sentence-transformers/squad huggingface dataset:
Passage: 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?

Question: What army was based near the capital?

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

Question: How many regiments were in the Northern Army?

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

Question: Who closed the government mint?

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What was the mass of the wuzhu coin?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What was mostly missing during the Eastern Han?

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

Question: What office did Emperor Ming create?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What methodology allowed the production of new agricultural tools?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

Question: What was the name of the Grain Intendant?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What building material were tomb chambers constructed with?

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

Question: What type of system used ceramic water pipes?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Question: What was used to separate parts of grain?

Question: What use did the odometer cart provide?
Passage: 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?

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

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

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

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

Question: In what year was the seismometer first invented?

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

Question: What invention included an inverted pendulum?

Question: What was exchanged from mouth to mouth in the usage of the seismometer?
Passage: Three Han mathematical treatises still exist. These are the Book on Numbers and Computation, the Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. Han-era mathematical achievements include solving problems with right-angle triangles, square roots, cube roots, and matrix methods, finding more accurate approximations for pi, providing mathematical proof of the Pythagorean theorem, use of the decimal fraction, Gaussian elimination to solve linear equations, and continued fractions to find the roots of equations.

Question: What type of treatise is the Book on Numbers and Computation considered to be?

Question: How many mathematical treatises have still managed to survive to this day?

Question: What achievement of the Han era can be used to help solve linear equations?

Question: During what era was the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art from?

Question: What can be used to help find the roots of equations?
Passage: One of the Han's greatest mathematical advancements was the world's first use of negative numbers. Negative numbers first appeared in the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art as black counting rods, where positive numbers were represented by red counting rods. Negative numbers are used in the Bakhshali manuscript of ancient India, but its exact date of compilation is unknown. Negative numbers were also used by the Greek mathematician Diophantus in about 275 AD, but were not widely accepted in Europe until the 16th century AD.

Question: In what treatise did negative numbers first appear?

Question: How were negative numbers first described during the Han period?

Question: In what century were negative numbers more commonly accepted in Europe?

Question: What Indian manuscript also contains the useage of negative numbers?

Question: What were positive numbers portayed as in the treatise of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art?
Passage: Han-era astronomers adopted a geocentric model of the universe, theorizing that it was shaped like a sphere surrounding the earth in the center. They assumed that the Sun, Moon, and planets were spherical and not disc-shaped. They also thought that the illumination of the Moon and planets was caused by sunlight, that lunar eclipses occurred when the Earth obstructed sunlight falling onto the Moon, and that a solar eclipse occurred when the Moon obstructed sunlight from reaching the Earth. Although others disagreed with his model, Wang Chong accurately described the water cycle of the evaporation of water into clouds.

Question: In what era was a geocentric view of the universe adopted?

Question: Who was able to describe the process of evaporation?

Question: What object was assumed to block sunlight during a lunar eclipse?

Question: What did astronomers believe the shape of the Sun to be during this era?

Question: What did astronomers during this area believe to be the center of the universe?
Passage: Evidence found in Chinese literature, and archaeological evidence, show that cartography existed in China before the Han. Some of the earliest Han maps discovered were ink-penned silk maps found amongst the Mawangdui Silk Texts in a 2nd-century-BC tomb. The general Ma Yuan created the world's first known raised-relief map from rice in the 1st century AD. This date could be revised if the tomb of Qin Shi Huang is excavated and the account in the Records of the Grand Historian concerning a model map of the empire is proven to be true.

Question: What textile were some of the early Han maps made from?

Question: In what type of building were silken maps found?

Question: Which individual created the very first raised relief map?

Question: What food stable was the first raised relief map created from?
Passage: The Han-era Chinese sailed in a variety of ships differing from those of previous eras, such as the tower ship. The junk design was developed and realized during Han. Junks featured a square-ended bow and stern, a flat-bottomed hull or carvel-shaped hull with no keel or sternpost, and solid transverse bulkheads in the place of structural ribs found in Western vessels. Moreover, Han ships were the first in the world to be steered using a rudder at the stern, in contrast to the simpler steering oar used for riverine transport, allowing them to sail on the high seas.

Question: What type of boat design was first invented during the Han era?

Question: In what areas were Han ships able to be sailed in part due to the stern rudder?

Question: What ship design contained a flat-bottomed hull?

Question: What type of transport was the steering oar most likely to be used during?
Passage: Han-era medical physicians believed that the human body was subject to the same forces of nature that governed the greater universe, namely the cosmological cycles of yin and yang and the five phases. Each organ of the body was associated with a particular phase. Illness was viewed as a sign that qi or "vital energy" channels leading to a certain organ had been disrupted. Thus, Han-era physicians prescribed medicine that was believed to counteract this imbalance. For example, since the wood phase was believed to promote the fire phase, medicinal ingredients associated with the wood phase could be used to heal an organ associated with the fire phase. To this end, the physician Zhang Zhongjing (c. 150–c. 219 AD) prescribed regulated diets rich in certain foods that were thought to cure specific illnesses. These are now known to be nutrition disorders caused by the lack of certain vitamins consumed in one's diet. Besides dieting, Han physicians also prescribed moxibustion, acupuncture, and calisthenics as methods of maintaining one's health. When surgery was performed by the physician Hua Tuo (d. 208 AD), he used anesthesia to numb his patients' pain and prescribed a rubbing ointment that allegedly sped the process of healing surgical wounds.

Question: Who believed that the same forces that controlled the universe also controlled the human body?

Question: What was used during surgery to relieve patients of their pain?

Question: What profession was the individual Zhang Zhongjing involved in?

Question: How did Zhang Zhongjing attempt to cure various illnesses?

Question: When did Hua Tuo die?
Passage: Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people have always been centered around the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople at various periods.

Question: Which two seas have been most central to Greek history?

Question: During which prehistoric age was the Greek language invented?

Question: Which city in modern Turkey was once a major center of Greek culture?

Question: Which area of North Africa has hosted Greek communities in the past?

Question: What eleventh century empire had roughly the same extent as ancient Greece's?

Question: Where are Greek States believed to have been settled ?

Question: Which two bodies of water are believed to be central to the establishment of the Greek society ?

Question: When was the emergence of the Greek spoken dialect believed to have started ?

Question: What other culture did the Greek states share boarders with ?

Question: Where have the centers of culture been located for the Grecian world historically ?