Brief Discussion On The Backbone Of Social Forces In The Two Han Dynasty

During the Western Han dynasty, the regime integrated all kinds of social forces into its system gradually through a series of measures, such as Confucianism, Election system. The local powerful families, civilian officials, scholars and even some poor people were turned into the scholar-official. Until middle and later period of the Western Han dynasty, the relationship of scholar-officials became increasing close and formed a sense of belonging by the "Xiangshan (相善)", and the scholar-official class formed gradually. The scholar-official class not only possessed a certain amount of political power, but also had a certain economic and social forces, a very high social prestige and a stable social structure, so the scholar-official class became the backbone of social forces of Han dynasty. The establishment of Guangwu regime was mainly due to the support of the scholar-official class. However, after the establishment of the Eastern Han dynasty, Emperor Guangwu took a reform on the political system:"keep setting Sangong, but the real power belonged to Taige","distrust the minister "and" no longer appointed the group of scholar ". These measures strengthened the imperial power but kept the scholar-official class away from the core of power system, which was in an estranged situation gradually. However, the scholar-official class continued developing its power and became stronger. These two opposite trends, would inevitably led to intensification of the conflict between the Emperor and the scholar-official class. The serious intensification of the conflict led to the Danggu Scourge. The Danggu Scourge was the result of contradiction between the gradually stronger of the scholar-official class and the dictatorial imperial system of Eastern Han dynasty.After the Danggu Scourge, the scholar-official class, which had been beat thoroughly, began to split into three parts. One part still deeply concerned on Han dynasty and Xiandi, this phenomenon was discovered and used by Caocao and then control of the emperor. Caocao’s goal of control emperor was for attract scholar-officials. Also there are some scholar-officials broke away from Han dynasty and chose seclusion. The rest of them gave up the spirit of concerning the country and turned to expand forces themselves, whose representatives were Yuan Shao and Liu Yan. The differentiation of the scholar-official class, which was the backbone of social forces, eventually led to the collapse of Eastern Han dynasty.There are five main points in the thesis:First, the formation of the scholar-official class and its becoming the backbone of social forces of the Han dynasty. Second, the establishment of Guangwu regime was mainly due to the support of the scholar-official class. Third, the conflict between the Emperor and the scholar-official class that result in the Danggu Scourge. Fourth, After the Danggu Scourge, the scholar-official class began to split into three parts, which led to the collapse of Eastern Han dynasty. Fifth, A new discussion about "control emperor to command Feudal Kings".