Han Dynasty: Xiongnu Tribute, Wang Mang's Flood and a Bronze Seismometer

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The Han dynasty ruled China from 202 BC to 220 AD and gave its name to the Han people and Han characters. After the Qin collapsed and the Chu-Han Contention split the empire into 18 kingdoms, Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu at Gaixia in 202 BC and became Emperor Gaozu at Chang'an, ruling the west through commanderies and handing the east to semi-autonomous kings, later replaced by Liu relatives who rose in the Rebellion of the Seven States. Surrounded by Modu Chanyu's Xiongnu cavalry at Baideng in 200 BC, the Han accepted the heqin treaty, sending princesses and paying silk, grain and wine. Emperor Wu, ruling from 141 to 87 BC, ended the payments, sent Wei Qing and Huo Qubing past the Gobi, and dispatched Zhang Qian into Central Asia, opening the Silk Road.

Wu paid for his wars by nationalizing salt, iron, liquor and coinage, and gave state patronage to Dong Zhongshu's Confucianism, which cast the emperor as the link between heaven and earth. In 9 AD Wang Mang, nephew of Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun, seized the throne, outlawed slavery and nationalized land, and a Yellow River flood split the river in two and fed the Red Eyebrows rebellion. Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu, restored the dynasty at Luoyang by 25 AD. The Eastern Han refined paper and built junks with watertight bulkheads and stern rudders, but eunuchs, consort clans and scholars fought, the Yellow Turbans rose in 184, and in 220 Cao Pi forced Emperor Xian to abdicate.

• Merchants ranked at the bottom of the social order, below farmers whose grain taxes funded the state.
• The Imperial University grew to 30,000 students and created a class of scholar officials.
• Chinese records describe an embassy from Marcus Aurelius in 166 AD, possibly Roman merchants posing as envoys.
• Zhang Heng's bronze seismometer dropped a ball from a dragon's mouth into a toad's to show an earthquake's direction.
• The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art solved systems of linear equations with negative numbers, and Emperor Ling auctioned off high offices.