Event · 206 BCE – 220 CE · Early China
Han dynasty
- Also known as
- Brenhinllin Han
- Chan
- China Han
- Chína Han
- D Han-Dünastii
- dinasti Han
When the peasant rebel Liu Bang established the Han dynasty in 202 BCE, he initiated a four-century epoch that permanently forged the identity of a civilization.
The modern Chinese name for the Milky Way is Tianhe, the Celestial River, but in the classical tongue, it was sometimes written as Han—a cold, silver stream of stars cutting across the night sky. In 206 BCE, when the brilliant but brutal Qin dynasty splintered into civil war, a peasant-born rebel named Liu Bang was exiled by his chief rival to a minor fief along the Han River in southwestern Shaanxi. Within four years, Liu Bang had outmaneuvered his aristocratic nemesis, Xiang Yu, defeating him at the Battle of Gaixia. Crowned as Emperor Gaozu, Liu Bang named his new empire after his old place of exile. It was an act of political naming that would outlast the stars; more than two millennia later, the majority of the world’s most populous nation still refer to themselves as the Han people, their speech as the Han language, and their script as Han characters.
The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) inherited a unified China that was physically exhausted. The preceding Qin had forged the empire through relentless militarism and draconian laws, only to collapse in a heap of rebellions within fifteen years. Gaozu’s initial task was to heal a fractured realm while keeping his own victorious generals from tearing it apart. He divided the empire: the western third, including the new capital of Chang'an, was ruled directly by the central government through administrative commanderies, while the eastern two-thirds were split into ten semi-autonomous kingdoms ruled by his wartime allies. This was a fragile compromise. Suspecting their loyalty, Gaozu systematically replaced these independent kings with members of his own imperial clan, the Liu. Yet blood proved no guarantee of obedience. The kingdoms still wielded significant autonomy, a tension that exploded in 154 BCE with the Rebellion of the Seven States. The imperial court crushed the uprising and stripped the regional kings of their authority, turning them into mere pensioners who collected taxes but could no longer appoint their own officials. From then on, the central government’s bureaucrats ruled supreme.
With domestic rivals subdued, the Han faced an existential threat along their northern borders: the Xiongnu. This nomadic confederation, unified under the formidable chieftain Modu Chanyu, controlled a vast expanse of the Eurasian Steppe stretching from Manchuria to Samarkand. In 200 BCE, Gaozu marched north to confront them, only to be surrounded and soundly defeated at Baideng. Realizing that the young empire could not win a war of attrition, the Han initiated the heqin policy—a humiliating system of appeasement disguised as diplomacy. The Han court sent imperial princesses to marry the Chanyu and paid regular, massive tributes of silk, grain, and wine. It was a cold peace. Despite the treaties and the reopening of border markets under Emperor Wen, Xiongnu raiders regularly breached the Great Wall, riding south to plunder Chinese settlements.
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