China under the Han dynasty 57 to 156 AD

What is it about?

Sima Guang, chief minister of the Song dynasty, composed Zizhi tongjian during a period that he was out of favour. A chronicle history of China from the fourth century BC to the tenth century AD, it is generally recognised as the best and most effective record of the foundation and the first thousand years of the traditional empire. The text presented here is an annotated translation of the first of ten chapters of ZZTJ, covering the history of Later, or Eastern, Han from 57 to 156 AD. It begins with the last year of the founding Emperor Guangwu and concludes as the dynasty approached its final, fatal crisis: two other works by the same translator, Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling and To Establish Peace, cover the decline and fall of the imperial state. Those hundred years saw the Han empire expand into central Asia and destroy its chief enemy on the steppe. This, however, proved too much success: as the steppe was taken over by a more difficult opponent, non-Chinese rebellions closer to home weakened imperial control and brought the government close to bankruptcy. In the central government, a series of child emperors allowed the empress's families and the eunuchs of the harem to gain increasing influence, and over the empire at large great local families grew in authority and independence, bullying their neighbours and feuding between themselves as they did so. Sima Guang and his team of scholars drew their information from a wide range of sources, not only from the traditional official histories, but also from unofficial and private parallel texts, while Sima Guang himself added comments based on his own perspective as a Confucian scholar and an official with experience at the highest levels of government. Both in the selection of events to be recorded and in discussion of them, the reader learns how government should be carried on and how women and men should conduct themselves in time of trouble.

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Photo by Gio Almonte on Unsplash

Photo by Gio Almonte on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Established in 206 BC, the Han dynasty suffered an interregnum at the turn of the millennium, but was restored in 25 AD. The Later – or Eastern – Han confirmed and reformed the constitution of its predecessor, and these were largely followed by all later dynasties. In that regard, though Later Han has been somewhat neglected by historians, it is a significant period of Chinese history. Chapters 44 to 53 of Zhizhi tongjian provide a detailed account of core period of a major dynasty, and the annotated translation serves as a guide to its political and military history, to the strengths and weaknesses of its government structures and to the codes of Confucianism. The same patterns may be found in later regimes, and they serve as a guide to the nature of the Chinese imperial state over the greater part of two thousand years.