) is so named because the capital was to the west at Chang’an (modern Xi’an). During the Eastern Han (also called the Later Han), the capital was to the east at Luoyang. The Western Han lasted from 206 bc to ad 9, and the Eastern Han from ad 25 to 220 (a brief interregnum occurred between the two periods). Liu Bang, better known in history as Emperor Gaozu (Kao-tsu), did not disband the centralized government created by Qin, but rather concentrated on making it less burdensome. The Han rescinded harsh laws, sharply reduced taxes, and allowed merchants to operate without government interference in an effort to promote economic recovery. Gaozu experimented with granting large and nearly autonomous vassal states to his relatives, but he came to see dispersed power as a threat to his rule, and by the middle of the 2nd century bc most of these states had been eliminated. Under the Qin, one of the aims of Legalism had been direct rule by the emperor of all subjects of the empire. The Han government retained this policy in its tax and labor service obligations, which were imposed directly on each subject according to age, sex, and rank, instead of on families or communities. The most significant difference between the Han government and the previous Qin administration was in the choice of men to staff government offices. Around the 1st century bc, Wudi, the most activist of the Han emperors, decreed that officials should be selected on the basis of Confucian virtues, which gave Confucian scholars a privileged position in society. Wudi established a national university to train officials in the Confucian classics. Wealthy and prominent men began to compete for recognition of their Confucian learning and character so that they could gain access to office. Credit for the political success of Confucianism belongs in large part to thinkers like Dong Zhongshu (179-104 bc), who developed Confucianism in ways that legitimized the new imperial state and elevated the role of the emperor. Dong joined Confucian ideas of human virtue and social order to notions of the workings of the cosmos in terms of yin and yang and the five agents (wood, metal, fire, water, and earth). He argued that the ruler occupies a unique position because he can link the realms of Heaven, earth, and human beings through his actions. Another important intellectual accomplishment of the Han dynasty was the development of historical writing. Sima Qian (l45?-90? bc) wrote a comprehensive history of China from the time of the Yellow Lord to his own day, dividing his account into chronological chapters that included discussions of political events, biographies of key individuals, and treatises on such subjects as geography, taxation, and court rituals. During the Eastern Han dynasty, the historian Ban Gu followed a similar model in his account of the Western Han dynasty. From then on, new dynasties regularly had the histories of the preceding dynasty compiled, following the standards established by these two pioneers. At the same time that the Qin and then Han governments were consolidating their power, the nomadic Xiongnu tribes in the arid steppe region north of China was growing stronger and posing a threat. Defending against the raids of non-Chinese tribes had been a problem since Shang times, but with the rise of nomadism, the problem became much more severe. These nomads were skilled horsemen and hunters, and their ability to shoot arrows while riding horseback made them a potent striking force. When the Xiongnu formed a huge confederation in the late 3rd century bc, northern China needed a strong government to oppose them. The Xiongnu were capable of sending tens of thousands of horsemen into northern China to raid towns and then withdrawing before Chinese armies could be organized to oppose them. The early Han rulers tried conciliatory policies, but after Wudi came to power he took the offensive, sending several expeditions of 100,000 to 300,000 troops into Xiongnu territory. These campaigns were enormously expensive, requiring long supply lines, and rarely led to direct engagement with the Xiongnu, who were able to evade the Han troops easily. Nevertheless, the Han gained territory in the northwest, and more than a million people were sent to colonize the region. To search for allies, Wudi sent the explorer-diplomat Zhang Qian far into Central Asia, where he learned of the countries of central and western Asia, including the Roman Empire. He also discovered that these regions were already importing Chinese products, particularly silk, from merchants who traded along overland routes across Asia. A single item might change hands many times before arriving at its final destination in western Asia or southern Europe. Eventually, the overland trade route between the capitals of Rome and Chang’an became known as the Silk Road. To generate revenue to pay for his military campaigns, Wudi manipulated coinage, confiscated the lands of nobles, sold offices and titles, and increased taxes. He established government monopolies in the production of iron, salt, and liquor—enterprises that previously had been sources of great profit for private entrepreneurs. The government also took over large-scale grain dealing. Confucian scholars questioned the morality of these economic policies. They thought that farming was an essential activity, while trade and crafts produced little of real value and should be discouraged. The government, they argued, was teaching people mercantile “tricks” by setting itself up in commerce. Despite their complaints, the Chinese economy seems to have grown rapidly in Han times. By ad 2, the population had reached 58 million. Trade and industry flourished, cities grew, and Chang’an and Luoyang became important cultural centers attracting the best writers and scholars from all over China. During the last decades of the Western Han, a series of child emperors occupied the throne. Regents, generally from the families of the emperors’ mothers, ruled in their place. One of these regents, Wang Mang, deposed an infant emperor in ad 9 and declared himself emperor of the Xin dynasty. Although condemned as a usurper, Wang Mang was a learned Confucian scholar who wished to implement policies described in the Confucian classics. He renamed offices, asserted state ownership of forests and swamps, built ritual halls, revived public granaries, outlawed slavery, limited land holdings, and reduced court expenses. Some of his policies, such as issuing new coins and nationalizing gold, led to economic turmoil. Matters were made worse when the Huang He breached its dikes and shifted course from north to south, flooding huge regions and driving millions of peasants from their homes. Rebellion broke out, and when Wang Mang was killed by rebels in ad 23, a member of the Han imperial clan reestablished the Han dynasty. In the 2nd century ad maternal relatives of the emperors again came to dominate the court. Emperors turned to palace eunuchs (castrated men who served as palace servants) for help in ousting the maternal relatives, only to find that the eunuchs were just as difficult to control. In 166 and 169, scholars who had denounced the eunuchs were arrested, killed, or banished from the capital and from official life. In 184 a Daoist sect rose in revolt. The imperial generals sent to suppress the rebels soon took to fighting amongst themselves. In 189, one general slaughtered 2,000 eunuchs in the palace and took the Han emperor captive. Fighting continued for two decades until a stalemate was reached between three warlords, each controlling a distinct territory—one in the north, one in the southeast, and one in the southwest.
When the last Han emperor abdicated in 220, each of the warlords proclaimed himself ruler, beginning what is known as the Three Kingdoms Period (220-265). The northern state, Wei, was the strongest, but before it had succeeded in unifying the realm, Sima Yan, a Wei general, led a successful coup in 265 and founded the Jin dynasty. By 280 he had reunited the north and south, but unity was only temporary, as the Jin princes began fighting among themselves. The non-Chinese groups of the north seized the opportunity to attack, and by 317 the Jin had lost all control of North China. For the next 250 years, North China was fractured and ruled by numerous non-Chinese dynasties, while the south was ruled by a sequence of four short-lived Chinese dynasties, all centered at present-day Nanjing. The southern rulers had to contend with a powerful, hereditary aristocracy that had become entrenched in government posts. The Wei had granted public offices based on the nine rank system, which was originally determined by assessments of character and talent. However, in the south the system had degenerated to the point where the standing of the candidate’s family determined his post. The aristocratic families judged themselves and others by the status of their ancestors, would marry only with families of equivalent pedigree, and compiled lists and genealogies of the most eminent families. By securing nearly automatic access to higher government posts through the nine rank system, the aristocrats were assured of government salaries and exemptions from taxes and labor service. These families saw themselves as maintaining the high culture of the Han, and many excelled in poetry writing and witty conversation. At the same time, many also were able to amass large estates, which were worked by poor refugees from the north. At court, the aristocrats often looked on the emperors of the successive dynasties as military men rather than men of culture. Despite the political instability of the successive dynasties, the southern economy prospered. To pay for an army and support the imperial court and aristocracy in high style, the government had to expand the area of taxable agricultural land, which it accomplished by both settling migrants on the land and improving tax collection. The potential of the south for agriculture was greater than that of the north because of its temperate climate and ample water supply. In the north, none of the states established by non-Chinese lasted very long until the Xianbei tribe founded the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534). By 420 the Xianbei had secured control. During the second half of the 5th century, the Xianbei adopted a series of policies designed to strengthen the state. To promote agricultural production, they adopted a system to distribute land to peasants. The capital was moved from its site near the northern border to Luoyang, the old capital of the Eastern Han and Jin. The population within the Northern Wei realm contained considerably more Chinese than Xianbei. Recognizing this, the Xianbei rulers employed Chinese officials, adopted Chinese-style clothing and customs at court, and made Chinese the official language. Xianbei tribesmen, however, still formed the main military force. They resented the growth of Chinese influence and rebelled in 524, sparking a decade of constant warfare. For the next 50 years, North China was torn apart by struggles between different contenders for power.
During this period of near-constant political and military strife, Buddhism found a receptive audience in China, while the influence of Confucianism waned. Buddhism had arrived in China in the 1st century ad as the religion of merchants from Central Asia. During the next three centuries, the Chinese encountered a great variety of ideas and practices identified as Buddhist. Buddhism differed markedly from earlier Chinese religions and philosophies. A universal religion, it embraced all people, regardless of their ethnicity or social status. It also had a founding figure, the Indian prince Siddhartha (Buddha), who lived during the 6th and 5th centuries bc. To many Chinese, Buddhism seemed at first a variant of Daoism, as Daoist terms were used to translate Buddhist concepts. A more accurate understanding of Buddhism became possible after Kumarajiva (343?-413?), a Buddhist monk from Central Asia, settled in Chang’an and directed several thousand Chinese monks in the translation of Buddhist texts. The Buddhist monastic establishment grew rapidly in China. By 477 there were reportedly 6,478 Buddhist temples and 77,258 monks and nuns in the north. The south was said to have 2,846 temples and 82,700 clerics some decades later. Given the traditional importance of family lines in China, it was a major step for a man to become a monk. He had to give up his surname and take a vow of celibacy, breaking from the ancestral cult that connected the dead, the living, and the unborn. Buddhists who did not become monks or nuns often made generous contributions to the construction or beautification of temples. Among the most generous patrons were rulers, in both the north and south. Women turned to Buddhism as readily as men. Although being born a woman was considered inferior to being born a man, it was also considered temporary because in the next life a woman could be reborn as a man, and women were encouraged to pursue salvation on terms nearly equal to men. China also had critics of Buddhism, who labeled it immoral, unsuited to China, or a threat to the state because monastery land was not taxed. By the end of the 6th century, critics had twice convinced the court to close monasteries and force monks and nuns to return to lay life. These suppressions did not last long, however, and no attempt was made to eliminate private Buddhist belief.
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