preview

Causes Of The Han Dynasty

Good Essays

Empires rise and they fall, Dynasties come and they go. “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.” This quotation in Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms best represents the cyclical nature of the dynasties in China. The Han Empire was no exception; Corruption plagued the Han Dynasty, inevitably leading to its demise. Within the court certain families held excessive powers, this influence lead to be just as great as the eunuchs and eventually diminishing the authority of the Emperor. On top of this the peasants suffered from natural disasters that befell upon the empire which was a catalyst for a large scale uprising. The rebellion led to a weaker central government allowing military leaders and local warlords to rise in power. As such the internal struggle between the eunuchs and government officials played a large role in the fall of the Han ruled empire, but this was not the sole reason. There were other crucial factors that contributed to the fall such as, family clans gathering power, natural disasters and decentralisation.

The Han dynasty was the longest imperial dynasty, which lasted around 400 years after the collapse of the Qin Dynasty. The dynasty began with a struggle between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu which saw Liu Bang, a man of lower social status winning and reuniting the land in 206 BCE (Qian, S. 1971). During the course of the Han dynasty there were technological and cultural advancements but in the later

Get Access