Eastern Han dynasty: A Visual History

The Eastern (or Later) Han dynasty was restored by Emperor Guangwu in 25 AD after the collapse of Wang Mang's Xin dynasty, with its capital at Luoyang. It defeated the northern Xiongnu, reasserted control of the Western Regions under Ban Chao, and saw the invention of paper and the seismograph. From the second century child emperors, eunuch factions and consort clans paralysed the court; the Yellow Turban rebellion of 184 unleashed the warlords, and the last emperor abdicated to Cao Pi in 220.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Eastern Han dynasty. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Registered population

Census figures; the fall after 157 reflects breakdown of registration and war rather than deaths alone.

Timeline of the Eastern Han dynasty

1. 25
   Guangwu restores the HanCapital at Luoyang.
2. 68
   White Horse TempleBuddhism's traditional arrival.
3. 89
   Northern Xiongnu destroyed
4. 97
   Gan Ying sent towards RomeReaches the Persian Gulf.
5. 105
   Cai Lun's paper
6. 132
   Zhang Heng's seismoscope
7. 184
   Yellow Turban rebellion
8. 189
   Dong Zhuo seizes LuoyangThe warlord era begins.
9. 220
   Emperor Xian abdicatesTo Cao Pi of Wei.

Restoration

Liu Xiu, a distant descendant of the Han imperial house, emerged from the civil wars that followed Wang Mang's fall, defeated rival claimants and the Red Eyebrow rebels, and re-established the Han at Luoyang. He and his successors Ming and Zhang gave China its last long spell of stable central rule for four centuries. Buddhism arrived in this period, traditionally with the White Horse Temple in 68 AD.

Reach and invention

General Dou Xian destroyed the northern Xiongnu in 89-91. Ban Chao ruled the Tarim Basin cities for 30 years and sent an envoy towards Rome who was turned back at the Persian Gulf. Cai Lun standardised papermaking in 105; Zhang Heng built a water-powered armillary sphere and a seismoscope; Zhang Zhongjing wrote the founding text of Chinese medicine.

Eunuchs, Yellow Turbans and warlords

From the 90s AD most emperors came to the throne as children, so power passed to their mothers' families and to the eunuchs who helped them shake off those relatives. Two purges of scholar-officials in 166 and 169 discredited the court. The Yellow Turban rebellion of 184 was crushed but only by giving regional commanders their own armies. In 189 the warlord Dong Zhuo seized the capital; Cao Cao later held the last emperor Xian as a puppet, and Cao Pi took the throne in 220.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Western Han dynasty (202 BC to 9)
• Xin dynasty (9 to 23)
• Cao Wei (220 to 266)
• Shu Han (221 to 263)
• Eastern Wu (222 to 280)
• Northern Xiongnu (48 to 155)
• Xianbei state (93 to 234)
• Kushan Empire (30 to 375)

Wars of the same era and region

• Three Kingdoms period (184 to 280)

8 surprising things about the Eastern Han dynasty

1. Emperor Guangwu is one of the very few founders in Chinese history who did not purge his generals afterwards.
2. The Han envoy Gan Ying was told by Parthian sailors that the voyage to Rome could take two years, and gave up.
3. Zhang Heng's seismoscope dropped a bronze ball from a dragon's mouth into a toad's mouth to show the direction of a distant earthquake.
4. The Eastern Han census of 157 counted about 56 million people, a figure China did not exceed again for 500 years.
5. Ban Chao's sister Ban Zhao completed his brother's history of the Former Han and was China's first known female historian.
6. The Yellow Turbans were a Taoist millenarian movement led by a faith healer, Zhang Jue.
7. The novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms opens with the Yellow Turban rebellion of 184.
8. Roman 'envoys' who arrived in 166 claiming to come from Emperor An-tun (Antoninus) were probably merchants.

Sources

• Han dynasty Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Eastern Han dynasty Wikipedia
• Han Dynasty World History Encyclopedia
• Rafe de Crespigny, Fire over Luoyang (2016) Brill

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