Essay on Traditions of Qin Han, China

With China united, Qin became the first emperor of United China (China) and created the Qin dynasty, surpassing the long-lasting and powerful Zhou dynasty. He then established his own form of government. He removed Feudalism, where the people had to listen to the nobles. Instead, he split his empire into 36 provinces, each one having two government officials

One of the greatest known dynasties in the history of the Chinese culture was the Han Dynasty. The Han Dynasty's primary influences were the teachings of Confucius. The Confucian influences had positive and negative impacts on the Chinese culture throughout the Han Dynasty and beyond.

Two of the earliest empires in Chinese history were the Qin Dynasty (221- 206 BCE) and the Han Dynasty (202 BCE- 220 CE). They both successfully unified the vast nation of China. Both Empires allowed government to not only influence politics, but also economy, philosophy, and social life. The empires ruled China distinctively differently. The Qin was a very fierce and brutal dynasty, while the Han dynasty tried to reduce the repression of the people brought by the Qin Dynasty. They also both used two distinctive government styles, the Qin used Legalism, a style based on based on effective institutional structures, and the Han used Huang-Lao which combined legalism with Daoist and Confucian ideals. While both empires and schools of thought had their strengths and weaknesses, both subsequently fell.

The idea of ruling a powerful government based on the principle of using two conflicting ideologies at the same time appeared foreign to most dynasties of early China. In early Chinese times, after the Period of the Warring States, two ideologies emerged: Legalism and Confucianism. Legalism stressed a strong central government that expressed harsh laws while Confucianism had a decentralized government, placing trust in conscientious and learned individuals to work together to solve political issues. These two schools of thought were in stark contrast to each other and, up until the Han dynasty, had never been combined with each other through government policy. The Qin dynasty, for example implemented a strict Legalist government while the

Previously, during the Zhou dynasty, the feudal system defined social and political order and allowed regionalism to overwhelm the central government. This enabled the empire to disintegrate as feudal lords gained more local power, eventually giving way to the Warring States Era (36-37). The Qin dynasty abolished the feudal system and set up “thirty-six commanderies governed by nonhereditary appointees who were responsible to the central government.” These governors remained loyal to the central government and did not hold enough power to threaten it. Shi Huangdi, with his adviser Li Si, also established a strict Legalist government that ruled China with an iron fist. Thus, with the aristocracy having lost much of its power and commoners now freed from serfdom, the central government imposed the law upon all subjects equally

Legalists are in favor of an authoritarian state that is ruled by force. It claims that the supreme ruler is much more important than the ruled and that individuals must conform to standards of the authority. During the Qin Dynasty, which ruled China from 221 B.C.E. to 207 B.C.E, Qin Shi Huangdi was able to unite China after the Warring States Period by adopting legalism as a ruling philosophy. “Qin Shi Huangdi was a brutal ruler of China, but effective

Additionally, literature was discouraged under Legalism because they were believed as poisons to the mind. The Legalists believed this way because not all the information in books contains the truth. Agriculture and war were promoted on the other hand, because it would carve a rich and powerful empire (Walker 39). Many argue that the harshness of Legalism caused the downfall of the Qin Dynasty. However, it was one of the main reasons by the Qin Dynasty stood as the strongest among the Chinese states and possibly in the world. The reason why is because harsh punishments encouraged good conduct and discipline. When this is brought upon, there will be more room to contribute to society and there will be fewer worries about crimes being committed. In addition, the conduct and discipline was a plus for the military. By doing what they are told, the military can execute their job perfectly. All in all, Legalism flourished the Qin Dynasty; it did not cause it to go downhill.

Qin Shi Huangdi, the first Qin emperor, was a proactive and ambitious emperor who implemented a central bureaucratic system that oversaw the evolution and unification of China at the cost of public sentiment. The Qin Dynasty is considered among the most influential dynasties as it laid the foundation for the massive cultural and economic development of China that took place during the Han Dynasty, but it also failed to achieve many of its pro-commoner ideological goals. In fact, socioeconomic disparity was not alleviated and despite the notion of enriching the lives of the common people, it was under Qin rule in which public resentment of the authoritarian government peaked as there were countless peasant revolts against the iron-handed bureaucratic rule of China. Because a paranoid emperor alone wielded political clout and influence, the tumultuous few years of Qin reign was rife with paranoia and suspicion among the masses. Although the Qin Dynasty is seldom thought as possessing the same glaring discrepancy between ideology and state that the Communist regime in post-World War II China had despite the similarities, the failure of the flawless egalitarian state models in socioeconomic and political aspects during the Qin Dynasty mirrored the developments in early Communist China.

    Emperor Qin inherited his power at the age of thirteen, and faced many adversities. China was split into several states fighting for control of land. Qin eventually unified China through his bloody victories. Many citizens were unfavorable of the emperor and Qin was determined to change this, no matter the lengths he would have to take. In order to secure a long rein, Qin eliminated anything and anyone who posed as a threat. He destroyed books containing poetry, philosophy and history other than historical records about Qin. He also exterminated scholars, philosophers, and anyone who opposed him. The only approved school of thought was legalism: follow the emperor's laws. All these precautions were taken so that his work wouldn’t revert back to the past.

Even though the Qin dynasty was seen as barbaric and brutal, the Han did implement some of the old Qin institutions into their new government. One of these institutions were the Commanderies. These were administrative divisions of land in which a governor would be appointed by the government and run it as the government or emperor wants it to be ran. This is institution is very useful for knowing how many people you have. When war comes and you need to draft able bodied men to go fight, you will know just how many you will be able to get. Another reason would be for tax purposes. It is also very useful to regulate the trade and growing of certain crops. Even more in depth than that the government can control what the children in the commanderies are taught and what propaganda they are seeing. Qin law is another thing that the Han used from the former dynasty. One example of this practice was the fact that women could bring up cases against men even though the women did not have the same rights as men. Punishments were also

The Qin and Han dynasties changed many things regarding how China was governed. Like when Qin Shi Huang standardized the units of measurement, currency, and the width of roads to ease trade within his country, strengthening the unity between areas. Another change is the Han dynasty’s usage of education. They let all boys receive an education to a certain extent, however, if they wanted to further their education more they would have to travel to the capital. One of the several changes Qin Shi Huang changed how dictators controlled China in many ways how he distributed his land and power. Many of the changes he implemented were used by Chinese rulers for over 2000 years, these changes created a lasting effect on how China was ruled. The Qin

Subsequent to the unification, the laws and punishments were harsh due to the different ruling in each of the 7 warring states. Qin Shi Huangdi the first emperor of the Qin dynasty was a dictator, thus, people were discontent. As a result, there were assassination attempts that attributed in his phobia of death and foreigners were banned from the area. To reduce the chances of a rebellion amongst the people, books were burnt restricting their knowledge on other philosophies and “to silence criticism of imperial rule, the kings banished or put to death many dissenting Confucian scholars” (HELLO). Since they did not have free will, the citizens were constantly in fear, this held the empire together, instead of breaking apart into different ruling systems. The Han dynasty also resembles this trait of isolation as expansion did not start immediately.The dynasty had to establish rules and a proper government to rule the people. At the start it was quite successful but there were a few disputes and an attempt to change the royal bloodline. Only when emperor Wudi took throne did expansion move forward. Due to his persistence, he built up their army and defeated the Huns in spite of previous attempts to avoid battles with people outside of China. However, militarism was expensive, causing the taxes to rise and the contentedness of the people to

The unification of China was under the dynasties Qin and Han. There were formed schools of thought called Confucians, Daoists, and Legalists. These school of thoughts worked to bring political and social stability to China during the rule of the late Zhou dynasty which were chaotic years. Legalist principles and imposed centralized imperial rule were adopted by rulers of the Qin and Han dynasties. Political stability was the foundation of economic prosperity for the Han dynasty. There was a search of political and social order, unification of China, and a transition from economic prosperity to social disorder.

Even though the Qin Dynasty deprived the civilization of education, it created a strong bureaucratic system that limited feudal power and developed a cooperative population. Each Warring state followed a different political system, before it was conquered by Qin. The First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, felt it was necessary to legitimize his power to unify the city states and for a cooperative population. In the Qin Dynasty, “the institution of emperor had a special meaning in China as the repository of imperial legitimacy” (Feng 2013, 249). In other words, the first emperor was given the title of being a “mythical ruler” that had godly powers and is the righteous leader of the empire based on the Mandate of Heaven

The Chinese Empire was large and controlled most of Asia at one point in time. One of the dynasties that ruled the empire was the Ming Family. Ruling from 1368-1644, almost three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty impacted Chinese history very much.