1. Before the rise of the Han Empire, the Qin was empire was the ruling state. The Qin Empire was ruled by Shi Huang Di rigidly. He forced people into different constructions like The Great Wall of China and assassinated those who opposed him (Smith et.al, 191). The Qin Empire lasted 221 B.C.E -210 B.C.E.
The rise of the Han Empire started with the death of Shi Huang Di in 210 B.C.E. With the death of Shi Huang Di, the whole empire was in turmoil due to the Qin Empire’s ruthlessness. Lots of rebellions occurred all over the empire. China however did not revert back to the state before unification and instead a rebel leader named Liu Bang managed to take hold of the empire. He however did not concentrate all the power on himself and instead gave away two-thirds of the empire to relatives and supporters and only kept one-third. His support increased due to his generosity. He then named his dynasty after his home region ‘Han’. The Han Empire then went on to govern China for four hundred years from 206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E. (Smith et.al, 192).
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Confusianism was widespread belief during this era.
Similar to the Qin Dynasty, the Han Dynasty has a centralized power. In the Han dynasty however, the concentration of power is moderated since the other domains are under aristocrats but the concentration remained strong. This set-up provides a false sense of distributed power wherein even if there is a distributed power, there is still a higher power above them which is the center of the Han