Qin And Han Dynasty, Slavery And Trade

The present paper analyses the causes of slavery in the Qin and Han Dynasty. It gives a description on the historical orbit of the slavery development and industry and commerce development in this period. At the same time, it displays the trait of syn- chronization and its cause in the process of their development. The Qin and Han Dynasty, was in the early period of the feudalistic society in China, was the very period of the establishment and consolidation of the feudalistic pro- duction relations in the whole country. As it was just produced from the slavery society, slavery existed everywhere. In the Qin and Han Dynasty, slavery existed mainly in the industry and commerce. Therefore, slavery and industry and commerce were closely re- lated, both displaying the synchronization in the process of development. With the unification of the country in the Qin and Han Dynasty, the society was relatively stable, the goods production and commerce developed, there appeared a cli - max in the commericical economic development in the early period of the Han Dynasty. The slavery in the industry and commerce, at the same time, made partial develop- ment. The big industry and commerce owner, with their power expanded, colluded with the local separatist power, acted independently consolidation of the feudalistic order and central government, it received bitter attack from the epressing commerce olicy of HanWu Emperor. From then on, the slavery in the industry and commerce got a mop- ping up operation, industry and commerce were unable to recover after the setback. Generally speaking, the development of commodity economy is beneficial to the social progress. However,in the Qin and Han Dynasty, in which the feudalistic produc- tion relations had just been established, the unifying centralized country had just been formed, the epressing commerce policy of HanWu Emperor should be given positive appraisal in attacking separatist power, attacking slavery, promoting the developmentand maturity of the feudalistic production relations. In the early stage of the East Han Dynasty, LiuXiu s policy of liberating the sla- ves solved most of the problems slavery remained, promoting the stability of social or- der, increasing the development of social productive forces, making the feudalistic pro- duction relations reached maturity. Its progressive significance is obvious. Though slavery in the Qin and Han Dynasty had been developing, its main devel- opment trend was still gradually disappearing. The process of development and maturity of the feudalistic production relations, was just the process of slaverys receding from the historical stage. The study on the slavery in the Qin and Han Dynasty.