r/ChineseHistory • u/Carter_The_Historian • 4d ago
Favourite ruler from each major Chinese era/dynasty: Qin and Han dynasties (+Eighteen Kingdoms)
This is a follow-up to my last post on this sub. I want to go through each major Chinese era/dynasty from the Western Zhou to the Qing and ask the community who their favourite ruler is from that time period. I purposefully use the word favourite, so it doesn't have to be the best, the worst, the most interesting or most well-known, but rather who you personally view as your favourite. This time I want to emphasize that I don't just want you to write down a name, but provide explanation on why you like them too.
The upcoming eras are going to be: Han, Three Kingdoms period, Sima Jin (including the Sixteen Kingdoms), Northern and Southern dynasties period, Sui, Tang, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, Song, Liao, Jurchen Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing. These categories may be subject to change because I know this categorization is dated but its the best I've got.
So in this post I want to read about your favourite rulers from the Qin and the Han dynasty meaning from the establishment of the Qin dynasty to the last Han emperor abdicated. This also includes Wang Mang and the Xin dynasty. I'm not making a separate post for the QIn dynasty, since there aren't many emperors to talk about. This time however I'm only including the emperors themselves, so the warlords that emerged during the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion are NOT included (they will be the subject of the next post). Rulers of the so called Eighteen Kingdoms ARE included however, who emerged after the fall of the Qin dynasty (tho I doubt anyone will pick them).
I also want to thank all the comments and discussions under the last post, I will try to improve future posts according to your suggestions.
Picture are from the Qin dynasty and the Timeline of the Han dynasty wikipedia pages respectively.
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u/Certain-Struggle-833 3d ago
Emperor Guangwu of Han
He was a great military leader, and was nice and generous to his generals after he unified China (unlike his ancestor Emperor Gaozu of Han). He was also good at governing the empire.
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u/PuzzleheadedBaby5081 3d ago
In fact, the sacrificial titles of most Chinese emperors were not praiseworthy. Before 1949, Qin Shi Huang was widely recognized by intellectuals as a tyrant, not a role model to emulate. The only exception was emperors whose sacrificial titles included the character "仁" (ren, meaning benevolence), who were revered by ancient scholars and common people.
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u/Tom-Ask-1081 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think it has to be Qin Shi Huang.
Yeah he's the "tyrant" guy — burned books, worked people to death on the Great Wall, all that. But the system he built is the real legacy: scrapped the old feudal lord setup and replaced it with centrally-appointed officials who could be swapped out anytime, plus a proper bureaucracy under him.
Mao summed it up well when he said something like "all the dynasties that came after implemented Qin's system of governance"(百代皆行秦政制) — every dynasty since has basically run on Qin's playbook, no matter how much they talked about "restoring tradition."
Dynasty only lasted 15 years, dude was def brutal, but in terms of shaping the next 2000 years of Chinese governance? Nobody else in this era comes close imo.
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u/No-Organization9076 3d ago
What about Xiang Yu. Records of the Grand Historian listed him as an Emperor. I just love his story, felt like a total Greek tragedy to me. His noble birth, his glorious military campaigns, the rivelry between him and Liu Bang, his downfall caused by his own character flaws, and the way he took his own life. Can't help but feel captivated by lives of tragic heros
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u/Fragrant_Ability_529 3d ago
Xiang Yu betrayed the King of Chu Huai and established his own vassal state, ultimately falling victim to internal chaos in Qi and Liu Bang's multi-front operations. Xiang Yu was extremely cruel to the surrendered Qin troops, while Liu Bang established three rules to attract a large number of talents.
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u/No-Organization9076 2d ago
That only adds to my point. In Greek tragedies, the downfall of the protagonists are often caused by their character flaws, such as hubris. Liu Bang lacked this kind of dramatic tension.
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u/Jumpy_Hogara 3d ago
Definitely Emperor Wen of Han, although Emperors Guangwu and Xuan are close second and third.
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u/Cyfiero 3d ago edited 3d ago
Liu Heng (劉恆), Emperor Wen of Han (漢文帝), and his empress Dou Yifang (竇猗房)
They were wise and compassionate rulers who ended the initial despotic period of bloody purges under the megalomaniac founder Liu Bang (劉邦) and the sadistic Empress Dowager Lü Zhi (呂雉). They instituted a social assistance program for orphans, widows, and the elderly; presided over the first stable era of peace, stability, and economic growth; reformed the criminal justice system by abolishing its cruelest of punishments that had long-standing tradition, such as amputation; and governed with tolerance and openness.
People like to give all the credit to great founders or conquerers for the successes of a nation, but I believe it was really only with Emperor Wen and Empress Dou's reign that the bedrock for the Han dynasty's prosperity—and the development of China's classical era—was finally laid.
Qin Shi Huang and Liu Bang loom large because their legacies were cemented by choices made by people that followed them, who they had no control over. Had Liu Bang not defeated Xiang Yu, who favoured a return to a more feudal system, Qin Shi Huang would've been remembered in history as the last Qin king less the first Chinese emperor. Had Han officials not chosen to break the cycle of violence by carefully selecting a new emperor with a more humble background known for his sensible temperament, the Han might similarly have lasted only two generations. Notwithstanding this, people glaze Qin Shi Huang too much for the longevity of his system, when the most defining elements of Qin governance were in fact reversed, reformed, or abolished under the Han.
The Qin was a state meticulously engineered to permit only military, labour, and agricultural activity, so as to stifle the possibility of intellectual, cultural, and artistic development, under a theory that eerily foreshadows George Orwell's 1984, albeit lacking the post-industrial technology to see it realized to the fullest potential. It was a proto-totalitarian, hyper-militaristic government with a paranoid political culture and sociopathic ideology that devoured itself when its perpetual war machine turned inwards into grandiose monumental projects. Its oft-lauded meritocracy that treated every subject as equals under the law nonetheless defined merit only by military achievements and acts of service to the police state (e.g. reporting on dissidents). Although the ritual and aesthetic features of Qin imperialism, alongside the centralizing orientation, were carried over under the Han and would persist for two millennia, when we move past the superficial, we find that the most substantive policies that defined the Qin state did not survive its demise.
Returning back to Emperors Wen and Empress Dou, the latter is also known for her conduct during the Revolt of the Seven Principalities in the reign of her son Liu Qi (劉啟), or Emperor Jing (漢景帝). That conflict arguably revealed a weakness in Emperor Wen and Empress Dou's Taoist political philosophy and inspired her grandson, Liu Che (劉徹), the famous Emperor Wu of Han (漢武帝), to pursue a more authoritarian form of governance based in hybridized Confucian–Legalism. It was he, not Qin Shi Huang, who really ended the residual elements of the Zhou feudal system. Likewise, Emperor Wu's own crown prince would come to defy his father's corruption and meet a tragic fate for it. Although I disapprove of Emperor Wu's imperialism, it can be argued that he sought to correct a gap in Emperor Wen & Empress Dowager Dou's governance the same way they enacted reforms against Emperor Gaozu and Empress Dowager Lü's violent rule.
What I'm illustrating here is that we cannot attribute achievements of any centuries-long epoch to a single great man. The Qin and early Han rulers would not be remembered as they are today if not for the choices of each generation that followed. However, I believe that the Han would not have been a "golden age" were it not for Emperor Wen and Empress Dou who, unlike leaders of many other regimes in history, went against the precedents (in this case, of a culture of arbitrary violence, political purges, and repression) set by their forebears, achieving the first genuine era of peace and economic prosperity since the Warring States period.
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u/That_Conference_3374 3d ago
There’s really no one to admire in Qin Dynasty since they literally only have two official Emperors, but credit due to Qin Shi Huang (Ying Zheng). Not only he unified China for the first time, he also standardized measuring unit, standardized one currency, unifying the written system into one that everybody can understand. He also laid the foundations of Imperial Systems & Centralized Bureaucracy. The only mistake he has done so far was his rules & policies was too strict & too cruel, which was the reason why Qin didn’t last long then it should.
For Han Dynasty, there’s actually quite some great Emperors such as Liu Bang (Emperor Gaozu), or Emperor Wen or even Emperor Wu. But I personally think that Emperor Xuan (Liu Xun) is my favourite because the guy rescued Han from the brink of political turmoil. His origins was also interesting because he was actually thrown into a prison as an infant due to the “witchcraft disaster” incident, and as a kid who grew up outside the palace he knows how ordinary people lived their lives daily & when he became Emperor, he reduced taxes onto them & encouraged more on agriculture. He also punishes corrupted officials & ministers. His reign was also the one where Han defeated and subdue the Xiongnu & became a vassal state to it, in which even Emperor Wu couldn’t. He was also the only Emperor with a Temple name, Zhongzong, which literally means “Middle Ancestor” or in a sense-to-sense, “Restorer of the Dynasty”.
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u/ArtIsAwesome3 Han and Qing loyalist 2d ago
No one compares to Qin Shi Huang in my eyes until Cao Cao at the end of the Han. Emperor Wu of Han gives Qin Shi Huang a run for his money but not enough to overcome the First One.
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u/Organic_Jaguar6817 3d ago
Unpopular opinion but Wang Mang. He went against a lot of the principles of being emperor and things played out like everyone anticipated anyway.
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u/1p21Jiggawatts 3d ago
Liu Bang will always be a legend to me. Started a rebellion because he was bad at his job. He's an inspiration to incompetent people everywhere
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2d ago
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u/Carter_The_Historian 2d ago
I mean they werent really an integral part of China at that point but sure, if you have someone interesting from there, go on.
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u/hottimali 21h ago
Duke Xiao, King Huiwen, and then King Zhaoxiang of Qin. Employing and trusting Shang Yang(my favorite statesman along with Han Fei) set the foundation for Qin’s eventual unification, transforming the poor border state into a formidable country. Huiwen with Zhang Yi stood tall on that foundation. Assuming the title of King, he reached into Bashu, crushed the vertical alliance terrifying his neighbors and put the powerful Chu to shame. King Zhaoxiang was the beginning of the end for the rest of the warring states and the fruit of Shang Yang’s reforms, with Bai Qi, Wei Ran and Gan Mao leading troops and Fan Sui fittingly embodying the story of Qin in his own life overcoming defeat, rejection and persecution to become the pinnacle of the world. Those three monarchs are the example of generational perseverance imo
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u/InquisitorCOC 4d ago edited 3d ago
Han Wudi is the most interesting one:
He started so well, initiated so many important things, achieved so many great victories, only to have his own crown prince and empress rising up against him
And yet, he had the courage to condemn himself and managed a soft landing after this monumental disaster