The Imperial Era
The First Imperial Period
Much
of what came to constitute China Proper was unified for the first time in 221
B.C. In that year the western frontier state of Qin, the most aggressive of the
Warring States, subjugated the last of its rival states. (Qin in Wade-Giles
romanization is Ch'in, from which the English China probably derived.) Once the
king of Qin consolidated his power, he took the title Shi Huangdi
( First
Emperor), a formulation previously reserved for deities and the mythological
sage-emperors, and imposed Qin's centralized, nonhereditary bureaucratic system
on his new empire. In subjugating the six other major states of Eastern Zhou,
the Qin kings had relied heavily on Legalist scholar-advisers. Centralization,
achieved by ruthless methods, was focused on standardizing legal codes and
bureaucratic procedures, the forms of writing and coinage, and the pattern of
thought and scholarship. To silence criticism of imperial rule, the kings
banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars and confiscated and
burned their books (). Qin
aggrandizement was aided by frequent military expeditions pushing forward the
frontiers in the north and south. To fend off barbarian intrusion, the
fortification walls built by the various warring states were connected to make a
5,000-kilometer-long great wall ().
What is commonly referred to as the Great
Wall is actually four great walls rebuilt or
extended during the Western Han, Sui, Jin, and Ming periods, rather than a
single, continuous wall. At its extremities, the Great Wall reaches from
northeastern Heilongjiang () Province
to northwestern Gansu (). A number of
public works projects were also undertaken to consolidate and strengthen
imperial rule. These activities required enormous levies of manpower and
resources, not to mention repressive measures. Revolts broke out as soon as the
first Qin emperor died in 210
B.C. His dynasty was extinguished less than twenty years after its triumph. The
imperial system initiated during the Qin dynasty, however, set a pattern that
was developed over the next two millennia.
After a short civil war, a new dynasty,
called Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), emerged with its capital at Chang'an ( ). The
new empire retained much of the Qin administrative structure but retreated a bit
from centralized rule by establishing vassal principalities in some areas for
the sake of political convenience. The Han rulers modified some of the harsher
aspects of the previous dynasty; Confucian ideals of government, out of favor
during the Qin period, were adopted as the creed of the Han empire, and
Confucian scholars gained prominent status as the core of the civil service. A
civil service examination system also was initiated. Intellectual, literary, and
artistic endeavors revived and flourished. The Han period produced China's most
famous historian, Sima Qian ( 145-87
B.C.?), whose Shiji ( Historical Records) provides a detailed
chronicle from the time of a legendary Xia emperor to that of the Han emperor Wu
Di (
141-87 B.C.). Technological advances also marked this period. Two of the great
Chinese inventions, paper and porcelain, date from Han times.
The Han dynasty, after which the members of the ethnic majority in China, the
"people of Han," are named, was notable also for its military prowess. The
empire expanded westward as far as the rim of the Tarim Basin (in modern
Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region), making possible relatively secure caravan
traffic across Central Asia to Antioch, Baghdad, and Alexandria. The paths of
caravan traffic are often called the "silk route" () because the route was used to export
Chinese silk to the Roman Empire. Chinese armies also invaded and annexed parts
of northern Vietnam and northern Korea toward the end of the second century B.C.
Han control of peripheral regions was generally insecure, however. To ensure
peace with non-Chinese local powers, the Han court developed a mutually
beneficial "tributary system" ().
Non-Chinese states were allowed to remain autonomous in exchange for symbolic
acceptance of Han overlordship. Tributary ties were confirmed and strengthened
through intermarriages at the ruling level and periodic exchanges of gifts and
goods.
After 200 years, Han rule was interrupted briefly (in A.D. 9-24 by Wang Mang
or , a reformer), and then restored
for another 200 years. The Han rulers, however, were unable to adjust to what
centralization had wrought: a growing population, increasing wealth and
resultant financial difficulties and rivalries, and ever-more complex political
institutions. Riddled with the corruption characteristic of the dynastic cycle,
by A.D. 220 the Han empire collapsed.
Era of Disunity
The collapse of the Han dynasty was followed by nearly four centuries of rule
by warlords. The age of civil wars and disunity began with the era of the Three
Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu, which had overlapping reigns during the period
A.D. 220-80). In later times, fiction and drama greatly romanticized the reputed
chivalry of this period. Unity was restored briefly in the early years of the
Jin dynasty (A.D. 265-420), but the Jin could not long contain the invasions of
the nomadic peoples. In A.D. 317 the Jin court was forced to flee from Luoyang
and reestablished
itself at Nanjing to the south. The transfer of the capital coincided with
China's political fragmentation into a succession of dynasties that was to last
from A.D. 304 to 589. During this period the process of sinicization accelerated
among the non-Chinese arrivals in the north and among the aboriginal tribesmen
in the south. This process was also accompanied by the increasing popularity of
Buddhism (introduced into China in the first century A.D.) in both north and
south China. Despite the political disunity of the times, there were notable
technological advances. The invention of gunpowder (at that time for use only in
fireworks) and the wheelbarrow is believed to date from the sixth or seventh
century. Advances in medicine, astronomy, and cartography are also noted by
historians.
Ringling Asian Art Center.
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