Reforms and policies

Reforms and policies

Reforms and policies

During the "Rule of Wen and Jing" (the era named after Emperor Wen and his successor Emperor Jing (r. 157141 BCE), the Han Empire witnessed greater economic and dynastic stability, while the central government assumed more power over the realm. In an attempt to distance itself from the harsh rule of Qin, the court under these rulers abolished legal punishments involving mutilation in 167 BCE, declared eight widespread amnesties between 180141 BCE, and reduced the tax rate on households' agricultural produce from one-fifteenth to one-thirtieth in 168 BCE. It was abolished altogether the following year, but reinstated at the rate of one-thirtieth in 156 BCE.

Government policies were influenced by the proto-Daoist Huang-Lao ideology, a mix of political and cosmological precepts given patronage by Wen's wife Empress Dou (d. 135 BCE), who was empress dowager during Jing's reign and grand empress dowager during the early reign of his successor Emperor Wu (r. 14187 BCE). Huang-Lao, named after the mythical Yellow Emperor and the 6th-century-BCE philosopher Laozi, viewed the former as the founder of ordered civilization; this was unlike the Confucians, who gave that role to legendary sage kings Yao and Shun. Han imperial patrons of Huang-Lao sponsored the policy of "nonaction" or wuwei (a central concept of Laozi's Daodejing), which claimed that rulers should interfere as little as possible if administrative and legal systems were to function smoothly. The influence of Huang-Lao doctrines on state affairs became eclipsed with the formal adoption of Confucianism as state ideology during Wu's reign and the later view that Laozi, not the Yellow Emperor, was the originator of Daoist practices.

From 179143 BCE, the number of kingdoms was increased from eleven to twenty-five and the number of commanderies from nineteen to forty. This was not due to a large territorial expansion, but because kingdoms that had rebelled against Han rule or failed to produce an heir were significantly reduced in size or even abolished and carved into new commanderies or smaller kingdoms.

When Liu Xian, the heir apparent of Wu, once made an official visit to the capital during Wen's reign, he played a board game called liubo with then crown prince Liu Qi, the future Emperor Jing. During a heated dispute, Liu Qi threw the game board at Liu Xian, killing him. This outraged his father Liu Pi, the King of Wu and a nephew of Emperor Gaozu's, who was nonetheless obliged to claim allegiance to Liu Qi once he took the throne.

Still bitter over the death of his son and fearful that he would be targeted in a wave of reduction of kingdom sizes that Emperor Jing carried out under the advice of Imperial Counselor Chao Cuo (d. 154 BCE), the King of Wu led a revolt against Han in 154 BCE as the head of a coalition with six other rebelling kingdoms: Chu, Zhao, Jiaoxi, Jiaodong, Zaichuan, and Jinan, which also feared such reductions. However, Han forces commanded by Zhou Yafu were ready and able to put down the revolt, destroying the coalition of seven states against Han. Several kingdoms were abolished (although later reinstated) and others significantly reduced in size. Emperor Jing issued an edict in 145 BCE which outlawed the independent administrative staffs in the kingdoms and abolished all their senior offices except for the chancellor, who was henceforth reduced in status and appointed directly by the central government. His successor Emperor Wu would diminish their power even further by abolishing the kingdoms' tradition of primogeniture and ordering that each king had to divide up his realm between all of his male heirs.

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