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China had long enjoyed the benefits of being an economic power, but that
power, built mainly on the value of its exports - most famously silk - was, as
with all nations, offset by political and military strife. The previously
embattled Roman Empire was enjoying relative stability under the rule of the
ambitious unifier, Emperor Septimus Severus - who, while China slowly recovered
from 16 years of famines and national rebellion that had weakened its trade
links, was looking to regain or strengthen Roman influence in many of the
nations that lay along the Silk Road - and the Han Dynasty’s perceived strength
became an urgent matter as hungry neighbours regained their ability to expand.
The problem was that it was becoming all too obvious that the Han was a frail,
stricken dynasty, and the proposed and attempted solutions were many and
largely controversial.
The Han Dynasty had been an enduring force in China
for hundreds of years, but that tenure had not been without problems. Once, an
ambitious politician called Wang Mang had managed to depose the Han and found
his own dynasty: he had applied the notion of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’, which
asserted that any man - which could, theoretically, mean a peasant as much as a
noble - could be deemed a suitable ruler if he had enough support, the ‘signs’
were right, and the incumbent - in this case, the entire Han Dynasty, rather
than the current monarch alone - was said to have ‘exhausted their mandate’.
Wang fell afoul of a rebellion led by a member of the Liu clan, and their Han
Dynasty was restored to power: the whole affair was not without consequences,
however, as the weakness of the Chinese rulers had led to rebellions by
indigenous tribes around the northwest and the imperial capital, Chang’an -
long the centre of trade with the outside world - had to be all but abandoned
and the seat of power moved east to Luoyang.
The Han enjoyed relatively stable control of the nation thereafter, but the matter of who would be the next sovereign was a constant internal source of strife. Time and again, different factions would coalesce around a particular candidate and intrigue would take precedence over good government; one particular figure, Liang Ji, used his position as the sister of the Empress Dowager to control the child Emperor Huan and rule through him, although opinions about the nature and success of that rule were infamously mixed. Emperor Huan eventually tired of being a puppet and conspired with his eunuch attendants, whose actions removed Liang Ji and his allies and restored power to the sovereign; their reward - which would have immediate consequences - was power that was normally beyond their caste. The timid attendants - whose emasculation was intended to remove their ambitions, status as real men, and make it possible for them to live and work within the core of the imperial palace, where men were largely forbidden - were suddenly able to have adopted families, possess land and generate wealth; but within a short time, one small faction - which came to be known as the ‘Ten Attendants’ by their enemies - abused the privilege and started to build an unrivalled power base at court.