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Contents 1 Lelang Commandery 2 Western Han Government and Society 2.1 Wang's article 2.1.1 Miscellaneous issues 2.1.2 Emperor 2.1.3 Chancellor 2.1.4 Imperial Secretariat 2.1.5 Ranking Ministers 2.1.6 Colonel of Censure and Circuit Inspectors 2.1.7 Emperor and Cabinet relations 2.1.8 Transfer of power from Outer to Inner Court 2.1.9 Court Conference 2.1.10 Conclusion 2.2 Hsu's article 2.2.1 Introduction 2.2.2 Decentralized government 2.2.3 Centralized government 2.2.4 Local society 2.2.5 "Xiaolian" system of provincial quotas 2.2.6 Governors, local staff, and basis for gentry 3 Western Han Commerce and Society 3.1 Wilbur's article 3.1.1 Introduction 3.1.2 Types, distribution, employment 4 Eastern Han Government and Society 4.1 S.A.M. Adshead's book 5 Eastern Han Commerce and Society 5.1 Ebrey's article 5.1.1 Introduction 5.1.2 Independent farmers to large estates 5.1.3 Cui Shi's background 5.1.4 Unique estate owner literature 5.1.5 Education 5.1.6 Maintaining relations with relatives 5.1.7 Agriculture, domestication, diets, textiles 5.1.8 Commercial activities 5.1.9 Other stuff 6 General Info 6.1 Ebrey's Cambridge Illustrated 6.1.1 Han government 6.2 Loewe's Book 6.2.1 Emperor and His Government 6.2.2 The Officials 6.2.3 Education 6.2.4 Court intrigue 7 Industry and Commerce 7.1 Wagner's book 7.1.1 Before Han 7.1.2 Lead up to Monopoly 7.1.3 Criticism of the monopoly 7.1.4 Wang Mang and Eastern Han 7.1.5 Discourses on Salt and Iron 7.1.6 Iron Offices 7.1.7 Reasons for Monopoly and Opposition 8 Technology and Science 8.1 Wagner's book 8.1.1 Introduction 8.1.2 Blast Furnace 8.1.3 Cupola Furnace 8.1.4 The Bellows 8.1.5 Fining Hearth 9 Emperors 9.1 Crespigny's Book 9.1.1 Emperor Guangwu

[edit] Lelang Commandery

Culture Contact and Culture Change: The Korean Peninsula and Its Relations with the Han Dynasty Commandery of Lelang

By Hyung Il Pai (NOTE: Pai is her last name)

World Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 3, Archaeology of Empires (Feb., 1992), pp. 306-319

• Page 306-309: Here Hyung gives a general overview of modern Korean and Japanese scholarship on Lelang and their interpretation of the commandery as an imperial arm of the Han Dynasty that dominated, colonized, oppressed, and interfered with native Koreans. Hyung labels these theories as simplistic on page 308, and states that his article will instead explore acculturation, culture contacts, and the ways in which Koreans played an active role in diplomatic affairs, not a passive one to some greater civilization that was supposedly dominating theirs.
• Page 309: Wiman Joseon established by Wei Man from the Chinese Yan state in 194 BC. When his grandson Ugeo had a Han envoy killed at the border between Wiman Joseon and the Han Empire, Emperor Wu of Han ordered an invasion in 108 BC. He had one army of five thousand cross the Bohai Sea, and another army march to northern Korea from Liaodong Peninsula. The first year was a major setback for the Han armies, who lost battles and maintained poor communication. After a year's siege, the Wiman Joseon capital at Wanggeom was conquered due to internal treachery of ministers within the city. However, there is no archaeological evidence of any fortress built in this region during the time that could have withstood a year long siege; at most, it was probably just a small outpost fort with soldiers, traders, and administrators.
• Page 309-310: In the 1930s, the Japanese discovered clay seals and bricks were found on an apparently burnt floor with the Han titles of "Lelang Liguan" and "Lelang Fugui" stamped onto them, located at the southern bank of the Taedong River facing Pyongyang. This was evidence for the location of the Han Dynasty's Lelang Commandery. A bronze vessel that was dated at the site confirmed written evidence of Lelang's existence in the 1st century BC. Within a 25 km radius of the site of the fortress are Han style burials with seals, jade items, gold items, and lacquerware items. The number of these grave items decline as one gets farther and farther away from the site.
• Page 310: Hyung says that the only other archaeologically confirmed Han Dynasty site is at the Daifang Commandery, as any other commandery or district mentioned in historical records "are seen to be associated with earlier tribal territorial divisions" (here Hyung cites Yi, 1981, page 100), while their exact locations are still shaky and undetermined.
• Page 311: the Han goods at Lelang were regionally unique in terms of style, just as Han goods in far away Yunnan would be regionally unique and different from Lelang goods. The Han tombs were of either wooden-walled or stone-and-brick construction, with architectural elements of eaves and tiled roofs. The goods within included stoneware items, glazed funerary pottery items, lacquerware items, bronze and iron equipment and weapons and agricultural tools, jade and gold ornaments, bronze mirrors, bronze chariot pieces, silk hats and other clothing items, as well as plenty of coins. Seals with family names on them were cast in gold, silver, bronze, or even wood.
• Page 311-312: Native Korean graves at this point were mostly of the dolmen and stone cist grave types. Items in them included daggers with sheaths, geometric fine-lined bronze mirrors, flowerpot-shaped pottery, and red jars. The Koreans had small rice-growing settlements on river terraces with houses that were semi-subterranean. At this point, there is no evidence of Koreans having a higher stratified society (i.e. due to the lack of fortresses, walled towns, palaces, etc.)
• Page 312: Despite initial violence in 108 BC, the Lelang Commandery upheld peaceful relations with the surrounding Korean tribes, who were most likely treated as "dependent states" (shuguo). The natives led their own way of life, administering their own tribes and continuing their own social customs, although they were subject to paying taxes to the Lelang Commandery and offering corvee labor service when it was needed. For submitting tribute to Han forces at Lelang, the latter granted the tribal chieftans proper Han titles and seals as well as silken hats, silk robes, gold, and grain that could be distributed to their followers. Korean tribute items sent to Lelang included fish, iron ore, and human slaves.
• Page 312: Times could also be violent and hostile, though, as Goguryeo and Buyeo were known to raid the Xuantu Commandery and Lelang Commandery.
• Page 313-314: Here Hyung provides a helpful table to measure levels of gradual acculturation of Korean tribes into the Han system. At first, Korean tribes simply supplemented their glass beads and ornaments with Han ones, which was an act of simply imitating Han forms. Then they acquired Han materials that required new skills and forms of technology, such as importing Han iron ploughs to replace their primitive ones, an act which demarks acceptance of acculturation. Han materials and techniques then appear, such as glazed and wheelmade pottery, which indicates adaptation of technology. Native forms were decorated in imitation of Han styles, such as on bronze mirrors, which indicates emulation of Han culture. Finally, Hyung states that Koreans changing their burial types to Han burial architecture represents the highest form of acceptance. This is because they finally borrow Han form, function, and socio-religious ideas.
• Page 315: Hyung states that before Han Chinese contact and Korean acculturation to Han Chinese culture, Korean tribal settlements throughout Korea were fairly uniform and differed only in minor aspects such as pottery style variations. All of their settlements were simply small, socially egalitarian villages. Due to gradual acculturation to Han culture, by the 3rd century the Chinese Weizhi describes distinct kingdoms in Korea such as Buyeo, Goguryeo, Okjeo, Dongye, and Samhan, all of which had "distinctively different social organizations, subsistence systems, customs, and rituals."
• Page 315: Lelang was the most prominent of the Chinese settlements in Korea, as the Wa people of Japan who sailed up the Taedong River mistook Lelang for Luoyang due to the Korean settlement's wealth, prestige, and prosperity at that point. Although no ancient foundries have been found, there were many iron artifacts found, even native Korean-made ones as they adopted Han metallurgic technology such as iron ploughs for greater rice cultivation. Lelang was also known for being a center of fine gold craftsmanship.
• Page 317: The 'Lelang Interaction Sphere', as Hyung calls it, involved Lelang at the core of international interaction with other political entities in Korea and southwestern Japan. Hyung states that without this phase of the Han's elite distribution of seals, iron tools, and luxury items in a new network of trade, the next phase of Korean development with the mounded tomb states could not have come to fruition. Then the next phase was competition, warfare, and higher diplomacy amongst Korean states and Yamato Japan.

[edit] Western Han Government and Society

[edit] Wang's article

An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty

By Wang Yu-ch'uan

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1/2 (Jun., 1949), pp. 134-187

[edit] Miscellaneous issues

• Page 135: The Western Han reversed and modified Qin Dynasty policies of governance and administration. It abandoned central control in favor of the old Zhou Dynasty system of feudalism, or fengjian. Almost two-thirds of the entire Han Empire was carved into smaller semi-autonomous kingdoms, each handled by the emperor's brothers, sons, or meritorious assistants. Each of these kingdoms was organized the same way as the emperor's government and had complete authority over their respective domains. For many years the central government of the Western Han emperors really only had power over the area comprising modern Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Sichuan, Hubei, and part of Gansu. These territories mentioned were ruled by the Western Han emperors with total control similar to Qin's bureaucratic and autocratic control over its whole empire.
• Page 135: From 154 to 126 BC, there was a series of struggles between these semi-autonomous kingdoms and the central government, resulting in the loss of these kingdoms' loose sovereignty, their reduction in size, and the central government's new role of monitoring and supervising them. The central government of the Western Han reached its zenith in the last quarter of the 2nd century BC, but declined after the mid 1st century BC due to other reasons that were social and economic.
• Page 136: The largest political units within the Han Empire were provinces and kingdoms, each of these divided into counties and districts. Stretching from northern Korea to northern Vietnam, the empire had 12,233,062 registered households with 59,594,978 people in 2 AD, which Wang says probably omitted children below the age of seven.
• Page 136-137: an enormous territory with an enormous population necessitated a strong and able government. Wang says that there were at most 130,285 people employed in the central and provincial governments by the end of the 1st century BC. In 117 BC, there were 382 officials in the Chancellery, serviced by 282 clerks, bringing the total amount of people employed by the Chancellery to 644 in that year. In the year 110 BC, the Secretariat had 341 officials and many clerks which pushed the total number of people employed in the Secretariat to well over 500.
• Page 137: Western Han officials were divided into 20 different ranks, which was reduced to 16 in the year 32 BC. An official's rank determined his status, salary, clothing, type of carriages that were acceptable to ride in, certain privileges (such as exemption from hard labor or military service), etc. In terms of salary paid in grain, the highest official rank was paid 10,000 bushels (shi) of grain, while the lowest was paid only 100 bushels of grain. However, the amount of bushels of grain did not always distinguish an official's rank, since he could be paid in both grain and cash at the same time.

[edit] Emperor

• Page 137-138: The Emperor stood at the pinnacle of the social order and at the apex of the government, and was a more powerful figure to the wang, the predecessor kings of the Zhou era who claimed divine origin.
• Page 139: In Zhou and Qin era China, a ruler legitimized his reign by claiming noble birth, by claiming the mandate of heaven willing him to rule, or a man of great virtue and wisdom (the latter influenced by Confucianism's emphasis on the wise and virtuous sage). Shang and Zhou rulers also claimed divine origin, while even the unpopular Qin was regarded as the descendant of the White God (Bodi). Liu Bang legitimized his rule of China by overthrowing Qin, bringing peace to the people, unselfishly sharing land with feudal lords who assisted him, and claimed divine status.
• Page 139-140: There were funny myths to prove he was superhuman, such as Liu Bang's mother conceiving him by a dragon who visited her dreams, as a dragon was seen hovering over her at his birth. There was also a myth about a strange phenomenon that was always seen in the skies above him whereever he traveled. His contemporaries regarded him as the son of the Red God who battled against the son of the White God (the ruler of Qin). It is said that when he entered the Hangu Pass to take the Qin capital, five stars converged in the Gemini constellation.
• Page 140: Despite these divine attributes, Liu Bang was not viewed as a living God and was not worshipped. The awe that commoners had for him was not shared by his companions who helped him gain the throne and then became his ministers. To elevate his position and retain his dignity as ruler, court ceremonies were adopted in 201 BC that would distance the emperor from the public and even his longtime friends and ministers, as continual intimate relations with the emperor could lead to a disillusionment and loss of awe in his power. He had his ancestral temples erected throughout the empire; there were 168 of them by 72 BC.
• Page 141: However effective these myths were in legitimizing his reign, they merely strengthened his power that was already based on control of the military and political affairs.
• Page 141: Unlike some other world empires, the Han emperors did not own their empires as private property; the most they actually owned were a few imperial parks and claims to products made in mountains and seas, but these were limited and separated from government revenues for the empire. Nonetheless, the emperor's power was enhanced through the government's collection of the land tax, the poll tax on adults, a tax on children, and forced labor. In 119 BC a new tax on merchants' property and handicrafts was introduced, while a tax on livestock was introduced in 114 BC. Government monopolies on salt and iron did not exist until 119 BC, while the tax on coinage currency was instituted in 115 BC.
• Page 141-142: People who reached adulthood were forced to take one year of military training, one year of garrison duties, and one month annually military service in their local area. The emperor was commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
• Page 142: The emperor appointed all central government officials who earned more than 600 bushels of grain. He also appointed all provincial governors (taishou), county prefects (xianling), and county chiefs (xianchang) in the local governments.
• Page 142: The emperor was the sole legislator of the law, which consisted of a code, imperial decrees, precedents, and decisions of the Commandant of Justice. The Han law code was compiled by the Chancellor Xiao He (d. 193 BC). However, more laws were added later by Han ministers, with the sanction of their respective emperors. Decrees addressed specific matters and precedents had to be approved by the emperor.
• Page 142-143: "Only the decisions of the Commandant of Justice did not emanate directly from the Emperor, but since he was appointed by the Emperor, his decisions could not contradict the Emperor's wishes."
• Page 143: "In purely civil law cases the Emperor acted as the supreme judge. The lowest law court was the county (hsien) administration. Lawsuits which the County Prefect was unable to settle were sent to the Provincial Governor, who, in case of doubt, presented them to the Emperor." Wang states that to legitimate this supreme power, the Emperor was viewed as the Son of Heaven and the father of the people. "As father the Emperor should care for and govern, and as children the people had to respect and obey."

[edit] Chancellor

• Page 143: The Imperial Cabinet in the Western Han was a direct descendant of the Zhou era court, although the old offices were granted some new functions.
• Page 143-144: The Chancellor was the chief assistant to the Emperor, second in power and rank to him, and represented the pinnacle of the official hierarchy. There was only one Chancellor at the beginning of the dynasty, but from 196 to 180 BC there were two chancellors, the Right Chancellor ranking above the Left Chancellor. Yet after 179 BC only one Chancellor continued to hold power while for a little while two still continued to nominally exist.
• Page 145: Each Chancellor was granted with the title of Marquis (Hou) and given privileges to recommend people to the Emperor for placement in the highest offices of state, as well as local government, and had the power to appoint officials from the 600 bushel rank down without consulting the Emperor at all. However, he was held responsible should they become inadequate for office and could be openly criticized. The Chancellor kept a record of officials he viewed as important, especially the provincial governors, and checked on them constantly. His subordinate official known as the "Director of Rectitude" investigated officials for any corruption or neglect of duties. Without consulting the Emperor, the Chancellor could mete out punishments to these misbehaving officials, even ones as high or higher than the provincial governor's post.
• Page 145: One of the chief duties of the chancellor was overseeing the finances of the state. He was also responsible for military preparations and overseeing grain supplies for the frontier armies.
• Page 145-146: The Chancellor was head of the Imperial Cabinet and directed the discussions of the Court Conference. He then summarized the discussions of this conference and handed this over to the throne for the Emperor to make a decision.
• Page 146: The Chancellor had in his office registers for land, population, maps of the empire's territories, provincial reports on harvests and banditry, and financial accounts of the provinces. Every province sent a delegate to the court at the end of the year to report on provincial matters, with one copy of their report sent to the Secretariat and another to the Chancellor. The Chancellor would then grade the provincial administrators based on these reports and made recommendations for promotion or demotion of the Governors of these provinces. When lawsuits could not be resolved by provincial governors, they were sent to the Chancellor for a decision; when a provincial governor could not adequately suppress outlaws, the Chancellor sent his own assistants to deal with them in the province. Wang states that "All of these duties and powers were the logical result of the fact that the Chancellor was made responsible for the administration of the provinces."

[edit] Imperial Secretariat

• Page 147: The Imperial Secretary was just below the Chancellor in terms of power and rank. His title was Yushi dafu, was changed to Dasikong in 8 BC, was reverted back to Yushi dafu in 4 BC, and again was reverted to Dasikong in 1 BC. These changes in title had nothing to do with change in authority or duties, though. He was considered as a Vice Chancellor, and had authority to discuss matters with the Chancellor; if the two disagreed, they presented their case to the Emperor for resolution, although the Emperor more often than not sided with the Chancellor on issues.
• Page 147-148: the chief duty of the Imperial Secretariat was to supervise and check upon the administrative personnel of officialdom. Since he was in charge of investigating official neglect, he was granted the title "Great Minister in Charge of the Laws," these laws referring to those that governed high officialdom, not the common masses. Like the Chancellor, he too kept a record on all of the top officials and Provincial Governors, making sure they did not abuse authority or send inaccurate reports to the throne about their provinces' land, population, or taxes.
• Page 148: Just like the Chancellor, he received the annual provincial delegates who forwarded provincial reports to the court. Like the Chancellor he also gave them instructions during their departure back to the provinces, only his differed in that they were focused on matters of disciplinary procedures. His authority to discipline extended not only over officials below him in rank, but also over the Chancellor and even the Emperor's attendants. For the latter, he inspected them through his subordinate known as the "Palace Assistant to the Imperial Secretary", who had an office within the imperial palace itself.
• Page 148-149: In addition to his role as a disciplinary supervisor, he also had the power to receive and transmit some of the imperial edicts to the Chancellery (which were then dispatched to the provinces and kingdoms). These imperial edicts were mostly on affairs of state, such as proclamations on law or choices of a new heir apparent. He could also present to the Emperor memorials sent by high ministers.
• Page 149: the Secretariat was not allowed inside the palace unless it was on official business, but he did have his subordinate inside man, the Palace Assistant of the Imperial Secretary, who maintained discipline among the attendants and eunuchs of the palace. He also handled maps, registers, and sacred books of the palace, and supervised the Attendant Secretaries who recorded all of the Emperor's daily activities (it is also said that they had some power in the execution of laws).
• Page 149: The Imperial Secretary had other important subordinates as well, such as the Circuit Inspectors. These officials monitored and investigated the activities of provincial governors and impeached any governor who abused his authority. They were in charge of memorials written by ministers to be presented to the Emperor, as well as handling Imperial edicts sent out to the provinces.
• Page 149-150: During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the emperors came to distrust their civil officials and the Imperial Secretary, while they became more intimate with the Palace Assistant of the Imperial Secretary. As a result, the latter became more powerful than his boss, the Imperial Secretary, and even became independent of him, performing his own disciplinary procedures without consulting the Imperial Secretary on these matters.

[edit] Ranking Ministers

• Page 150: The Three Lords and Nine Ministers were the highest offices of state. The Three Excellencies, or Lords, formed a triumvirate of the three highest ministers of state, those being the Chancellor, Imperial Secretary, and Grand Commandant. The Grand Commandant was in charge of military affairs, but this office was always temporarily drawn up when it was needed and then disbanded again when his services were no longer needed. After 139 BC, the office was completely abolished.
• Page 150-151: the Nine Ministers were, in ranking order: (1) Minister of Ceremonies, (2) Supervisor of Attendants, (3) Commandant of Guards, (4) Grand Servant, (5) Commandant of Justice, (6) Grand Herald, (7) Director of the Imperial Clan, (8) Grand Minister of Agriculture, (9) Small Treasurer.
• Page 151: Each of these ministers held the salary rank of 2,000 bushels and maintained offices with various departments. These ministers were always present in the Court Conferences that discussed the welfare of the empire.
• Page 151: The Minister of Ceremonies was the chief priest of state in charge of religious ceremonies and Imperial ancestral temples. However, his authority extended into other areas of astronomy, astrology, imperial physicians, and recoding daily activities of the Emperor. The Minister of Ceremonies also judged through written tests the candidates for office that were recommended by Provincial Governors. The Minister of Ceremonies then presented the results to the Emperor, and the Emperor would then decide whether or not to reject or accept these recommended men as high officials.
• Page 152: The Minister of Ceremonies also supervised the affairs of the Imperial Academy (Taixue). The Erudites (Boshi) under the Minister of Ceremonies were highly learned men, advisors to the Emperor, and participants in the Court Conference. In 124 BC, fifty students were placed under their instruction, hence the Imperial Academy was born. These students were selected by the Minister of Ceremonies and could be recommendees from Provincial Governors. The Minister of Ceremonies maintained their examinations and "reported their eligibility for office to the Emperor." Under Emperor Zhao of Han (86–74 BC), the number of students was expanded from 50 to 100. Under Emperor Xuan of Han (73–49 BC), the number of students was expanded to 200. Under Emperor Yuan of Han (48–33 BC), the number of students was expanded to 1,000. Under Emperor Cheng of Han (32–7 BC), the number of students was increased to 3,000.
• Page 152-153: the Supervisor of Attendants supervised the Court Gentlemen who were put in charge of guarding the doors of the palaces and halls. However, these Court Gentlemen were also potential candidates for office, and were often related as sons or brothers to 2,000 bushel salary officials already in office. They could also be men recommended by the Provincial Governors, graduates of the Imperial Academy, simply wealthy men, people who had submitted an impressive memorial, or even those who had made financial contributions to the government. The Supervisor of Attendants inspected and rated these Court Gentlemen on measures of simplicity, generosity, modesty, and virtue. If they scored well in these merits, they were recommended for office.
• Page 153: The Supervisor of Attendants also had as his subordinates the Grandee Attendants who stayed within the palace as advisors to the Emperor. Also, the Qimen Guard established in 138 BC and the Yulin Guard established in 104 BC were both subordinate guard units under the Supervisor of Attendants.
• Page 153: However, it was the Commandant of the Guards was the chief of the Imperial Guards, who were drafted from among the people and were required to serve for one year. Before 140 BC, the Imperial Guard numbered 20,000 but in that year they were reduced to 10,000.
• Page 153-154: the Grand Servant was in charge of Emperor's chariots and horses. He was in charge of making sure that proper numbers of chariots and horses were used for certain occasions. One of his other major duties was to supervise the government-designated pastures where horses were raised. Due to the Sino-Xiongnu War beginning in the middle of the 2nd century BC, the Grand Servant of the Han government maintained 36 pastures in the north and west that supported 300,000 steeds. Wang says this might have been reduced in later years, but only slightly.
• Page 154: The Commandant of Justice was in charge of the laws of state and "accepted and decided all the lawsuits that the Provincial Governors failed to dispose of." If he was unable to come to a decision on these, he passed it on to the Emperor and advised the Emperor on which parts of the law code were suitable for dealing with the case. His powers of executing justice were quite similar to that of the Chancellor.
• Page 154-155: The Grand Herald was commissioned to deal with foreign barbarians who submitted to Han rule, and had an interpreter as one of his subordinates. However, he also presided over ritual ceremonies with offerings to Heaven and the Imperial ancestral temples. He was also the master of ceremonies when the Emperor received an audience of guests. He also dealt with the affairs of enfeoffed marquises who had been of some merit and assistance to the state.
• Page 155: the "Director of the Imperial Clan was in charge of members of the Imperial house. He kept a record of them and received the registers of Imperial relatives and handed up by the provincial authorities."
• Page 155: Wang says that the remaining two Nine Ministers' jobs were focused on financial affairs. "The Grand Minister of Agriculture was in charge of state revenue and disbursement, and the Small Treasurer was manager of the private finances of the Imperial house." Thus, the revenues meant for the government were clearly distinguished from those of the Imperial household, each managed by two different people. The treasury of state gathered the revenues of the poll tax on adults, the land tax, the commutation of labor service into cash payment, the profits garnered from the monopolies on salt and iron, the income from public land, and the profit made from the government's sale of wine. Any taxes gained from mountains, seas, and lakes, which were deemed as the emperor's property, were forwarded to the Palace treasury instead of the state treasury.
• Page 155-156: The Grand Minister of Agriculture made sure that there was appropriate disbursement of funds to officials' salaries, supplies for the armies, etc. He also oversaw the administration of the government's monopolies on salt, iron, and wine, as well as the sale of these items which the government produced. The Office of Tax Substitutes was also supervised by the Grand Minister, as it was an office designated to receive special local products from taxpayers that could substitute for conventional tax items of grain or coinage. The Grand Minister also was head of the Office for Equalization, which instituted standard prices for all the commodities sold by the state monopolies. He also maintained the granaries in both the provinces and the Imperial capital.
• Page 156: The Small Treasurer, on the other hand, was simply a personal servant of the Emperor. The Small Treasurer's subordinates included the Master of Documents, the Prefect of Tallies and Staffs of Authority, and the palace eunuchs. By the end of the Han Dynasty, the emperors trusted their close palace aides more than the civil government, and so elevated the authority of the Master of Documents over that of the Chancellor, which allowed the eunuchs to control the Empire. Wang will discuss this more below.

[edit] Colonel of Censure and Circuit Inspectors

• Page 156: Although these two types of officials did not belong directly to any body of the central government, they were nonetheless important figures charged with disciplinary procedures. The Imperial Secretary and the Director of Rectitude under the Chancellor already dealt with matters of disciplinary procedures, but these officials were of the Imperial Cabinet outside the sphere of the Palace. Hence, the palatial office of the Colonel of Censure was born from the Emperor's need to administer discipline outside of the official government.
• Page 156-157: If literally translated, the title Sili xiaowei means "Colonel Director of Convict-Laborers" and was preceded by the Sili (Director of Convict-Laborers) whose job was to simply have imprisoned convicts construct roads and canals for the Empire. There was a massive witch-hunt in 91 BC when even the heir apparent was accused of witchcraft and led an unsuccessful rebellion against his father Emperor Wu of Han because of it. After this fiasco, the Sili was granted unusual authority with his 1,200 convict-laborers in order to arrest suspected witches working against the Han Dynasty. However, his power was extended greatly, so much so that not even the Chancellor could give him orders, and he could investigate all the high ministers of state, regardless of rank.
• Page 157-158: In 45 BC, the symbolic Staff of Authority was taken away from the Colonel of Censure, which then limited his authority to inspecting, investigating, and impeaching. His office was abolished in 9 BC, but it was reinstated in 7 BC as the limited title Sili once more, without the Xiaowei (Colonel) designation.
• Page 158: Wang says that the Colonel of Censure had duplicated duties and powers as the Imperial Secretary and Chancellor, in that he was able to discipline the whole of officialdom. However, the key difference was his proximity to the Emperor, who used the Colonel as a means to control the civil bureaucracy. The Chancellor and Imperial Secretariat could at times disobey the wishes of the Emperor, but the Colonel of Censure was the personal servant of the Emperor and answered only to him. Wang says that "The Imperial staff of authority which he carried on his missions was the symbol of his power to arrest and punish criminals on the spot just as the Emperor could himself. The Colonel thus represented a partial transfer of the Chancellery and Secretariat's disciplinary powers to the Emperor himself.
• Page 158: The Han inherited the system of disciplinary officials inspecting Provincial Governors from the Qin Dynasty model. The Imperial Secretariat had Secretaries of Inspection move to the provinces and return to the capital annually in the tenth month of every year to submit reports on the provincial personnel's affairs and if they were corrupt or not. However, in 167 BC light was shed on a scandal of corruption propagated by none other than the Secretaries of Inspection. To remedy this fault in the system, the Chancellery established its own Clerks who did their own inspections of the provinces and supervised the Secretaries of Inspection at the same time.
• Page 158-159: "In 106 BC the Empire, except for the areas around the Imperial capital, was divided into thirteen pu (circuits). In each of these a disciplinary official was installed with the title Pu-tz'u-shih, or Circuit Inspector. The old system of Secretaries of Inspection was abolished." Since this article is in Wade-Giles, the actual name for circuit should be bu in pinyin.
• Page 159-160: The Circuit Inspectors had a great amount of authority in inspection, as they were tasked to inspect wealthy regional magnates and clans who might be oppressing the little people in an area, to inspect the Provincial Governors to find any signs of corruption, abuse of authority, or malfeasance, and to inspect whether or not the relatives of the Provincial Governors have abused the common people by using their relative's authority as their excuse.
• Page 160: These new Circuit Inspectors were supervised by the Palace Assistant of the Imperial Secretary, who was himself a subordinate of the Imperial Secretary, although he had closer ties to the Emperor being in the palace. This indicates that Emperor Wu, who established the circuits and Circuit Inspectors, desired to have greater control over the provinces, as he did not trust the Chancellor or the Imperial Secretary to directly supervise these Circuit Inspectors.
• Page 160: Of great significance regarding the Circuit Inspectors was their ability not only to inspect the provinces of the empire, but also the kingdoms that were ruled as fiefs by the Emperor's relatives. After 154 BC the rulers of these kingdoms lost much of their authority as the Imperial court stepped in to amass more responsibility and power over them. The Circuit Inspectors can be seen as a culmination of this increasing of the Imperial power over the kingdoms, as well as a means for the Emperor to rein in over the civil administration of the central government.
• Page 161: Wang compares the Circuit Inspector to the Roman office of the Procurator and the French provincial official of the Intendant. He says that "the similarity between these phenomena is not accidental" and that an autocrat's authority can be measured in the ways he is able to lord over various local governments under him, as the Circuit Inspectors were great examples of the Emperor's power to rule over local governments.

[edit] Emperor and Cabinet relations

• Page 161: Members of the Imperial household were barred from becoming ministers of state, with one exception, that being the post of Director of the Imperial Clan. The Emperor did not want to have to contend with anyone for authority who was already in a privileged position.
• Page 161: Although the Emperor had supreme authority, he could not break the laws set forth in the law code of the first emperor and his chancellor. He was also expected to obey the precedents and imperial edicts issued by previous emperors.
• Page 162-163: There was also the obstacle of the Emperor's cabinet, as the stance on issues and drive for power caused the Emperor and his cabinet to be at odds with one another at times. Han Xin, one of the Founding Emperor's most able generals, was dismissed and eventually executed in 196 BC due to the Emperor's suspicion of his loyalty. Emperor Wu deposed five of his chancellors on grounds of suspicion and in some cases simply because they had taken independent actions he did not like, while these chancellors committed suicide in prison or were executed.
• Page 163-164: At times there were attempts by ministers to treat the Emperor as a mere figurehead. "From 194 BC to 141 BC, the empire was ruled by sons and grandsons of the founder of the dynasty with the latter's assistants and friends as their chief ministers. The old ministers treated the rulers as a man's trusted friends treat his children." Wang states that this was a mutual affair, as the emperors in this period did not show much enthusiasm for making their own initiatives about state decisions.
• Page 164: After about 140 BC, this old generation of ministers began to be replaced by a new brand of Confucian scholars, who emphasized the moral and upright leader who set an example for all, and who selected "wise and virtuous men" for government service that would take care of state affairs for him. Dong Zhongshu (179–104 BC) expounded upon this, stating that the wise emperor will choose the course of non-action and let others do everything for him in managing the state and even dealing with guests. Wang says "How much influence this theory ever actually did exert on Han politics is hard to judge. But its validity has never been questioned either by the rulers or by court ministers."
• Page 164-165: Dong also propagated the idea of the Heaven interacting with Earth in regards to the activities of the ruler, as strange phenomena were signs that a ruler had done wrong. Any natural disaster could thus be interpreted as a ruler's abuse of power. The emperors were absolutely convinced and terrified of this cosmological theory, and sometimes would retire to their palace chambers to sulk and ponder over their faults, then sending out edicts asking ministers what faults the emperor might have committed. Some emperors even asked Provincial Governors to recommend to them men who were most candid and willing to criticize the central or royal administration.
• Page 165-166: Dong also wrote that when an emperor behaved accordingly, yin and yang were in harmony and nature was on the right course without calamities. Therefore, the Emperor's main duty was to cultivate himself to become the perfect man, and as such, he expected others to criticize him and his personal conduct.

[edit] Transfer of power from Outer to Inner Court

• Page 166: Note that the Outer Court is the Imperial Cabinet.
• Page 166-167: Conflict between the Emperor and his ministers led to the creation of a regency during Emperor Wu's reign that became a semi-permanent institution. This regency was led by a military officer, such as the Grand General, the General of the Left, the General of the Chariot and Mount, or the General of Protection. In addition to his military title, the regent was granted with the more significant title of Da Sima, or Grand Minister of Mount. As the Grand Minister of Mount, he not only had military authority, but also political authority, as he maintained his own office and large staff of personnel. These men could have unlimited authority as regent to the emperor, although their position in the official hierarchy was below the Chancellor. This is because the Chancellor remained the head of the Cabinet, while the regent was merely a personal official directly subordinate to the Emperor.
• Page 167-168: Wang says that an autocrat who distrusts his ministers will turn to men who advance themselves only through their master's favor, men such as foreign aliens, men of lowly means, or relatives through marriage. The regents of Han followed this pattern of personalities. The first two regents were He Guang (d. 68 BC) and Jin Midi (134–86 BC), the former being a lowly commoner who advanced due to his stepsister born of the same mother as Empress Wei Zifu (d. 91 BC), the latter being a prince of Xiongnu ethnicity who was captured in 121 BC and made a palace slave to Emperor Wu, gaining his trust after foiling an assassination attempt.
• Page 168-169: Most of the regents to follow were Imperial relatives-in-law to the Emperor.
• Page 169: Wang says "The creation of the regency produced the following significant results: First, the Chancellor and the Imperial Secretary were both relegated to the post of mere administrators and lost their power to influence decisions regarding major state affairs. Second, replacing the Chancellor, an official close to the Emperor was now at the helm of the state. Third, Imperial Cabinet, or the Outer Court (Waiting) as it was also called, was replaced by the Inner Court (Neiting), and the government was transferred into the Palace."
• Page 169-170: the status of the Master of Documents and the eunuchs were now greatly enhanced as well. The Master of Documents was originally a lesser official under the Small Treasurer who handled the Imperial household's funds. The Master of Documents kept and prepared state documents. Emperor Wu expanded their authority to receiving memorials handed into the palace by officials. The Master of Documents slowly gained political importance as they prepared decrees and rescripts, the Emperor asking them advice on political issues. When the Chancellor was found to be misbehaving, the Prefect of the Master of Documents was sent to question him. When the office of the Imperial Secretary was vacant, the Master of Documents examined the records of officials who were at the 2,000 bushel level salary as potential people to fill his post.
• Page 170: For some unknown reason, the Circuit Inspectors who came to the capital to report on provincial affairs had to visit the office of the Prefect of the Masters of Documents, the head official of the Masters of Documents office. The Prefect of the Masters of Documents also had a list of meritorious officials from the provinces that were eligible for promotion.
• Page 170-171: The office of the Masters of Documents brought the Chancellery and Secretariat under their control and superseded them in authority, yet it was the regents, or Grand Ministers of Mount, who supervised the affairs of the Masters of Documents.
• Page 171: Before the year 29 BC, there were four departments under the Masters of Documents, those being the (1) Department of Regular Attendance, (2) the Department of the Two-thousand-bushels, (3) the Department of Civil Affairs, and (4) the Department of Guests. In 29 BC, Emperor Cheng added the (5) Department of the Three Lords. The Department of Regular Attendance was charged with supervising the affairs of the Chancellery and Imperial Secretariat. The Department of Two-thousand-bushels were in charge of affairs dealing with the Circuit Inspectors and the Two-thousand-bushels (i.e. the Provincial Governors). The Department of Civil Affairs dealt with the presentation of memorials by the people. The Department of Guests were in charge of foreign affairs. Finally, the Department of the Three Lords were in charge of justice.
• Page 171: Wang says "The organization of the office of the Master of Documents clearly shows that it was in itself a complete governmental setup, superseding the regular organization. The Chancellor remained the chief executive of the regular government, and the super-government was the Prefect of the Masters of Documents."
• Page 171-172: The eunuchs slowly gained power at court as well. Emperor Wu first had them transmit documents as Palace Masters of Documents from outside the palace into the Inner Court. They were supervised by a Prefect of the Palace Master of Documents. These eunuchs continued this job throughout the reigns of Zhao and Xuan, but during Xuan's reign a certain eunuch named Hong Gong (d. 47 BC) was made the Prefect, and with him the powers of his office were changed, as he was quite adept at dealing with politics of court. His successor Shi Xian was given a great amount of authority by Emperor Yuan, the latter who was more interested in music and was also in poor health. As a result, Shi Xian began making huge policy decisions and was well-respected by officials. Wang writes that "a eunuch official had become the actual head of the government, and his office had become the 'key office' at the Court. In fact, he was so powerful that Xiao Wangzhi, the former Grand Guardian of Emperor Yuan and now the General of the Front supervising the affairs of the Masters of Documents, was outmaneuvered by Shi Xian, and in the struggle with him Xiao Wangzhi was compelled to take his own life. The acquisition of political power by officials close to the Emperor, whether they were the Masters of Documents or eunuch attendants, could mean only one thing: the concentration of power in the Palace or the transfer of power to a faction inside the Palace."
• Page 173: There is a difference between these eunuchs and the Masters of Documents. The Masters of Documents ascended to power by handling documents and building a personal relationship with the Emperor. However, Shi Xian gained power by earning a reputation of loyalty to the Emperor only to build for himself a veritable factional clique outside the palace. Emperor Yuan regarded these partisan activities at court with little concern, since factional partisan politics could be used in the Emperor's favor.
• Page 173: Shi Xian was deposed and expelled from the palace by the succeeding Emperor Cheng in 32 BC, while the office of the Palace Masters of Documents was abolished in 29 BC. On the difference between Emperors Yuan and Cheng, Wang writes: "As in the Later Roman Empire, the eunuchs gained power only under weak emperors."

[edit] Court Conference

• Page 173-174: The Emperor was the sole policy-maker and legislator, but he would rarely proclaim a law or new policy without first consulting a minister or a group of ministers collectively. Hence, the importance of the Court Conference, or Tingyi, which discussed problems of enthronement of new emperors, enfeoffment of the Emperor's children, the system of Imperial ancestral temples, the state religion, the government monopoly on salt and iron, the tax system, the monetary system, the introduction of new laws, decisions on difficult lawsuits, as well as war and peace with foreign countries. Note, when using this passage here for the Han Dynasty article, do not word it exactly like above, since it is almost quoted word-for-word.
• Page 174: Wang says that the enthronement of Emperor Wen (179–157 BC) in 180 BC and Emperor Xuan in 74 BC were "the outcome of debates by the Han nobles and ministers. Following a decision reached by a Court Conference, an edict was promulgated in 40 BC ordering all Imperial ancestral temples in the provinces and kingdoms to be abolished. A decision by a later Court Conference compelled Emepror Yuan to eliminate a number of the Imperial ancestral temples in the capital. In 121 BC Emperor Wu ordered his ministers to discuss whether the God of Earth (Houtu) should be worshipped; he accepted the affirmative solution arrived at by a Court Conference. The Shrine of the God of Earth was then erected in Ho-tung province. Following the majority opinion of fifty to eight at a Court Conference, Emperor Cheng in 32 BC moved the shrine of the God of Earth from Ho-tung province to the northern suburb of the Imperial capital and instituted the ceremonies of worship for the God of Earth in the northern suburb. In AD 5 Emperor P'ing accepted a unanimous decision of a Court Conference (with sixty-seven participants) and resumed the practice inaugurated in 32 BC after the shrine of the God of Earth at the capital had been abolished twice previously (16 BC and 4 BC). Accepting a unanimous decision of a Court Conference of eighty-nine ministers, he officially announced the title of the God of Heaven as Huang-t'ien-shang-ti (Supreme God of the Great Heaven) and that of the God of Earth as Hou-t'u (Sovereign of Earth)."
• Page 175: An example of financial issues handled by the Court Conference would be their majority opinion in 44 BC that the age qualification for the head tax imposed on children should be raised from age 4 to age 7, an opinion that the Emperor agreed upon and implemented as policy.
• Page 175-176: An example of foreign policy would be the Court Conference in 61 BC over the threat of the Qiang people at the western border. Zhao Chongguo, a general who had experience fighting the Qiang people, argued that instead of engaging in fruitless offensives into Qiang territory, the Han borders should be strengthened with permanent military settlements of farmers mixing farming duties with martial duties. At first he was opposed by 70% of those present at the Conference, but with further discussion he won over 50% of the debators, then the majority 80% and a victory for his proposal.
• Page 176: Wang writes "It is unnecessary to continue enumerating events of this kind. Suffice it to say that the Court Conference of the Former Han dynasty served as an organ of deliberation on state politics, whether of a military or civil nature. It constituted an interministerial organization possessing an authority higher than that of the Chancellery and regency. Its decisions were based on the opinion of the majority regardless of the position or rank of the individuals on either side. As a rule they were accepted by the Emperor." The Conference was always called to assemble by the Emperor or the Empress Dowager. Its usual participants included the Chancellor, Imperial Secretary, the Generals, the Marquises, ministers who ranked as full-two-thousand-bushels and two-thousand bushels, the Grandees and Grandee Remonstrants, Palace Grandees, the Erudites, and the Court Gentlemen advisors. They can be classified into two groups, those being the Outer Court members comprising all the officials of the Outer Court, and the Inner Court, which consisted of the Grand Minister of Mount (Regent), the Generals, the Attendants within the Palace, and the Palace Regular Attendants.
• Page 176: For smaller matters, smaller conferences could be assembled, usually of just a few officials; for example, on a minor issue involving a judiciary decision, the Commandant of Justice and a few others could be called to assemble a small conference.
• Page 177: As emperors in the latter half of the Western Han began to distrust their ministers more and more and became closer to relatives-in-law and palace officials, they called upon their Inner Court far more often than the Outer Court for Court Conferences. However, for vital issues, a joint conference of the Inner and Outer courts was usually convened. The Chancellor acted as president of the Court Conference whether it was just the Outer Court in session or both the Outer and Inner courts convening together. Sometimes the Emperor attended the Conference, but as a rule he was to be absent from the discussion. The Chancellor would then summarize the discussion and resulting opinion of it in a report to the Emperor for decision-making. If the Court Conference was divided 50-50 or nearly 50-50 on an issue, the Chancellor would detail the positions held by both sides and number the members of each opposing side.
• Page 177: Wang says that one should not overestimate the importance of the Court Conference, as it was not a legislative organ, but simply an advisory one. The majority opinions made by the Court Conference and delivered to the Emperor were suggestions, not laws; it was he who made the law or final decision. It was only customary for the Emperor to accept the Conferences decision, but he was by no means forced to do so. The Conference was also called into session by the Emperor, as ministers had no right to assemble a Conference on their own.
• Page 177-178: It's significant, though, in that it usually swayed the decision of the Emperor, kept a small clique of ministers or even one minister from gaining too much power in decision-making, and "may have mitigated in good part the friction between government departments." It also respected majority opinion and strengthened the position of the ministers in the face of the autocratic Emperor. Wang says that "The setting up of the Court Conference of the Inner Court to counterbalance that of the Outer Court is good proof of this fact."

[edit] Conclusion

• Page 181: In a very good one-sentence summary of this entire article, Wang says: "The structure of the central government of the Former Han Dynasty was that of an autocracy supported by a bureaucracy." Perfect!
• Page 181-182: Wang says that the officials, although armed with the same Confucian ideology, did not represent a homogeneous body of thinkers and formed different competing factions advancing different interests and at times at odds with the desires of the Emperor. Officials were eager to restrain the Emperor by using Confucian ideology as their weapon as they fought for their faction or their own positions. In order to counter these ministers, the Emperor elevated the power of those close to him in the Inner Court and granting them greater power than the Outer Court. Wang writes "The establishment of the regency, the enhancing of the office of the Masters of Documents, the employment of relatives-in-laws and eunuchs, these were the most important measures adopted by the throne to achieve this purpose."
• Page 182: However, the Emperor was not ultimately successful in dominating the Outer Court with his Inner Court, as the super-cabinet of the Masters of Documents expanded its bounds from the Inner Court to the Outer, becoming virtually an organ of the latter and "no closer to the person of the Emperor nor more subservient to his wishes than the former Chancellery."
• Page 182: Wang says that the complementary disciplinary control of the Chancellery and Imperial Secretariat provided a mode of "checks and balances," as well as the installment of dual chancellors.

[edit] Hsu's article

The Changing Relationship between Local Society and the Central Political Power in Former Han: 206 B.C.-8 A.D.

By Cho-Yun Hsu

Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Jul., 1965), pp. 358-370

[edit] Introduction

• Page 358: The purpose of this paper is to "present the formation of the local elite group through the changing social base of political power during Western Han. The problems are threefold: the changing nature of the political power in different periods, the community order, and the local government structure, which provided the local elite group with certain circumstances favorable to its taking root."
• Page 358: The thirteen chancellors of the first five emperors of the Western Han were either comrades-in-arms with the founding emperor Gaozu or their descendants, and they were enfeoffed as Marquises. With few exceptions, the Chancellors under Emperor Wu were either relatives of the imperial house or came from the "college of Marquis". Three of these chancellors under Wu were military men. In contrast, most of the chancellors under Zhao and Xuan were "veteran officials rising from the rank and file of civil service."
• Page 358-359: Beginning with Emperor Yuan's reign (48–33 BC), chancellors not only had a long record of employment in the government, but were also heavily learned in the Confucian classics. However, beginning all the way back in Emperor Wu's reign, Gongsun Hong was the first chancellor to be appointed to the chancellorship without having the rank of Marquis beforehand. The Hanshu also records that Emperor Wu employed a diverse personnel from all different backgrounds, some from very humble origins.

[edit] Decentralized government

• Page 359: During the reign of the first five emperors, there was a lack of a strong central government and lack of a strong relationship between the capital area and its provinces and principalities (Hsu calls them principalities, but Wang calls them kingdoms above). The country was not treated as a unified one, as passes between the capital region in Shanxi and eastern regions were carefully guarded, while travellers were required to present passports to authorities at fortified passes. "Even horses of specified heights and ages produced in the western regions were banned from exportation to the eastern provinces." There was also a great amount of suspicion in the capital about people in the eastern principalities ruled by the Emperor's brothers and cousins. "Subjects of certain principalities were not allowed to serve as Imperial court attendants. As late as the end of the Western Han Dynasty, people still recalled an old injunction that no citizen of any principality should take office at the capital in spite of his ability."
• Page 359-360: If you developed a relationship with the rulers of the semi-autonomous principalities, then you were also viewed with suspicion and could be punished. The celebrated General Li Guang (d. 119 BC) won over rebellious princes to the Han, but he was stripped of his award of doing so because he had accepted a nominal appointment from a prince, despite this prince being loyal to his brother, Emperor Wu, by fighting his enemies (i.e. his princely cousins who had rebelled). For the Imperial Academy (Taixue), a written recommendation for one aiming to become professor had to state: "He has had no record of communicating with the princes nor accepting their gifts." Any high minister of the central government who allied themselves with rulers of neighboring principalities would be charged with a crime equal to high treason.
• Page 360: the rulers of principalities in the Han were more or less independent of Imperial Han control, as they had full authority over the subjects in their designated territories, appointed their own officials, and upheld administrative bodies which paralleled those of the capital. The semi-autonomous principalities in Eastern China were located in what was considered the "nucleus of Chinese civilization since antiquity," a macroregion where all of China's great philosophers were born and raised. The princely courts there attracted just as many men of great talents as the capital did, and most often learned men in these parts would apply for a job in the principality before considering the option of serving in the capital.
• Page 360: The only real check the central government had over these semi-autonomous principalities was the fact that they sent out their governors to administer the provinces located around the principalities, thus the governors could serve as imperial watch-dogs in case something went awry. In fact, the first wave of these provincial governors were military men who were comrades of the founding emperor. By the time Emperor Wen ascended to the throne in 180 BC, 24 of the provincial governors still in power were comrades of the late Emperor Gaozu.
• Page 361: During the early Western Han, the central government had several advantages over the principalities within the empire, those being the provincial governors who acted as agents watching the activities of the princes, greater military power than any of the princes, and greater political hegemony over all the land than any of the princes. There was just one major problem: "it did not have firm roots or ways to plant them in the loose soil of the eastern regions. It was, after all, a regime without much social foundation in most parts of China!"

[edit] Centralized government

• Page 361: Hsu writes that "The social order in local communities was not dramatically altered until 127 BC under Emperor Wu, when rich men, ranking officials, and 'local elite' were compulsorily moved from the provinces to the capital area." However, this measure of forceful relocation was nothing new in Chinese history, while each time an emperor died the area around his tomb site was deliberately populated with elite people selected from the provinces to "guard the deceased monarch." The men involved could be categorized as rich men, families of ranking officials, and local elites.
• Page 361-362: Gaozu used forced relocation schemes to eliminate any threat and concentration of power by the old but dethroned Warring States royal lineages still living in their traditionally-ruled areas. This relocation affected a population of some 100,000 people, as men or dethroned royal lineage and prominent families who had served these once royal lines were forcibly removed to the capital region where the central government could keep an eye on them and even make use of them, such as employing their services in fighting on the western frontiers or against rebellion in the East.
• Page 362: Rulers after Gaozu only moved small amounts of people, but mostly resorted to recruiting volunteers to populate Imperial ancestral tomb sites. Emperor Wu continued this model of allowing volunteerism until 127 BC, when ordered that the most wealthy and elite people of the provinces had to move to a new burial site. The second instance of forcible relocation in his reign was in 96 BC, this one targeting "officials" as well. The purpose of these moves was to strengthen the capital region's power, while Emperor Wu also expressed that it was his desire to eliminate those from power who had exploited the poor to gain wealth. His son Emperor Zhao and grandson Emperor Xuan propagated a total of three similar forced relocations. In the county of Maoling where Emperor Wu was buried, there was a population of 277,277 people, which would be a tenth of the population of the whole capital area, which was 2,434,460. The latter figure is also remarkable due to the fact that this population of roughly 2.5 million was crowded together in only 57 counties that comprised the capital area.
• Page 362: Local elites and wealthy magnates who stayed behind and did not move to the burial site or capital region risked hostile action by local governors under Emperor Wu, as many who stayed behind in their native areas were killed by these governors.
• Page 363: Then there are the Circuit Inspectors, agents of the Palace Assistant of the Imperial Secretary, who along with the Provincial Governors extended the reach of Emperor Wu's control into the provinces. Hsu states that the local power of the provincial elements "had not been challenged in early days" of the Western Han. Therefore, Emperor Wu's new imperial outreach into the provinces "clearly marked the change from an accomodating policy to a concentration and even monopoly of power."
• Page 363: In Yen-T'ieh Lun's Discourse on the Salt and Iron Monopoly, he says that "If some people become over-wealthy, they are not seeking for office after emolument. If some people become over-powerful, they are not subject to the threat of being punished."
• Page 363-364: Wealthy merchants gained a fair degree of social power during the Warring States Period, and remained wealthy during the Han. Merchants came from a diversified background while their incredible wealth "made them the masters of fellow subjects." The most successful of these merchants were even honored with biographies written on them in the Shiji and Hanshu. Feudal lords in need of cash sometimes even took out loans from these more powerful merchants.
• Page 364: To the state, the existence of powerful individuals such as wealthy merchants working outside the framework of the administration posed a potential threat. This threat was mitigated by several measures of the state, including heavy taxes imposed on the merchants, management of intra-regional trade, and the establishment of the salt and iron state monopolies. The central government also brought in more revenues by selling honorable ranks and even offices, while imposing harsh fines for certain civil offenses was another channel for revenue. Hsu states that the "huge wealth of the imperial government in the overwhelming amounts of silver, the numbers of slaves, and the large landed estates it possessed, was a major reason, as is well-known, for the non-development of reinvesting capitalism in the Han period."

[edit] Local society

• Page 364: Hsu says: "The formal structure of administration had two levels: the province and the county, both administered by the central government with officials aided by staffs mostly recruited from the local elite. The governor and the magistrates held considerable discretionary power. However, at least in the case of the governors, they were frequently considered to be imperial agents whose function was partly military. This was particularly true at the early stage of the dynasty when governorships were frequently assigned to meritorious and reliable soldiers. Thus governors in the early days could in practice do very little routine administration. Governors in frontier provinces fought invaders, trained armed forces, and otherwise maintained defense. Even in the interior, the primary concern of a governor during the first half of the Former Han was to maintain security and to control disturbing elements such as bandits. The term 'general' thus became a synonym of 'governor'. The county magistrate was given no less power in his own territory than the governor—at least in theory."
• Page 365: Below the county level of administration, "there were village and ward organizations, the sheriffs and headmen of which seemed to have handled most of the problems of daily life, such as arbitrating disputes, collecting taxes, and enforcing laws." Hsu says that the people who really administered day-to-day affairs on the local were "community chiefs and local government staffs." He says that the governors and county magistrates relied on the local leaders at the district level to handle pretty much everything, especially in areas with poor communication networks, where district level staffs and even those without a formally commissioned rank had "a free hand they could play by issuing orders according to their own judgments."
• Page 365: Hsu writes "Besides the formal structure, the informal structure of community leadership consisted of influential individuals; some of them loosely classified as 'elite' and 'magnates' by historians. Chapter 101 of the Shih Chi and Chapter 92 of the Han Shu offer us a number of illustrations. Chu Chia and Kuo Chieh were examples of stereotype elite. Both were leaders of lower elements in urban areas with an influence respected even by the noble people in the court. These charismatic leaders won the hearty support of followers and friends by sharing and solving their personal problems. Giving aid to the poor and shelter to the troubled enlarged their loyal following and in turn strengthened their influence in nearby areas, some large and some small, which constituted their power outside the government channel. And they were precisely the threat which the government, especially that of Emperor Wu, moved away, in wave after wave, to the capital area."
• Page 365-366: The Qin philosopher and reformer Shang Yang (d. 338 BC) advocated the idea of a small nuclear family instead of a large lineage group under one household or property lot. This was the policy of Qin, and it was carried into the Han Dynasty, barring sons from living under the same roof as their father. This law was not abolished until the 3rd century under Cao Wei, so, even if it was only partially effective in the Han, it was still a policy throughout the Han Dynasty to maintain nuclear families. With the lack of a large lineage group living with you or close-by to fall back on or rely on in times of need, it is no wonder that people turned to these charismatic local people and elites in their community.
• Page 366-367: Hsu asserts that Emperor Wu's oppressive relocation schemes were most likely spurred by his fear of local district level staff under county administrations becoming far too connected and aligned with these charismatic and influential local elites.
• Page 367: This is the timeline table for the harsh relocations under Emperor Wu that undermined the social balance in the eastern provinces, affecting them immediately.

Chronology of State Interference in Local Society during and after Emperor Wu's Reign[1]
127 BC	Emperor Wu has local elites forcibly moved to the tomb county of Maoling.
122 BC	Two principalities revolted against Emperor Wu but the plot was crushed; the local elite who had participated in this revolt were executed by the thousands.
119 BC	The monopoly of salt and iron is instituted, as well as a new levy on property.
117 BC	When millions of people were found guilty of counterfeiting, there was a general amnesty given. Also, commissions were dispatched to pacify the populace in East China.
116 BC	Following the advice of Yang Ge at court, Emperor Wu instigates a mass confiscation of properties, ruining the wealth of the merchant class.
109 BC	There is open revolt in East China, and the state responds by reinforcing the guards at the Pass to the East.
108 BC	A general amnesty is pronounced for those who revolted.
107 BC	Local elites are forcibly relocated to the tomb county.
86 BC	Emperor Zhao's first year on the throne
81 BC	Emperor Zhao calls upon "worthy scholars" for recommendations of new policies; the scholars request that the state monopolies be abolished.
80 BC	Prince Yan plots a rebellion against the Han with the aid of the remaining local elites in the provinces.
66 BC	Emperor Xuan investigates the suffering of the people and issues an edict which forbids the provincial governors of instigating brutal measures against the populace.

[edit] "Xiaolian" system of provincial quotas

• Page 367-368: Hsu writes that "The most important change which served to stabilize the Han regime was the institution of 'worthy scholars' and Hsiao-lien from the provinces. Worthy persons of specified qualifications or 'worthy scholars' in general had been summoned several times before and also during the reign of Emperor Wu. In fact, Emperor Wu even ordered that no governor should fail to make recommendations with an excuse that no qualified people were available (126 BC). However it seems that throughout the Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties, not every category of recommendation took place on a regular basis. Each was a particular case; the Emperor issued a specific edict and specified officials would recommend particular kinds of personnel whose services were desired at that time. The Hsiao-lien category was a great exception. Four kinds of qualifications were mentioned as 'old precedents' for the recommendations. These have been identified by Lao Kan. A similar order was issued in 43 BC by Emperor Yuan in which he made it clear that 'every year' the candidates would be examined and one from each province would be chosen. This settled the Hsiao-lien system once for all. No particular mention of it was made or needed thereafter, while the other categories of recommendation still depended on particular orders from time to time. The significance of such a regular Hsiao-lien system is that each province was thereby given an assigned channel to send some of its people to participate in the central government. Although the court of Emperor Wu, as mentioned earlier, gathered many worthy talents from all parts of the empire, the temptation of irregular channels was still there which could lead the ambitious to become adventuresome. By contrast, the regulated channels, even narrow, would help induce even the ambitious to play the game according to the rules. While the reservoir of potential officials was, in the early years, limited to the descendants of ranking officials, rich men, imperial relatives, and military men, the new social basis now included new blood from the provinces. Indeed, the Hsiao-lien institution opened the way for the entire civil examination system throughout the subsequent history of China, which created the feeling that the monolithic powerr had been shared, to some extent, with the grass roots. Direct evidence is lacking; still, it might be safe on theoretical grounds to say that the Hsiao-lien recommendation was such a formal coöptation, that it was a necessary condition for the general acceptance of the central government by the people at large."

[edit] Governors, local staff, and basis for gentry

• Page 369: After the reign of Emperor Xuan, the local elite were gratified that they had the sole right to serve as staff members in local administrations. At the same time, a regulation was made that barred provincial governors and county magistrates from serving in their native region or home town, which set up the scheme of leaders entering new regions where they had to rely on a local staff who were strangers to them but had to rely on their for their services and support. "A new official was likely to yield before his staff, whenever there was a slight suggestion of withdrawing support. Even cruel officials had to depend on the aid of their local staffs." Some administrators even became intimate with their staffs and looked after their protection from things such as being drafted to serve on the frontier.
• Page 369: Local staff members were also given the opportunity of being drafted as Hsiao-lien. "Among eleven Hsiao-lien appointed to the College of Imperial Attendants, a reservoir of high ranking officials, four were recommended for their capability shown as local administrative staff members. One more Hsiao-lien was also recommended for the same reason, though he was not appointed to the College. Among the six persons from local staffs who were recommended under other categories, there were only two before or during the reign of Emperor Wu. Thus the local elite consisted of three elements, a sort of power trinity: the local administrative staffs including the district chiefs directly over the community of people, the valiant-type leaders, and those recommended to enter the central officialdom. This pattern remained throughout the subsequent history of China without drastic changes. And the local elite evolved during later centuries into what has been called, in an all-inclusive and hence focused way, the 'gentry'."
• Page 370: After the reign of Emperor Zhao, families at the local level began to expand in size and influence. In one certain case under Emperor Xuan, there were five brothers all serving under the same local administration, while one of these was recommended for service in the central government. Yet another one of their brothers was involved in trade. Hsu says of their newfound power, "The local elites soon had such a firm grip in their home provinces, as well as a fairly strong voice at the imperial court, that to move them once again to the capital area as had been done with their predecessors in the reign of Emperor Wu, could hardly be possible or successful. This, perhaps, might be the real reason why establishing new settlements around the imperial tomb was given up in 40 BC and again in 15 BC."
• Page 370: "By the end of the Former Han period, local lineages, an associated phenomenon of elite power structure, did become important enough to oppose Wang Mang. They gathered people either to rebel with political aspirations or build fortresses for self-defense. Almost everywhere, they played a role as the core of a snowball of resistance. Yü Ying-shih, in an outstanding paper, has listed eighty-eight rebel groups, of which fifty-six are classifiable as 'distinguished clans' or 'notable families'. These local lineages formed the social base of the Eastern Han regime, a point made by L.S. Yang a quarter of a century ago. It seems safe to add that they had already been in the process of becoming the social base of political power toward the end of the former Han."

[edit] Western Han Commerce and Society

[edit] Wilbur's article

Industrial Slavery in China During the Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 25)

By C. Martin Wilbur

The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (May, 1943), pp. 56-69

[edit] Introduction

• Page 56: While slave labor in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds developed a strong industrial character to it, industrial slavery was not so prevalant in China during the same period. "Private and government slavery had a marked growth under the Han empire, but the use of slaves for industrial purposes—even commercial farming—did not become an important characteristic of the Chinese institution."
• Page 57: "Slavery was an integral though relatively minor part of the Han social system. Its legal existence is attested by laws regarding enslavement as a punishment for certain crimes, by special taxes on slaveowners, by legislation that limited the master's disciplinary powers, and by the inferior status of slaves before the law. Although slavery was a commonly accepted phenomenon, there existed an abolitionist sentiment in the Confucian school of officials."
• Page 57: "Slaves were not bound in a caste system, as they tended to become in later Chinese periods. Fluidity of transfer from free to slave status, and from unfree to full plebeian rank in one step marks the system." Ex-slaves could even marry their former owners.
• Page 57: The entire slave population in the Western Han ranged from 1% to 5% of the entire population, making it an integral institution, but not a very prominent one. In contrast to the many convict revolts in the Han, there were no known slave revolts.

[edit] Types, distribution, employment

• Page 57: Of the types of slavery, there were "government and private ownership, native and foreign slaves, hereditary, criminal, and debtor slavery, self-sale and selling of women and children under economic pressure, kidnapping, slave raiding, and enslaving of prisoners of war."
• Page 57-58: Of the means to obtain slaves, "The trade included government dealings in slaves as well as private selling, public slave markets, probably dealers in specially trained slaves, and organized importing and probably exporting."
• Page 58: "Employment of slaves varied. Owners used private bondsmen in farming, handicraft industries, probably mining, and in merchandising. But we know much less about such economically productive uses of servile labor than about slaves employed as grooms and domestic servants, mounted and armed bodyguards, tomb watchers, musicians, dancers and other entertainers, or used as personal attendants, confidential advisors, and business managers. Public slaves did the servant work in palaces and government bureaus, held petty bureaucratic positions as clerks, accountants, timekeepers and ushers, and engaged in some skilled handicrafts, in gamekeeping and ranching, as well as in the imperial grain transport and some other lines of heavy gang labor."
• Page 58: Most slaves in China were Chinese natives, not foreigners. However, the foreign slaves in China were often taken from fringe borders of the empire, as well as through established networks of trade via the Western Regions and Manchuria, the former where Fergana horses, gold, silver, incense, and rugs also came, and the latter where cattle, horses, bows, and furs of tigers, leopards, and sables also came. Sables look fucking weird! Lol.

[edit] Eastern Han Government and Society

[edit] S.A.M. Adshead's book

S.A.M. Adshead. (2004). T'ang China: The Rise of the East in World History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1403934568 (hardback).

• Page 31: "When the Eastern Han was restored in AD25 [sic], it was in an environment more aristocratic and less socially mobile than the opportunity state celebrated by Ssu-ma Ch'ien. The rise of the aristocracy had begun indeed as far back as the reign of Han Wu-ti (140-87). The failure of Wang Mang's attempt to curb aristocratic dominance by land nationalization and intellectualizing government only confirmed it. Against Wang Mang's meritocracy, and the lower gentry Red Eyebrows who opposed him, the Han were restored as the champions of the aristocracy."
• Page 31-32: "Kuang-wu-ti (25-58) was a great landowner from Nan-yang in southern Honan and Lo-yang was selected as capital in preference to the Western Han's Ch'ang-an because it was more open to aristocratic pressure. In the reign of Kuang-wu-ti's successor Ming-ti (58-76), the emperor's hereditary allies and agnatic relatives came to dominate the court through the great offices of state. To avoid being stifled by overmighty subjects, subsequent emperors turned for a counterweight to their uterine relatives, the families of their mothers and wives. These consort families, wai-ch'i, external relatives, became increasingly important in Han politics. Often the consort families did not belong to the old aristocracy. They were selected because they stood outside its ramifications. But this meant that they were rapacious, determined to get rich quick, since their power hung by the gossamer thread of an empress's life. The consort families lowered the tone of court life and intensified its factionalism. Furthermore, they did not make the emperor genuinely independent. They simply added a new stratum to the aristocracy. To check the consort families, the emperors turned to their court eunuchs, originally harem domestics, but, because the emperor was isolated in the palace and constrained by protocol, often his real friends and confidential advisers."
• Page 32: "Eunuchs came from the middle classes. They had links to trade, technology and the third layer. They brought a new parameter into politics. Unfortunately, they too were rapacious and made hay while the sun shone. They did not have children, but they had brothers and sisters and there was nothing to stop them adopting heirs. So the eunuchs too acquired titles, land, clients and retainers and added another stratum to the aristocracy. Finally, at the end of the second century, when massive rebellions led by dissident intellectuals and lower gentry necessitated the employment of non-Chinese auxiliaries to suppress them, a fourth aristocratic stratum was added: the barbarian generals, who entered the limes with their armies, and joined the old families, the wai-ch'i and the eunuchs."
• Page 32-33: The thickening web of rival aristocracies weakened the Han state by depriving it of taxpayers and conscripts, who passed into patrician control as tenants and retainers. Following suppression of the mobile Yellow Turbans [sic, no apostraphe for ownership of] rebellion in Western Shantung and Eastern Honan and accomodation with the static Five Pecks of Rice movement in Central Szechwan, the Han empire broke into three pieces. Each was under different aristocratic leadership: the heirs of the eunuchs and the barbarian generals in Wei in the north under Ts'ao Ts'ao; the old Han agnatic families in Shu in Szechwan under Liu Pei; and the new consort families in Wu in the Yangtze delta under Sun Ch'üan.

[edit] Eastern Han Commerce and Society

[edit] Ebrey's article

Estate and Family Management in the Later Han as Seen in the Monthly Instructions for the Four Classes of People

By Patricia Ebrey

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 17, No. 2 (May, 1974), pp. 173-205

[edit] Introduction

• Page 173: This article focuses on the Sima Yueling, or Monthly Instructions for the Four Classes of People by Cui Shi (c. 110–c.170), in reference of course to the Four occupations. According to Ebrey, it is the "first work in the Chinese tradition to put practical information about daily activities into the form of a monthly guide. This text contains information about religious, social, and economic organization that cannot be found in other places. Its value, however, is not simply as a sourcebook of early references to technical procedures or religious practices. Above all, it provides the most complete account of the activities of the farming estate of a middle-level official in the Later Han (25–220). This paper will examine the Monthly Instructions, paying attention especially to the ways it can supplement other works, such as standard histories, as a source for Later Han social history."

[edit] Independent farmers to large estates

• Page 173-174: In the Western Han era, small independent farmers were the mainstay, particularly in the 2nd century BC. After the Han Dynasty in the Period of Division, large estates managed by elite families gained predominance, while they often employed the use of unfree labor. Ebrey says that the Later Han was the transitional period between these two eras classified by socio-agricultural units. In the Eastern Han, "Independent farmers were less common than before. However, the social system was more open, and office and landed property were not as closely correlated as in the subsequent period. Yet there was always a tendency for the richer landowners to increase the size of their lands and to come to dominate the social and economic activity of an area. Particularly as the central government weakened at the end of the Later Han, private and local power came to replace public authority."
• Page 174: Ebrey writes "Since the growth of great families after the Later Han is one of the major social transitions of early Chinese History, it is important to examine the stages and processes of its development. Modern scholars have singled out as a transitional group the strata of Han society...powerful families or lineages. A much broader group than the great families who were the elite of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the powerful families of the Han were people with local influence as large landowners or leaders of large clans. These powerful families were present in considerable numbers in the Former Han, but their position seems to have been even stronger in the next dynasty. While their members might hold positions as subordinates in the prefectures or commanderies, or eventually gain provincial bureaucratic posts, they were only occasionally important in the central government. Unfortunately information about these powerful families is limited." She goes on to say that people who played a national role had biographies written about them, not local people per say.

[edit] Cui Shi's background

• Page 175: Cui Shi's father, Cui Yuan, was friends with Zhang Heng!
• Page 177: Shi wrote of the flaws in the bureaucracy in the 2nd century AD. "Superiors were ever eager to spot minor short-comings in their subordinates. Pressed to show results quickly and constantly under observation, lower officials became cruel and hard on the people. Their posts were changed frequently, and they had no time to develop close ties to the people they governed. Salaries were so low corruption was inevitable."
• Page 177-178: In his On Government, Cui Shi was critical of the central government, wanting to return to a more intimate relationship between ruler and ruled, and criticized the model of officials being rotated to different locations every three years, which did not allow them to build any meaningful relationship with those they governed over in the local area.

[edit] Unique estate owner literature

• Page 178: In his On Government, Cui Shi showed an interest in farming and textile production that was unusual for a Han literati, as he was knowledgeable in spinning and weaving hemp, as well as plowing and sowing methods used in different parts of the country.
• Page 182: After lengthily quoting Shi's text about a winter month, Ebrey writes "The activities of the four classes of people are not too clearly distinguished. There are the activities which primarily concern the shih (upper or educated class), such as sacrifices, capping sons, marriages, military preparations and practices, and schooling for children. Mixed with these are discussions of work involved in the 'basic occupations': when to plant various grains and vegetables, what time to start each stage of silk production, and how to preserve food, brew alcohol, and make sauces. A very clear line is drawn between all of these activities and buying and selling, which, with only one exception, comes at the end."
• Page 182: Ritual and agricultural texts that might have influenced Cui Shi's book.
• Page 184-185: "One of the most unusual features of the Monthly Instructions is that it puts information about ancestral rites and other activities of gentlemen into the same book with rules for farming, weaving, and brewing. This was an unprecedented step, and not copied for many centuries. Through the T'ang there were many works giving instructions or information arranged by months, but they usually were of a more specialized nature. One reason why T'sui Shih's work is unique could be his personality. He was a member of the upper class, well-read in the classics, but fascinated both with family management and the methods of productive work. He may also have been trying to redefine the ancient concepts of ritual based on the Chou feudal hierarchy to fit the social order of the Han with its elite of office-holders and powerful families. In his work the educated farming estate owner acquired a degree of ritual dignity. Like the emperor, the estate holder performed seasonal sacrifices, organized military practices, brought comfort to the less fortunate and ordered the activities of those under him to see that work progressed smoothly. T'sui Shih's text seems to have answered a real need, and remained in circulation until the early Sung, but gradually social changes in the role of the estate owner away from personal management made it out of date. Educated men of the T'ang and later seem to have been less interested in running their families and estates on the model of the ancient kings and more interested in the popular festivities and urban life described in later monthly guides."
• Page 185: Cui Shi's book is the earliest to detail information of religious rites and sacrifices as practiced by the heads of private households instead of emperors or nobles.

[edit] Education

• Page 190-191: Ebrey asserts that a lot of a child's education was received at home. However, the Monthly Instructions mentions education received outside the home, with children ages 10-14 sent to lower schools and youths ages 15-20 sent to upper schools, all in the first month of the year, then starting again in the eighth and eleventh months for an unspecified amount of time, although the children did return home for considerable amount of time to attend to farm work. Children studied the Classic of Filial Piety, the Analects, and primers, while older youths studied the Five Classics. Hence, children would be educated in the classics as well as farming, which could help them in whatever careers they decided to choose.

[edit] Maintaining relations with relatives

• Page 192-193: The Han Chinese viewed blood relations in levels of hierarchical degree, and treated relatives according to how closely they were related. This could be seen in practices such as contributions to funerals of those related to you, and being careful not to be too generous to relatives. Ebrey says "Degree of relationship was always stressed so that distant relatives deserved hardly any more attention than other villagers. Courtesy calls and charity probably extended only to clansmen who lived nearby. The biography in the Hou Han Shu confirms that the Ts'ui family did not maintain close ties with their relatives."

[edit] Agriculture, domestication, diets, textiles

• Page 194-195: Farming and textile production formed the economic basis of the estate, as Ebrey lists the things produced: "varieties of wheat, barley, millet, and rice. Vegetables included melons, gourds, mallow, various scallions, leeks, smartweed, garlic, ginger, sesame, taro, mustard, four kinds of beans, rape turnips, lucerne, and madder." Ebrey says that certain types of trees such as bamboo, pine, and cypress were probably used as building materials. "Fruit and nut trees are mentioned, but the exact varieties are not listed."
• Page 195: Some of these food products required processing before consuming or selling. The text describes bean sauce that was made from roasting beans, boiling them a week or two later, and allowing them to ferment for five to six months. If desired, fish or meat could be added to this. "White elm seeds and snake-fish eggs were also used to make sauces. Vinegar, pickles, and various kinds of cakes were all made. Vegetables such as squash and gourds were stored for the winter. Wheat was hulled, ground, and part of it was used in the production of yeast, which later was used to brew alcohol."
• Page 195-196: The Chinese had many domestic animals and ate pickled meats. Pork, lamb, dog, and fish were all sacrificial food items. "Chicken heads were used in medicine, and eggs were used in sacrifices." Oxen used as draft animals for plowing was mentioned, as well as horses, which Ebrey states were probably for transportation. Bran was stored away at the estate so that it could serve to feed the horses during winter.
• Page 196: The diet on the estate seems to have been primarily vegetarian, seasoned with "soya and other bean sauces, ginger, garlic, leeks, scallion, mustard, and vinegar. Salt must have been bought, although this is never stated."
• Page 196: Irrigation and drainage canals were mentioned in the text, along with plowing by oxen, fertilization, and specified times to plant each crop. "One technological advance which Ts'ui Shih was the first to report is the transplanting of rice. Until this time rice was apparently planted directly in the fields, but Shih instructed that one should plant rice first during the rains of the third month, and later separate and transplant it in the fifth month."
• Page 196-197: While men worked in the fields or did repairs, women workers made clothing. Silk production started early in the third month, when the apparatus for the silk worm eggs had to be assembled. When the worms had all hatched the work became hectic, and the estate owner had to see to it that everyone was diligent. In the next month reeling had to be done, and the shuttles and looms assembled. The weaving of different kinds of cloth then went on for most of the rest of the year, and is mentioned specifically in the sixth, eighth and the first months. Work on hemp was started in the tenth month. Probably as important as making new cloth was taking care of old clothing. During the hot and humid summer, on the seventh of the seventh month, clothes, like books, were laid out to dry. In that month and the next old clothes had to be washed and new ones made, adding more padding if necessary to prepare for winter. After winter was over, in the second month, and before the silk work began, winter clothes were washed and the padding taken out."
• Page 197: "The status of the workers involved in these activities is never fully clarified. It appears that the state owner possessed almost complete control over what was planted, when, and where. In the twelfth month he was to give the farmers and workers rest. The estate itself kept possession of the farm implements and plowing oxen, putting them away in the twelfth month. Within the house there were other workers, slaves and domestic servants of low status. Many of them worked on silk production and were probably female. There were also cooks, either male or female. It is difficult to determine exactly under what conditions these people worked, but they often worked side by side with their masters. Women of the family seem to have helped with the textile production and sons with the farming. Sons entered school only when agricultural activities were not at their busiest."

[edit] Commercial activities

• Page 197-198: The Monthly Instructions provides details on what an estate owner should buy and sell, while local markets for buying and selling remained open only nine months out of the year.
• Page 198: Below is a table on this page of goods that Monthly Instructions tells its reader should be bought and sold in each month. Ebrey explains why: "As can be seen from this table the same item was often bought and sold at different times of the year. The rationale for this is very clearly financial: items were bought when the price was low and sold when it was high."

Goods bought and sold throughout the year at the estate[2]
Month	Bought	Sold
2	Firewood and charcoal	Unhusked millet, glutinous millet, soya and lesser beans, hemp and wheat
3	Hempen cloth	glutinous millet
4	Huskless and regular barley, scrap silk wadding
5	Huskless and regular barley, wheat, silk floss, hempen and silk cloth, straw	Soya and lesser beans, sesame
6	Huskless barley, wheat, thick and thin silk	Soya beans
7	Wheat and or barley, thick and thin silk	Soya and lesser beans
8	Leather shoes, glutinous millet	Seed wheat and or barley
10	Unhusked millet, soya and lesser beans and hemp seeds	Thick silk, silk, and silk floss
11	Non-glutinous rice, husked and unhusked millet, lesser beans and hemp seed

• Page 199: It should be noted that "amounts of goods bought and sold are not mentioned" and that "not everything the family bought or sold was mentioned in the Monthly Instructions, only those items affected by seasonal needs or price changes. To this list we probably must add salt, iron agricultural implements, iron or ceramic kitchen utensils, paper and ink and any luxury items such as exotic foods or high quality silks."

[edit] Other stuff

• Page 200: In the Han Dynasty, family estates that were 600 to 700 qing (1 qing = 11.4 acres) were considered extremely large, as the vast majority of estates were much smaller, certainly the ones described by Cui Shi.
• Page 200: "The Monthly Instructions was written for someone who managed his own estate; an absentee landlord was not envisioned." According to Ebrey, the estate owner "did not live in the capital but among his clansmen, and close enough to his ancestors' graves to offer periodic sacrifices there."
• Page 200-201: the workers on these estates could be hired workers, tenant farmers, or slaves. As dependents on the estate owners, the tenants and hired workers were "socially and economically inferior to independent farmers; however, they were still free, taxed citizens, legally and socially distinct from slaves." They were only taxed by the poll tax, as it was their landlord who was the only one who had to pay the land tax.
• Page 201-202: Small neighboring independent farmers relied upon these estates to sell them essential goods that were produced there, such as grain and even grain seeds in times of bad harvest.

[edit] General Info

[edit] Ebrey's Cambridge Illustrated

[edit] Han government

• Page 64: Picture caption reads "The bureaucratic government of Han times produced huge quantities of documents on wooden and bamboo strips, and great caches of such documents have been found among the ruins of the garrisons established along the northwestern frontier. The one shown here was excavated at Juyan in Gansu province: dated 95 AD, it is an inventory of the equipment of two infantry units."
• Page 64: Due to the oppressive nature of the previous Qin regime, people in the Western Han Dynasty associated centralized government with tyranny. Because of this, people believed that the Han government should "parcel out domains as the early Zhou had," and this is exactly what Gaozu did in rewarding those who served him in his campaigns. Their semi-autonomous regions became vassals of the central Han authority. Yet this posed a threat to Han power and interregional stability. Han authorities wanted to find a way to combine "military strength (wu) with the morally centred civil arts (wen)."
• Page 64: To counter the old aristocracy, Han prefects and magistrates directly governed the territories assigned to them, and won their positions through merit, not birth. They could be dismissed, transferred, and disciplined by the government. Their duties included judging lawsuits, collecting taxes, performing religious ceremonies sponsored by the state, commanding troops in battle and in peace, maintaining public works, being observant of the local economy and education, and looked to the local population to draft their staffs.
• Page 64: Emperor Wu confiscated the domains of over half the princes and lords of the empire, and forced the rest to divide their lands among all their heirs, "thus guaranteeing that they would diminish in size with each passing generation."

[edit] Loewe's Book

Loewe, Michael. (1968). Everyday Life in Early Imperial China during the Han Period 202 BC–AD 220. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd.; New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

[edit] Emperor and His Government

• Page 29-30: The Emperor, viewed as the Son of Heaven with a mandate to rule, had to conduct himself in a manner that distinguished his pinnacle position as intermediary between Heaven and Earth, and in return he received the obedience of his subjects.
• Page 31-32: In the case of Liu Bang, he was a war victor who legalized his position as emperor "by acceding to his subjects' request that he would submit to enthronement as emperor; and in this way the mandate was 'conferred' on an incumbent who may have been unlettered, untrained and completely inexperienced."
• Page 33: Here he talks about the two high officials of state (although he does not call them "chancellor" or "imperial secretary" as Wang specifically distinguishes them) and says they sort of resemble a modern-day prime minister and a head of the civil service. Loewe says these two guys "received reports from junior officials and brought them to the emperor's attention when they deemed it necessary to do so." In other words, they had a lot of control over information and how that information reached the emperor's ear, as well as being responsible for disseminating all of his decrees and edicts describing his decisions; "for in name all decisions were taken by the emperor in person" as Loewe claims (and others above have claimed).
• Page 33: Here he mentions the nine ministries (not calling them Nine Ministers) that Wang elaborated on above. Here he lists their functions (but does not bother saying which specific office did what) as: "religious ceremonial, observation of the stars, record keeping; superintendance of the court and imperial household; security of the palace and control of its guards; care of the imperial stables; administration and punishment of crime; receipt of homage and tribute from foreign leaders; maintenance of records of the imperial family and regulation of the degrees of precedence for its members; collection of state revenues and direction of working projects; and charge of the imperial purse and disbursements therefrom."
• Page 34: Ok, now he names a couple, such as the Grand Controller of Agriculture who collected revenues for the state in the form of taxed grain, while his deputies supervised state granaries, maintained commodity prices, and the transport of grain. He also names the Keeper of the Imperial Purse who collected dues of coinage and was supported by junior officials who prapared emblems and badges for other officials as well as supervised craftsmen that made all the equipment and luxury items for the palace.
• Page 34-36: The Western Han at its beginning was carved up into 15 Commanderies and 10 Kingdoms, but more commanderies were added due to military conquest and some of these kingdoms were either reduced in size, split into smaller kingdoms, or totally eliminated as time went on. By 2 AD there were 83 commanderies and 20 kingdoms.
• Page 36: Loewe says the Commanderies were governed by Grand Administrators (Wang would call these Provincial Governors) appointed by the central government, while the kingdoms were naturally run by hereditary kings related in blood to the emperor. Loewe says the central government played a role in who would succeed each king while the central government even appointed each of the kings' senior assistants. Loewe says that because of this the kingdoms were more or less controlled on an equal level as the commanderies.
• Page 36: Loewe says the commanderies were broken down into prefectures, which numbered 1587 by the year 2 AD, comparing them in size to English counties. Counties were further divided into districts, and each district had a number of wards.
• Page 36-37: "Local officials set about the collection of tax in grain, textiles or cash from the farms or the villages; constables of the districts were responsible for arresting criminals, deserters or fugitives from justice, or any villager who gave shelter to such law-breakers. Local officials were responsible for calling up the emperor's subjects to serve their allotted time in the labour gangs or the armed forces; and the prefects or their subordinates maintained granaries, canals and roads in a proper state of repair. Finally, the provincial and lcoal authorities were responsible for the upkeep of a system of communication...Urgent dispatches and routine mail were carried from one post to another on horseback or by runner; and officials of the central government or the provincial agencies could ride at speed from one commandery to the next by means of the chain of stations and post-horses that were carefully kept for their use."

[edit] The Officials

• Page 38-39: Officials had certain rights and privileges according to their rank, as the types of carriages they rode in, the types of robes they wore, and the emblems of office in gold, silver, bronze wrapped in purple, blue, yellow, or black ribbons all corresponded to the officials' position and salary.
• Page 39: Loewe says that since the 5th century BC, Chinese philosophers argued that officials should be chosen not by birthright but by abilities in intellectual capacity and moral integrity. People in the Han argued the same, although political expediency and circumstance sometimes got in the way.
• Page 39: Here Loewe talks about the evolution of how officials from the provinces were drafted by the central government: "In an edict of 196 B.C., senior officials of the commanderies and the kingdoms were ordered to send men of promise to the capital city, where their talents could be considered and suitable appointments made. A century later it had become a regular annual event for each commandery or kingdom to send up a few candidates for the same purpose, and by the middle of the first century A.D. a quota had been fixed. Thus, for every 200,000 inhabitants in his commandery a governor was entitled to submit one candidate who had been chosen for his proven moral standards and devotion to family duties, and between six and ten men who were believed to possess more than a nodding acquaintance with literature; and by A.D. 140 a total of at least 200 candidates of the first type were presenting themselves each year for inspection, drawn from the interior parts of China."
• Page 40: On what examination criteria the recommended men and students were judged by little known from the Han period. It is known that senior officials and sometimes even the emperor addressed questions to and judged the answers of aspiring students or recommmended men, but it is unknown if these questions and answers were verbal or written, or how topics were chosen in questioning. It is known from Han law fragments that youths were tested in reading and writing proficiency and that officials began their careers due to tests of selection.
• Page 40: Although it is known that some men of humble means advanced up the ladder of the civil service hierarchy due to their meritorious action and moral character, others could simply be sons recommended by their official fathers while some posts could be hereditary, some could be purchased, and others could be won by having a female relative captivate the emperor and persuade him to staff positions with her kinsmen in mind.
• Page 40: Gaining an official posts by any one of these means not only provided prestigious social standing and a salary, but also more lenient punishments for civil or criminal offenses as well as exemption from harsh conscript service.
• Page 40-41: Once recommended to the court and then examined by the court for suitability, these candidates "joined a pool of gentlemen waiting at court in expectation of assignment to a vacancy...his appointment could be confirmed as permanent after a year's trial. There were also various types of temporary appointment."
• Page 41-42: The Han civil service established the system of triennial evaluations of officials, as provincial authorities would submit reports to the throne every three years that included info on the performance of junior officials. There is evidence that their performance in office was graded as 'high', 'medium', or 'low' in quality, as well as their abilities to read, write, manage accounts, and to understand the law. It was required in the certificate of the report on an official's performance that it state the distance between his location of office and his home district in order to ensure that there was "no infringement of the rule which banned a man from serving in his home district." Based on these reports, officials could be promoted or demoted.
• Page 42: Both provincial and central civil service positions were graded according to the annual stipend of grain an official would receive, which ranged from Full 2,000 to 100. In reality, officials were only paid partly in grain while also paid in coinage and bolts of silk.
• Page 42: "Officials were allowed one day of rest in five and were entitled to an allowance of sick leave." Some honorable officials who left office due to old age were granted bonuses in their retirement payments, while pensions were sometimes given.

[edit] Education

• Page 45: The first formal institution of learning in the capital was established in 120 BC by the suggestion of a senior official (??? Who?). The school in the capital was designed to educate sons of officials or prominent families that could become recruits for civil service. Quotas were set for the amount of students who could pass with first, second, or third class degrees. Progressive thinkers thought that this type of school should also be established in the provinces, but in the meantime provincial governors sent promising youths to the capital (Chang'an and then Luoyang) to be educated in this school, the Taixue.
• Page 46: Besides this, Loewe writes "We also know of the growth of private establishments during the Han period. Sometimes a seminary arose around the figure of a well-known scholar, whose expert profession of a particular school of thought attracted pupils or disciples. We are told that these were sometimes to be numbered by the hundred; and some of the famous statesmen of the Han period received their training and formed their opinions in this way."
• Page 46: Children were said to begin their education of reading and writing at age 8, although Loewe says this might not have been such a regular practice. Scholars and school-teachers compiled word-lists for this specific reason, while parts of these word-lists have survived from the old Western Han imperial library where they were preserved.
• Page 46: These word-lists were basis for education in the sophisticated Confucian Classics of prose and poetry.
• Page 49: Students also learned mathematics.
• Page 49: Besides the obvious aim for civil service, education served the purpose of "improving the human character, of correcting a man's faults and repressing his more ignoble motives."

[edit] Court intrigue

• Page 50-51: In 87 BC, Tian Tianqiu, an official with little experience (serving only one year as a nominal senior official in foreign affairs), was made the chancellor, the supposed head of government that was second only to the emperor (at least in theory). In reality, though, he was merely a figurehead compared to Imperial Counsellor Sang Hongyang and Huo Guang and Jin Midi, who were made co-regents by Emperor Wu shortly before he died.
• Page 50-51: Huo Guang was the half-brother of the famous general Huo Qubing and nephew to Empress Wei Zifu, who committed suicide alongside Crown Prince Liu Ju in 91 BC due to a succession crisis and conflict in the capital itself. In fact, it was this event which launched the career of Tian Tianqiu as chancellor, as his comments that the crown prince Liu Ju had been a victim of miscarriage of justice gained him the appreciation of Emperor Wu, who then assigned him to his nominal foreign affairs job.
• Page 51-52: Jin Midi was of nomadic Xiongnu origin and of a prominent family who refused to surrender to the Han, but were eventually brought into captivity by the Chinese. At age 14 (in the year 121 BC), Jin Midi became a groom in the palace stables. Jin Midi "was the only attendant who was too proud to acknowledge the presence of majesty; and his behaviour and fine appearance earned him the emperor's respect and admiration" according to Loewe. Due to this, he was given an official appointment and a generous salary, on top of earning the emperor's close friendship.
• Page 52: Since he was foreign, others were jealous of his status, so he made himself appear humble by refusing high favors. His son was married to one of Huo Guang's daughters, so he was well-connected with others. He served as co-regent for a year before dying of an illness.
• Page 52-53: Sang Hongyang came from a merchant family based in Luoyang, serving first as a court attendant around 140 BC at the age of 13. He was adept in arithmetic and took part in official councils on commercial and industrial discussions where he suggested applying methods of business to government policies in order to gain more profits from China's resources.
• Page 53: Sang Hongyang was made Minister of Agriculture, responsible for "agricultural production and the collection of taxes." He had an open rivalry with Huo Guang and the two hated each other. Sang got involved in a plot against the throne, and for this he was executed by Huo Guang in 80 BC.

[edit] Industry and Commerce

[edit] Wagner's book

Wagner, Donald B. (2001). The State and the Iron Industry in Han China. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing. ISBN 8787062836.

[edit] Before Han

• Page 1: In 120 BC, the salt industrialist Dongguo Xianyang and the iron industrialist Kong Jin were appointed as Assistants to the Minister of Agriculture; along with Sang Hongyang, a man of a wealthy merchant family, they oversaw revenues of government run industries in salt and iron. "In 117 BC they submitted a proposal for a state monopoly of the salt and iron industries."
• Page 1-2: Wagner writes "The proposal was accepted, the monopoly was established, and thus began an immense upheaval in the Chinese iron industry which was long the subject of bitter contention. It has remained a matter of controversy through the centuries, as can be seen in discussions of it by Wang Anshi in connection with the New Policies of AD 1069 and by Thomas T. Read in an attack on Roosevelt's New Deal in 1935."
• Page 4-5: It is known from inscriptions that Warring States Period kingdoms had officers in charge of bronze production, while archaeologists have discovered four State of Qi iron foundries at Linzi in Shandong where two of these were in the vicinity of the Qi palace, which has led Xu Xueshu to argue that they were under royal administration. Seals from the Western Han era found at the site also proclaim titles of men working for a Qi Kingdom iron office, which would signify iron smelting there before the iron monopoly of 117 BC. Therefore, state intervention in iron production was a continual process from the Warring States into the Han Dynasty period.
• Page 5-7: From inscriptions on iron agricultural implements from the State of Yan found in an ancient foundry in Xinglong, Hebei, there is questionable evidence about Yan's involvement in the iron industry, but more substantial evidence comes from the State of Qin. In addition to evidence that Qin used private iron industrialists to enrich and bring areas up to production levels that benefited the government, there is 3rd century BC legal texts from a Qin tomb in Hubei found in 1975 which mention the penalty against iron extracting officers whose work or products were found to be substandard and not up to snuff.

[edit] Lead up to Monopoly

• Page 7-8: The salt and iron industries managed by the state were under the direction of the Privy Treasurer (shaofu), the person in the palace who managed the Emperor's finances as well as the royal household's finances. "The non-agricultural natural resources of the Empire were considered the Emperor's personal property and responsibility, and the income from their exploitation was for his personal use." Yet this was not strictly followed, especially by the time of Emperor Wen of Han, when the people were allowed to "cast coins, smelt iron, and boil salt." Besides personal favorites of the Emperor such as Deng Tong, the King of Wu engaged in copper gathering and salt industries, as the revenues gained in these allowed him to lower taxes and gain the loyalty of his local subjects. He was the leader of the Rebellion of the Seven States in 154 BC.
• Page 8: The only direct and contemporaneous information we have about the lead up to the state's salt and iron monopolies comes from Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, as the Book of Han largely copies what Sima Qian had to say.
• Page 9: Sima Qian claims that the breakdown of the state came when finances had to be raised to face the barbarian border peoples in battle, so that anyone who made financial contributions could be given official posts without merit; he says it got so bad that anyone who presented a sheep was given the position as a Court Gentleman (lang).
• Page 9-10: At the beginning of the dynasty, merchants and tradesmen were barred from serving as officials; by Sima's time under Emperor Wu, some of the highest positions (i.e. Ministry of Agriculture) were held by those associated with the merchant class. Around 120 BC, Dongguo Xianyang, a salt-boiler of Qi (modern Shandong), and Kong Jin, a smelter from Nanyang (modern Nanyang, Henan), made fortunes from their businesses and were recommended to office by Zheng Dangshi, a Minister of Agriculture who had a canal built that linked the capital Chang'an with the Yellow River for expedient tax-grain transport. Sang Hongyang, a scion of a wealthy merchant family from Luoyang, was adept in arithmetic, and thus was made a Palace Attendant at the age of 13.
• Page 11-12: Dongguo and Kong's proposal to the throne of establishing a monopoly was accepted in 117 BC on the grounds that the Emperor transferred his right to the resources of the land from his Privy Treasury to the Ministry of Agriculture (to supplement the poll tax), and that merchants dealing in these industries exploited the common people and obstructed affairs of state. Iron and salt were made monopolies together because iron vessels and cauldrons were needed to boil the salt. Anyone caught privately casting iron or boiling salt would be forced to wear a fetter on their left foot and have their equipment confiscated. However, the new offices of this monopoly invited the old merchants to take staff positions for the new monopoly, much to the detest of Confucians who did not want merchants in government positions.

[edit] Criticism of the monopoly

• Page 13: In 110 BC the state created an "equable transportation" (junshu) system where price variation over time and from place to place was eliminated, an act which wealthy farmers complained about, accusing Sang Hongyang of putting government officials in market stalls and describing the government's iron as inferior in quality. In 100 BC, Dong Zhongshu also felt the need to complain in favor of agriculture, demanding that salt and iron be returned to the people.
• Page 13-14: As complaints surfaced more and more, a Grand Inquest (Court Conference) was held in 81 BC at the behest of the regent general Huo Guang (d. 68 BC), since Emperor Zhao of Han was still a child at this point. It asked for all 'Worthies' (xianliang, people recommended by local authorities for possible appointments) and 'Scholars' (wenxue, people approved by the government for their literary competence) to assemble for a meeting to discuss how the people's suffering could be alleviated. The 'Worthies' represented the interests of the provincial elite while the 'Scholars' represented the interests of the central government.
• Page 14: The result of this Court Conference was the abolition of the fermented liquor monopoly established in 98 BC while there was only a minor adjustment to the salt and iron monopolies: closing of the Iron Offices 'within the passes' (capital region). This debate became the subject for the book Discourses on Salt and Iron.
• Page 15: Sang Hongyang was appointed as Imperial Counsellor (yushi dafu) in 87 BC by regent Huo Guang, as Sang's policies were largely intact after the 81 BC Court Conference. However, Sang was executed for treason against Huo in 80 BC, meaning his biography (hence a lot of info about the monopoly) was not included in the Book of Han.
• Page 15: the Salt and Iron monopolies were abolished in 44 BC but reinstated in 41 BC, due to either of two reasons: the state still needed more revenues, or immediate privatization caused problems for the whole economy in a short period of time, prompting officials to revert back to the monopolistic system. No real changes were seen until the time of Wang Mang.

[edit] Wang Mang and Eastern Han

• Page 15-16: A lot of information about Wang Mang's salt and iron monopolies is unavailable due to the Book of Han's hostility towards its hated villain Wang Mang. It is known that it was one of his 'six controls' established in 10 AD. In 12 AD, severe penalties up to capital punishment were announced for violators of the law, which Wagner states is a clear sign that successful law and order was breaking down. In 22 BC, one of these 'six controls', the 'mountains and marshes', was lifted and not intended to be reinstated until 49 AD, although Wang Mang was killed long before that in 23 BC.
• Page 16: Wagner writes: "The first century BC seems to have seen a gradual deterioration of the powers of the central government in favour of powerful families throughout the Empire, and Wang Mang's reforms should probably be seen as a last-ditch attempt to reassert central authority. After Wang Mang's fall and the Restoration of the Han in AD 25, a reorganization took place which in effect endorsed the central government's loss of power."
• Page 16-17: With the establishment of Eastern Han, the Salt and Iron Offices of the Ministry of Agriculture were taken from it and transferred to the administrations overseeing the local prefectures and commanderies. The 'Chief Commandant of Waters and Parks' who had a large hand in the monopolies was reduced in power to a minor office overseeing a few seasonal tasks. Wagner says that a sparse amount of sources on this subject indicate that the salt and iron monopolies were no more, while local governments still engaged in large scale iron production.
• Page 17: The official Zhang Lin suggested in 85 AD that the central government resume its role as the monopolistic power over salt and iron, a proposal that was at first rejected, then accepted despite the protest by the faction under Zhu Hui. However, this central monopoly was again abolished by Emperor Zhang of Han in 88 AD, who had his ten year old successor (later Emperor He of Han) announce his decision.

[edit] Discourses on Salt and Iron

• Page 18-19: Huan Kuan, the author who wrote the Yan tie lun (Discourse on Salt and Iron), was an erudite scholar who was appointed as a Court Gentleman during the reign of Emperor Xuan of Han (r. 73–49) as well as Vice Governor of Lujiang. Wagner says that "One motivation for Huan Kuan to compile this work may have been a later debate, which led to the brief abolition of the monopoly in the period 44-41 BC. The abolition was a result of the general attack on the role fo government around this time, in which statesmen such as Gong Yu (123–43 BC) went so far as to demand the abolition of all forms of money and a return to natural economy."
• Page 19-20: The Yan tie lun describes the debate in 81 BC as a meeting of some sixty-odd provincial Scholars and Worthies engaging in dialogue with Imperial Counsellor Sang Hongyang, who was assisted by ministers supporting the central government's position. The text described Emperor Zhao and Huo Guang as being present during the discussion where debators freely traded insults, labeling the other as "bigoted Confucians" and the other as "decadent toadies."
• Page 20: Apparently, the martial regent Huo Guang was compelled to call forth Worthies for a Court Conference because of his associate Du Yannian hinting that recent crop failures and the people's resulting suffering might be signs that Heaven was displeased with the Han Dynasty's central government, and it needed to reform itself to be more frugal and modest.
• Page 25: Both sides in the debate agreed that agriculture was the root (ben) of all society while other occupations were branches (mu), but the heart of the debate was how to best serve agriculture. The central government's side argued that the state's production of iron freed up the time and energy of the people so that they could focus on agriculture instead. However, critics of the monopolies argued that the state-produced iron was inferior in quality to privately-produced iron, therefore state-produced iron implements were only made to meet quotas and were no good for farming when needed.
• Page 26: Imperial Counsellor Sang Hongyang shoots back at this with a retort of how private iron smelting does not have enough specialization, is poorly equipped, omits certain production techniques, and private smelters have no decent amount of spare time to engage in the industry. The Worthies make the counter-retort that former private smelting by small-scale family enterprises made better implements "because of pride of workmanship and because they were closer to the users" according to Wagner. Wagner says the lesson to be learned here is that large-scale enterprises can produce larger quantity of products while small-scale enterprises can produce better quality products. The government side points out a problem with the Worthies' argument though: before the monopoly, powerful families upheld large-scale enterprises, a successful smelting familiy employing over a thousand people, encouraging them to leave their ancestral grave sites to become dependents on great families. Wagner says the truth was perhaps a mixed one: "there were probably two sectors of the iron industry, one consisting of small units producing for local needs, the other of large units producing for trade over long distances."
• Page 28: In the debate, the assistant to the Imperial Counsellor argues that the monopolies as well as selling of offices have enriched the state so that it can employ armed campaigns in the East and West without increasing taxation.
• Page 29-30: In Huan Kuan's Discourses on Salt and Iron, there is some discussion on the state's superior ability to use calculation in order to operate and produce precisely what is necessary. Wagner says in relation to this is a chapter in the Han mathematical treatise The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art called "Equable Transportation" (Junshu), the same name of one of the contentious policies established in Emperor Wu's time. The chapter states:

In the equable transportation of grain,

Prefecture A has 10,000 households and a journey of 8 days;

Prefecture B has 9,500 households and a journey of 10 days;

Prefecture C has 12,350 households and a journey of 13 days;

Prefecture D has 12,200 households and a journey of 20 days;

All [journeys] being to the place of [tax] transportation. The total liability of the four prefectures is the transportation of a tax of 250,000 hu in 10,000 carts. It is desired that this should be apportioned according to the distance travelled and the number of households. How much grain and how many carts does each supply?

Answer:

Prefecture A, 83,100 hu of grain, 3,324 carts.

Prefecture B, 63,175 hu of grain, 2527 carts.

Prefecture C, 63,175 hu of grain, 2527 carts.

Prefecture D, 40,550 hu of grain, 1,622 carts.

• Page 30: In order to arrive at these answers, Wagner states that: "The calculated tax liabilities are proportional to the number of households divided by the number of days of the journey."

[edit] Iron Offices

• Page 32-33: The Book of Han reveals the locations of 48 Salt and Iron Offices as they existed in the year 2 AD, and as Wagner shows on his map on page 32 (which also includes locations known from other written sources or archaeological sites), most of these offices were located in the Yellow River macroregion in what is today's modern Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, Shandong, and Jiangsu provinces.
• Page 33-34: Although the central government in the Eastern Han no longer produced iron, local authorities now took over this responsibility, as the Book of Later Han states, "If a commandery or prefecture produced large quantities of salt, a Salt Office was established to administer the salt tax; if it produced large quantities of iron, an Iron Office was established to administer production." Wagners says that from this description it appears that Salt Offices were merely financial offices which collected taxes, while the Iron Offices of local government still had some role in production, although the extent of their involvement is unknown. The Book of Later Han lists 36 localities that 'have iron' in 140 AD but says nothing else; Wagner assumes they are locations of the localized Iron Offices.
• Page 36: Although there is scant evidence in written texts for Iron Offices existing in Wang Mang's time, archaeology has proven they did, such as iron implements with their place name of production being "Juye", a place name that existed only during the reign of Wang Mang.
• Page 39-43: Here Wagner talks about the six wooden tablets and 156 wooden and bamboo strips found in Tomb M6 at Yinwan, Donghai County, Jiangsu, dated 10 BC. He not only used these texts to prove that the Book of Han had errors in its geographic section by using incorrect characters for certain place names, but that the population census figure of 50 million for the year 2 AD may be very false. The Yinwan documents report in 10 BC that the Donghai Commandery had 266,290 households with 1,397,343 persons, while the Book of Han states that the Donghai Commandery in 2 AD had 358,414 households and 1,559,357 persons. Wagner writes "This would imply a 10 percent increase in population in 12 years or less, which is not credible." Even Wang Mingsheng (1722–1798) of the Qing Dynasty believed that, since Wang Mang already had de facto rule over the court in 2 AD, he may have inflated the population figures in order to "prove his beneficial influence" as Wagner paraphrases.

[edit] Reasons for Monopoly and Opposition

• Page 53-54: A typical argument of the government side was that Emperor Wu, having established border garrisons that needed to be properly funded if they were to successfully defend against the hostile Xiongnu, established the Salt and Iron Offices to pay for military expenses. Yet critics of the monopolies found the State's dealings in manufacture and commercial selling were demeaning and "not proper activities for the State."
• Page 55-56: Wagner writes that "Blast furnace iron production is highly capital-intensive, and wealth is required for its exploitation." The central state argued that "brutal and tyrannical" salt and iron industrialists who gathered in 'deep mountains and remote marshes' were they were free to form household factions and gangs of evil-doers. The state saw independent wealthy industrialists as a potential threat, so a comprimise was made to make them officials in the government to oversee the industry and their followers and gangs were replaced by convict laborers that the state could control.
• Page 56: The critics of the government felt that bringing in wealthy merchants as government leaders of the state monopoly was a mistake, and that only men learned in the Five Classics were qualified to work for the Emperor and administer the people.
• Page 56: The government made the argument that the state monopolies provided abundant raw materials and good working conditions for producing iron of quality. This may have been true in certain cases, as several cast iron artifacts of the period show several complex stages thatt would require a high degree of trained skill and days of time. Wagner writes: "Several axeheads, for example, were cast, than annealed in an oxidising [sic] atmosphere to reduce the carbon content, then cold-hammered, then annealed in a reducing atmosphere to increase the carbon content at the surface...The two annealing processes required at least a day or two each, and maintaining the appropriate temperature and furnace atmosphere required skill on the part of the workers." However, there is evidence of mistakes in discarded iron axeheads in an excavated scrap-heap in Mianchi, Henan, iron axeheads which presumably failed quality inspection.
• Page 57: Critics of the monopolies state that the monopoly ironworks made large and impractical implements that were made for mass-scale quotas rather than for practical use. They also criticized state iron as inferior in quality and too expensive to purchase.
• Page 59: There were also other problems with the monopolies, such as when they "inappropriately standardised [sic] the implements without considering the different needs of peasants in different parts of the Empire. And there is sometimes over-production, in which case the Iron Offices force the peasants to purchase more than they need."
• Page 62-63: Some people in the Han complained about deforestation as well as the nuisance of smoke produced by blast furnaces.

[edit] Technology and Science

[edit] Wagner's book

Wagner, Donald B. (2001). The State and the Iron Industry in Han China. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies Publishing. ISBN 8787062836.

[edit] Introduction

• Page 64: Foundry and smithy techniques were used in smelting iron, while steel was used for edged tools and weapons. Steel could also be quench-hardened.
• Page 64: While there is a rich variety of artifact examples to study from the period following the establishment of Emperor Wu's government monopoly, we have a lack of knowledge of many aspects of the pre-monopoly period, such as "how iron was produced from ore, how (or whether) cast iron was converted to wrought iron, and how steel was made. There have not been enough proper excavations of iron smelting sites of the period," which Wagner says is due to the fact that they were often located in remote mountain forests while monopoly-era ironworks were close to administrative centers where they are "more likely to be discovered and excavated by modern archaeologists."
• Page 65: Wagner writes: "The basic technology of the twentieth-century traditional Chinese iron industry seems already to have been in place by the Han. Cast iron was produced in blast furnaces, and this was either cast into useful products in a cupola furnace or converted to wrought iron in a fining hearth."
• Page 65: While evidence about exact iron production methods in pre-Han times is non-existent (despite the iron artifacts found dating to the period before Han), there is also no evidence of the bloomery ever being used in Han China or any time after the Han Dynasty.
• Page 66: Despite this, Wagner believes that the bloomery method may have been wiped out in Han China because of the monopoly itself and its standardization of iron production that eliminated the need for bloomeries altogether. He believes that the small-scale household production of "father and son pool[ing] their labour" may have something to do with bloomery iron smelting.

[edit] Blast Furnace

• Page 66: "A blast furnace is a shaft furnace in which cast iron is produced from iron ore. Ore, fuel, and flux (normally limestone) are charged periodically into the top of the shaft, an air blast is blown continuously into tuyeres near the bottom, and iron and slag are periodically tapped out at the bottom."
• Page 66: Much of the existing blast furnaces from the Han Dynasty have been found in what is today's Henan province.
• Page 67-68: The Han blast furnaces were able to withstand high temperatures in melting iron ore because of the workers' understanding of refractory and mechanical properties in ceramic materials and powdered charcoal that went into the coating and walls of the furnace itself.
• Page 70: Although he doesn't mention Du Shi, Wagner states that the elliptical-shaped blast furnaces allowed operation with smaller blast pressure, which he says was good for the Han people since that was a time when "most blast furnaces were operated by human labour rather than water or steam power."
• Page 71: Blast furnaces seem to have had an outer brick facing, but the height of the furnaces themselves are indistinguishable. Based on the height of the tuyeres, Wagner estimates they were 4.5 m (14.7 ft) to 6 m (19.6 ft) in height. There was also a huge outer wall of tamped earth about 9 m (29.5 ft) thick that acted as a gradual ramp for charging the furnace.
• Page 72: This charge consisted of ore, charcoal, and limestone, which Wagner says were found in large quantities at the blast furnace sites. The ore was broken into pieces by hammers and anvils and then sieved to get rid of smaller pieces that, if included in the charge, would have "made the furnace burden less porous, necessitating greater blast pressure" as Wagner states.

[edit] Cupola Furnace

• Page 75: "It is possible that molten iron was sometimes cast directly into moulds from the blast furnace," but Wagner adds that most, if not all, iron cast in the blast furnace was remelted in a cupola furnace during the Han.
• Page 75: Wagner describes a cupola furnace as "a shaft furnace charged with fuel (coal or charcoal) and iron (pig or scrap) through the top and supplied with a blast blown in at the bottom. The iron melts in contact with the burning fuel and is tapped out at the bottom."
• Page 75: Cupola furnaces have been found at numerous Han ironworks sites. They can be described as follows: "It is built of brick with an inner and outer layer of refractory clay. The height is 3–4 m [9.8–13.1 ft], inside diameter ca. 1.5 m [4.9 ft]. The base includes a hollow space, 17 cm [6.69 in] high, supported by 12–15 cylindrical bricks. The fuel used was charcoal."
• Page 75: Wagner writes that the cupola furnaces' "hollow base and the thick (20–30 cm) walls provided thermal insulation. It can be seen that air from the bellows passes through a pipe up one side of the furnace, over the top, and down the other side to the tuyere." He is referring to the picture on page 74, showing the entry of cold blast input, turning into a hot blast as it passes the top of the furnace, and enters the bottom of the furnace via a tuyere pipe. He says that this design allowed for the "generation of extremely high temperatures at a relatively high fuel efficiency" due to the fact that "This arrangement provides for recycling of heat otherwise lost through the top."
• Page 76: The direct evidence of such an arrangement is the fact that "many of the earthenware pipes found have been subjected to such high heat that their surfaces are partially vitrified, and the directions of glass drips indicate the spacial orientations of the pipes in use."

[edit] The Bellows

• Page 77: Here he repeats the same quotation as Needham on the Han official Du Shi and his application of water-power to operate the bellows. However, since there is no remaining evidence of what type of bellows were used in the Han (whether they were leather bellows or wooden blowers found in the later Yuan Dynasty is unknown), Wagner does not make assumptions about them.
• Page 77-78: The smelting official Han Ji (d. 238) under Cao Cao during Cao Wei also applied water-powered bellows to his furnace, which the Records of the Three Kingdoms states outmoded the production rates and tripled the profits of earlier horse-powered and human-powered bellows that required many men or one hundred horses. The state-sponsored water-powered bellows of the Wei and Jin Dynasty is confirmed by a travel literature book quoted in the Shui Jing Zhu during the fifth or sixth century AD about the remains of Wei and Jin water-powered smelting works at Luoyang being still existent at that point.
• Page 80: Since Du Shi and Han Ji both came from Nanyang Commandery in Henan, and the Kong family was known to smelt and cast on a large scale "and regulated ponds", Wagner writes that these ponds "might have been related to the use of water power" and that water-powered bellows may have been used in and around Nanyang since the 3rd century BC, although there is no direct evidence for it.

[edit] Fining Hearth

• Page 80-81: For converting high-carbon cast iron into low-carbon wrought iron, there are a number of small hearths found at Han period ironworks that are believed to be the remains of fining hearths.
• Page 81-82: There is also a hint of evidence in the Daoist text Taiping Jing written some time in the 3rd or 4th century, where a Taoist master replies to his discipline about preparedness in crafting weapons. The text outlines the stages in making a sword, those being mining, smelting in a blast furnace, and fining and smithing it. Wagner writes "There is no sign that he knew the distinction between fining and smithing, but since the iron was liquid it must have been fined."
• Page 83: Another hint of evidence is an Eastern Han Dynasty tomb-relief found in 1930 at Hongdaoyuan in Teng County, Shandong province. It shows some sort of metallurgical work going on, and it is still being discussed whether or not it represents fining or something else, but Wagner states that it shows a hearth similar to the traditional Chinese fining hearths.

[edit] Emperors

[edit] Crespigny's Book

de Crespigny, Rafe. (2007). A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD). Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. ISBN 9004156054.

[edit] Emperor Guangwu

• Page 557-558: Emperor Guangwu was born as Liu You on January 13, 5 BC, in Jiyang County, Chenliu, Nanyang Commandery, where his father Liu Qin was the local magistrate.