The Rise & Fall of China's Han Dynasty Empire…and it’s Rise & Fall Again

The answer is quite simple: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."

When you buy immortality potions and they shorten your life. stonks

I'm glad people are starting to make china's awesome history into more presentable videos...Rarely can you get all this information with out an hour long documentary...Well done!

One common mistake made by Western historian is to claim the “temple title” of the Chinese emperor after his death was a title he made for himself. In reality, the temple title such as “Gaozhu” was a title the ministers of the next emperor gave to the past emperor. This Confucian tradition gives ministers a chance to evaluate the past emperor. In a way, it gave the emperor some worries that if he is not performing well, he will get a bad “temple title”. When the emperor was alive, he was often referred to as “superior” (in Chinese words, “Shang” or “Huang Shang”). He would not know what Temple Title he will get. Some emperors we later think deserving a better appraisal was not given a good temple title immediately after his death. For example, Wudi of Han defeated the Huns and expanded Chinese territory greatly. He was also the person made Confucianism the official ideology of China. Despite his great impact and all the praises he got in modern China, his temple title Wudi was not a good one. Wu had the meaning of too aggressive in using military forces, and thus not liked that much by the Confucians. Only 200 years later, realizing how much a beneficial impact he did in conquering the Hun empire, the Confucians added another better temple title to him. But too late, Wudi’s title lives forever in history....

This video made me time to play Three Kingdoms Total War again.

Wow. I'm Chinese, & I'm very impressed by your succinct summary of the Han Dynasty. Truly one of the more detailed lectures of the Han than any middle or high school teacher of Chinese history. I'm sure you did hours upon hours of research. Thank you for teaching the world. 9 kowtows.

The meritocracy of the imperial exam is an interesting alternative to the Roman Republican system of elected representative rule. In practice, the sons of peasants could not afford to devote to years of study when they were needed to manage the farm. The imperial exam eventually recruited its candidates mostly from the nobility and merchant class. It's interesting to see how the early successes of the Han Dynasty and it's Roman counterpart were undermined by the same class of corrupt, power-hungry nobles.

China's top five enemies: 1. China 2. China 3. China 4. China 5. China

The exam started by Liu Bang has lasted till today. Despite unavoidable corruption and family connection like anywhere else in the world, any ordinary citizen still stand a great chance to become an official in China by passing the exam. Actually many leaders of China today were once peasants or ordinary civilians.

The Han dynasty was one of the more stable of the Chinese dynasties. A lot of what defined a Chinese dynasty (seen in the last 2000 years of the dynastic cycle) all crystalized around it. Arguably it's the 1st true imperial dynasty bc Qin collapsed so rapidly. But what the Qin figured out- the Han excelled and made more humane. I also am rather fond of the motion that the Han and the Roman Empire were nearly contemporaneous with each other.

Thank you for making history available in easily digestible amounts. Keep up the great work.

Thank you for another impressive video.

China : Exists Foreigner : wHiCH oNE?!

One mistake: Red Eyebrows were not the only rebel army against Wang Mang. They did not crown Liu Xuan as the emperor. Instead, Liu Xuan was supported by another uprising army called Green Forest, who overthrew Wang Mang and planned to restore Han Dynasty. However, they broke due to internal conflicts and were defeated by Red Eyebrows. Emperor Guangwu (Liu Xiu) used to be a member of Green Forest but became independent when the regime lost control of the empire.

one very notable features of hanfu (traditional Chinese clothing) is that people wore the left side OVER the right side, as left signifies yang and covers the right yin because live people are yang, only dead people wore their clothings with the right side up (so yes, inverting a Chinese clothing means that the dude is wearing burial clothings).

One main contributor was the increasing concentration of land ownership, which led to the impoverishment of the peasant class and the weakening of imperial control over local land owners. Then natural disasters exposed the weakness of the imperial government, which had to rely on private armies organized by local land owners to suppress the peasant rebellions.

I had never heard of the Red Eyebrows. Sounds pretty badass

I wonder how there fall impacted the Roman empires economy since a lot of money came from trade with the east.

Hell of a thing covering one of the greatest nations in human history this quickly, well done!

Wow...learning history is interning... And your art keeps getting more amazing! Good job!