If I were emperor or advisor to the emperor during the Han dynasty I would have tried hard hard like many of the Han emperors to keep the dynasty alive and prevent its fall. The fall of the Han dynasty was cased by several factors. First was conflicting social classes. Similarly to every other point in human history the rich were rich and the poor were poor. A big part of this was land. The wealthy had more land than the poor and were able to grow more crops and produce more food. The ruler Wang Mang tried to fix this problem y taking land from the rich and giving it to those without any. Unfortunately the lack of preparation and communication caused this plan to fail. Another cause for the fall of the Han was the fact that the smaller leaders wanted more power and they rose up to try and take the power. This resulted in internal conflict with the government. This coupled with the fact that there were outside invaders that had weakened the Han state before hand completly brought the Han dynasty to its knees.
So it seems to me the best way to stop the fall of the Han dynasty would be to solve the issues of government control, land, social classes and outside invaders. Solving the issue of government control is always tricky. As history shows us there are always people looking to rise up. So the best thing I believe would be to set up a system of checks and balances. Were you have a central ruler and his advisors, were each person has a job and then also to keep the others in line. And if one person screws up or try's to mess with the system they all get sentenced to death. Which is the most pursavsive form of punishment. Next would be land and social classes. When we talked about the Ancient Eygiptians they had a system where the temples would have control over some land and would employ workers and take in homeless and orphans, as well as provide food for those in need. If each city or town had something similar to the Eygiptian temples that would be in charge of distributing land and food has well as collecting taxes from the people. These taxes would go to helping the dynasty but also give back to the community and people of that town so they would be more willing to pay the taxes. The rich would pay more than the poor to make things fair. The temples would be run similarly to the leaders which a system of checks and balances and the ussual form of punishment If someone steps out of line. The last way I would attempt to prevent the fall of the Han dynasty would be to prevent the outside invaders. Hopefully if the following ideas worked there would be less need for an army to keep control of the people and they could be directed to stoping the invaders. I would outfit them with the latest and greatest weaponry so they could crush them. If all of these work I belevie it would prevent the fall of the Han dynasty.
Xavier,
ReplyDeleteI think your system of checks and balances would be a very efficient way to lengthen the reign of the Han Dynasty. This would be a great method by which to prevent any of the emperor's subordinates from gaining to much power and competing with you. Without these constant uprisings, the dynasty might prosper and stand strong enough to withstand the other forces that caused its collapse.
I agree with Mike that the checks and balances would prove to be effective. Also, I agree with your idea to have the rich pay more to make things fair. Your opinions and ideas are very valid here.
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