Emperor Gaozu of Han, born Liu Bang, was the
founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty,
reigning from 202 – 195 BCE. "Gaozu of Han" is his
temple name, meaning "The High Ancestor of Han".
Liu Bang was one of the few dynasty founders in
Chinese history who was born in a peasant family.
Liu Bang
The Han dynasty (Chinese: 漢朝; pinyin: Hàncháo) was the
second imperial dynasty of China (206 BC–220 AD),
preceded by the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) and
succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period (220–280 AD).
Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is
considered a golden age in Chinese history.[4] To this day,
China's majority ethnic group refers to themselves as the
"Han Chinese" and the Chinese script is referred to as
"Han characters".[5] It was founded by the rebel leader Liu
Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han,
and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9–23 AD) of
the former regent Wang Mang. This interregnum
separates the Han dynasty into two periods: the Western
Han or Former Han (206 BC – 9 AD) and the Eastern
Han or Later Han (25–220 AD).The emperor was at the
pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han
government but shared power with both the nobility and
appointed ministers who came largely from the
scholarly gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into
areas directly controlled by the central government using
an innovation inherited from the Qin known
as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous
kingdoms. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of
their independence, particularly following the Rebellion
of the Seven States. From the reign of Emperor
Wu (r. 141–87 BC) onward, the Chinese court officially
sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics,
synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such
as Dong Zhongshu. This policy endured until the fall of
the Qing dynasty in 1911 AD. The Han dynasty saw
an age of economic prosperity and witnessed a
significant growth of the money economy first
established during the Zhou dynasty (c. 1050–256
BC). The coinage issued by the central
government mint in 119 BC remained the standard
coinage of China until the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD).
The period saw a number of limited institutional
innovations. To finance its military campaigns and the
settlement of newly conquered frontier territories, the
Han government nationalized the private salt and iron
industries in 117 BC, but these government monopolies
were repealed during the Eastern Han dynasty. Science
and technology during the Han period saw significant
advances, including the process of papermaking, the
nautical steering ship rudder, the use of negative
numbers in mathematics, the raised-relief map,
the hydraulic-powered armillary sphere for astronomy,
and a seismometer employing an inverted pendulum that
could be used to discern the cardinal direction of distant
earthquakes.The Xiongnu,anomadic steppe confederatio
n,[6] defeated the Han in 200 BC and forced the Han to
submit as a de facto inferior and vassal partner for several
decades, but continued their military raids on the Han
borders. Emperor Wu launched several military
campaigns against them. The ultimate Han victory in
these wars eventually forced the Xiongnu to accept vassal
status as Han tributaries. These campaigns expanded Han
sovereignty and control into the Tarim Basin of Central
Asia, divided the Xiongnu into two separate
confederations, and helped establish the vast trade
network known as the Silk Road, which reached as far as
the Mediterranean world. The territories north of Han's
borders were quickly overrun by the
nomadic Xianbei confederation. Emperor Wu also
launched successful military expeditions in the south,
annexing Nanyue in 111 BC and Dian in 109 BC, and in
the Korean Peninsula where the Xuantu and Lelang
Commanderies were established in 108 BC. After 92 AD,
the palace eunuchs increasingly involved themselves in
court politics, engaging in violent power struggles
between the various consort clans of the empresses
and empresses dowager, causing the Han's ultimate
downfall. Imperial authority was also seriously
challenged by large Daoist religious societies which
instigated the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Five
Pecks of Rice Rebellion. Following the death of Emperor
Ling (r. 168–189 AD), the palace eunuchs suffered
wholesale massacre by military officers, allowing
members of the aristocracy and military governors to
become warlords and divide the empire. When Cao Pi,
King of Wei, usurped the throne from Emperor Xian, the
Han dynasty ceased to exist.
Confucianism is often characterized as a system of
social and ethical philosophy rather than a
religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient
religious foundation to establish the social values,
institutions, and transcendent ideals of
traditional Chinese society.It was what sociologist
Robert Bellah called a "civil religion," the sense of
religious identity and common moral
understanding at the foundation of a society's
central institutions. It is also what a Chinese
sociologist called a "diffused religion"; its
institutions were not a separate church, but those
of society, family, school, and state;
Confucius
Wudi, Wade-Giles romanizationWu-ti,
original name Liu Che, (born 156 BC—
died March 29, 87 BC), posthumous name
(shi) of the autocratic Chinese
emperor (141–87 BC) who vastly
increased the authority of the Han
dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) and extended
Chinese influence abroad. He made
Confucianism the state religion of China.
Emperor Wudi
Sima Qian ([sɨm ́ à tɕʰjɛ́n]; Chinese: 司馬遷; c. 145 – c. 86 BC)
was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206 BC –
AD 220). He is considered the father of Chinese
historiography for his Records of the Grand Historian, a general
history of China in the Jizhuanti style (紀傳體) covering more than
two thousand years beginning from the rise of the
legendary Yellow Emperor and the formation of the first Chinese
polity to the reigning sovereign of Sima Qian's time, Emperor Wu
of Han. As the first universal history of the world as it was known
to the ancient Chinese, the Records of the Grand
Historian served as a model for official history-writing for
subsequent Chinese dynasties and the Chinese cultural sphere
(Korea, Vietnam, Japan) up until the 20th century.[2]
Sima Qien/Sima Qian
