A History of China (18 page)

The Han came to power partly due to the turbulence at the end of the Qin but also partly as a result of the ability, canniness, and vision of its founder, Liu Bang (256 or 247–195
BCE
), or Emperor Gaozu. Of peasant background, he had originally thrown in his lot with Xiang Yu (232–202
BCE
), previously a leading figure in the Qin army but by 207
BCE
the primary commander of the rebel forces. Xiang attempted to restore a decentralized system of government reminiscent of Zhou times, a system composed of nineteen states with himself as the principal ruler. Such a scheme contrasted sharply with the Qin mania for control and a unified government. Xiang and Liu initially cooperated, but their alliance barely survived the immediate fall of the Qin. Twice Xiang let victory slip out of his hands in the ensuing struggle, and ultimately the more unscrupulous and rough-and-tumble Liu overwhelmed his rival, causing the former commander to commit suicide.

Naming his dynasty “Han” from the name of the territory he had controlled under Xiang’s system of nineteen states, Liu set about establishing a government. He first selected the Qin capital around the modern city of Xian as its approximate site because it was easily defended and was closer to provisions for the burgeoning population at the center of government. Then, imitating the Qin governmental structure, he set up a policy-making group (
sangong
) composed of a chancellor (
chengxiang
), an imperial counselor (
yushi dafu
), and a supreme commander (
taiwei
), the last of whom, in theory, commanded the army. In practice, the chancellor was the most powerful figure, partly because he sifted through the reports and memorials from officials throughout the empire to determine which merited the emperor’s attention. The imperial counselor had the specific responsibility of supervising the bureaucracy while the supreme commander, who was reputedly in charge of military affairs, was in fact often superseded by the chancellor – an example of the professed Chinese tradition of civilian supremacy over the military. Nine ministers, with carefully delineated responsibilities, carried out the policies devised principally by the emperor and the chancellor. Several agencies, such as the superintendents of the palace, the guards, transport, and the imperial clan, provided services almost exclusively for the imperial family and the court. Others concerned themselves with state functions. The superintendent of ceremonials managed the empire’s rituals, cults, and religions while the superintendent of state took charge of foreign envoys and leaders who came to China. Legal matters fell into the jurisdiction of the superintendent of trials, and the superintendent of agriculture received land taxes that were used to pay officials and to support the military. Finally, the superintendent of the lesser treasury gathered the revenues derived from nonagricultural, generally minor taxes.

As the Han progressed, however, fear of granting too much power to any single official or agency resulted in a rudimentary checks–and-balances system. The emperors’ concerns about potential threats to their authority led to limits on the responsibility of any minister or chancellor over any government function. In various areas, two or more agencies were frequently granted authority over single aspects of rule. This system of overlapping functions prevented specific administrators or agencies from dominating any aspect of government. For example, the superintendents of agriculture and the lesser treasury shared jurisdiction over finances; similarly, the superintendent of the lesser treasury, by his power to shape the amount of revenue provided to the military, restricted the supreme commander’s authority. Such a system reduced the institutional opportunities for challenges to imperial authority but simultaneously set the stage for possible irreconcilable disputes among top officials and agencies. These disputes impeded or, in some cases, totally undercut timely decision making and thus occasionally led to stagnation or to a lack of resolution of serious problems. This system of checks and balances shaped government operations throughout much of Chinese history, leading to similar problems for many dynasties.

Having devised the institutions required for a central government, the Han then faced the perennial question of how to gain and maintain control over local regions, an issue that plagued many dynasties from this time on. Because Liu Bang had relied on various powerful regional commanders to vanquish Xiang Yu, he could not simply renounce them, nor could he demand that they give up their arms and abide by the dictates of the central government. The Han system of local administration would thus need to consider these powerful regional figures. Indeed, the early emperors worked out a compromise, permitting the creation of kingdoms and commanderies in local regions. The kings enjoyed considerable leeway in governing their domains until 145
BCE
, though Han rulers attempted to have their own relatives or retainers succeed as kings. In 145, the Han court, by now more self-confident than in its first years, seized the power to appoint the officials who directly served the kings, thus starting to undermine the kingdoms’ independence. As the Han wore on, it gained greater authority over the kings. From its earliest days, the Han had exerted quite a bit of influence over the commanderies, dispatching governors to enforce central-government ­financial and military policies. It sought also to control the lower-level administrative units that composed the kingdoms and commanderies – the counties (
xian
) and the marquisates (
hou
). The court selected magistrates to collect taxes, to administer justice, to maintain peace and order, and often to supervise public-works projects. The counties and marquisates, in turn, appointed officials to head lower administrative units such as districts, and these officials dealt more frequently with ordinary people.

This carefully and elaborately constructed system of provincial and local administration did not necessarily ensure the dominance of the central government, either in the Han or later dynasties. Decentralization was in the best interests of many local elite families in the provinces, and throughout the dynasty they would be opposed to and would, in fact, contest central-government attempts to enforce its policies and to control them. Chinese history had vacillated and would continue to alternate between periods of centralized control and successful regional challenges to centralization. This tension would rage for centuries, on occasion leading to the same kind of collapse as in the Warring States period. Even during strong dynasties, local elites and local governments frequently wielded considerable power. In addition, rudimentary transport and communications impeded the central government’s efforts to enforce its will on local elites and to implement its policies and edicts.

The military offered one means of dominating local areas, but its early failure against China’s most vaunted enemy, the non-Chinese peoples north of China, was not comforting. In theory, universal military service for a two-year term was mandated for all males aged between twenty-three and fifty-six. Most received assignments among the troops guarding the capital or protecting the borders. Those stationed along the frontiers went on reconnaissance missions to ascertain the intentions of foreign forces that might attack China, warned the court of potential threats, and attempted to rebuff incursions. The court appointed commanders when the need arose, and officers conducted training exercises to ensure that the soldiers were ready for battle. The early Han mandated that accurate records of the delivery of supplies and mail and of the actual military training be kept so as to avert corruption and to guarantee the preparedness of the troops. However, despite their meticulous efforts, their initial campaigns against the Xiongnu (a new confederation of tribes based in modern Inner Mongolia and Mongolia) resulted in a resounding defeat. In 201
BCE
, the Xiongnu routed a Han army and almost captured the emperor, best known by his temple name, Gaozu. The military alone would not resolve China’s frontier problems.

To meet its military and other needs, the new dynasty required revenue, much of which would ultimately derive from agriculture. As early as 205
BCE
, a tax on land had been imposed that amounted to a rate of one-fifteenth of total yield, later reduced to one-thirtieth of total yield. This tax was not, by itself, burdensome, but a poll tax, together with a property tax, added to the levies demanded from the peasantry. Some measures were introduced in an attempt to assist peasants – for example, irrigation and flood-control projects. However, labor service of one month a year for all males of working age and the military requirements described earlier meant even more heavy responsibilities. Peasants who barely eked out their subsistence could not afford to meet their tax obligations. The onset of disastrous locusts, floods, and droughts exacerbated their difficulties. Many fell into debt, and the high rates of interest charged by usurers forced them into bankruptcy. They eventually had to sell their holdings to large landowners who often permitted them to rent the land. Increasingly, many peasants were compelled to give up their lands, and large (frequently tax-exempt) estates proliferated, resulting in a further diminution of court revenues as well as fiscal dilemmas for the dynasty.

Income from other taxes did not compensate for the reduced revenue derived from land. The court, through the superintendent of the lesser treasury, imposed taxes on the products of hills and seas, including fishing and iron and salt production, and on merchants and their profits. A poll tax on merchants was still another means of raising government funds. Within sixty years of the founding of the dynasty, these fiscal devices and the revenues they raised were insufficient for the court’s needs, compelling the Han emperors to resort to other measures to finance the government.

Yet initially Gaozu and his immediate successors did not encounter financial difficulties and concentrated instead on developing and bolstering Han institutions of governance. Gaozu’s closest associates had been military men, but he quickly recognized that he needed civilian administrators. Faced first with the need to recruit officials, he and his successors experimented with various means to select capable men. In 192
BCE
, he conducted the first civil-service examinations to choose the most competent men. Centuries later, examinations would be the most important method of staffing the bureaucracy, but at this earlier time appointments and family relationships to prominent figures were as significant. Then, with the counsel of advisers such as Jia Yi (201–169
BCE
), the emperors gradually reduced the power and territories controlled by the kingdoms, and they overcame efforts by relatives of Gaozu’s wife, the Empress née Lü, to dominate the court (though she remained powerful after her husband’s death until her own demise in 180
BCE
). She was the first in a line of empresses who sought power and were thus vilified in the traditional Chinese histories. Since these sources were written by allies of the bureaucracy, their portrait of the empress, as well as of other indomitable women, ought perhaps to be somewhat discounted. The empress’s career challenges the stereotyped portrait of women as submissive and having scant involvement in public life. She was the first but not the last woman in the history of the Chinese court to wield power and, in fact, to dominate Chinese policy making.

Emperor Gaozu, Empress née Lü, and the court accomplished much in the first thirty years or so of the Han, including the design and construction of a capital at Changan, northwest of the present city of Xian. Surrounded by four walls, each about twenty-six feet high, with twelve gates permitting entry into the city, Changan was built on a grid pattern, with the Weiyang district as the principal palace complex. At least two sizable markets were established to cater to the growing population. A period of stability set in, during which the court attempted to solidify its institutions but scarcely embarked upon new initiatives or efforts to expand the territory under its control.

Instead the court sought peace, at least until the accession of Emperor Wu (r. 140–87
BCE
). Officials and emperors warned against adventurism and urged caution in foreign relations. They were concerned about the economic and political repercussions that could result from the unstable border and from raids and incursions.

The greatest threat was from the peoples living north of China in the area now known as inner Asia. Because their land was unsuited to agriculture, many of these peoples practiced a pastoral economy that necessitated seasonal migrations to find the water and grass essential for the survival of their animals. Their own survival depended upon the sheep, goats, yaks, camels, or horses that they transported (or that transported them). Such reliance made them peculiarly vulnerable to any difficulties that afflicted their herds. Drought, overgrazing, disease among their animals, or a bad winter (during which an ice cover over the land denied the animals access to life-preserving grass) threatened their existence. Their mobility, which limited their ability to carry a surplus in case of emergency, exacerbated the difficulties inherent in their fragile economy and compelled them to seek grain, manufactured goods, and metals from neighboring civilizations, particularly China. Simultaneously, their migrations imposed limits on the number of people in any group, the optimal size amounting to several thousand individuals. Thus, if they were denied trade by China, their only recourse was hit-and-run raids, which surely troubled but did not imperil their neighbor. However, if they were to unite and form a larger confederation of groups under centralized leadership, they would offer a more serious threat to China, and some confederations did begin to arise. One way in which the rulers of the confederations ensured the loyalty of their people was to secure booty from neighboring civilizations. They sought either to extort wealth or to obtain trade, not necessarily to conquer. According to some recent studies, the rise of such confederations was actually, in part, a response to the growth of a strong Chinese dynasty. To secure the goods they required either through trade or raids, the pastoral peoples organized themselves into larger units to counteract China’s increased power.