As a Legalist, Qin Shihuangdi ruled harshly, and a few years after his death, the soldiers and peasants overthrew the Qin dynasty. This marked the beginning of the creative and the scientific Han dynasty, whose rulers were in power from 206 B.C. to A.D. 220. Confucianism became popular again as the han dynasty combined a strong ruler and strict law ideas of Legalism with the Confucian ideas of ruling with good example and not with punishment. Although the ideas of Legalism and Confucianism may seem opposite, the rulers of the Han dynasty understood Yin and Yang, the idea that opposites depend on each other, and that like day and night, opposites take turn.
How did the Han
dynasty and Qin Governments
differ?Daily Life in the Empire
Much like today of the Han Chinese people were farmers. Han framers worked the fields together an lived in mud houses arranged in villages. Wealthy farmers had strong oxen to pull their carts and iron-tipped plows, and they watered their fields using simple machines. Poor farmers had no oxen, used wooden hand tools, and watered their fields by carrying buckets of water. Farmers in the north ate wheat and millet, while framers in the south ate rice. They cooked their meals in boxlike stove or steamed it over boiling water.
Rich and poor lived in the cities, which were centers of government, education, trade, and entertainment. The poor lived in houses that were close together. The rich lived in huge houses that were decorated with rugs and draperies.
How were the
lives of China's wealthy farmers different from the
lives of poor farmers?
New Terms:
Middleman = a trader who buys from one and sells to another
seismograph = an instrument for detecting and determining the
direction, strength, and length of earthquakes and
other ground movements
Achievements of the Han Dynasty
The Han dynasty marked the beginning of expansion and creativity. Emperor Wudi's armies expanded the empire by capturing lands to the south and crossing the Great Wall to the north. In 139 B.C., Wudi sent out the explorer Zhang Qian. He returned 10 years later with tales of Western riches and wonder. It was China's first hint that a civilized world lay beyond its borders, and it was the beginning of the trade route known as the Silk Road.
Han rulers kept their lands closed tho outsiders. To do this, they used middlemen from neighboring countries to do their trading with other countries. They kept their achievements secret, such as the inventions of the seismograph, paper, and the medical practice of acupuncture. During the Han dynasty, Chinese engineers developed salt mining, and Chinese artisans worked with bronze and gold and they glazed pottery. Han dynasty writers wrote books on mathematics, medicine, poetry, history, and assembled the first Chinese dictionary.
What were some of
China's greatest achievements?