LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Han Dynasty
built 651 days ago
The Han Dynasty has truly been a glorious time for Chinese people, and the development of their culture. Heroic leaders and great cities have flourished, but like all good things, it has at long last come to an end. In the year 184, the revolt of the Yellow Turbans, a band of rebels 300,000 strong, was crushed only after much bloodshed. A short five years later... palace eunuchs murdered an imperial general and took the emperor hostage. The subsequent massacre of the eunuchs was inevitable, but with their passing the effectiveness of the dynasty was at an end. Finally, the year 220 witnessed the abdication of Xien Di, the last Han emperor.
After three years of civil war in 206 BC the first Han Dynasty was formed under the Gao Di Emperor, Liu Bang. At first he attempted to appease the northern invaders with gifts and increased trade but peace was sporadic. A massive force of the Han army attacked the invaders and forced them back across the northern borders.
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During the four centuries of its history the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD) prepared the ideological soil of China for the main political, economic, social and cultural structures that were to characterize the Chinese world for next two millennia. The Han Empire was China's Imperial Rome and like the Roman Empire there was an initial period of consolidation and then expansionism. The Han rulers inheriting the unified territory of the Qin laid the foundations of a social organization and promoted intellectual inquiries that were to serve as casting molds for allfuture dynasties to come. Not only was the Han Empire a die stamp for the Chinese Civilization but it ... greatly influencedthe entire Far East (Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia and Japan). The Han period was an intellectual renaissance that produced some China's most incredible Bronze and
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The Han Dynasty emerged in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China. Under the Han Dynasty, China made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu consolidated and extended the Chinese empire by pushing back the Xiongnu (sometimes identified with the Huns) into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West.
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The bureaucratic system of the Han Dynasty can be divided into two systems, the central and the local. As for the central bureaucrats in the capital, it was organized into a head cabinet of officials called the Three Lords and Nine Ministers (三公九卿). This cabinet was led by the Chancellor (丞相), who was included as one of the three lords. Officials were graded by rank and salary, were appointed to posts based on the merit of their skills rather than aristocratic clan affiliation, and were subject to dismissal, demotion, and transfer to different administrative regions.[1] The local official during the former Han Dynasty was different from that of the later Han Dynasty. As for the former Han, there were two administered levels, the county (郡) and the xian (縣). In the former Han Dynasty the xian was a subdivision or sub-prefecture of a county.
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The usurpation of Wang Mang [Frederick-Gorman]: The cause of the downfall of the Han Dynasty is to be traced to the ambition of its imperial women. In a country like China, where the separation of the two sexes is a matter of fixed custom, even an empress could not make friends among her husband's ministers. Therefore when power fell into her hands, she knew of no one in whom she could place her confidence except her own people and the eunuchs.
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Han Dynasty