page_title: History of the Han dynasty
section_title: Policies under Guangwu, Ming, Zhang, and He
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Han dynasty / Restoration of the Han / Policies under Guangwu, Ming, Zhang, and He
caption_attribution_description: English: An earthenware goose pourer, painted with pigment designs, from the Chinese Western Han Dynasty (202 BC to 9 AD). Cernuschi Museum, Paris, France. Français&#160;: Verseuse en forme d'oie. Terre cuite peinte. "Dans les tombes des Han de l'Ouest, ce type de verseuse en terre cuite et des lampes en métal avaient la forme d'une oie. L'usage de placer auprès du défunt ces objets symbolisant la longévité s'explique par les croyances de la société de l'époque, très préoccupée par les techniques censées permettre d'atteindre l'immortalité. L'oie sauvage s'envole en troupeaux à l'automne pour passer l'hiver au sud. Son retour régulier au printemps et son vol ordonné l'ont associé à l'idée de fiabilité et d'harmonie. Elle est désignée par le mot yan en chinois, homophone du verbe prolonger..."&#160;: notice du Musée Cernuschi, Paris, France. Référence&#160;: Gilles Béghin, "Le petit peuple des tombes", Paris Musées, 2010&#160;; p.34-35. ISBN&#160;978-2-7596-0135-6. Don de la fondation Elf, 1993.
context_page_description: The Han dynasty, founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, was the second imperial dynasty of China. It followed the Qin dynasty, which had unified the Warring States of China by conquest. Interrupted briefly by the Xin dynasty of Wang Mang, the Han dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han and the Eastern Han. These appellations are derived from the locations of the capital cities Chang'an and Luoyang, respectively. The third and final capital of the dynasty was Xuchang, where the court moved in 196 CE during a period of political turmoil and civil war.
  The Han dynasty ruled in an era of Chinese cultural consolidation, political experimentation, relative economic prosperity and maturity, and great technological advances. There was unprecedented territorial expansion and exploration initiated by struggles with non-Chinese peoples, especially the nomadic Xiongnu of the Eurasian Steppe. The Han emperors were initially forced to acknowledge the rival Xiongnu Chanyus as their equals, yet in reality the Han was an inferior partner in a tributary and royal marriage alliance known as heqin.
context_section_description: Scrapping Wang Mang's denominations of currency, Emperor Guangwu reintroduced Western Han's standard five shu coin in 40 CE. Making up for lost revenue after the salt and iron monopolies were canceled, private manufacturers were heavily taxed while the government purchased its armies' swords and shields from private businesses. In 31 CE he allowed peasants to pay a military substitution tax to avoid conscription into the armed forces for a year of training and year of service; instead he built a volunteer force which lasted throughout Eastern Han. He also allowed peasants to avoid the one-month corvée duty with a commutable tax as hired labor became more popular. Wang Mang had demoted all Han marquesses to commoner status, yet Guangwu made an effort from 27 CE onwards to find their relatives and restore abolished marquessates.
  Emperor Ming of Han (r. 57–75 CE, Liu Yang) reestablished the Office for Price Adjustment and Stabilization and the price stabilization system where the government bought grain when cheap and sold it to the public when private commercial prices were high due to limited stocks. However, he canceled the prize stabilization scheme in 68 CE when he became convinced that government hoarding of grain only made wealthy merchants even richer. With the renewed economic prosperity brought about by his father's reign, Emperor Ming addressed the flooding of the Yellow River by repairing various dams and canals. On April 8, 70 CE, an edict boasted that the southern branch of the Yellow River emptying south of the Shandong Peninsula was finally cut off by Han engineering. A patron of scholarship, Emperor Ming also established a school for young nobles aside from the Imperial University.
  Emperor Zhang of Han (r. 75–88 CE, Liu Da) faced an agrarian crisis when a cattle epidemic broke out in 76 CE. In addition to providing disaster relief, Zhang also made reforms to legal procedures and lightened existing punishments with the bastinado, since he believed that this would restore the seasonal balance of yin and yang and cure the epidemic. To further display his benevolence, in 78 CE he ceased the corvée work on canal works of the Hutuo River running through the Taihang Mountains, believing it was causing too much hardship for the people; in 85 CE he granted a three-year poll tax exemption for any woman who gave birth and exempted their husbands for a year. Unlike other Eastern Han rulers who sponsored the New Texts tradition of the Confucian Five Classics, Zhang was a patron of the Old Texts tradition and held scholarly debates on the validity of the schools. Rafe de Crespigny writes that the major reform of the Eastern Han period was Zhang's reintroduction in 85 CE of an amended Sifen calendar, replacing Emperor Wu's Taichu calendar of 104 BCE which had become inaccurate over two centuries (the former measured the tropical year at 365.25 days like the Julian Calendar, while the latter measured the tropical year at 365³⁸⁵⁄₁₅₃₉ days and the lunar month at 29⁴³⁄₈₁ days).
  Emperor He of Han (r. 88–105 CE, Liu Zhao) was tolerant of both New Text and Old Text traditions, though orthodox studies were in decline and works skeptical of New Texts, such as Wang Chong's (27 – c. 100 CE) Lunheng, disillusioned the scholarly community with that tradition. He also showed an interest in history when he commissioned the Lady Ban Zhao (45–116 CE) to use the imperial archives in order to complete the Book of Han, the work of her deceased father and brother. This set an important precedent of imperial control over the recording of history and thus was unlike Sima Qian's far more independent work, the Records of the Grand Historian (109–91 BCE). When plagues of locusts, floods, and earthquakes disrupted the lives of commoners, Emperor He's relief policies were to cut taxes, open granaries, provide government loans, forgive private debts, and resettle people away from disaster areas. Believing that a severe drought in 94 CE was the cosmological result of injustice in the legal system, Emperor He personally inspected prisons. When he found
caption: An earthenware pouring vessel in the shape of a goose, painted with pigment, Western Han Era
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