The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty in China from 206 BC to 220 AD, which followed a monarchy structure in governing the dynasty. For this reason, the emperor was the head of the dynasty together with his administrators were absolutely responsible for political, economic, and social matters of the dynasty. Furthermore, the Han dynasty government was largely characterized by a combination of structures, civil authority, and bureaucracy (Loewe 29). Within the dynasty, there were two government system, the central government and the provincial government, which work together to sustain the needs of the dynasty. This paper focuses on the imperial Han central government; provincial and local government; officials; government communications; …show more content…
laws of the empire; control of the people and the land; controversies and problems and weaknesses of the imperial government. Government is a big part of daily life. Not just in the Han Dynasty, even in daily life today.
All of the emperors improved China in their own way. Some may have ruled with punishments and laws that were hard and cruel on the people of the civilization. Others ruled differently, all perfecting the civilization in their own way. Michael Loewe in his article refers to the “offices of the central government that were situated in the capital city; specialist responsibilities and which were detached from the capital and situated in the provinces” (Loewe 510). Clearly, the position of the government’s offices simplifies the tasks of the leaders and the entire province in fulfilling their duties. On the other hand, many citizens lack the essential services from the government. With the exclusion of the emperor’s office, Loewe thinks the rest of the offices would be built in the counties that make it easier for everyone to access the services. In the book, Michael Loewe identifies the tasks and the responsibilities of the central government as he says that “the officials were arranged in a series of ranks” (Loewe 30). Evidently, this evaluates the responsibilities of the authentic government that values the needs of its people and its dynasty. Ronald A. Edwards specifies the responsibilities of the central and regional government as he says that they “receive tax revenue
from the regions and in the return provinces services including security” (Edwards 1). The distribution of the tasks to the provincial and local government makes it possible for the central government to manage so immensely to govern the dynasty and consent the provincial and local government to practice their leadership. A kind of intermediate administrative unit between the commanderies /princedoms and the central government were the inspector's regions or provinces. The regional inspectors and governors were installed as a controlling unit to inspect and assess the work of the regional administrators. L. Bishop describes the formation central government of Han dynasty as “autocracy supported by a bureaucracy” (Bishop 181). According to Bishop’s observation, the central government managed well to organize and control the Han involving the local government and the society. He noticed the changing of the emperors affected the “administrative mechanism of Ch’in runs by central autocratic bureaucracy” (Bishop 135). It was 154 BC to 126 BC when there was a conflict between an imperial government and semi-independent sovereignties and this made the central government reach the highest point to lose its power and collapse in 8 AD.
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
During the Han and Roman time period everything was changing. New Technology greatly expanding the empire's. Attitudes shifted in the Han and Roman empire. The Han attitude towards technology is for the common people with innovative tools and natural disaster prevention. The attitude to the Roman technology is to show off how advanced their civilization was with aqueducts and paved roads.
Han China was an empire that expanded over a vast territory and Classical Athens was only a small city-state. Inevitable, there were differences in all aspects of life. The documents provided plenty of information on demographics, government structures, individual roles and duties of a citizen, an view on physical life. Overall, the 64 million differences in population, the democracy that arose in Athens, the importance of a father-son relationship in Han China, and the interests in nature by the Hans were the key facts in the two’s differences.
The Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire were two grand empires that rose out of preexisting territories and provided relative peace over wide areas. The collapse of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE), which was the first great land-based empire in East Asia, came after a period of war, confusion, and tyrannical rule. Due to the political disorder that stemmed from the early dynastic activity, the emergence of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 228 CE) sprung to focus on restoring order. On the other hand, the rise of the Roman Empire (44 BCE- 476 CE) originated from consolidating authority over aristocratic landlords and overriding the democratic elements of the earlier Republic. Instead, the Roman Empire redefined the concept of “citizen” as subjects to the Roman emperor. Both empires shared similar agendas to exploit their vast territories and resources, which helped them expand their political dominance; however, despite having similar political goals and foundations, their government system, cultural ideologies and imperial expansionist natures diverged.
Han China and Ancient shared bureaucratic governments. This means that they had a government ruled by unelected officials, giving the people little to no say in government. In Rome the ruler was once a king but then their government transitioned to an oligarchy, which would put the rich people in the highest place in society. On the other hand in Han China, which was an imperial dynasty, and emperors were decided by the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate gave the common man a chance to become a major ruler during the Han period. The Han government was mainly influenced by confucian government while Romes was based on Roman law and the classics. The Han government spread Confucianism since that was the basis for their government. Rome also relied on local rulers to make sure that their many lands were following rules and not plotting against them. Both the Han and Rome shared a bureaucratic government which affected their social structures in different ways.
The Han dynasty and the Roman Empire were both powerful empires during their era. However, the ways they obtained their power varied greatly because they used different methods that involved their political structures, which revolved around their centralized governments. The Han dynasty and the Roman Empire acquired very unique techniques that allowed them to control social and political. For example, the Han dynasty adopted a religion known as Confucianism, which monitored everything in the lives of the Chinese. Contrary, the Roman Empire established a monarchy but allowed its residents more freedom as compared to the Han. Nevertheless, the two empires were similar in political structures in that the power was depended on the wealthy that were in authority, the peasants struggled with their lives because of concerning issues such as food supply. The empires were able to create and preserve a peaceful and sustainable lives for a long time, unlike the past empires. Social distribution were under the control of the wealthiest and they could effortlessly impact community viewpoints and interactions among the residents. These two empires existed during the Classical Period had comparable and various social, political, religions, as well as economical values and practices. However, they both possessed differences and similarities in their economic and social perspectives even though the two empires were established around the same era.
No other woman in the Early Han held the same amount of influence as Empress Lü throughout her various titles as Empress, Empress Dowager, and then Grand Empress Dowager. Stories recounting her manipulative nature paint a picture of a scheming empress using her imperial power to bestow favors and political positions to her own clan. This essay argues that Empress Lü used the lack of precedence for her position as Empress Dowager to manipulate court officials into granting power to her clan, which caused political unrest late in her life and resulted in the destruction of the Lü clan. To support this claim, this essay will discuss the exceptional nature of Empress Lü's power and the extent of her ability to manipulate the court, and then this paper will provide evidence of a Lü clan extermination after the death of the empress that held power for fifteen years after her husband died – in a nation with no precedence for this kind of rule.
In this initial chapter, Huang provides an anecdotal history of some of the events that occurred, and includes within it a discussion of the set up of the leadership, the repercussions that occurred in the event of certain actions, including the prospects of an audience with the emperor. Huang reviews these issues as he considers that actions taken by the Wan-li emperor, who was only twenty-four in 1587 and who had been a veteran of ceremonial proceedings, and considers his history as an element of understanding the progression of leadership. Huang outlines the reconstruction of the court under Wan-li who came into power at the death of his father and the seemingly insignificant actions taken by the emperor, from his marriage to the redecorating of the court. Within the scope of this discourse, Huang is able to disclose the excesses of the emperor, and consider the implications of the bureaucratic system that he devised as an extension of this excess (13).
The rulers should not burden everything alone and their family should help them. this indicates that in past rulers had difficulties facing problems alone and the advice for later on rulers is to have their family help them. For the sake of country, emperor should listen to advices of high officials and does not have a direct link to information. The king in Tang was obligated to listen and could not do anything he wishes. It means, previous kings might have done as they pleased and it affected the country badly. Later source tells us demanded characteristics of an emperor; generous, majestic, disciplined and thoughtful. The emperor is not someone that will only rule, he is expected to be a father of the country. Rather than a dictator, the demanded emperor is wise and kind man. He is also expected to be wise enough to choose right person for its task. The clever idea of helping emperor to rule the country was successful during Zhou dynasty. “Formerly when the Zhou dynasty was at its height, the empire was divided among the royal clan. Nearby there was Jin and Zheng to help; far off there was Lu and Wei”. This strategy was helpful one and we can conclude that government depended on royal family alone. Although, emperor had to listen to his advisers, the royal family was the only rulers. Nevertheless, since humans are greedy if you
One method of governing that both the emperors of the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire used was approaching and reforming civil service jobs (government jobs). Octavian, a well-known Roman emperor, set up a variety of jobs that contributed greatly to the Roman government. Some jobs may seem very ordinary such as collecting taxes, delive...
Major changes in political structure, social and economic life define the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties. Each period laid the foundation for the next, with changes and improvements to create a new order.
As a result, it has to be wondered what filled the vacuum that was left by the lack of central authority. I would speculate given a few factors that the power would localized to families in locales and other sorts of localized forms of governments. I feel confident that based on this reading, this would be the assumed system that would govern society as it is the one of the only ways given the nature of the king’s authority to run a kingdom with such a weak king. Even more so, based on what I have previously learned about Confucius who collected the Canon’s, I know that he was a strong advocate for a hands-off central government that gave a lot of authority to powerfuls families. These Canon’s interestingly seem to suggest a type of government very similar to the one Confucius advocates given the fact that a weak central government exists which normally gives way to a localization of power into families and
In 1bce and before, emperors was basically the government. They made all the rules. They had different social structure in different countries. they could do anything they wanted too. Also the Hammurabi’s code was written I during this time. Hammurabi’s code was a set of rules. The main reason for the rules was “an eye for an eye”. Ancient Rome was basically monarchy. In Greece the Athens was democracy, and the Sparta was oligarchy. India government their rulers based on divine assistance. In Mesopotamia they were theocracy, which means a government by divine authority. China’s Zhou Dynasty has an organized postal service for government use in 900. In 500 the Chinese government officials use established, speedy courier service. “Roman government became known as Caesar’s Civil War, it also eliminated the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) and led to the Roman Empire (27 BC–AD 476).” The tyrannical government, produced robbery, for the rebels plundered both their own and the neighboring countries. The Common Era began in the 399 bce. It is “The year numbering system used ...
The purpose of this paper is to tell the history of the Ming Dynasty’s impact on the Chinese Empire, and to explain why the Chinese Empire was in fact an empire.
The early establishment of bureaucratic administration were seen and put in to practice in the system of the hierarchy structure, ruling by the king down to each step of his sub ordinate. The civilian had no practice to say or voting right to the country policy and its development. In that time it was very much a class divided matters, the ruling class for example king politicians and royal bloods were among the people that practice and execute all the policies. Civilians at that time live under the control of the law which were controlled by the upper ruling class. It has been gathered that the corruption level was high; the practice ruling class used benefits and powers to serve their own demands.