Why do all my history books divide Chinese history after the Han dynasty?

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Accepted answer

Because the fall of Han is a traditional demarcation point in Chinese historical periodisation.

The reason is actually less to do with the Han dynasty itself, than it is about what came afterwards. In traditional Chinese historiography, Han is followed by an era known as the "Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties period" (魏晋南北朝)(1).

You see, when the Han Empire fell in c. 220, it marked the beginning of extended political divisions and, later, barbarian incursions that wrecked havoc in China. In this sense, it is somewhat analogous to the fall of Rome and the European Dark Ages. Other than a 50 year period under the Western Jin dynasty, China was not unified again until AD 589, 369 years later.

Because this was a period of intense instability and rapid changes, not just politically(2) but also socio-economically and demographically(3), it is usually given a separate treatment as its own topic. By logical necessity, therefore, the fall of Han concludes the pre-Wei/Jin period of classical Chinese history.

Your textbooks either followed longstanding conventions or just arrived at the same conclusion over where to end a chapter. However, it's probably only a coincidence that "all" your textbooks chose to demarcate Chinese history like that. Another fairly common scheme ends classical history at the unification of China under Qin in 221 BC, and then considers the Qin, Han and Wei/Three Kingdoms period together as one unit.

(1) Also known as the Six Dynasties though the two terms are not completely identical - the Six Dynasties refer to the six regimes that established their capital at Jianye (modern Nanjing).

(2) During this period, China was first divided into the Three Kingdoms, and then - following a series of nomad incursions - shattered into the "Sixteen Kingdoms" in the north and a "Southern Dynasty" behind the Yangtze River. The north eventually consollidated into a (Northern) Wei dynasty, only to then splintered into the Eastern and Western Wei. Both states were subsequently supplanted by the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou respectively. The Souithern Dynasty began originally as remnants of the Jin, but after a while was replaced by the Song, then the Qi, then Liang, and finally Chen.

(3) The barbarian migrations led to major demograaphical changes, for example the "Southern Voyage of Clothes and Crowns" (衣冠南渡) - an euphemism for the educated Han literati class of nothern China fleeing across the Yangtze River.

Upvote:3

It is my understanding that the Han Dynasty represents the first unification of China, and that it lasts for a very long time. It is often presented as comparable to the Roman Empire, and I think it is pretty obvious for European history to understand why the Roman Empire is a major breakpoint.

The Han Dynasty was able to unify China, there was some military developments under it, and it was hard-beaten by nomadic people (as Roman Empire), that invades China and change its organisation: this explains why the Han dynasty is a breakpoint in your books.

Upvote:5

After conquering other Chinese Kingdoms, the king of Qin proclaimed the Chinese Empire of the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC.

The Qin dynasty soon fell, in 206 BC, but the Han Dynasty was founded soon after in 202 BC.

The Western Han Dynasty ruled China from 202 BC to AD 9, and the Eastern Han Dynasty ruled China from AD 23 to AD 220, followed by the Three Kingdoms era.

So the Han Dynasty ruled China since about 19 years after the Qin Dynasty founded the Chinese Empire, and 19 years is a rather short time on the scale of the textbooks you describe.

So it is possible that your textbooks divide Chinese history into two parts, before and after the Qin Dynasty founded the Chinese Empire, but consider the Qin Dynasty to be a brief moment in time before the Han Dynasty began in 202 BC.

Or they may consider the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty in AD 220 a more important turning point in Chinese History since China was only briefly reunited by the Jin Dynasty for about 20 years in all the centuries until the Sui Dynasty reunited China in 589. The 300 year period after the fall of the Han Dynasty was the longest period of Chinese disunity since the foundation of the Chinese Empire in 221 BC, and probably too complex to cover in the textbooks, so they may have decided to cover ancient Chinese history up to the Han Dynasty, skip over the next three centuries, and then resume with the Sui, Tang, and other more or less "Medieval" important dynasties.

And that might have been mandated by some educational authority where you teach that wants all the schools to teach a standard history.

I note that in the textbook you used as an example, Chinese history from myths and legends to 1912 takes up only 7 chapters in a book that has over 38 chapters.

I'm not Chinese, but i read a lot, so I suspect that when I was a middle school age kid I might have already read as much or more about Chinese history as those 7 chapters in the textbook you cite.

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