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5 results

  • 12 - The religious and intellectual background

  • Edited by Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 December 1986, pp 649-725

  • Summary

    Many studies of Chinese thought tend to concentrate on the growth of what are regarded as the three major schools of Confucianism, Legalism, and Taoism. These terms should be used with care, particularly for the four centuries of Ch'in and Han, when major developments were taking place. Some Ch'in and Han thinkers laid deep stress on the need to organize the life and work of mankind by means of sanctions and institutions, with the specific intention of enriching and strengthening the state. Chinese mythology alludes to the emergence and work of culture heroes. The peoples of the Ch'in and Han age inherited from their forbears the worship of a number of deities. The relationship between Buddhism and Taoist religion came to be complex. The importance of music had been recognized by the designation of one text as the Yueh-ching, now long lost.

  • 1 - The state and empire of Ch'in

  • Edited by Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 December 1986, pp 20-102

  • Summary

    Ch'in long existed as a small state or principality and then as a major dynasty and empire. The Chinese world became divided into a multitude of political entities; some 170 are believed to have existed during the Chou subperiod known as the Spring and Autumn period. Both non-Marxist and Marxist historians have been exercised over the appropriate use of the term feudalism. The improvement in agriculture was probably accompanied by a growth of population, despite the simultaneous intensification of warfare. In Ch'in and several contemporary principalities, the political changes just noted were accompanied by an evolution toward more sophisticated institutions and organs of central government. The Ch'in empire is regarded as the supreme embodiment of the ideas and techniques known as Legalism. Shang Yang had been chancellor in Ch'in, and Shen Pu-hai had been chancellor in the much smaller neighboring state of Hann.

  • 2 - The Former Han dynasty

  • Edited by Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 December 1986, pp 103-222

  • Summary

    The Han dynasty bequeathed to China an ideal and a concept of empire that survived basically intact for two thousand years. Modernist policies derived from the unification of China by Ch'in and the operation of imperial government under the principles of Shang Yang, Shen Pu-hai, and Han Fei. The first century of the Han empire witnessed the implementation, modification, or extension of these policies in a number of ways. The imperial institutions and intellectual framework of the Han empire were evolved and modified as a result of controversy, violence, or rebellion. Ch'en She and Wu Kuang are named as the two men who were the first to challenge the authority of the Ch'in empire. The major difference between the systems of government of Ch'in and Han lay in the organization of the provinces. During the last fifty years of the Former Han period, foreign policy was marked at times by a refusal to engage potential enemies.

  • 13 - The concept of sovereignty

  • Edited by Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 December 1986, pp 726-746

  • Summary

    One of the principal legacies that the Han dynasty bequeathed to its successors was the demonstration that imperial sovereignty was a respectable means of government which statesmen could serve with loyalty and with due deference to the ethical ideals on which they had been nurtured. The establishment of the Ch'in empire as the sole effective political authority that could expect to command obedience was an innovation in political practice. One of the earliest contributions to political theory to be written during the Han period is the Hsin-yii of Lu Chia. According to Lu Chia, Ch'in's failure had been due to its excessive application of punishments, its arrogance, and its extravagance. Wang Ch'ung could hardly be expected to agree that Heaven is willing to interfere in the affairs of man to the extent of specifically conferring authority to rule on a particular dynastic house.

  • 10 - The economic and social history of Former Han

  • Edited by Denis Twitchett, Michael Loewe
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of China
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 December 1986, pp 545-607

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses social and economic conditions in China under the Han dynasty when the unified, centralized state that had been achieved by the short-lived Ch'in empire was consolidated into a permanent form which lasted-allowing only for the short break caused by the Hsin dynasty of Wang Mang, for some four centuries. The succeeding Han empire inherited the results of the social, economic, and administrative changes which had taken place over the preceding centuries. The Han founder Liu Pang, Kao-ti, was of peasant origins, having been born and brought up in Chung-yang li of Feng-i in P'ei-hsien. From the point of view of agriculture, the country may be divided into two main regions, north and south China, separated by the eastward-flowing Huai River and in the west by the Ch'in-ling Mountains. During the Han dynasty, agriculture along the Yangtze was greatly inferior in productivity to that of north China.