Chinese History Bleg:
What role, if any, did Confucian scholars play in the overthrow of the Han Dynasty in China in 220 a.d.? If possible, please include a citation with your answer. Thanks!
Chinese History Bleg:
What role, if any, did Confucian scholars play in the overthrow of the Han Dynasty in China in 220 a.d.? If possible, please include a citation with your answer. Thanks! |
by Joseph J. Spengler (of Duke University) Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 30, No. 3. (Jan., 1964), pp. 223-243. I read this paper last year and recall he had something to say about the Confucian's involvement in the demise of "classically liberal" outlook and the fall of the Han dynasty.
"Wang Mang was the emperor who usurped the throne at the end of the former Han and temporarily established his own dynasty (Xin?). He was a bright young man and brilliant Confucian scholar from a family well-connected to the court (they supplied empresses I believe). Though he was from a poorer side of the family he rapidly rose to power in the civil service. In the weak and decadent reign of the former Han emperors he gained power at first from behind the scenes and later as a blatant usurper to the throne.
His social reform policies were controversial. They included government monopolies on salt, iron, and other industries (or was this Sang Hung-Yang?) and also included market stabilization using granaries to release grain on the markets in times of high prices and vice versa in times of low prices. Apparently this inspired part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal."
http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?t=3874
The Victory of Han Confucianism
Homer H. Dubs
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Sep., 1938), pp. 435-449
To call the Han "classically liberal" is absurd. In what sense?
But as for the original question, the Han was ultimately "overthrown" (though that term is not really appropriate here), by the Cao family, who had been the real power for decades by that point. At the end, the Han was weakened by a combination of natural disasters, peasant and religious rebellions, and the increasing power of generals (such as Cao Cao), aristocratic families, and regions other than the center. "Confucian" scholars don't appear to have played any significant role. You might have a look at works by Michael Loewe (starting with the Cambridge History of the Chana: Han) and Mark Edward Lewis's new volume, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han.
Prognostications were considered as being written by Confucius or ancient sages. The Five Classics, it was argued, expressed the sum total of the truth, but the Sage had known all along that their language was difficult. Therefore he wrote secret appendices to the classics in order to make his intentions fully known. Toward the end of the former Han, these appendices were being "discovered" and used for or against the dynasty.
Google Books link
The Cambridge History of China, p. 359
Wasn't this covered in Cartoon History of the Universe book 2? I don't have a copy at hand to check, though.
Yes it is, with heavy reference to the "historical novel"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The reason I have "historical novel" in quotes is that the Chinese approach to this kind of work in some ways resembles Herodotus more than our notion of the subject.
the bleg did not ask for general rules; it asked a specific question, and asked that responses include a citation.
is there anything specifically wrong with the article that i've cited? something, perhaps, about which "[r]ecent archaeological finds have radically changed our view"?
answer: no.
That's why I answered the specific question and gave suggested readings. If Kopel wants a get a historical sense of scholarship on China from the US and England, by all means read an article by Dubs from the 30's. However, as Kopel is a non-specialist, I thought it would make more sense for him to look primarily at more recent works such as writings by Loewe, Lewis, and the Cambridge history, that both take into account earlier scholarship and move well beyond it. Recent archaeological finds have substantially changed our views on Han social and economic structures. The views expressed by Dubs, while solid for his time, do not have the nuances that more recent works informed by these discoveries (the tombs at Mawangdui, etc.) and by all the scholarship that's been done in the last 70 years have. I was trying to be helpful by pointing out some of the more informed scholarship, but I certainly see nothing wrong with reading Dubs as part of a much larger survey of the literature if Kopel as unlimited time to spend on this.
Some have thought that I called the Han dynasty classical liberal. I did not mean to do so, for I also would think it inaccurate.
What I meant was that the Spengler journal article I cited had information on the demise of "classically liberal" outlook (mostly Daoist) that had some play in China from the 6th to the 2nd centuries, and also that Spengler had something to say about the fall of the Han dynasty. I appologize for the unclear statement.