“The Long Song,” from the Han Dynasty’s “Yuefu” (Music Bureau)
The green mallow in the garden awaits the morning dew to be dried by the sun.
The spring sun spreads its kindness, bringing life and brilliance to all things.
I always fear the arrival of autumn, when the vibrant flowers and leaves will wither.
All rivers flow eastward to the sea; when will they return westward?
If one does not strive in youth, one will only regret in old age!
The program “Classical Chanting: In the Prime of Youth” revolves around the theme of “youth at its prime.” It gathers the energy of youth from classical poetry, showcases youthful vitality through musical creations, chants the beauty of poetry with the voice of the times, and displays the beauty of China with the spirit of youth.
Timeline: End of Eastern Han
Date
Event
9-23 CE
Wang Mang Interregnum
25-220
Eastern Han dynasty
32
Abolition of universal military service
48
Resumption of civil war among the Xiongnu
65
Earliest mention of the Buddha in a Chinese document
45-120
Lifetime of Ban Zhao, female author of Lessons for Women
Timeline: End of Eastern Han, continued
Date
Event
110-137
Outbursts of major rebellions among the Qiang people and in the South
152
Founding of Celestial Masters Daoist Sect
184
Yellow Turban Daoist uprising
192-220
Regency of Cao Cao
220-589
Formal abdication of the last ruler; beginning of the Six Dynasties period of division.
Key Questions
Han and Roman Empires in World History: How did they converge (and diverge)?
Sima Qian: Why history?
Why did the Han collapse? Key tensions in imperial rule.
Discuss: Women’s Virtues and Vices
The Mother of Mencius
What did the mother of Mencius do?
What makes her acts exemplary?
Letter from Feng Yan to his Brother-in-law
What was wrong with his household? Who was to blame?
What should be the ideal relationship between men and women?
Ban Zhao’s Admonitions for Women
What were the two principal virtues for women?
What rituals were expected of women, and why?
Ban Zhao (ca. 45—120 C.E.)
One of the most famous women writers in Chinese history.
Author of Lessons for Women, widely read by Chinese girls and influenced literature until the twentieth century.
Ban Zhao’s twin brother, who became a notable historian and author of History of Later Han.
After Ban Gu’s death in 92 C.E., Emperor Ming commissioned Ban Zhao to complete her brother’s unfinished historical work, highlighting her exceptional literary talent and the family’s literary legacy.
Puzzle of Ban Zhao
Why does such a brilliant woman advise women to mediocracy?
How much does Ban Zhao’s ethics of female reflect reality?
Ban Zhao’s Lessons for Women
Ban Zhao’s guidance restricts women’s ability to express themselves or challenge family members.
At the same time, Ban Zhao advocates for women’s education, encouraging them to copy her instructions, indicating literacy.
Ban Zhao’s promotion of female subservience was intended to maintain family cohesion and wellness.
While women are to support their families, men should also contribute to a harmonious marriage without one being abusive.
Puzzles about Han Women
How much do Confucian texts tell us how women actually lived?
Which women? What about non-elite women?
Was Confucianism an ideological tool for the patriarchy? Why did even some women support it?
Rethinking Female Status in Han China
Women as adjuncts to men:
The patriline was defined by the transmission of lineage from father to son, as outlined in ritual classics and ancestral temples.
Lineage focused on male relationships (father to son, brother to brother), rendering women as outsiders within the husband’s family.
But women had their own power:
Households centered on the relationships between husbands and wives and between parents and children, allowing women significant influence as wives and even greater power as mothers.
After marriage, women retained their natal surname and maintained connections with their birth families, which were important for forming political alliances.
The authority of age often outweighed gender, and sons were expected to show filial obedience to both parents.
Stepmothers and the Chastity Cult
Should a widow be allowed to remarry? In the Han, remarriage became crucial issue: a widow’s loyalty could shift to a new family, risking the extinction of her previous patriline.
Stepmothers as trope:
They mistreated the children from their husband’s first marriage to benefit their own biological children.
The ideal woman:
Protect her husband’s first wife’s children, even at the expense of her own, preserving lineage hierarchy and demonstrating selflessness.
Women vs. the Patriarchy
Women as potential threats to patriline: they have loyalties outside the family, such as to their natal family or future husbands.
Women face a moral dilemma where love and duty can conflict, often leading them to sacrifice personal emotions and interests for the sake of their family’s honor.
Resort to self-mutilation, infanticide, or suicide, as a means of demonstrating their loyalty and worthiness to the patriline.
Examples: Beheading in the Sutra Hall and Southeast Fly the Peacocks
Succession Struggles
Imperial succession involved political struggles for control.
Weak monarchy as norm: many Han emperors were established as teenagers or even infants, often due to manipulation.
This situation fostered recurring conflicts between eunuchs and the imperial in-law factions.
Dowagers controlled the court during the reign of young emperors, relying on their male relatives for power.
Eunuchs, who formed close bonds with young emperors, sought to gain power and often resorted to violence.
This cycle of power struggles led to eunuchs gaining influence and titles, only to be pushed back by new groups of in-laws when a new emperor took the throne.
Weak Monarchs, Strong Matriarchs
Women in the Han dynasty often subverted Confucian teachings to pursue their own interests through relations by marriage.
Empresses represented their natal clans and secured political influence by appointing relatives to high positions, linking the Liu house to various dominant lineages.
Transfer of government business from official offices to the inner court, enabling dowager empresses and wives to dominate.
Empress Lü
After Liu Bang’s death in 195 BCE, Empress Lü ruled effectively through her son until her death in 180 BCE.
Following Huidi’s death in 188 BCE, Empress Lü placed an infant on the throne to maintain her power and remove rivals.
She appointed many relatives to power and was responsible for the deaths of four princes who could have succeeded the throne.
Empress Lü: Not An Exception
Emperor Wu’s mother had significant influence early in his reign, and later emperors were often guided by their mothers or eunuchs.
Despite being labeled a usurper, her reign brought stability to the Han dynasty. But after her death, the central government controlled only a third of the empire, with regional kings ruling the rest.
Mawangdui
Three burial pits located on the eastern outskirts of Changsha reveal Han beliefs about the afterlife prior to the arrival of Buddhism.
Around 3000 items:
Tomb no. 2 is the burial site of Li Cang, the chancellor of the kingdom of Changsha, interred in 193 B.C.
Tomb no. 1, slightly larger, contained the well-preserved body of Li Cang’s wife.
Tomb no. 3 belongs to their son and yielded bamboo strips and silk manuscripts, forming an underground library, buried in 168 B.C.
Lady Dai’s Tomb
Lady Dai’s tomb contained three side chambers filled with goods for her soul’s use, including: - 154 lacquer vessels - 51 ceramics - 48 bamboo suitcases with clothing and household items - 40 baskets with clay replicas of 300 gold pieces and 100,000 bronze coins
Lady Dai’s Tomb
The tomb’s decorations depict three phases after death: laying out the corpse, existence in the underworld, and ascension to immortality.
Lady Dai’s spirit was believed to ascend to the immortal realm while her soul remained in her grave, avoiding the underworld.
Yuefu Poems: The Pledge
Yuefu Poems: The Pledge
上邪
我欲與君相知
長命無絕衰
山無陵
江水為竭
冬雷震震
夏雨雪
天地合
乃敢與君絕
The Pledge
I wish to know you,
May our lives be long and never fade.
When mountains no longer rise,
And rivers run dry,
When winter thunder roars,
And summer rain falls as snow,
When heaven and earth unite,
Only then would I dare to part with you.
State: Places, People, Practices
Places
Capital city
Secondary & tertiary (regional?) capitals
Government centers to administer taxes, adjudicate law
Military bases and border garrisons
People
Civil officials
Military officers and soldiers
People working in court
Practices
Tax administration
Criminal justice
Defense and territorial expansion (fielding an army)
Education
Society: Places, People, Practices
Based on a kinship system, less hierarchical, more horizontal.
Places
Local, regional, with their own characteristics.
Villages
Markets
Roads
People
90% are farmers
Households and families
Hierarchy based on wealth, family power, culture
Practices
Farming, food production
Marriage with kinship ties to other families
Education in society meant learning how to work: weaving, farming, etc.
Han Imperial Bureaucracy: “Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers”
Chancellor
Directly responsible to the emperor and could command the bureaucracy in the emperor’s absence
Potential threat to the throne
Sometimes divided into Chancellor of the Right and Chancellor of the Left.
Censor-in-Chief
Censorial control of officials
Emperor’s watchdog, making proposals for official promotions and punishments.
Grand Commandant
Highest military authority until 119 BC
Chancellor’s role diminished over time; responsibilities shifted to the Commander-in-Chief created during Emperor Wu’s Xiongnu campaign.
The Nine Ministers
Managed a variety of affairs and functioned as executive agents of the emperor.
Division between palace administration and broader empire governance.
The State Hierarchy
Society from the State’s Perspective: Guan Zhong, from the Warring States period, defines four groups of people.
Officials
Farmers
Artisans
Merchants
Status in Han Society
Individual status was defined by a system of titles imposed by the state, with the Han Dynasty having twenty ranks.
The lowest eight ranks were for male commoners (excluding slaves), while higher ranks were reserved for officials, a system originating from the Qin Dynasty.
Han Administrative Structure: Hierarchical yet Autonomous
Districts were divided into townships (xiang), which were further divided into communes (ting), with communes containing villages or hamlets (li).
Each administrative unit had quasi-official leaders, with village headmen (likui) being the lowest level.
A typical village consisted of about 100 families, each owning small plots of land. Neighbors were often not related unless a strong lineage existed.
State and Society: Separate yet Symbiotic
The state operates on a bureaucratic hierarchy to command people, while society relies on kinship ties to connect individuals.
Kinship does not scale in the same way as bureaucracy: Districts contained one walled town and had populations ranging from 200,000 to under 10,000.
Due to population size, officials could not meet most people directly and depended on prominent local families for assistance.
From a top-down perspective, state policies are shaped by decisions made at the court level. On the ground level, the focus is on families and local networks involved in farming and trade.
Both views – top-down and bottom-up – are needed to understand state-society relations in Han China.
How Does This Compare with the Roman Empire?
What converged and later diverged between the two empires?
Why did the Roman and Qin-Han state-formation diverge?
What do we gain by studying Qin/Han and Roman Empires together?
Han and Roman Empires
All roads lead to Rome?
While geographically distant from the Roman Empire, Han was aware of it through interactions with Central Asian states that had contacts with Rome.
The official history of the Eastern Han includes an essay titled “Great Qin Empire” (Da Qin) discussing the Roman Empire, depicted as having numerous stone cities and a capital with significant features, including a large perimeter and a unique non-hereditary kingship system.
In AD 97, Gan Ying was sent by Ban Chao to establish diplomatic relations with Rome, but the Parthians blocked direct access to the Roman Empire.
Looking for China:
Romans had a vague notion of silk’s origins: historian Florus referring to “Seres” as anyone involved in the silk trade, but there are no direct references to China in Roman sources.
In AD 166, the Roman Emperor (likely Marcus Aurelius) sent envoys offering gifts such as elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns to the Han Emperor, indicating reciprocal recognition between the two empires.
Sources of Unity? Confucian-Legalist Framework
The main difference to China is that in China, military power was mostly (though by no means always) successfully contained and for long periods even marginalized by political-ideological power. The near-perfect Han fusion of political and ideological power was a function of the centralizing reforms of the Warring States period and the subsequent adoption of a hybrid Confucian-Legalist belief system that reinforced state authority. Except in the early city-state phase of the Roman polity, Roman regimes never benefited from a comparably close linkage of political and ideological power.
State Patronage of Arts and Literature
After 154 B.C., shift in state-sponsored patronage of the arts and literature: The disappearance of feudatory states led to a decline in military power as a justification for rule; the state began to emphasize its role as the patron of Chinese civilization.
By the end of the Western Han period, over 30,000 students were enrolled in the imperial academy, which became a key pathway to obtaining court office.
A new elite emerged: local power derived from land ownership and social networks, combined with commitment to imperial service.
Sources of Disunity: Ideological Changes in Han China
Early Western Han:
The Huang-Lao school of thought, which combined elements of Daoism and Naturalism, was favored by the Han court.
Towards the end of the 2nd century BC:
Syncretism of Dong Zhongshu: integration of Daoist and Confucian ideas became the dominant philosophical trend.
Revival of Classics: Under Emperor Wu, the study of classical texts was revived, leading to the rise of Confucianism as the primary ideology of the Han Empire.
End of Eastern Han:
Daoism revived as a popular religion
Buddhism was introduced from India
Huang-Lao Thought: Combining Daoism and Naturalism
The most influential Chinese school of thought in the early Han dynasty, named after the two most important deities venerated, the “Yellow Emperor” Huangdi 黃帝 and Laozi 老子.
“Yellow Emperor” Huangdi 黃帝 and Laozi 老子
Cosmic order as the basis for human institutions: Laws governing society are objective rules derived from a predetermined natural order, making law inherently moral and obligatory for humans.
Concept of nature: from an unpredictable force in Daoism to something understandable and analyzable.
Huang-Lao thought reinterpreted Laozi’s concept of Wuwei (No Action), which had been seen as minimal interference in governance, suggesting that even early Han laws could be strict.
Confucianization of Han Empire
Emperor Wu of Han
During Emperor Wu’s early reign (140–87 BC), Confucianism began to gain influence in the Han court.
Emperor Wu convened at least two conferences with around 300 scholars to discuss new policies and identify talented individuals.
Two key figures: Gongsun Hong, who became Censor-in-Chief and later Chancellor, and Dong Zhongshu.
Confucian in Power: Dong Zhongshu
Life:
Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (c. 179 BCE - 104 BCE), Chief minister to Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (c. 140–87 BC).
In 124 BCE established the first imperial university (taixue 太學) with fellow Confucian scholar-official Gongsun Hong 公孫弘 (200 BCE - 121 BCE).
Key ideas:
Virtuous teaching should be prioritized over punishment, reflecting his Confucian principles.
“Transformation Through Education”: The state should reform people’s nature and customs through “Teaching and Transforming” (jiaohua), thereby minimizing the need for punishment.
Dong’s Eclecticism: Confucianism Meets Cosmology
Prior to Dong, Confucianism was mainly an ethical system. Dong provided it with a cosmological framework:
Integrated the concepts of yin and yang from the Naturalist tradition to explain various human relationships, such as those between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife.
Human nature encompasses both benevolence and wickedness, necessitating virtuous teaching to guide it.
“Five Elements” reinterpreted as five core Confucian values: benevolence, righteousness, rite, wisdom, and trustworthiness.
Dong’s Eclecticism: Defining the Roles of the Empire and the Emperor
Dong created a coherent system that grounded Confucian values in the cosmological order.
The empire as an institution designed to educate people toward goodness, with the emperor as the principal figure, embodying the cosmological “Prime.”
At the same time, emperorship is a responsibility rather than a privilege: the emperor should be the most diligent and concerned individual, accountable to both the people and Heaven through the “Interaction between Heaven and man” (Tian ren gan ying).
Rise of Classical Scholarship
The establishment of Confucian curriculum led to the canonization of texts from pre-Han times, with the imperial university becoming the center of learning
Confucianism evolved from a philosophical framework to a scholarly pursuit focused on interpreting early texts.
By the end of the Western Han, studying textual differences a primary issue in Han scholarship.
“Ancient texts”: Rediscovered texts from the Warring States written in pre-Qin archaic scripts.
“Modern texts”: Texts been orally transmitted and later recorded in Han clerical scripts.
Han Imperial University
End of the Western Han
Number of Academicians: over ten
Around 300 students enrolled in each grade
By the second century AD
Imperial university in Luoyang had an enrollment of approximately 30,000 students
Comparable in size to modern top universities in the West.
Stone Classics
Attempt to stabilize texts against distortion and corruption from hand-copying during textual transmission.
The state established the authority of these texts and promoted its own political and cultural agendas, effectively excluding other texts from recognition.
Cai Lun Invents Paper
Cai Lun (d. 121 CE) was a court eunuch of the Later Han period and is credited with the invention of paper.
Became a palace steward at age 13; rose to the position of Palace Attendant-in-ordinary during Emperor He’s reign (r. 88-105 CE), gaining some political influence.
In 105 CE, he presented a refined type of paper made from tree bark, hemp fibers, rag fabric, and discarded fishnets to the emperor.
Paper became a substitute for expensive silk fabric and bamboo slips used for writing.
Cai Lun Paper
The Grand Historian: Life of Sima Qian
Sima Qian, son of the Grand Scribe, began studying ancient texts at age ten and traveled extensively across the Han Empire by age twenty.
His knowledge and travel experience led him to become an attendant at the imperial court and participate in military campaigns.
In 98 BC, Sima Qian faced punishment and castration after the general Li Ling, whom he had recommended, defected to the Xiongnu following a defeat.
Sima Qian defended Li Ling, believing he had valid reasons for surrendering.
The emperor viewed his defense as treasonous, leading to Sima’s sentence of castration. He chose this fate over execution.
Discuss: Letter to Ren An
Why did Sima Qian accept the punishment and dedicated his life to composing a monumental history?
Why history?
What history? What distinguishes it from previous written works?
