The Confucian Scholars And The Change Of Political Situation In Emperor Han Xuan And Han Yuan In Western Han Dynasty

The history of the western Han dynasty can be divided into two parts and B.C.89 is the watershed. In the first part,this dynasty is incline to establish a large unified society,however,in the second part,the governors prefer to build a more harmonious one.Faced with the severe situation in which the resources was exhausted and the population was just half of its old days,Huo Guang held the meeting on salt and iron sensibly.The meeting seems about to find out the hardships of people,but the essence of this meeting is that Huo planned to exploit the power of Confucian scholars to settle the problems about the future direction of Han dynasty. After this meeting,the relatively conservative policy could be continued and the western Han dynasty could focus on handling their own affairs rather than breaking out wars with other countries.After emperor Han Xuan had taken the helm by his own,he inherited the tradition that the governance of country should be emphasized from emperor Wu and Zhao in Han dynasty.Meanwhile,he highlighted the construction of local order and the improvement of living standard for the poor.In the process of his policy,he came to form the idea that government can take advantage of criminal law and Confucianism.Finally,he pushed western Han dynasty to another prosperous period.However,many problems existed behind this prosperity,such as the problem of local despots,the pervasive shortage of etiquette and morality in all levels of government officials,the precaution for natural disasters and the rescue towards poor men.All these problems hadn’t been solved well in the period of emperor Yuan and Cheng,as a consequence,the poor were still with no place to settle while the rich and government officials were comparing with others and making people become their slaves.All of these problems were related to the chaos of central government.At the time of western Han dynasty shaking,the emperor and his maternal relatives had done nothing but singing and dancing,and Confucian scholars not only had not reverse thissituation,but disintegrated under the pressure of outer forces as well as their own corruption.Finally,western Han dynasty were walking into a dead end at the time when the government could have made a difference and created a new prospect.