Qin and Han dynasties. History of the Han Dynasty

Having come to power on the crest of a broad anti-Qin movement, Liu Bang abolished the brutal Qin laws and eased the burden of taxes and duties. However, the Qin administrative division and bureaucratic system of government, as well as most of the economic regulations of the Qin empire, remained in force. True, the political situation forced Liu Bang to violate the principle of unconditional centralization and distribute a considerable part of the lands for the ownership of his associates and relatives, and the seven strongest of them, along with the titlevan,which henceforth became the highest aristocratic rank. The Vanir owned territories on the scale of entire regions, cast their own coins, entered into external alliances, entered into conspiracies and caused internal unrest. The fight against their separatism became the primary internal political task of Liu Bang's successors. The Vanir rebellion was suppressed in 154, and their strength was finally broken under Emperor Wu Di (140-87 BC).

Centralization and strengthening of the empire in the first decades of the Elder Han Dynasty created conditions for the growth of the country's economic well-being, contributing to the progress in agriculture, crafts and trade that ancient Chinese authors unanimously noted. As under Qin rule, communal structures were a critical component of the Han imperial system. It was on them that Liu Bang relied in the anti-Qin struggle. With representatives of the Xianyang city government (fuloo -fathers-elders) he concluded his famous agreement “on three articles” - the first (?) Code of the Han Empire. Having come to power, Liu Bang awarded the status of honorary citizenship to all heads of families of community members.gongshi and granted the right to participate in district government to representatives of the community elite. To please, first of all, Liu Bang legalized the sale of free people into slavery to private individuals, and did not take any measures to limit transactions with land, which immediately affected the growth of private land ownership and slavery. The rise in production was especially noticeable in crafts, primarily in metallurgy. Slave labor was widely used here. Private entrepreneurs used up to a thousand forced laborers in mines and workshops (iron foundries, weaving shops, etc.). After the introduction of a state monopoly on salt, iron, wine and coin casting under Wu-di, large state workshops and industries arose, where the labor of state slaves was used.

Gradually, the country recovered from the consequences of many years of wars, economic disorder and destruction caused by military actions and events that accompanied the fall of the Qin Empire. Irrigation restoration work was carried out, new irrigation systems were built, and labor productivity increased.

The number of trade and craft centers has increased. The largest of them, such as Chang'an and Linzi, numbered up to half a million inhabitants. Many cities at that time had a population of over 50 thousand people. The city becomes the center of the country's social and economic life. During the Han era, more than five hundred cities were built on the territory of the empire, including in the river basin. Yangtze. The cities were most densely located in the central part of the Great Chinese Plain (in Henan). However, most cities were small, earthen walled settlements surrounded by fields. Bodies of community self-government functioned in them. Farmers made up a certain part of the population in large cities, but artisans and merchants predominated in them. Wang Fu, who lived in the 2nd century. n. e., reported: “[In Luoyang] there are ten times more people engaged in secondary trades than farmers... In the Celestial Empire there are hundreds of regional and thousands of county towns... and everywhere in them the situation is the same.”

In agricultural production, the bulk of producers were free community farmers. They were obliged to pay land taxes (from 1/30 to 1/15 of the harvest), cash per capita and household taxes. Men carried out duties: labor (one month a year for three years) and military (two-year army and three-day garrison duty annually). According to ancient conditions, this cannot be considered excessive hardship. In addition, the law provided for the payment of compulsory services in money, grain, and also slaves. But all this was accessible to wealthy peasant households and absolutely unacceptable to the impoverished poor. Given the low marketability of small farms, monetary taxation had a particularly detrimental effect on them. Creditors seized up to half of the produced product from the manufacturer. “Nominally, the land tax is 1/30 of the harvest, but in fact farmers lose half of the harvest,” reports “History of the Elder Han Dynasty.” Ruined farmers lost their fields and fell into debt slavery. The dignitaries reported: “The treasury is getting leaner, and the rich and traders are enslaving the poor for debts and hoarding goods in barns,” “How can ordinary people stand up for themselves when the rich are increasing the number of their slaves, expanding their fields, accumulating wealth?”, “Farmers are working tirelessly for a whole year, and when the time comes for monetary extortions, the poor sell grain at half price, and the poor take out loans and are obliged to repay twice as much, so for debts many sell fields and homes, sell their children and grandchildren.” Attempts by pressure from above to curb usury and prevent the ruin of farmers - the main tax-paying contingent of the empire - were made by the government repeatedly, but did not produce results. Self-sale into slavery for debts becomes an important source of private slavery, which at this time receives special development.

The very act of selling into slavery, carried out with the help of merchant intermediaries, made the enslavement of a free person legal even if he was sold against his will. Cases of forced capture and sale of free people into slavery were very frequent.

Early Han era sources indicate the legalized practice of buying and selling slaves and the great development of the slave trade at this time. Sima Qian lists slaves as common market goods. The country had a permanent slave market. Slaves could be bought in almost every city, like any tradable commodity, they were counted by the fingers of the hands, like draft cattle - by the hooves. Shipments of chained slaves were transported by slave traders hundreds of kilometers to Chang'an and other major cities in the country. Forced labor formed the basis of production in mines and industries, both private and public. Slaves, although to a lesser extent, were used everywhere in agriculture. Indicative in this regard is the massive confiscation of private fields and slaves from violators of the law in 119 BC. e. on property taxation. This law, however, did not apply to the privileged circles of the bureaucratic and military nobility and, significantly, to the community elite - this once again indicates how far the process of stratification of the community had gone.

Monetary wealth was an important indicator of social status in the Han Empire. According to this property criterion, all land owners were divided into three main categories: large, medium and small families. Outside of these categories, there were super-rich people in the empire who could give loans even to the emperor, their fortune was estimated at one hundred and two hundred million coins; such persons, naturally, were few. Sources classify a significant layer of poor people into the fourth category - land-poor owners. The property of large families exceeded 1 million coins. The majority were families of the second and third categories. The property of small families amounted to from 1,000 to 100,000 coins; these were small privately owned farms, as a rule, not using forced labor. The main contingent, the most stable in socio-economic terms, was the category of middle families. Their property ranged from 100 thousand to 1 million coins. Average families usually exploited the labor of slaves on their farms, among them the less wealthy had several slaves, the more prosperous - several dozen. These were slave-owning estates, the products of which were largely intended for the market.
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By the time of the reign of Wu Di (140-87), the Han state had turned into a strong centralized bureaucratic state - one of the most populous at that time on the planet, having reached its highest power.

The most important and primary foreign policy task of the Han Empire from the beginning of its existence was to protect its borders from constant raids by the nomadic Xiongnu tribes.

The Great Wall of China reduced the danger of Xiongnu invasions. But the Xiongnu tribal union that then united posed a serious threat to Han China. In addition, the supreme leader of the Xiongnu, Shanyu Mode (209-174), along with the traditional lightly armed cavalry, introduced heavily armed cavalry into the army and thus strengthened the military power of the Xiongnu. Mode conquered a huge territory that reached the river. Orkhon in the north, p. Liaohe - in the east and to the river basin. Tarim is in the west. After in 205 BC. e. The Huns captured Ordos, and their invasions of the territory of the Han Empire became regular.

In 200 BC. e. They surrounded the army of Liu Bang near the city of Pingcheng. The negotiations ended in a conclusion in 198 BC. e. "a treaty based on peace and kinship", Liu Bang actually recognized himself as a tributary of the Shanyu. The terms of the treaty were difficult for China and were considered shameful in subsequent tradition. However, this agreement, in fact, had favorable consequences for the young Han state, contributed to a certain normalization of relations between the empire and its formidable neighbor, which was superior in strength at that time, and served to stabilize the situation on the northern borders of the country. According to the historian of the 1st century. n. e. Ban Gu, with this peace treaty with the Xiongnu, Liu Bang "intended to ensure peace in the border lands" and for some time, apparently succeeded in this. However, the treaty of 198 did not stop the Xiongnu invasions. Their troops penetrated far into the depths of Han China, threatening even the capital of Chang'an.

The question of an active struggle against the Xiongnu and the necessary reforms of the Han army in connection with this arose even under Wendi. Under Jing-di, the imperial herds were significantly increased and the state pastures needed to create heavily armed cavalry were expanded, and the reorganization of the Han army began, largely on the model of the Xiongnu. Under Wu-di, the reform of the army was completed, which was facilitated by the monopoly on iron introduced by Wu-di. In 133 BC. e. The peace treaty with the Xiongnu was broken and Wu-di headed for a decisive struggle against them. Han troops in 127 BC e. drove the Huns out of Ordos. Along the banks of the Yellow River bend, fortifications were erected and fortresses were built. Then the famous Han military leaders Wei Qing and Huo Qubing in 124 and 123 BC. e. pushed the Huns back from the northern borders of the empire and forced the Shanyu to move their headquarters to the north of the Gobi Desert.

From this point on, Wu's foreign policy in the northwest was aimed at conquering foreign territories, subjugating neighboring peoples, capturing prisoners of war, expanding foreign markets, and dominating international trade routes.

Back in 138 BC. e., guided by the proven method of ancient Chinese diplomacy - “conquer the barbarians with the hands of barbarians” - Wu Di sent diplomat and strategist Zhang Qian to conclude a military alliance with the Yuezhi tribes hostile to the Xiongnu, who, under the onslaught of the Xiongnu, migrated from Gansu somewhere to the west. On the way, Zhang Qian was captured by the Xiongnu; after ten years of staying with them, he escaped and continued his mission. The Yuezhi were then already in Central Asia and conquered Bactria. Zhang Qian did not persuade them to war with the Xiongnu. However, during his journey he visited Davan (Fergana), Kangju (or Kangju - apparently the middle and lower reaches of the Syr Darya and adjacent areas of the Central Asian Mesopotamia), and lived for about a year in Dasya (Bactria). From local traders, Zhang Qian learned about Shendu (India) and distant Western countries, including Anxi (Parthia), and also that these countries knew about China as the “land of silk”, which foreign merchants willingly traded. Upon returning to Chang'an, Zhang Qian described all this in his report to Wu Di.

Zhang Qian's information greatly expanded the geographical horizons of the ancient Chinese: they became aware of many countries to the west of the Han Empire, their wealth and interest in trade with China. From that time on, paramount importance in the foreign policy of the imperial court began to be attached to the seizure of trade routes between the empire and these countries and the establishment of regular ties with them. In order to implement these plans, the direction of campaigns against the Huns was changed; Gansu became the main center of attack on them, since the trade route to the west, the famous Great Silk Road, ran here. Huo Qubing in 121 BC. e. ousted the Xiongnu from the pasture lands of Gansu and cut off the Qiang, the tribes of the Tibetan Plateau, from their allies, opening up the possibility of expansion into East Turkestan for the Han Empire. On the territory of Gansu up to Dunhuang, a powerful line of fortifications was built and military and civilian settlements were founded. Gansu became a springboard for the further struggle for mastery of the Great Silk Road, caravans along which began to flow from Chang'an immediately after the empire's positions were consolidated in Gansu.

To secure the route of the caravans, the Han Empire used diplomatic and military means to extend its influence into the oasis city-states of East Turkestan along the Silk Road. In 115 BC. e. An embassy led by Zhang Qian was sent to the Wusuns. It played a major role in the development of trade and diplomatic relations between Han China and Central Asia. During his stay with the Wusuns, Zhang Qian sent envoys to Davan, Kangju, the Yuezhi, and Daxia, Anxi, Shendu and other countries, who were the first representatives of ancient China in these countries. During 115-111. BC e. Trade ties were established between the Han Empire and Bactria.

The Great Silk Road from the Han capital Chang'an went northwest through the territory of Gansu to Dunhuang, where it branched into two main roads (north and south of Lake Lop Nor) leading to Kashgar. From Kashgar, trade caravans followed to Fergana and Bactria, and from there to India and Parthia and further to the Mediterranean. From China, caravans brought iron, considered “the best in the world” (Pliny the Elder), nickel, gold, silver, lacquerware, mirrors and other craft items, but, above all, silk fabrics and raw silk(sy -This name was apparently associated with the name of China in the ancient world, where it was known as the country of the “Sins” or “Sers”). Rare animals and birds, plants, valuable types of wood, furs, medicines, spices, incense and cosmetics, colored glass and jewelry, semi-precious and precious stones and other luxury items, as well as slaves (musicians, dancers), etc. were delivered to China. Particularly noteworthy were the grapes, beans, alfalfa, saffron, some melons, pomegranate and walnut trees that China borrowed from Central Asia at this time.

Under Wu-di, the Han Empire established connections with many states in India, Iran, and countries further west, all the way to the Mediterranean (it was not possible to definitively identify some of the geographical names mentioned in Chinese sources). According to Sima Qian's reports, more than ten embassies were sent to these countries every year, which accompanied large trade caravans; Ambassadors from close countries returned after a few years, and from distant countries - sometimes after ten years. It is known that embassies from a number of Western countries arrived at the Han court, including twice from Parthia. One of them presented the Chinese court with eggs of large birds (ostriches) and skilled magicians from Lixian (apparently from Alexandria in Egypt).

Great The Silk Road played a huge role in the development of diplomatic, economic and cultural ties between the Far East and the countries of the Middle East, as well as the Mediterranean. However, everything that was delivered to Chang'an along the Great Silk Road was viewed by the Han emperor and his entourage as tribute from the “barbarians”; the arrival of foreign embassies with gifts usual for that era was perceived as nothing other than an expression of submission to the Han Empire. The martial emperor (translation of the temple name Wu-di) was overwhelmed by the global plan “to expand the boundaries of the empire by ten thousand li and spread the power of the Son of Heaven (i.e., the Han emperor) throughout the world (literally “to the four seas”).”

Reformed Confucianism, recognized as the state religion, proclaimed the doctrine of the absolute superiority of the “Middle State” (i.e., the Han Empire) - the center of the universe - over the surrounding world of “external barbarians,” whose disobedience to the Son of Heaven was considered a crime. The campaigns of the Son of Heaven, as the world organizer of the universe, were declared “punitive”; foreign policy contacts were related to criminal law. The states of the Western Region (as East Turkestan was called) were forced to “pay tribute” by gifts from the Han court and the military force of the Han garrisons stationed in the fortresses of the river basin. Tarim. The cities of the Western Region often refused the “gifts of the Son of Heaven,” soberly assessing them as an attempt at gross interference in their internal affairs, a hidden intention to deprive them of the benefits of transit trade that naturally developed along the Great Silk Road. The Han envoys acted with particular zeal in Fergana, which held key positions on an important section of the Silk Road and owned “heavenly horses” - stately horses of the Western breed, which were of exceptional importance for the heavily armed cavalry of Wu Di. The Davan people stubbornly resisted the advances of the Han court, “hid their horses and refused to give them to the Han ambassadors” (Sima Qian). In 104, a huge army of the commander Li Guangli, who was previously awarded the title of “Ershi Victor”, set out on a long “punitive campaign” against the city of Ershi (the capital of Fergana). The campaign lasted two years, but ended in complete failure. In 102, Udi undertook a new grandiose campaign to Fergana. This time we managed to get “heavenly horses”, but the empire was unable to conquer Davan. The campaigns in Fergana, which cost the empire extreme tension, ended, according to Wu Ti himself, in the complete failure of the plans of Han aggression in the West. The political dominance of Han China in East Turkestan turned out to be unstable, short-term and very limited. The most impartial representatives of official historiography generally questioned the need for the Han Empire to expand into Central and Central Asia, noting its negative consequences both for these countries and, in particular, for China. “The Han Dynasty rushed to the distant Western Land and thereby brought the empire to exhaustion,” wrote the author of one of the early medieval histories of China.

Simultaneously with an active foreign policy in the north-west, Wu-di undertook widespread expansion in the southern and north-eastern directions. The Yue states in Southern China and Northern Vietnam have long attracted ancient Chinese traders and artisans as markets for goods and places for the extraction of copper and tin ores, precious metals, pearls, the acquisition of exotic animals and plants, as well as slaves. The Yue lands conquered under Qin Shi Huang fell away from the empire after the fall of the Qin dynasty, but trade ties with them remained.

Ancient Chinese sources record the existence in the 2nd century. BC e. three independent Yue states: Nanyue (in the basin of the middle and lower reaches of the Xijiang River and Northern Vietnam), Dongyue (in the province of Zhejiang) and Minyue (in the province of Fujian). In the largest of them - Nanyue (Nam Viet) - the former Qin governor Zhao To seized power. He founded the local Vietnamese dynasty of Chieu, proclaiming himself an emperor equal to the Hans. In 196 BC. e. An agreement was concluded between Han and Nanyue, according to which Liu Bang recognized Zhao Tuo as the legitimate ruler of Nanyue. But soon Zhao Tuo, in response to Empress Luhou’s ban on exporting iron, cattle and other goods to Nanyue, broke off diplomatic relations with the empire. Both countries found themselves in a state of war, but the empire did not have the strength to wage it.

From the very first years of his accession, Wu di relied on the capture of the southern states. In 138 BC. BC, intervening in the internecine struggle of the Vietnamese states, the Hans conquered Dongyue, after which Wu began preparing a big war against Nanyue.

The intensification of Wu-di's foreign policy in the southwest was also facilitated by the return to 125 BC. e. Zhang Qian from his trip to the Yuezhi, during which he learned about the trade route in southwest China, along which goods from Shu (Sichuan) were transported to India and Bactria. However, those sent in 122 BC. e. To find this route, Han expeditions were delayed by tribes in southwest China. It was not possible to “open” the route to India passing through Burma for the empire. Later, Wu Di was able to establish connections with India by sea, but this happened after the capture of Nanyue.

After the death of Zhao Tuo, taking advantage of the internal turmoil, Wu di introduced large military forces into Nanyue. The war with Nanyue, which lasted intermittently for two years (112-111), ended in victory for the empire. During this period, the empire conquered the rest of the Yue lands, only Mingyue continued to maintain independence. According to Ban Gu, after the subjugation of Nanyue, the Han Empire established connections by sea with India and Lanka (Sichengbu).

The route from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean probably went through the Strait of Malacca. The ancient Chinese at that time were not strong in navigation, but since ancient times the Yue peoples were skilled sailors. Apparently, Yue ships carried Han traders to India, Lanka and other areas of South Asia. After the conquest of Nanyue, most likely through the Yue peoples, ties between the Han Empire and distant countries of Southeast and South Asia were established.

Having divided Nanyue into regions and counties, the conquerors exploited local residents, forcing them to work in mines, mine gold and precious stones, and hunt elephants and rhinoceroses. Due to constant anti-Han uprisings, Wu Di was forced to maintain large military forces on the Yue lands.

Having completed the wars in the south, Wu took decisive action against the state of Chaoxian (Cor. Joseon) on the territory of North Korea. This country, long before the emergence of the empire, maintained connections with the northeastern ancient Chinese kingdoms. After the formation of the Han Empire under Liu Bang, an agreement was concluded establishing the border between both states along the river. Phesu. The Chaoxian rulers sought to pursue an independent policy and, in contrast to the empire, maintained ties with the Xiongnu. The latter circumstance, as well as the fact that Chaoxian prevented the empire from communicating with the peoples of South Korea, made Chaoxian the next object of Han aggression. In 109 BC. e. Wu-di provoked the murder of the Han ambassador in Chaoxian, after which he sent a “punitive” expedition there. After a long siege by land and sea, the capital of Chaoxian, Wangomseong, fell. Four administrative districts were established on the territory of Chaoxian, but three of them had to be abolished due to the ongoing struggle of the ancient Koreans for independence.

The wars of conquest that Wu di continuously waged for many years in a row devastated the treasury and depleted the resources of the state. These wars, which required colossal expenses and incalculable human sacrifices, already at the end of Wu-di’s reign led to a sharp deterioration in the situation of the bulk of the country’s working population and an explosion of popular discontent, which was expressed in open protests of “embarrassed and exhausted people” in the central regions of the empire. At the same time, anti-Han protests by tribes arose on the outskirts of the empire. “The country is tired of endless wars, people are overwhelmed with sadness, supplies are depleted” - this is how his contemporary historian Sima Qian characterizes the state of the empire at the end of Wu-di’s reign. After the death of Wu, almost no major campaigns of conquest were undertaken. Supporters of military conquests no longer met with support at the Han court.
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Until the end of the 1st century. BC e.-beginning of the 1st century. n. e. The foreign policy of the Han Empire was mainly passive. Han troops only in 36 BC. e. undertook a long campaign against the Huns, who became active in the Western Region. This for some time strengthened the power of the Han Empire in the Western Region, but after a few years the Huns resumed raids on the northwestern borders of the Han Empire, and at the beginning of the 1st century. n. e. they managed to subjugate the entire Western Region to their influence.

From the last quarter of the 1st century. BC e. A wave of slave uprisings swept across the country. At the turn of the Christian era, the empire found itself in a state of deep internal crisis. Many statesmen saw its cause in the growth of large land ownership and slavery.

The struggle against the concentration of private land ownership runs through the entire internal history of the Early Han empire, but by the end of the 1st century. BC e. it acquires exceptional sharpness. As the reports of the dignitaries Shi Dan, Kong Guang and He Wu dating back to this time show, the question of land is closely connected with the question of slaves. These two social problems appear as the main ones in all reform projects and laws of the beginning of the Christian era. The most far-sighted representatives of the ruling class were aware of the need to carry out reforms in order to ease tension in society.

An attempt to carry out such events was made under Emperor Ai-di (6-1 BC): the draft decree established the maximum size of private land holdings at 30 tzins (approx. 138 hectares), and the number of slaves for the owners, depending depending on their social status, he limited the norm to 200 slaves for high-ranking and high-born nobility and 30 slaves for commoners and minor officials (excluding slaves over 60 and under 10 years old). State slaves over 50 years of age were offered to be released. However, this project caused such a protest from slave owners that there could be no question of its implementation, as well as other projects of this kind, although they concerned the limitation of slavery and land ownership only among commoners and small employees. After the failure of reform policies, uprisings broke out in the country.
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Such was the situation in which Wang Mang, regent for the young heir to the throne, father-in-law of the previous Emperor Ping Di (1-6 AD), emerged. A man of exceptional ambition, Wang Mang, as a clever demagogue, managed in a short time to gain popularity among the people and, at the same time, the support of court circles. Taking advantage of the favorable moment, he carried out a palace coup and in 9 AD. e. proclaimed himself emperor - the founder of the "Renewed Dynasty" and immediately announced his intention to carry out reforms in the most decisive manner. Counting on the support of the broad masses of the population, Wang Mang announced the restoration of the happy orders of antiquity and the revival of the Zhou “well” system of eight-yards cultivating the ninth plot in favor of the ruler. He promised to restore equal-sized plots, thereby allocating land to all landless and land-poor community members. This promise, naturally, could not be fulfilled. Wang Mang prohibited the purchase and sale of land and slaves and proclaimed all privately owned lands to be state-owned, and private slaves to be “privately dependent,” i.e., probably also subordinate to the state, but remaining at the disposal of their masters. At the same time, state slavery was not subject to restrictions; on the contrary, all those guilty of violating the laws of Wang Mang were turned into state slaves.

Referring to ancient Confucian treatises, Wang Mang even tried to justify the exclusive right of the state to own slaves. Under him, the number of state slaves again greatly increased due to enslavement for crimes. Wang Mang's laws enslaved the criminal along with his family and four neighboring families bound by mutual responsibility. Moreover, all these families who were enslaved by the state had their property confiscated, including their private slaves, who were transferred to the treasury. Such slaves were transported in huge quantities over long distances to work in state mines and workshops. So, in 21 AD. e. “violators of the ban on coin casting, among the five families [obliged by mutual responsibility], were subjected to [arrest], confiscation of property and were turned into state slaves. Men on carts, in cages for criminals, women and children on foot with iron chains rattling around their necks hundreds of thousands were transported [to Chang'an], handed over to the officials in charge of casting the coins. While they were being delivered [there]... six or seven out of ten died" ("History of the Elder Han Dynasty"). All this data suggests that Wang Mang's reforms were directed against the growth of private slavery, but not slavery as such.

With the goal of concentrating all sources of income in the hands of the state and creating a strong bureaucratic empire, Wang Mang enormously strengthened the fiscal and police functions of the state and increased the administrative apparatus. Officials and tax farmers were interested in the implementation of Wang Mang's economic measures, which gave them the opportunity to profit from speculation in goods while regulating market prices and other abuses. Wang Mang sought to subordinate all lending operations to the treasury, issued decrees regarding the casting of coins and rationing prices in markets, trying to achieve active government intervention in the economic life of the country. Van Mang's reforms led to an extreme increase in the despotic oppression of the state; they not only failed to soften social contradictions, but caused them to worsen even more. Wang Mang tried to save the situation by announcing the abolition of all his laws on land and slaves, but it was all in vain. Spontaneous unrest and food riots began to break out throughout the country. Detachments of bankrupt community members, slaves, and farm laborers operated throughout the country, taking different names - “Green Forest”, “Copper Horses”, “Big Peaks”, “Iron Shins”, “Black Calves”, etc. As a rule, they were scattered, although they often acted side by side. The Red Eyebrow movement, which began in 18 AD, was particularly widespread. e. in Shandong, where the misfortunes of the population were multiplied by the catastrophic flood of the Yellow River, which abruptly changed its course (taking the direction that it has now).

The Red Eyebrow movement rocked the country for almost ten years straight. It was incomparably broader in scale than the anti-Qin uprising of Chen Sheng, and more homogeneous in composition than the uprising of Liu Bang. It broke out as spontaneously as these powerful movements that preceded it. The rebels did not set any pre-planned and far-reaching ideological goals for themselves, except for the only one - the overthrow of the “usurper” Wang Mang. The masses of disadvantaged and exploited people took an active part in the movement. The fact that the movement did not have a narrow peasant character can be indirectly evidenced by the fact that, although Wang Mang’s activities included a broadcast program for the restoration of the ancient systemjingtian -egalitarian communal land use - we do not see any positive response to it from those sections of the population that participated in the uprising. The rebels killed officials, abolished taxes, seized the property of the rich, but did not gain a foothold in any territory, but moved from all sides in one direction - to the capital of the empire of Chang'an, and even more precisely - to the imperial palace of Wang Mang. The first in 23 managed to occupy the capital were the “Green Forest” units. Wang Mang was beheaded and his body was torn into pieces. In 25, Chang'an was captured by the Red Eyebrows. Each rebel group declared its protege emperor. At the same time, in the city of Luoyang, detachments of representatives of the ruling class proclaimed emperor the son of the Han house, Liu Xiu, known in history under the temple name Guan Wu-di (25-57). Given the lack of coordination of actions, the lack of military and political experience among the rebel leaders, who, as a rule, came from the lower classes, the entire movement at the last stage finally followed the lead of certain layers of the nobility interested in the overthrow of Wang Mang by the rebel forces, and then in the restoration of the Han dynasty and suppression rebel movement. Indeed, Guan Wu-di began his reign with a “punitive campaign” against the “Red Eyebrows,” which he managed to defeat by 29, and then suppressed all other popular movements. With Emperor Guan Wu-di, the period of the “restored” Han dynasty, called the Younger or Later, begins; Luoyang became the new capital of the empire.
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The most powerful uprising of the “Red Brows” in the history of China, which was an expression of the most acute class struggle, led to some relief in the situation of the working population and the liberation of the mass of people from slavery, which was reflected in the decrees of Guan Wu-di.

The restoration of the Han Empire was accompanied by significant changes in its social and political structure. After the failure of reforms and the suppression of the popular movement by the forces of the largest landowners, it became obvious that new real forces had appeared in society, with which the ruling circles of the empire had to be taken into account.

The scope of the uprisings 17-25. showed the need, on the one hand, for concessions to the oppressed masses, and on the other, for the unity of all layers of the ruling class, which transferred the function of suppressing the lower classes to the state and thereby sanctioned the restoration of the empire. If under Ai Di and Wang Man, any attempts by the state to limit private slavery and invade the rights of landowners were met with desperate resistance, now, after the government of Guan Wu Di dealt with the rebels in the most brutal manner, private owners no longer protested against such laws of Guan Wu -di, as the preservation of freedom for those slaves who actually returned it to themselves during the uprisings, as the liberation of those sold into slavery due to hunger and those forcibly enslaved during this period. If these decrees were not always and could not be fully implemented, then all state slaves who were enslaved for violating the laws of Wang Mang, as well as some categories of private slaves, were actually freed. The decree of 35 prohibited the branding of private slaves, limited the owner's right to kill his slaves, and the law on the shameful execution of slaves in the market square was abolished. Government measures were envisaged to protect some basic rights of slaves. The decree even proclaimed (officially for the first time) that a slave by nature is also a human being. The laws of Guan Wu-di, which limited the arbitrariness of the masters, were perceived by them as inevitable measures necessary to prevent acute class conflicts. At the same time, published by the government of Guan Wu-di in 30-31. The “Law on the Sale of People” introduced restrictions that regulated the slave trade and the practice of selling free people into slavery, which contributed to the normalization of slave-holding relations. In all likelihood, Guan Wu-di relied on small and medium-sized farms; large landowners - the so-called strong houses - obviously did not support these measures of his; in 52 they raised a rebellion, which Guan Wu-ti suppressed with his characteristic ruthlessness.

The government of Guang Wu took decisive measures to repair the destroyed dams on the Yellow River; this area of ​​the Great Chinese Plain now became directly adjacent to the capital (in connection with the transfer of the capital of the empire to Luoyang from the city of Chang'an destroyed during the uprisings), for its improvement Guang Wu -di paid special attention. Monetary circulation was streamlined. The tax burden has been eased. Agriculture and sericulture were encouraged. The poor were allocated state fields on preferential terms, including the lands of the disgraced “strong houses.”

During this period, the nature of landholdings, primarily the largest ones, began to change. Apparently, at that time, many farms used so-called guests in production(ke) . Han authors defined the category of direct producers, called ke, as follows: “These are those who do not have their own land, but take from the rich and cultivate it.” It was during the time of Guan Wu-di that the first mention of a large number of “guests” - ke orbinke -from land owners. Thus, for participation in the revolts of the “strong houses”, several thousand binke who were personally dependent on them were executed.

Slave farms continued to exist, although slaves were now used more in specific types of production (on plantations of camphor and lacquer trees, in cattle breeding, in fishing and salt production). In agriculture, with the exception of irrigation work, slave labor becomes less important. Complaints about the unproductivity of slave labor first appeared in the 1st century. BC e. (in the government discussion “On Salt and Iron” of 81 BC and the report of the dignitary Guan Yu, 44 BC). This was due, in particular, to the improvement of labor skills and economic methods - an indicator of the rise of productive forces no less important than technical achievements.

A new type of field farming was developing, which required careful care of literally every plant in the field. In the complex farms of the largest land owners, the labor of actually dependent (but personally still free) farmers is used. Researchers note the duality of their position: on the one hand, they retained the right to acquire land, but on the other, they could not voluntarily leave the plot of master’s land they rented. The process of land concentration took on enormous, previously unimaginable proportions. The “strong houses,” which were in no way connected with the bureaucratic nobility, owned estates that stretched “from region to region.” Their influence extended throughout the entire district, including small towns. They had at their disposal thousands of slaves, herds of horses, herds of large and small livestock. They owned large workshops, a significant part of the workforce of which were chained slaves, and profited from trade and usury. On the fields of these huge estates it was almost impossible to organize the necessary supervision of workers. Labor was increasingly used herebuqu (personal guards planted on the ground) and all kinds of ke, known as “guest field workers”(dyanke), "hostel guests"(binke),"freeloaders" (ishike: letters "ke for food and clothes") - something like clients or colons; many of them gradually turned into personally dependent workers, among them weretunnelli -"slave youths" Often the indebted poor were forced by poverty to cultivate the land of the “strong houses” under harsh conditions of sharecropping. In the huge estates, which had several thousand “guest households,” there was a transition to a new type of exploitation of the direct producer, which left him some opportunity for independent management. Economically, these workers were not the property of the tycoon and, as such, could not be merely an object of law. However, while remaining formally personally free, in administrative terms they fell out of the civilian population proper, were not taken into account by the census, and the state could rather tax slaves (as someone’s property) than this category of workers, who were actually not included in the number. subjects of the empire - taxpayers of the state.

In the public sector, so-called military settlement fields have become widespread. (tunypian) . For the first time, this form of state field farming arose on the northwestern borders of the empire at the turn of the 2nd-1st centuries. BC e., but then found application in the internal regions of the empire, which perhaps indicates the increasing importance of state ownership of land. To study these farms, there are sources that are extremely rare for ancient China - original economic reporting documents on bamboo slats. Agricultural work in these settlements was carried out by settlers and their families, to whom the bosses distributed seed, agricultural tools and livestock; the harvest (entirely or in the amount of 60%) was handed over to state barns, from where farmers then received cash in kind and clothing. Issues and completed work were strictly taken into account. Despite the harsh conditions of exploitation, these “military settlers” were still not slaves in the legal sense, for there are known cases of their subsequent enslavement by the authorities. Apparently, they were in the position of state-dependent people, attached to the land as land users. This agrarian structure, possibly associated with the reconstruction of communities, became, to a certain extent, the prototype of the state allotment system(juntian), found widespread use from the second quarter of the 3rd century. n. e. - after the fall of the Han dynasty - in the Chinese states of the period of the so-called Three Kingdoms and in the early medieval Jin Empire.

At the turn of the 1st century. n. e. all humanity numbered 250 million people and one fifth of the world's population was represented at that time by the Eastern Han power, where more than 50 million people lived. Gradually, the empire regained its military strength and regained its position as a “world power.” The border tribes that participated in the rebel movement were pacified. In Southern China, the Han emperors pursued a strict policy of forced assimilation of the local population; imperial officials brutally oppressed the aborigines and eradicated local cults and customs. In 40, a popular uprising broke out against the Han authorities in North Vietnam under the leadership of the Trung sisters, which Guan Wu-di managed to suppress with great difficulty only in 44. In the second half of the 1st century, skillfully using (and to a certain extent provoking) splitting the Xiongnu into “northern” and “southern” and allowing the southern Xiongnu, who had submitted to the Han, to settle within its borders, the empire actively began to restore Han rule in the Western Region, which by the end of the reign of the Elder Han had fallen away from China and fell under the rule of the Xiongnu. The younger Han Empire succeeded by the end of the 1st century. for a short time to restore its influence in the Western Region and establish hegemony on the Great Silk Road. The commander Ban Chao, who was operating in the Western Region, launched active diplomatic activities at this time, aiming to achieve direct contacts with Daqin (the “Great Country of Qin,” as the Han called the Roman Empire). But the embassy he sent only reached Roman Syria, being deliberately delayed by Parthian merchants. However, Han-Roman trade through intermediaries from the second half of the 1st century. n. e. has become quite regular. The ancient Chinese first saw the Romans with their own eyes in 120, when a troupe of traveling magicians from Rome arrived in Luoyang and performed at the court of the Son of Heaven. At the same time, the Han Empire established connections with Hindustan through Upper Burma and Assam and established sea links from the port of Bac Bo in North Vietnam (known to the Romans as Kattigara) to the east coast of India, and through Korea to Japan. In 166, the first “embassy” from Rome, as the private Roman trading company called itself, arrived in Luoyang along the southern sea route. From the second half of the 2nd century, with the loss of the hegemony of the Han Empire on the Silk Road, Han foreign trade expansion into the countries of the South Seas, Lanka and Kanchipura (Kanchipuram in South India) began to develop. These connections retain their significance in the future. Expeditions are organized to the countries of the South Seas to capture slaves. The younger Han Empire was rushing in ever new directions towards foreign markets, where the main international goods were luxury goods. The expansion of international relations of the Han state is accompanied by the flourishing of science, literature, philosophy, and art. According to contemporaries, the capital of the empire, Luoyang, amazed with its splendor. The luxury of the imperial palace and the splendor of the palaces of the nobility knew no bounds. Court poets and famous philosophers sang the greatness and inviolability of the ruling dynasty, glorifying the empire as the limit of perfection, the onset of a “golden age” on earth.
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The rapid rise of commodity-money relations was mainly due to the huge expansion of Han foreign trade. End of the 1st century marked by the rise of the economy and trade, successes in crafts and agriculture. Water mills and water-lifting structures appeared, and blacksmith's bellows were improved. The bed culture and the system of variable fields are being mastered. However, these improvements do not find any significant application, just as the heavy moldless plow, designed for a team of two oxen, does not become widespread. In practice, slaves were harnessed to it, and the desired effect did not work. Farmers refused to purchase iron agricultural implements made by state slaves because they found them “unsuitable for work,” sources say. Although the law limited the master's arbitrariness, where slaves were used in large numbers, they were kept in chains.

The prosperity of the Younger Han Empire was fragile and fraught with deep contradictions. At the moment of Ban Chao's greatest military and diplomatic successes in the Western Region, supporters of a passive foreign policy course win at the court. They expressed the interests of those layers of the ruling class that were not interested in the expansion of foreign trade and the further deepening of commodity-money relations, since their huge estates were increasingly becoming a self-sufficient economic organism, capable of limiting itself to its internal markets. They said about these people: “So rich that he can close the gates and open his own market.” In the phenomenal growth of family fortunes and the unbridled extravagance of the richest houses, contemporaries saw almost the root cause of the impoverishment of the state treasury and the massive ruin of farmers. Two poles of social reality: the accumulation of countless treasures in the hands of a few major landowners and the impoverishment of the masses of small and medium-sized owners - became apparent by the beginning of the 2nd century. with extreme sharpness. Many politicians viewed the current situation as a disaster for the state and directly linked it with the spread of commodity-money relations.

The struggle between two economic trends - private land ownership associated with the slave-owning economic system, and emerging new forms of land use - was indirectly manifested in court discussions of the 2nd century. n. e., which revolved around the problem of money. In reports addressed to the highest name, advice appears to ban money and remove metal coins from circulation.

The deep reason for the economic crisis was that the achieved level of commodity-money relations was excessively high for the labor productivity that existed in society. Since in ancient times production, in general, was of a natural nature and self-reproduction was not an increase in production, but self-reproduction was the goal of ancient society, commodity-money circulation affected only a relatively small part of the product produced; “capital” in the ancient world turned out to be commercial and usurious, i.e. was not directly related to production. Thus, the growth of cash savings did not, as a rule, stimulate the development of production.

In 2 AD e. For the first time in China, a population census was carried out by the number of households and souls, which gave the corresponding figures: 12,233,612 households and 59,594,978 people.

At the beginning of the reign of the Younger Han, the census registered only 21 million people in the empire. However, by the end of the 1st century. this figure increased to 53 million, which indicates the restoration of the state machine and an increase in the number of citizens-taxpayers of the empire, and, consequently, a corresponding increase in treasury revenues. But after a decade and a half, the census showed a decrease in the empire’s subjects by almost 10% - and this in the absence of internal “turmoil” and external bloody wars. Obviously, part of the tax-paying population (and only they are recorded by the official population records of the Han Empire) placed themselves under the protection of large landowners. The reduction in the number of taxpayers did not mean their physical death, but marked their civil “death” due to the surrender of themselves under the protection of private individuals. This situation was fundamentally different from the one that had caused alarm among Han political leaders approximately one and a half to two centuries earlier. Then reports from the authorities reported that, despite the reduction of the land tax to 1/30 of the harvest, the poor were actually losing half the harvest to the rich - usually their creditors, which forced the poor people to mortgage their fields and sell their family members into slavery. We were talking about community members who fell into debt bondage, but remained among the citizens - taxpayers of the empire. There was no talk of any personal dependence of poor people on private individuals at that time, at least not as a mass phenomenon. Both then and now the state was concerned about its income, about the size of the tax-paying population of the empire and reacted painfully to its reduction, but behind the external similarity of the phenomena their fundamental difference was hidden. Many debtors during this period sold their family members and themselves into slavery, but the general trend of development became different. There was a noticeable increase in the number of low-power families who voluntarily handed themselves over to “guests”; many gave land to “strong houses” for debts, with the condition that they use it on the rights of persons personally dependent on the land magnates. By the end of the 2nd century. under the patronage of individual largest representatives of the “strong houses” there were several thousand such families, among them ke, binke, butqu, dyanke, etc. The composition of the workers of such an estate turned out to be very heterogeneous: slaves, semi-slaves, dependent farmers of various types, bonded tenants, hired workers . But hired labor is not indicative; it was always used in private large land-owning farms (due to the specifics of field farming, which in times of need requires additional labor) and hired workers were usually in the same position as the main producers of material goods in a given society. Apparently, wage labor did not have its specific social connotation until the era of capitalism.

The practice of giving under patronage formally did not have the nature of a trade transaction, was not sealed by an act of purchase and sale of land and did not mean the enslavement of the debtor, fixing a “fortress” - a purely personal, patronage relationship, but in fact they led to the alienation of the debtors’ land in favor of the lender or other “patron” "an impoverished community member and, ultimately, to the latter's loss of some share of his civil freedom (which, due to the taxes and services associated with it, became a burden for him at that time), and patronage tied the one who surrendered under patronage to the land, which, obviously it was in the interests of both parties.

By submitting to the protection of the “strong houses” and becoming dependent on them, farmers thereby retained certain “rights” to their plots. At the same time, the patronage of patrons apparently relieved them of state taxes and duties. The fact that these processes were often based on debt transactions can be judged by the constant references from sources to the huge number of debtors from land magnates.

From subjects of the state, its free citizens, those who fell into debt bondage turned into people who were personally and land dependent and dropped out of the fiscal. For the government, this process meant a loss of income, for land magnates - their acquisition, and clearly to the detriment of the state. Obviously, by the end of the period described, “guest households” received some kind of official status and began to be taken into account by the authorities for tax purposes, but not as independent farms, but as tax units assigned to “strong houses.”

A peculiar situation was created: the community members - the main tax-paying population of the empire - could dispose of their land, sell it under certain conditions to other individuals or legal entities, in particular, “strong houses”, which, in turn, also had the right to dispose of their estates, expanding them to any conceivable limit; the state, whose subjects they were, had no real opportunity to prevent this. Both categories had all the rights of private ownership of land - possession, use and disposal of it, and completely independently of the state. Thus, neither the emperor personally nor the Han state at that time owned the land ownership of the entire territory of the empire, which was covered by their public legal sovereignty.

Over time, the heads of the “strong houses,” having acquired their own armed forces and their own administrative apparatus, partially assumed public legal functions and almost “naturally” turned out to be judicial authorities for their “dependents,” as if standing between them and the state. The new dependence could be associated in their minds with the patriarchal subordination of younger relatives in the home community, who, within each large family, were previously actually deprived of individual ownership of the means of production and a certain share of civil rights. In the farms of the “strong houses,” as they became larger, those forms of power and property relations arose in their infancy, which made the land magnates, in their own eyes, fundamentally indistinguishable from the ruler, and their estates indistinguishable from the state. The gradual combination in one person of the public legal functions of the sovereign and the private legal functions of the owner, which did not coincide in ancient society, testified to the emergence in the depths of the late Han empire of individual elements of early feudal relations. But this process has barely begun here.

It seemed to the political leaders of the empire that it was possible to contain the concentration of land in the “strong houses” and delay the process of landlessness among the community members, squeezing merchants and artificially reducing the influx of wealth into the country, which excessively fueled the passion for profit. This was a conscious basis for changing the foreign policy course of the empire. The desire for personal enrichment was opposed to the state interests of the country. But the real reason was rooted in the change in the nature of the economy of the “strong houses”. New forms of dependence and land relations became dominant in the estates of land magnates, indicating a decrease in the marketability of private farms, further naturalization of production, and changes in the methods of collecting surplus product.

The reduction in the number of taxpayers naturally led to an increased burden of taxes and duties on the remaining mass of the civilian population of the empire; According to some, albeit greatly exaggerated, data, taxes allegedly exceeded the “legal” norms by 10 times.

The area of ​​arable land registered by the state was increasingly reduced, the number of tax-paying population fell catastrophically (from 49.5 million people in the middle of the 2nd century to 7.5 million in the middle of the 3rd century), entire communities apparently turned into “holders” lands from the “strong houses”, since the entire community as a whole was responsible to the authorities for the arrears of each family. Food prices have risen exorbitantly. A rapid decline in commodity-money relations began. The estates of the “strong houses” increasingly became economically closed, self-sufficient farms. The peasantry - still free - did not have the means to participate in trade. City life came to a standstill. If at the turn of the Christian era there were 37,844 cities in the empire, then in the middle of the 2nd century. - only 17,303, i.e. over a century and a half, their number has decreased by more than half. If at the beginning of the dynasty self-governing cities were a characteristic feature of the imperial system and it was their support that initially brought Liu Bang success in his struggle for power, now sources do not mention them. Officials proposed calculating all fees in cloth, and finally, in 204, a decree was issued to replace all cash payments in kind, in the early 20s of the 3rd century. in the kingdom of Wei (which arose from the ruins of the Han Empire in the Yellow River basin), coins were abolished and silk and grain were introduced into circulation.