Effects Of Appeasement In The Han

In the Han empire, one way of dealing with the Xiongnu was appeasement. An early, disastrous, defeat at the hands of the newly formed, powerful Xiongnu caused the policy of appeasement, known as he qin, in which gold, silk, grain, and Chinese princesses were sent to the Xiongnu in exchange for the agreement of peace (Lewis 2007, 132). The tributes sent to the Xiongnu each year were extremely expensive, but they did not satisfy the Xiongnu chieftains. Consequently, the Xiongnu kept raiding, and peace was only resumed on the premise of higher payments (Lewis 2007, 136). The policy of appeasement was very detrimental to the Han. But if the Qin had not constructed the first Great Wall, then the Xiongnu would not have existed, and the Han would

Even though the wall was easy to get through, it was still partially effective as a defense, but all of its effectiveness was lost if there were no guards on the wall (Turnbull 2007, 36). These guards were expensive, and villages had to be set up in order to support them with food and a place to live; the villages became a vital part of the Great Wall (Turnbull 2007, 11). The Great Wall also required constant maintenance or else it would crumble and fall; this required a long-term commitment and drained a lot of resources (Turnbull 2007, 10). The wall required lots of work, but it still remained ineffective. While the Great Wall was a good defense strategy in theory, the ineffectiveness of the Han and Qin Great Wall along with the need for maintenance, guards, and villages was very

The process of building the Great Wall created problems because it made citizens unhappy, as shown when there was social unrest during the Qin dynasty because of high taxes and forced labor (Langmead and Garnaut 2017). The legacy of literature detailing the suffering caused by the Great Wall also shows the citizens unhappiness and how the Great Wall negatively affected the citizens of ancient China. While the Great Wall was meant to keep dynasties in power longer by controlling the nomads of the steppe (Turnbull 2007, 7), it brought about the ends of the Qin and Han for other reasons. The social unrest caused by the construction of the Qin Great Wall led to the downfall of the Qin dynasty (Langmead and Garnaut 2017), and the cash taxes of the Han dynasty to pay for the Great Wall and the Han’s new form of military to guard the Great Wall and push the Xiongnu back in order to build the wall caused peasants to become indebted to wealthy landlords who would buy the peasants’ grain or give them loans (Lewis 2007, 22). This decentralized the power of the Han and put it in landlords’ hands, which eventually led to the fall of the Han. The Great Wall did have some positive effects, though, like improving trade and allowing for the resettlement of people. Nomads could not as easily pillage communities, so they had to trade