A History of China (20 page)

The same mixed results characterized Wu’s domestic fiscal policies, which were shaped, in large part, by the court’s pressing need for revenue to finance the mounting costs of foreign expansionism. The court increased taxes on property and vehicles, but – even more critical – the government imposed monopolies on salt and iron and took over the copper mines in order to gain control over the production and minting of copper coins. These monopolies would turn out to be important sources of revenue but would simultaneously raise the prices of these vital commodities. Wu also permitted the growth of large estates, which would, in theory, provide additional taxes but which would also lead to further impoverishment of the peasantry. Dong Zhongshu (179–104
BCE
), the leading Confucian of this era, warned of the instability generated by the growing disparity between poor peasants and the landlords, but his warnings did not translate into new policies. Instead the owners of large estates would become increasingly powerful and would successfully seek to exclude their lands from the tax rolls. Thus, the court’s fiscal problems remained and weighed down even harder on later reigns. Wu went on to sell military honors and government offices in order to meet the court’s growing expenditures – a particularly dangerous precedent. Sale of positions in the bureaucracy offered opportunities for unscrupulous men to gain political power.

A similarly unorthodox bureaucratic change Wu initiated fostered still other opportunities for profiteering and power-hungry individuals to move into positions of authority. The Secretariat, which had been a relatively innocuous and lesser office, began to be entrusted with greater responsibilities. Wu and later emperors used the Secretariat in this way to circumvent the regular bureaucracy, avoid opposition, and evade the formalities that might cause delays or obstructions in implementation of their desires and policies. With such strong emperors as Wu, decisions and authority remained in the ruler’s hands. However, when the weaker and less competent of his descendants came to the throne, the Secretariat often gained tremendous power. Eunuchs, who comprised a large number of the Secretariat’s employees, became more prominent at these times.

An additional trait of Wu’s reign that contributed to problems later in the dynasty was the superstition that prevailed among the elite and the emperor himself. A witchcraft episode in 91
BCE
, to which Wu gave credence, resulted in the suicide of Wu’s heir apparent. Accusations of witchcraft, perhaps inspired by Wu, were leveled at the emperor’s in-laws and maternal relatives. Such fractiousness at court weakened the dynasty and caused growing disarray, which led to several irregular successions to the throne over the next few decades. On Wu’s death in 87
BCE
, a nine-year-old was enthroned and a powerful regent governed in his name. Purges of influential officials and imperial relatives, as well as various cliques striving for power, characterized the remaining century of the Former Han dynasty.

Disputes among the different factions in the government added to the confusion. One faction focused on strengthening and enriching the state, while another emphasized limiting court demands on the individual. The first supported government monopolies on vital commodities as a means of raising revenues, advocated the seemingly Legalist principle of harsh laws to achieve order, and sought controls on the population to empower the state so as to confront and dominate its bellicose neighbors to the north, mostly the Xiongnu. The opposition believed that monopolies would provide insufficient revenues and would, in any case, harm the population. It argued that agriculture was more vital than the proposed monopolies and that promoting peasant interests ought to be the fundamental government objective. This faction concluded by asserting that morality rather than severe laws would assure stability and that a conciliatory policy toward the Xiongnu would be less expensive and less harmful than an expansionist strategy. The government alternated between these two policies throughout the rest of the Former Han dynasty. Emperor Xuan (74–49
BCE
), a decisive and incorruptible ruler, briefly halted the dynasty’s slide by curbing court expenditures, peasant exploitation, and aristocrats’ avoidance of taxes.

After Xuan’s reign, however, the dynasty persisted in its downward spiral. The kingdoms, which had earlier been abolished, were restored, and aristocrats who had previously held power in certain regions regained some of their authority, weakening the central government.

To its credit, the court repeatedly attempted to reduce costly excesses, including lavish rituals, ceremonies, and religious services. However, such austerity simply could not compensate for the limited revenues flowing to the government (which were principally due to the fact that many in the aristocracy had secured tax-free status for their estates). With fewer resources at its command, the court did not adequately maintain the dikes along the Yellow River, leading to frequent floods and fatalities.

The Xiongnu, who had been China’s principal foreign antagonist, could not capitalize on the Han’s difficulties. Unity proved elusive for this tribal confederation, and constant struggles for succession weakened it. Finally, in 53
BCE
, the Xiongnu leader Huhanye, faced with such divisiveness, made his peace with China in order to receive the handsome rewards that the Han court pledged. Traveling in person to the court, he accepted Chinese demands, including payment of tribute and leaving behind a son as a hostage. Delighted with his acquiescence, the Han court and its merchants provided him with silk, gold, and grain, which he could then use to win over previously recalcitrant underlings. Several of his successors continued to arrive in person at the Han court to obtain lavish gifts, and they recognized that they did not need to organize massive and costly raids across the border to secure the Chinese goods they needed. For more than half a century, China thus established peace with its most hostile neighbor.

Similarly, the Former Han’s last years witnessed other successes in foreign policy that somewhat mitigated its slide into domestic turbulence. It set up military colonies (
tuntian
) in the northwest, which consisted of soldiers who worked the land and thus did not require government supplies. These colonies protected, at a minimal cost, the caravan trails along the Silk Roads. Because of the colonies’ effective system of watchtowers and garrisons, they preserved trade with central and west Asia. The court also dealt adroitly with the Qiang, who probably formed one of the constituent groups of the modern Tibetan peoples. It sent troops to establish military colonies in the Qiang’s territories in the modern provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan (a policy similar to the one it devised for the Silk Roads). Simultaneously, it encouraged the settlement of some of the more sedentary Qiang well within China.

After Emperor Xuan’s reign, the Former Han’s achievements in foreign relations were not matched at the court. The imperial family was torn asunder by assassinations, plots, and coups. Lack of stability at the court, which reputedly resulted from the ambitions and schemes of concubines and empresses and their relatives, simply aggravated the wider society’s unrest. During the last three unsettled decades of the Former Han, the Wang family, who often acted as regents for child emperors, assumed control of the Secretariat. Wang Mang, the last important family member, became regent for a child emperor and then in 9
CE
capitalized on several so-called omens to overthrow his charge and proclaim the founding of his own dynasty, which he called the Xin (New) dynasty, a dynasty that Chinese historians do not consider legitimate.

Wang Mang’s ultimate failure stigmatized him and shaped the Chinese historians’ depiction of him and his policies. A failed usurper does not get much sympathy from traditional historians. From their viewpoint, Wang Mang had not received a mandate from Heaven to rule and, as such, was clearly a fraud and a rebel, if not worse. Historians offered scant empathy for the last emperors of a dynasty or for pretenders to the throne. Losers, like Wang Mang, were generally not accorded fair treatment. Historians judged his very appearance to be wanting, in contrast to successful emperors who looked the part and whose features were described in grandiose, exaggerated, and even false terms. The historians portray Wang Mang as having a huge mouth and a loud voice, bad omens in the Chinese view of physiognomy.

A more balanced appraisal of Wang Mang’s policies offers a more complex portrait. Wang’s edicts hardly seem radical. Some were merely continuations of previous policies. For example, Wang reaffirmed state monopolies on salt, liquor, iron implements, revenues from mountains and marshes, and minting of coins – a slight addition to the list of goods monopolized during Emperor Wu’s reign. He also banned the purchase and sale of slaves, who admittedly comprised only a small segment of the population. His other policies, including a tax on merchants and artisans and a lowering of the value of coinage, did not diverge significantly from Han practices. Indeed, Wu had pursued the same policies. Even the “ever-normal granary,” Wu’s principal innovation, could not be deemed harmful. Officials would buy grain in times of surplus to avert a decline in prices paid to producers and would sell it from government storehouses in times of shortage to ward off high prices and gouging of consumers. By stabilizing prices, the “ever-normal granary” ensured greater regularity, surely a policy that could hardly have antagonized any significant segment of the population. Indeed Henry Wallace, the US Secretary of Agriculture during the Depression, adopted just such policies to ameliorate the problems faced by farmers and consumers.

Similarly, Wang Mang’s foreign policies did not deviate dramatically from Han precedents. The dynastic histories charge that he unnecessarily provoked the Xiongnu, causing them to abandon the tribute system that the Han had so patiently fostered and to initiate aggressive forays into China. A more likely scenario is that the Xiongnu recognized the disturbances within China and deliberately capitalized on the turbulence to challenge the Han’s territorial and commercial interests. In any case, the Xiongnu had certainly not been passive in the last decades of the Former Han. With the accession of their leader Huduershi in 18
CE
, Xiongnu pressure on the Chinese borders intensified. Wang Mang’s troops held their own within China itself, but the Xiongnu disrupted Chinese control over the central Asian oases along the Silk Roads. Caravans faced a more perilous journey because the towns en route were not entirely secured. Isolated uprisings erupted in Korea (where Wu had established commanderies) and in the southwest (where the Han had attempted to maintain trade routes to Burma and India), but these outbreaks did not result from dramatic changes in policy. They reflected, in part, the ongoing jockeying for position in these regions, as well as awareness of China’s vulnerability during what turned out to be a turbulent era.

Because Wang Mang’s policies did not deviate sharply from Han precedents, his downfall cannot truly be attributed to disastrous programs or, as the dynastic histories would have us believe, a pugnacious personality that repelled many Chinese. To be sure, he had opponents among the old aristocracy who had supported Han rule. They certainly would have sought any pretext to challenge his authority. However, the most important factor in his downfall may have been a catastrophic shift in the course of the Yellow River, where maintenance and repair of dikes and embankments had not received sufficient attention over a long period of time. The river changed its course southward, particularly in Shandong, leading to devastating floods, shortage of food, and disease and death. Many succumbed to starvation and disease in the aftermath of the floods, and the ensuing famine, with which the government could not cope, caused many to move south. These refugees scavenged for and stole food, and as larger crowds developed they began to rampage over an increasingly wider territory. They became more organized and sought to establish their own identity by painting their foreheads red. Soon known as the Red Eyebrows, they became a threat to Wang Mang. However, they did not have the skills – literacy, experience, and leadership – required to form a government. The old aristocracy saw its chance to capitalize on these disturbances, and a descendant of the Han dynasty, known by his posthumous name of Guangwu (r. 25–57
CE
), emerged as the leader of these rebel groups and defeated Wang Mang by 23
CE
.

After suppressing challenges to his rule and compelling the somewhat anarchic Red Eyebrows to submit, Emperor Guangwu began to chart policies that would vastly influence the new Later Han dynasty (25–220
CE
). He first moved the capital to Luoyang, a site where the court could not as easily be trapped as in Changan. A well-planned city with an adequate water supply and with altars for ceremonial and ritual purposes, Luoyang became such a magnet for the Chinese that within a few decades the population reached more than half a million. Because Guangwu had had substantial support in coming to power, he needed to make concessions to his allies. Thus he restored some of the marquisates and kingdoms that had been abandoned in the earlier Han dynasty. Although the kings would from this time on often be the emperors’ sons, the fact that the emperors reverted to kingdoms and marquisates revealed a weakening of central authorities. Most of the Later Han’s administrative institutions resembled those of the Former Han, save that the Secretariat became more prominent and the government itself became increasingly decentralized. In addition, court rivalries and struggles bedeviled Guangwu’s reign and would continue to plague the Later Han. The incessant irregularities and infighting at court lowered its prestige and undermined efforts to deal seriously with domestic and foreign problems. Empress dowagers, on several occasions, wielded power in the name of their young and inexperienced sons, which added to the instability at court.