A History of China (21 page)

Power struggles at court brought still another group, the eunuchs, into prominence. The eunuchs’ original responsibility was supervision of the imperial harem. However, their connections with the emperors led to close relations and eventually to greater imperial trust of and reliance on these castrated males, whose lack of issue meant that they posed no threat to the dynasty. Emperors began to entrust eunuchs with additional duties and responsibilities. Recognizing that whatever power accrued to the eunuchs was based on their patronage, the emperors had more faith in them than they did in the regular bureaucracy. In addition, the eunuchs were more malleable and responsive to the emperors’ wishes than their counterparts among the officials. Their increasing involvement in politics added still another cast of characters to the volatile mixture of interests and groups at court. They often served to counter the growing power of the relatives of the empresses. Thus, by around 100, empresses’ relatives, influential families, the bureaucracy, and eunuchs all competed for authority. Groups that had not specifically been granted decision-making authority began to supersede the designated officials, a trend that could and did lead to abuses.

Court politics in the first and second centuries yield a portrait of conflict, confusion, and corruption. No wonder that instability wracked the Later Han. Some officials exacted inordinately heavy taxes from the peasantry and then pocketed the proceeds. They meted out harsh punishments to even minor offenders or innocents who somehow alienated them. Avaricious eunuchs and relatives of the empresses misappropriated funds meant for state projects and instead used them for their own pursuits and pleasures. Although several officials attempted reforms to curb such excesses and corruption, they were unable to overcome the resistance of those who dominated the government. Repeated protests by officials about the indecisiveness of the emperors, the growth in power of the Secretariat, the insolence and cupidity of the consort families, the purchase of government offices and titles, and the rapaciousness of eunuchs did not lead to change. It was no accident that disorders and rebellions erupted before the middle of the second century. Earthquakes and other natural disasters offered critics opportunities to remonstrate with the later emperors about their lack of will in governing properly and eliminating corruption. Such criticisms had scant discernible effects, as the emperors generally were either manipulated by others or remained above court politics. In 168, the eunuchs consolidated their power by quelling a coup by a leading family. They were so entrenched that they even became military commanders in charge of dealing with domestic insurrections and foreign attacks.

In response to the court corruption and the impoverishment of the peasantry, a “Five Pecks of Rice” movement (consisting of Daoists who annually donated that amount of rice to their religious leaders) arose in Sichuan in opposition to the dynasty. Subsequently, a religious figure named Zhang Jue (d. 184) led uprisings against the dynasty in 184. Within a year, a rebel group known as the Yellow Turbans, whose leader proclaimed himself to be the Son of Heaven, had organized itself. Government forces, with the assistance of mercenaries from north of China, defeated them and the Five Pecks of Rice movement, but other rebel forces arose to challenge the Han. Simultaneously, the Qiang took advantage of the tumult to attack Han positions in northwest China. The Xiongnu and the Xianbei (a new nomadic confederation) joined against the Han to contest territory and towns along the northern frontiers. As the power of the military grew, the eunuchs were undercut. In 189, a coalition of military commanders and influential families surprised the eunuch leaders and killed many at court, a massacre that ended eunuch preeminence and even political involvement at court. Military commanders dominated the remainder of the dynasty. Cao Cao (155–220), the most important of these commanders, gained control over the court and assumed the appellation “King of Wei,” challenging the Han practice of granting the title “king” only to those of imperial blood. For the ensuing two decades he increased the territory under his control, but the empire itself continued to fragment. A weak emperor and court proved to be tantalizing to power-hungry leaders. Thus, shortly after Cao Cao’s death, his son Cao Pi (187–226) compelled the last Han emperor to abdicate and then, like his father, proclaimed himself to be the King of Wei, no doubt with the intention of establishing his own dynasty. Four centuries of Han rule came to an end, and in the next three hundred or so years China splintered into different regions, with no single dynasty able to unify the country. China appeared to revert to circumstances similar to the Warring States period, when numerous rulers struggled to bring the country under one sword.

Traditional interpretations of the Han have attributed its collapse to the eunuchs, the consort families, callow emperors, and manipulative regents. To be sure, each of these groups played a role in the dynasty’s decline. However, larger forces should not be discounted. The power of a few aristocratic families, who often successfully evaded taxation, on occasion undermined the court’s ability to rule and to perform the public works and security tasks required of government. The court’s resulting need for revenue prompted it to impose extraordinary levies on the less potent and more vulnerable segments of the population and to persist in the sale of offices and the ransoming of prisoners – practices initiated during Emperor Wu’s reign. Such policies fueled unrest and led to rebellions such as those organized by the Yellow Turbans, which further enfeebled the dynasty.

Despite its failings, the Later Han experienced some notable successes. In the first century, it had triumphs in foreign relations, particularly in central Asia. The Xiongnu were twice expelled from Silk Roads oases – which they had occupied during the turbulence accompanying Wang Mang’s reign – first in 73 (by Commander Dou Gu, d. 88) and second in 91 (by Commander Ban Chao, 32–102, a member of an illustrious family whose siblings included the historian Ban Gu, 32–92, and the reputed foremost woman scholar of ancient China, Ban Zhao, 45–ca. 116). Han troops then set up colonies in Turfan, Hami, and other gateways to central Asia. With Chinese control or at least influence over these neighboring towns, commerce flourished, and the Silk Roads became ever more traveled. By the middle of the second century, however, the costs of Chinese domination, which included expenses for the formation of military colonies near the frontiers, had mounted up. As the century came to an end and as the Han’s fiscal resources continued to plummet, the dynasty began to abandon its bases. Trade with central Asia and Persia ­diminished.

In addition to the Xiongnu, the Later Han had to contend with the Xianbei, groups who had resided in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia but had started to expel the Xiongnu from Mongolia. By the middle of the second century, a strong and charismatic Xianbei leader had defeated Han troops in several battles. The Xianbei refused to accept a tributary status, partly because their ruler did not wish to be treated as a vassal and partly because he resented limitations on commerce. He wanted direct access to Chinese grain, textiles, pottery, and luxury products. The resulting impasses about diplomatic status and about commerce repeatedly erupted into conflicts. Even after the death of the hostile Xianbei leader, battles between the Xianbei and the Han persisted.

Despite the weak government and the turbulence of the last century of Later Han rule, a few aspects of the economy flourished and social and cultural innovations were not necessarily curtailed. Some merchants and landlords who engaged in trade prospered from commerce, and agriculture too created wealth for the landowning elite, as sizable estates, which employed numerous laborers, were established. Farm workers and landowners fashioned a variety of arrangements, from tenancy to sharecropping. Many landowners attempted, through bribery or other tactics, to prevent their land from being registered on the tax rolls. The landowners also benefited because the court did not impose heavy land taxes. Similarly, peasants profited from the generally light land taxes but were harmed by the poll tax and the demand for corvée labor, both regressive burdens that fell disproportionately on the peasantry. Suffering from such burdens, many peasants required relief from the court in order to survive. For the first century of the Later Han, the court provided grain or waived taxes, but in the last half of the dynasty the government did not have the resources to assist the peasants. Many peasants either starved or were compelled to abandon their lands.

The major philosophical development in the Han was the elite’s adoption of Confucianism as the state cult. As early as the first reign in the Former Han, emperors began to practice Confucian rituals and ceremonies. Some of these rituals predated Confucianism, deriving from the Shang and early Zhou dynasties, but their incorporation into court ceremonies bolstered Confucianism. The Han emperors worshipped Heaven (which was associated with previous dynasties), continued their ancestral cults, and performed sacrifices at such revered sites as Mount Tai. The court also persisted in the divination practices of earlier eras, including scapulimancy and the interpretation of omens. However, it supplemented these rituals with the underlying rational philosophy of Confucianism. The Confucian texts were standardized, and the Confucian virtues were restated. The court prepared a new calendar, an important Confucian responsibility, and a water clock was developed to demarcate the day’s divisions. The emperors mandated, in accordance with Confucian rituals, the use of music and dance at court.

They also emphasized proper funerary practices and continued, like earlier dynasties, to construct elaborate tombs laden with precious bronzes, jades, and textiles, with walls emblazoned with portraits of attendants of the dead, whom they might need in the next life. Perhaps as critical, funerary officials and coffin makers tried to preserve bodies or at least to arrest their disintegration. In several instances, they showed great faith in the restorative powers of jade by encasing corpses in jade suits to prevent natural deterioration. Such efforts did not live up to expectations, but the use of several coffins and additional precautions to ward off environmental influences, notably in the Mawangdui tombs discovered in Changsha in the modern province of Hunan, turned out to be effective. These bodies had not decomposed when they were found two thousand years later.

Naturally, the court’s and the elite’s rituals did not encompass the spiritual activities of ordinary Chinese. Popular cults that sought union with and assistance from ghosts and spirits flourished, as did others that worshipped the Queen Mother of the West. However, without much evidence, knowledge of their practices and beliefs remains limited. Divination and searches for techniques leading to immortality were no doubt features of the practices of ordinary Chinese. Despite repeated criticism of the costs of these rituals, the court, as well as Chinese of relatively modest means, persisted in conducting these ­ceremonies. Rational critiques of the value of such rituals fared little better. Wang Chong (27–ca. 100), a materialist philosopher, sought, in his
Lunheng
(
Discourses Weighed in the Balance
), to deflate what he perceived to be the ­superstitious or fallacious beliefs that informed the rituals. He scorned the ­efficacy of shamans and ­diviners and rejected the possibilities of an afterlife and of Heaven’s intrusion into human affairs. Arguing that only tangible, material phenomena could affect human beings, he challenged such activities as funeral ceremonies and consultation of oracles. His views contrasted sharply with those of the Former Han Confucian thinker Dong Zhongshu, a principal exponent of the hypothesis that natural catastrophes were Heaven-sent indicators of displeasure with the emperor. Dong Zhongshu championed the Mandate of Heaven theory, emphasizing an emperor’s moral failings and his unethical conduct of government as causes of natural disasters afflicting China and as indications of Heaven’s growing dissatisfaction with an emperor’s rule. This view bolstered official attempts to use untoward events to criticize a particular emperor and to promote new and different policies and interpretations. As a Son of Heaven, the emperor, in theory, had a direct connection with Heaven, and dislocations in the natural sphere attested to imperial misrule.

Yin-yang
and the Five Phases (or Elements) theory also contributed to the proliferation of rituals at court and in Chinese society. In the third century
BCE
, Zou Yan (305–240
BCE
) had laid out an explanation of the operation of the universe based on these conceptions, an explanation many Confucians adopted during the Han dynasty. He maintained that the interaction of
yin
, identified with inertness, passivity, and feminine traits, and
yang
, identified with dynamism, activity, and masculine traits, resulted in the cycles of change and ­development with which mankind is familiar. In line with the Five Phases theory, he asserted that the cycles consisted of five stages. Indeed, that number characterized most classifications. For example, the principal colors in the Five Phases theory were green, red, yellow, white, and black, and the principal ­animals were sheep, fowl, ox, dog, and pig. The seasons, emotions, and tastes were intertwined and integrated with the Five Phases. According to this ­interpretation, the most important constituents were wood, earth, fire, metal, and water. Proponents of the scheme engaged in pseudoscientific speculation and tried to derive political significance from the Five Phases. The theoretical frameworks of
yin-yang
and the Five Phases, which posited that the forces of the Phases influenced each other without any direct physical links, encouraged the development of explanations that went beyond the immediately visible. A number of thinkers, who were swayed by these theories, began to formulate explanations based upon nonobservable phenomena about objects not directly in touch with each other. Zhang Heng (78–139), the most prominent of these thinkers, determined the numerical value of
pi
, a nonobservable phenomenon, and developed the seismograph, a device that measured the severity of earthquakes, even those occurring a considerable distance away. Others used the Five Phases scheme to devise reputed cures for a variety of ailments, because illness often became defined as an excess of either
yin
or
yang
. A concoction that ­contained the exact opposite of the abundant element, either
yin
or
yang
, supposedly served as an ideal antidote. Medicine thus often became a by-product of
yin-yang
in attempting to achieve a balance in the human body.