Great Lecture on Chinese History: Stories of the Qin and Han Dynasties

Author: Pan Guoj
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The history of the Qin and Han dynasties, including the Qin Dynasty, Western Han Dynasty, and Eastern Han Dynasty. After the Western Han Dynasty, there were two other regimes: the Xin Dynasty and the Gengshi Regime. From the establishment of the Qin Dynasty to the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it spanned 440 years. The Qin Dynasty lasted for 15 years and established a unified, autocratic centralized state in China, ending the fragmentation of the feudal lords. This was a step forward in history. The Western Han Dynasty was another unified, multi-ethnic, autocratic centralized state after the Qin Dynasty. This dynasty lasted nearly 215 years, from when Liu Bang became the King of Han to when Wang Mang deposed the young Emperor Liu Ying. The unified, multi-ethnic state created by the Qin and Han dynasties continued to develop and perfect itself over more than 400 years. It laid the foundation for China's feudal society. Many of the systems implemented by feudal dynasties after the Qin and Han dynasties were closely related to those of the Qin and Han dynasties, and their influence was profound. The highly developed economy and culture created by the Qin and Han dynasties were far ahead of the rest of the world at the time. Many of their inventions and creations, such as the world-famous papermaking technology, the seismograph for measuring the direction of earthquakes, exquisite silk, and astronomical calculations, etc., made significant contributions to the development of world science and culture.