Han Dynasty

• Dates: 206 BCE - 220 CE
• Chinese/Japanese: 漢 (Hàn / Kan)

The Han Dynasty was the first of China's Confucianist dynasties, and after the very short-lived Qin Dynasty (221-206 BCE) represents the beginning of the period of Imperial China.

Along with the Tang and Ming Dynasties, the Han is commonly seen as representing the "true" Chinese culture and history, and as representing, in some respects, the source or origin of certain aspects of Chinese culture. That the word "Han" is still today often used in Chinese, Japanese, and elsewhere in the region to refer to China or Chinese culture suggests the significant position of the Han Dynasty in the collective memory. Some examples include the use of the term "Han people" to refer to the core/majority Chinese ethnicity (in contrast to those of Manchu, Mongol, Tibetan, Hmong, or other ethnic backgrounds), and the terms hànzi (J: kanji, K: hanja, "Chinese characters") and hàn yǔ ("Chinese language").

History

In the early years of the Han Dynasty, the Imperial Court only wielded direct control over the western portions of the empire, which it divided into commanderies (郡, jùn). The eastern portions of the empire were still, initially, controlled by separate lords who had allied themselves with the Han, or submitted to Han authority. This somewhat feudal situation gradually shifted as the Emperor began appointing his brothers, sons, cousins, and uncles to be lords of those domains, thus bringing those territories eventually under the centralized control.

The Han empire at its greatest extent covered all of central and nearly all of southern China, reaching beyond Hanoi in the south, and Lelang (parts of northern Korea) in the east, with a narrow arm running west along the Silk Road, as far as Kashgar. Some of the only major areas controlled by the People's Republic of China today not controlled by the Han Dynasty include a considerable area in the west and southwest (roughly, Qinghai province and Tibet), a portion of the eastern coast around Fujian or Zhejiang province, the island of Hainan, and Manchuria in the northeast.

Though the first emperor of the dynasty, Emperor Gaozu of Han, is said to have despised Confucianism, his successors gradually adopted it. By 135 BCE, the Confucian classics became the foundation for the training and guiding political philosophy of all scholar-bureaucrats, with a bureaucratic system of administration gradually coming into place which would serve as the basis for governmental administration of all later dynasties, down into the early 20th century. Concepts such as the Mandate of Heaven were also adopted, and incorporated into the cosmological and political philosophical beliefs of the regime.

References

• Albert M. Craig, The Heritage of Chinese Civilization, Third Edition, Prentice Hall (2011), 34-35.