The Han Dynasty (202 BC [1] - 220 BC) was the dynasty that followed the Qin Dynasty in Chinese history. It was divided into the "Western Han Dynasty" (202 BC - 8 BC) and the "Eastern Han Dynasty" ( AD 25 - AD 220) two historical periods, collectively known as the Han Dynasty. The Western Han Dynasty was founded by Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, and his capital was Chang'an; the Eastern Han Dynasty was founded by Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty, and his capital was Luoyang. During this period, Wang Mang briefly established his own new dynasty (8 AD - 23 AD). In addition, after Cao Pi usurped the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Bei established a regime named "Han" in Shu. Some historians regarded it as a continuation of the Han Dynasty and classified it as part of the Han Dynasty. In this way, the Han Dynasty was destroyed. It was in 263, but most accounts include the Shu Han regime in the history of the Three Kingdoms dynasties.

The Han Dynasty was a powerful empire and created a brilliant civilization. The Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty that followed it are collectively known as the "Han and Tang Dynasties", representing the most powerful era in the Chinese imperial era. Some people call the Han Dynasty, the Roman Empire of the same period, and the Maurya Dynasty of India the most advanced civilizations in the world at that time [2]. The social and political systems established during the Han Dynasty continued into the 20th century. The Han Dynasty further established the national culture of the Chinese nation, and the Confucian culture respected by the Han Dynasty became the mainstream social culture in China and East Asia. Up to now, "Han" is still what most Chinese people call themselves, and the Chinese people are gradually being called "Han", and the Chinese characters are gradually being called "Hanzi".

In the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, first determined Zhengshuo as water virtue based on the theory of five virtues. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he corrected Shuo as earth virtue. It was not until Wang Mang established the new dynasty that Liu Xiang, Liu Xiang, and Shuo were adopted. Liu Xin and his son believed that the Han Dynasty belonged to Huode. After Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty restored the Han Dynasty, he officially recognized this statement and established Zhengshuo of the Han Dynasty as Huode. Historical books of the Eastern Han Dynasty and later such as "Hanshu" and "Three Kingdoms" all adopted this statement[3][ 4]. Therefore, the Han Dynasty is sometimes called "Yan Han", and also "Yan Liu" because the emperor of the Han Dynasty was named Liu.

Economy

The currency of the Han Dynasty was five baht. The land ownership system in the Han Dynasty was the same as that in the Qin Dynasty. The land was privately owned and could be bought and sold freely. Landowners must pay a farmland tax to the state, and the farmland tax rate is one-fifteenth or one-thirtieth of the yield per mu. Population tax is divided into calculation tax and oral tax. The tax is a small tax. Men and women aged 15 to 56 each pay one hundred and twenty yuan per year (one calculation). The oral tax is a child tax, and each child between the ages of seven and fourteen pays twenty dollars per year. In the early Western Han Dynasty, homesteaders were the main body of the peasant class. By the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, land concentration became increasingly serious, and a large number of homesteaders went bankrupt and became tenant farmers. The powerful manors are becoming increasingly powerful. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, this phenomenon became even worse. The expansion of the power of landlords and manors also indirectly led to the formation of the Three Kingdoms situation.

During the Han Dynasty, iron farm tools had become the main production tools. Famous farm tools include iron plows, square plows, all-iron crank hoes, etc. Oxen plowing is the most important way of plowing the land, and the most important plowing method is two oxen raising the bar. Some new farming methods, such as the Daitian method and the district farming method, were born one after another. The country attaches great importance to the construction of water conservancy projects, especially in the Guanzhong area. Famous water canals include Chengguo Canal, Liufu Canal, Bai Canal, etc. There is a Longshou Canal near Luoshui. Since the soil in the nearby area is soft and prone to collapse, the method of digging wells was used to replace the above-ground channel. It is called a well canal, which is very similar to the karez well in Xinjiang today. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, water conservancy tools such as the overturned cart and the Kewu appeared, which increased agricultural production efficiency. The famous agricultural book is "The Book of Pan Sheng".

In the early Western Han Dynasty, the iron smelting industry was divided into three types: state-owned (central government), government-owned (local management) and private-owned. Famous iron smelters at that time included Zhuo Wangsun, Nanyang Kong family, etc. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty took over iron smelting and made it state-owned in the third year of Yuan Shou. Since then, the iron smelting industry has begun to decline. However, because it was more beneficial to the national finances, this policy has not been changed since then. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, the iron smelting industry was self-operated by the society. With the invention of water drainage, the iron smelting industry became more developed. Although the number of bronze wares decreased, they were still important metal wares during the Han Dynasty. Lacquerware was an important handicraft during the Han Dynasty. The textile industry in the Han Dynasty was also divided into state-owned and private businesses. Among the famous private textile industry was Chen Baoguang, the inventor of the flower loom. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, sericulture farming began to be promoted in the Yangtze River Basin and Lingnan, especially in Sichuan. Shu brocade is even more valuable and even became a major source of wealth for the Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. Among the magat products, the most famous one is Yuebu produced in Kuaiji area.

In the early Western Han Dynasty, the policy of focusing on agriculture and suppressing business was pursued, and the status of businessmen was low. During the period of Emperor Wen, under Chao Cuo's suggestion, the policy of valuing millet was changed, and merchants bid for titles. The country's grain reserves increased significantly, and the status of merchants also greatly improved. During the Western Han Dynasty, there were several commercial centers across the country, such as Chang'an, Luoyang, Handan, Jiangling, Wu, Shouchun, Panyu, Chengdu, etc. There were also canals or roads connecting major cities. The Silk Road was the most important trade route in the world at that time. And maritime traffic also appeared. In border areas, there are regular "joint markets" with foreign countries for exchange of supplies. With the development of business, some business philosophies have emerged one after another. By the Eastern Han Dynasty, trade routes in the Central Plains region were developed, and goods exchanges between various places became more frequent.

[edit] Science and Culture

Wai Feng Seismometer

Restored Model The two Han Dynasties were a very glorious period of science and technology and culture in Chinese history. The country also attaches great importance to education and learning. Wen Weng built a stone chamber and established a school in Shu County, which was the beginning of local schools. Later, Emperor Wu ordered all local counties and counties to establish schools, so that "all over the four seas, schools are like forests, and the gates are full of gates."

"[9] In the later Han Dynasty, national learning was still flourishing. After Emperor Shun's surrender, the number of Central Imperial College increased to more than 30,000 students.

The learning of the Han people all emphasized experience and accumulated ancient theories. Due to the prevailing customs at that time, There are experts in invention and production.

The Han Dynasty had academic freedom and achieved profound achievements. The scholars of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods were also able to comprehensively summarize, and no one claimed that Confucian scholars were able to comprehensively summarize all. For example, people in Sima Tan studied Taoism, people in Yangqiu studied Legalism, Zhufu Yan studied political strategists, Tian Hao studied miscellaneous families, Dong Anguo studied farming, and Yu Chu studied Liu Yimou, a novelist of human studies, said: Among the major schools of thought, those of the Han Dynasty were inferior to those of the Warring States Period, but the famous ones and the Mohist School.

In terms of history, Sima Qian's "Historical Records" was the first in China. The general history of chronicles is also the first of the Twenty-Four Histories, which provides standards for the compilation of official histories for the next two thousand years. The whole book is divided into twelve chronicles, ten lists, eight books, thirty families, seventy biographies, and one hundred and thirty. The "Book of Han" written by Ban Gu is divided into twelve chapters, eight chapters, ten records, and seventy biographies. "Ji", abolished "Family" and included "Biography", and also created the Four Chronicles of Criminal Law, Five Elements, Geography, Astronomy, Art and Literature, and "Biao of Officials and Officials". "Hanshu" is the first complete chronological history in Chinese history. It also became a model for subsequent dynasties to write the history of this dynasty. Other historical books during the Han Dynasty include "Dongguan Hanshu", "Han Ji", and "Wuyue Chunqiu". Many Western scholars believe that the Han Dynasty's history. The historical standards created by the writer continued to lead the world until the 18th century.

The Han Dynasty's governance ideas were based on Legalist methods when establishing the country, and during the Wenjing period, Taoist Huang-Lao ideas were used. Supplemented by Confucianism and Legalism as the guiding ideology of the legal system, it not only emphasized inaction, but also paid attention to the role of etiquette and morality. It not only recognized the importance of law, but also insisted on keeping the law and simplicity in mind, and after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the rulers. It also established Confucianism as orthodox thought, and supplemented it with Legalism as the guiding ideology of the legal system. The center is "virtue is the main force and punishment is supplementary", that is, moral education is used first, and punishment is used after the education is ineffective. The Tao became the guiding ideology of the Han Dynasty's legal system after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. This idea had a great influence on the legislation of subsequent dynasties. Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty once said: "The Han family has its own system, which is based on the Tao of Overlord." " is an incisive elaboration of this idea. Many documents destroyed by Qin Shihuang's burning of books and entrapment of Confucians were reconstructed through the records of Han Dynasty scholars, including the ancient documents among the Five Classics, which were also excavated and compiled at this time. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted Dong Zhongshu After the emperor's opinion of "deposing all schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone", Confucianism became the academic mainstream. Due to the deviations in the understanding and memory of the Confucian classics by different scholars, academics were also divided into different schools during the Xuan Emperor period. There are three schools of "Book of Changes", three schools of "Book of Songs", one school of "Book of Rites", and two schools of "Chunqiu". In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the number increased to fourteen. In the late period, the ancient classics became more developed, while the modern classics declined.

The Han government established Yuefu to collect folk poems, which are called Yuefu poems. "" has collected many Yuefu poems of the Han Dynasty. The long narrative poem "The Peacock Flying Southeast" was also written in the late Han Dynasty. Fu is a new literary genre, such as Sima Xiangru's "Zixu Fu" and "Shanglin Fu", Zhang Heng's "Zixu Fu" and "Shanglin Fu". "Er Jing Fu" and other famous literary works have been praised throughout the ages. During the Han Dynasty, official script gradually replaced Xiaozhuan as the main writing style. The emergence of official script laid the foundation for the glyph structure of modern Chinese characters and became a watershed between ancient and modern writing. The prototype of punctuation marks appeared.

In terms of science and technology, Zhang Heng of the Eastern Han Dynasty made the world's first seismograph that could predict earthquakes. Luo Xiahong and others developed the "Taichu Calendar". At one time, the twenty-four solar terms were incorporated into the calendar. Zhang Zhongjing was revered as a "medical sage" for his "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases", and historical records record that Hua Tuo was the first doctor in the world to use general anesthesia (the authenticity of which is now questioned by Chen Yinke). etc.). Yu Fu used human anatomy to treat diseases. The "Shen Nong's Materia Medica" was the famous pharmacopoeia of this period, and the "Zhou Bi Suan Jing" in the first century BC and the "Jiu Zhang Shu Shu" in the early Eastern Han Dynasty. Among them, "Nine Chapters on Arithmetic" is a summary of the development of mathematics during the establishment and consolidation of ancient society in the Warring States, Qin, and Han Dynasties. It lists the four arithmetic operations of fractions, Jinyoushu (known in the West as the three-rate method), square root and square root. Cubing (including numerical solutions to quadratic equations), surplus-deficiency method (known as the double method in the West), various area and volume formulas, solutions to linear equations, addition and subtraction rules for positive and negative numbers, Pythagorean solution (especially Pythagorean Theorems and methods of calculating Pythagorean numbers) and other calculation methods formed an independent system centered on calculations that was completely different from ancient Greek mathematics. The Han Dynasty was also the era when China first invented porcelain firing. This period also invented the distillation method. Water-powered mills, prototypes of modern horse yokes and girths, lacquerware, reciprocating piston bellows for metallurgy, wheelbarrows, waterwheels, and drawbridges appearing in the late Han Dynasty. Shipbuilding has adopted watertight bulkheads, multiple masts, and sternpost rudders. And the compass began to be used. In addition, blood circulation was also first discovered at this time [2]. During the Han Dynasty, China's smelting technology also made great progress, and the coin-making technology was mature, such as three-baht coins and five-baht coins.

The painting technology is unique, such as the silk calligraphy paintings unearthed in Mawangdui[10], and various daily necessities are complete, such as the bronze mirror known as the "Han Dynasty Magic Mirror". The technology of boiling salt has also been continuously improved. Distilled liquor and wine making have appeared in the Han Dynasty. The level reaches perfection. Agricultural technology improved significantly, and new irrigation tools such as water drainage appeared in the early Eastern Han Dynasty. In the middle and late Western Han Dynasty, a kind of silk paper called He Ti appeared in the palace. During the reign of Emperor He of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the palace eunuch Cai Lun improved papermaking technology, which greatly reduced the cost of papermaking and replaced bamboo slips and silk as the main writing material. Papermaking was introduced to Korea and Japan after the third century AD, and then to Central Asia after the Tang Dynasty. It then entered Europe and North Africa through the Arab countries, changing the history of world civilization.

The Han Dynasty was the period of the formation and introduction of China's two major religions, Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism was also formed during the Eastern Han Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Taoism was divided into two major schools, one was Taiping Taoism; the other was Tianshi Taoism, also known as Five Pecks of Rice Taoism. There is also a large branch within Wudou Mi Road, with Yu Ji as the leader, which spreads in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Buddhism was introduced to China during the reign of Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty, and White Horse Temple was the first Buddhist temple in China.