1.4 Wang Mang ruling
1.4.1 Ecological and cultural background
In 9 CE, a Confucian reformer named Wang Mang seized the throne and ended the Han dynasty. He became the emperor of the new Xin Dynasty. The emperor began his reign by implementing radical idealistic and counterproductive policies. Mimicking rules that existed in previous collapsed dynasties. This lay way for Wang Mang’s unsuccessful Xin Dynasty. Partially because Wang Mang was faced with a natural catastrophe that destabilized the government socially and economically from the beginning of his reign (Lewis 2009). The natural catastrophe was the flood of the Yellow River. It altered the path for which water travelled through China and discharged into the sea. Channels that originally protected the people of China broke during the flood of the Yellow River and brought devastation upon the people (Chang-Qun et al. 1998). It caused an unknown number of deaths that ranged from drowning to famine. It also forced people to migrate further south to escape its catastrophic effects (Chang-Qun et al. 1998). The outcome was a destabilized society and Wang Mang was confronted by a
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Led by a natural catastrophe which precipitated death and famine. It also was a result of the conflict between the government of the Xin dynasty and its people. As Joseph Tainter (1988) states, “single-event catastrophes, such things as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, or major disease epidemics, are enduring favourites for explaining collapse (p. 52).” In other words, a single-event can cause a societal collapse when the event is significant enough to destabilize the structure of a society. Joseph Tainter’s understanding of a catastrophe supports other theories regarding the flood of the Yellow River. In particular, the theory of Michael Loewe and his description of the crisis and conflict that occurred during the reign of Wang Bang in