praj-17/QA-MCQ-Open-ended huggingface dataset:
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: In Han government, the emperor was the supreme judge and lawgiver, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and sole designator of official nominees appointed to the top posts in central and local administrations; those who earned a 600-dan salary-rank or higher. Theoretically, there were no limits to his power. However, state organs with competing interests and institutions such as the court conference (tingyi 廷議)—where ministers were convened to reach majority consensus on an issue—pressured the emperor to accept the advice of his ministers on policy decisions. If the emperor rejected a court conference decision, he risked alienating his high ministers. Nevertheless, emperors sometimes did reject the majority opinion reached at court conferences.

question: Who was responsible for nominations of local administrators in the government? 

answer: the emperor

question: Was the emperor able to reject an opinion that was made by the court conference? 

answer: sometimes did reject the majority opinion

question: What did the emperor risk if he did not accept the decisions of the court conference? 

answer: alienating his high ministers

question: Who often placed pressure on the emperor in regards to local policies? 

answer: court conference

question: Who was considered to be the supreme judge in Han government? 

answer: the emperor
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Ranked below the Three Councillors of State were the Nine Ministers, who each headed a specialized ministry. The Minister of Ceremonies was the chief official in charge of religious rites, rituals, prayers and the maintenance of ancestral temples and altars. The Minister of the Household was in charge of the emperor's security within the palace grounds, external imperial parks and wherever the emperor made an outing by chariot. The Minister of the Guards was responsible for securing and patrolling the walls, towers, and gates of the imperial palaces. The Minister Coachman was responsible for the maintenance of imperial stables, horses, carriages and coach-houses for the emperor and his palace attendants, as well as the supply of horses for the armed forces. The Minister of Justice was the chief official in charge of upholding, administering, and interpreting the law. The Minister Herald was the chief official in charge of receiving honored guests at the imperial court, such as nobles and foreign ambassadors. The Minister of the Imperial Clan oversaw the imperial court's interactions with the empire's nobility and extended imperial family, such as granting fiefs and titles. The Minister of Finance was the treasurer for the official bureaucracy and the armed forces who handled tax revenues and set standards for units of measurement. The Minister Steward served the emperor exclusively, providing him with entertainment and amusements, proper food and clothing, medicine and physical care, valuables and equipment.

question: Which individual had a duty to maintain the imperial stables? 

answer: The Minister Coachman

question: Which Minister had the responsibility to interpret laws in this period? 

answer: The Minister of Justice

question: Which Minister could an honored guest of the court be expected to see? 

answer: The Minister Herald

question: Who provided  the emperor with sustenance and medical aid? 

answer: The Minister Steward

question: Which individual held the responsibility to oversee the interactions of the empire's nobles with the court? 

answer: The Minister of the Imperial Clan
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: A commandery consisted of a group of counties, and was headed by an Administrator. He was the top civil and military leader of the commandery and handled defense, lawsuits, seasonal instructions to farmers and recommendations of nominees for office sent annually to the capital in a quota system first established by Emperor Wu. The head of a large county of about 10,000 households was called a Prefect, while the heads of smaller counties were called Chiefs, and both could be referred to as Magistrates. A Magistrate maintained law and order in his county, registered the populace for taxation, mobilized commoners for annual corvée duties, repaired schools and supervised public works.

question: What individual was typically in charge of a commandery? 

answer: an Administrator

question: Around how many households was a Prefect responsible for? 

answer: 10,000

question: What individual was responsible for law and maintaining order in the county? 

answer: A Magistrate

question: What Emperor initially created the quota system? 

answer: Emperor Wu

question: Who was in charge of counties that had fewer than 10,000 people in them? 

answer: Chiefs
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: At the beginning of the Han dynasty, every male commoner aged twenty-three was liable for conscription into the military. The minimum age for the military draft was reduced to twenty after Emperor Zhao's (r. 87–74 BC) reign. Conscripted soldiers underwent one year of training and one year of service as non-professional soldiers. The year of training was served in one of three branches of the armed forces: infantry, cavalry or navy. The year of active service was served either on the frontier, in a king's court or under the Minister of the Guards in the capital. A small professional (paid) standing army was stationed near the capital.

question: What gender was expected to be conscripted into the military? 

answer: male

question: At what age could a male common expect to be conscripted into the military? 

answer: twenty-three

question: How long could a conscripted soldier expect to be in training for? 

answer: one year

question: What was the lowest age a soldier could be conscripted after the end of Emperor Zhao's tenure? 

answer: twenty

question: Which Minister could a conscripted soldier expect to serve under during his year of service? 

answer: Minister of the Guards
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: During the Eastern Han, conscription could be avoided if one paid a commutable tax. The Eastern Han court favored the recruitment of a volunteer army. The volunteer army comprised the Southern Army (Nanjun 南軍), while the standing army stationed in and near the capital was the Northern Army (Beijun 北軍). Led by Colonels (Xiaowei 校尉), the Northern Army consisted of five regiments, each composed of several thousand soldiers. When central authority collapsed after 189 AD, wealthy landowners, members of the aristocracy/nobility, and regional military-governors relied upon their retainers to act as their own personal troops (buqu 部曲).

question: How could conscription into military service be avoided? 

answer: one paid a commutable tax

question: What army was based near the capital? 

answer: Northern Army

question: What army was considered to be the volunteer army? 

answer: Southern Army

question: How many regiments were in the Northern Army? 

answer: five

question: Around how many soldiers were in each regiment of the Northern Army? 

answer: several thousand soldiers
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: The Han dynasty inherited the ban liang coin type from the Qin. In the beginning of the Han, Emperor Gaozu closed the government mint in favor of private minting of coins. This decision was reversed in 186 BC by his widow Grand Empress Dowager Lü Zhi (d. 180 BC), who abolished private minting. In 182 BC, Lü Zhi issued a bronze coin that was much lighter in weight than previous coins. This caused widespread inflation that was not reduced until 175 BC when Emperor Wen allowed private minters to manufacture coins that were precisely 2.6 g (0.09 oz) in weight.

question: Where did the Han dynasty receive their coin type from? 

answer: the Qin

question: Who closed the government mint? 

answer: Emperor Gaozu

question: In what year was the decision reversing the closure of the government mint implemented? 

answer: 186 BC

question: Who released new lighter coinage that caused significant amounts of inflation because of it's weight? 

answer: Lü Zhi

question: In what year were private manufactures allowed to create coins that were exactly 2.6g in mass? 

answer: 175 BC
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: In 144 BC Emperor Jing abolished private minting in favor of central-government and commandery-level minting; he also introduced a new coin. Emperor Wu introduced another in 120 BC, but a year later he abandoned the ban liangs entirely in favor of the wuzhu (五銖) coin, weighing 3.2 g (0.11 oz). The wuzhu became China's standard coin until the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Its use was interrupted briefly by several new currencies introduced during Wang Mang's regime until it was reinstated in 40 AD by Emperor Guangwu.

question: What coin replaced the ban liangs after only a year of distribution? 

answer: wuzhu

question: Who introduced new coinage in the year of 120 BC? 

answer: Emperor Wu

question: During what dynasty did the wuzhu stop being the standard coin? 

answer: Tang dynasty

question: What was the mass of the wuzhu coin? 

answer: 3.2 g

question: What interrupted the use of the wuzhu coin during the reign of Wang Mang? 

answer: several new currencies
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: The small landowner-cultivators formed the majority of the Han tax base; this revenue was threatened during the latter half of Eastern Han when many peasants fell into debt and were forced to work as farming tenants for wealthy landlords. The Han government enacted reforms in order to keep small landowner-cultivators out of debt and on their own farms. These reforms included reducing taxes, temporary remissions of taxes, granting loans and providing landless peasants temporary lodging and work in agricultural colonies until they could recover from their debts.

question: Which group made up the bulk of the Han tax base? 

answer: landowner-cultivators

question: Who made reductions in the taxes that landowner-cultivators were forced to pay? 

answer: The Han government

question: During what period did a large number of peasants incur debt? 

answer: Eastern Han

question: What type of housing did the Han government provide to landless indebted peasants? 

answer: temporary

question: What did the Han government do to help out smaller landowners? 

answer: enacted reforms
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: In the early Western Han, a wealthy salt or iron industrialist, whether a semi-autonomous king or wealthy merchant, could boast funds that rivaled the imperial treasury and amass a peasant workforce of over a thousand. This kept many peasants away from their farms and denied the government a significant portion of its land tax revenue. To eliminate the influence of such private entrepreneurs, Emperor Wu nationalized the salt and iron industries in 117 BC and allowed many of the former industrialists to become officials administering the monopolies. By Eastern Han times, the central government monopolies were repealed in favor of production by commandery and county administrations, as well as private businessmen.

question: In which year did Emperor Wu monopolize several industries? 

answer: 117 BC

question: Who allowed industrialists to become officials in the newly state sanctioned industries? 

answer: Emperor Wu

question: During what period did the governmental monopolies become privatized once again? 

answer: Eastern Han

question: What did Emperor Wu do to negate the influence of private entrepreneurs? 

answer: nationalized the salt and iron industries

question: During what era could a wealthy iron industrialist be able to rival the treasury in funds? 

answer: Western Han
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Liquor was another profitable private industry nationalized by the central government in 98 BC. However, this was repealed in 81 BC and a property tax rate of two coins for every 0.2 L (0.05 gallons) was levied for those who traded it privately. By 110 BC Emperor Wu also interfered with the profitable trade in grain when he eliminated speculation by selling government-stored grain at a lower price than demanded by merchants. Apart from Emperor Ming's creation of a short-lived Office for Price Adjustment and Stabilization, which was abolished in 68 AD, central-government price control regulations were largely absent during the Eastern Han.

question: What industry was monopolized by the government in 98 BC? 

answer: Liquor

question: In what year did the liquor industry once again become privatized? 

answer: 81 BC

question: What was mostly missing during the Eastern Han? 

answer: price control regulations

question: What did Emperor Wu sell that offended the merchants? 

answer: grain

question: What office did Emperor Ming create? 

answer: Office for Price Adjustment and Stabilization
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Evidence suggests that blast furnaces, that convert raw iron ore into pig iron, which can be remelted in a cupola furnace to produce cast iron by means of a cold blast and hot blast, were operational in China by the late Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC). The bloomery was nonexistent in ancient China; however, the Han-era Chinese produced wrought iron by injecting excess oxygen into a furnace and causing decarburization. Cast iron and pig iron could be converted into wrought iron and steel using a fining process.

question: What type of furnace was functional in China in 722 BC? 

answer: blast

question: What element was used in the production of wrought iron? 

answer: oxygen

question: What type of iron could pig iron be converted into? 

answer: wrought

question: What type of process was used to convert various metals into steel? 

answer: fining

question: What can iron ore be converted into in a blast furnace? 

answer: pig iron
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: The Han-era Chinese used bronze and iron to make a range of weapons, culinary tools, carpenters' tools and domestic wares. A significant product of these improved iron-smelting techniques was the manufacture of new agricultural tools. The three-legged iron seed drill, invented by the 2nd century BC, enabled farmers to carefully plant crops in rows instead of casting seeds out by hand. The heavy moldboard iron plow, also invented during the Han dynasty, required only one man to control it, two oxen to pull it. It had three plowshares, a seed box for the drills, a tool which turned down the soil and could sow roughly 45,730 m2 (11.3 acres) of land in a single day.

question: What was an invention that allowed farmers to place their crops into rows? 

answer: The three-legged iron seed drill

question: How many animals were neccessary to pull an iron plow? 

answer: two oxen

question: How many acres of land could succesfully be sowed with a seed box in a day? 

answer: 11.3 acres

question: How many persons were necessary to operate an iron plow? 

answer: one man

question: What methodology allowed the production of new agricultural tools? 

answer: improved iron-smelting techniques
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: To protect crops from wind and drought, the Grain Intendant Zhao Guo (趙過) created the alternating fields system (daitianfa 代田法) during Emperor Wu's reign. This system switched the positions of furrows and ridges between growing seasons. Once experiments with this system yielded successful results, the government officially sponsored it and encouraged peasants to use it. Han farmers also used the pit field system (aotian 凹田) for growing crops, which involved heavily fertilized pits that did not require plows or oxen and could be placed on sloping terrain. In southern and small parts of central Han-era China, paddy fields were chiefly used to grow rice, while farmers along the Huai River used transplantation methods of rice production.

question: What helped insure the safety of crops from wind? 

answer: the alternating fields system

question: What was the name of the system that for growing crops that did not require plows? 

answer: pit field system

question: What were paddy fields used for primarily to grow in smaller areas? 

answer: rice

question: What system did the government recommend the usage of? 

answer: alternating fields system

question: What was the name of the Grain Intendant? 

answer: Zhao Guo
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Timber was the chief building material during the Han dynasty; it was used to build palace halls, multi-story residential towers and halls and single-story houses. Because wood decays rapidly, the only remaining evidence of Han wooden architecture is a collection of scattered ceramic roof tiles. The oldest surviving wooden halls in China date to the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Architectural historian Robert L. Thorp points out the scarcity of Han-era archaeological remains, and claims that often unreliable Han-era literary and artistic sources are used by historians for clues about lost Han architecture.

question: What building material was used primarily during the Han dynasty? 

answer: Timber

question: What dynasty can the oldest wooden buildings in China be dated to? 

answer: Tang

question: What is considered to be the last year of the Tang dynasty? 

answer: 907 AD

question: What type of object is the only evidence of Han's wooden constructions? 

answer: ceramic roof tiles

question: What was the primary component of a palace hall during the Han dynasty? 

answer: Timber
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Though Han wooden structures decayed, some Han-dynasty ruins made of brick, stone, and rammed earth remain intact. This includes stone pillar-gates, brick tomb chambers, rammed-earth city walls, rammed-earth and brick beacon towers, rammed-earth sections of the Great Wall, rammed-earth platforms where elevated halls once stood, and two rammed-earth castles in Gansu. The ruins of rammed-earth walls that once surrounded the capitals Chang'an and Luoyang still stand, along with their drainage systems of brick arches, ditches, and ceramic water pipes. Monumental stone pillar-gates, twenty-nine of which survive from the Han period, formed entrances of walled enclosures at shrine and tomb sites. These pillars feature artistic imitations of wooden and ceramic building components such as roof tiles, eaves, and balustrades.

question: How many stone pillar-gates survive from the Han era? 

answer: twenty-nine

question: What architectural feature contained an imitation of a balustrade? 

answer: stone pillar-gates

question: What building material were tomb chambers constructed with? 

answer: brick

question: What were the walls that encompassed the city of Luoyang comprised of? 

answer: rammed-earth

question: What type of system used ceramic water pipes? 

answer: drainage systems
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Evidence of Han-era mechanical engineering comes largely from the choice observational writings of sometimes disinterested Confucian scholars. Professional artisan-engineers (jiang 匠) did not leave behind detailed records of their work. Han scholars, who often had little or no expertise in mechanical engineering, sometimes provided insufficient information on the various technologies they described. Nevertheless, some Han literary sources provide crucial information. For example, in 15 BC the philosopher Yang Xiong described the invention of the belt drive for a quilling machine, which was of great importance to early textile manufacturing. The inventions of the artisan-engineer Ding Huan (丁緩) are mentioned in the Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Capital. Around 180 AD, Ding created a manually operated rotary fan used for air conditioning within palace buildings. Ding also used gimbals as pivotal supports for one of his incense burners and invented the world's first known zoetrope lamp.

question: What type of scholars have provided proof that mechanical engineering was prominent during the Han period? 

answer: Confucian

question: Which philosopher described the invention of a belt drive? 

answer: Yang Xiong

question: Which engineer was responsible for first inventing the zoetrope lamp? 

answer: Ding Huan

question: What can be used as a support structure in incense burners? 

answer: gimbals

question: What type of invention was used to provide air conditioning for the palace buildings? 

answer: rotary fan
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: Modern archaeology has led to the discovery of Han artwork portraying inventions which were otherwise absent in Han literary sources. As observed in Han miniature tomb models, but not in literary sources, the crank handle was used to operate the fans of winnowing machines that separated grain from chaff. The odometer cart, invented during Han, measured journey lengths, using mechanical figures banging drums and gongs to indicate each distance traveled. This invention is depicted in Han artwork by the 2nd century AD, yet detailed written descriptions were not offered until the 3rd century AD. Modern archaeologists have also unearthed specimens of devices used during the Han dynasty, for example a pair of sliding metal calipers used by craftsmen for making minute measurements. These calipers contain inscriptions of the exact day and year they were manufactured. These tools are not mentioned in any Han literary sources.

question: During which period was the odometer cart first created? 

answer: Han

question: What item was used to make very small measurements during this era? 

answer: sliding metal calipers

question: What has allowed us to discover long lost inventions of the Han era? 

answer: artwork

question: What was used to separate parts of grain? 

answer: winnowing machines

question: What use did the odometer cart provide? 

answer: measured journey lengths
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: The waterwheel appeared in Chinese records during the Han. As mentioned by Huan Tan in about 20 AD, they were used to turn gears that lifted iron trip hammers, and were used in pounding, threshing and polishing grain. However, there is no sufficient evidence for the watermill in China until about the 5th century. The Nanyang Commandery Administrator Du Shi (d. 38 AD) created a waterwheel-powered reciprocator that worked the bellows for the smelting of iron. Waterwheels were also used to power chain pumps that lifted water to raised irrigation ditches. The chain pump was first mentioned in China by the philosopher Wang Chong in his 1st-century-AD Balanced Discourse.

question: What was used to power chain pumps to raise water to irrigation ditches? 

answer: Waterwheels

question: What commandery was the creator of the waterwheel-powered reciprocator from? 

answer: Nanyang

question: Who was the author of the essay entitled Balance Discourse? 

answer: Wang Chong

question: During what century is it likely that the watermill made an appearance in China? 

answer: about the 5th century

question: During what era did the waterwheel first appear in recordings? 

answer: Han
Title: Han_dynasty
Context: The armillary sphere, a three-dimensional representation of the movements in the celestial sphere, was invented in Han China by the 1st century BC. Using a water clock, waterwheel and a series of gears, the Court Astronomer Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) was able to mechanically rotate his metal-ringed armillary sphere. To address the problem of slowed timekeeping in the pressure head of the inflow water clock, Zhang was the first in China to install an additional tank between the reservoir and inflow vessel. Zhang also invented a seismometer (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪) in 132 AD to detect the exact cardinal or ordinal direction of earthquakes from hundreds of kilometers away. This employed an inverted pendulum that, when disturbed by ground tremors, would trigger a set of gears that dropped a metal ball from one of eight dragon mouths (representing all eight directions) into a metal toad's mouth.

question: Who was responsible for the invention of the seismometer? 

answer: Zhang Heng

question: In what year was the seismometer first invented? 

answer: 132 AD

question: How many dragons were represented in Zhang Heng's invention of the seismometer? 

answer: eight

question: What invention included an inverted pendulum? 

answer: seismometer

question: What was exchanged from mouth to mouth in the usage of the seismometer? 

answer: metal ball