A Study On The Elderly Group In The Han Dynast

The research on the group of historical figures is a hot topic in historical research.There is a saying in the past: "The two Han people are called elders." The term elder was originally used to describe an older or senior person.In the Han Dynasty,the connotation of elders was constantly expanded,generally referring to those who were powerful,virtuous,rich and knowledgeable.As an important character evaluation word in Han Dynasty,elders contain people’s yearning for ideal belief and pursuit of moral personality.Under this influence,the elderly groups of Han and Han Dynasties,by virtue of their moral inspiration and personality influence,encouraged the people to realize their personal achievements and the prosperity and development of the country through standing on their own.In the past,scholars focused on the individual studies of the elders in the early Western Han Dynasty,but lacked the study of the change track of the elders from the whole historical development process of the Han Dynasty.Therefore,to explore the interaction between the four hundred elderly groups and the society in Han Dynasty can not only help us sort out the historical development of Han Dynasty,but also provide us with a new perspective to understand the Han Dynasty society.This paper intends to comprehensively explore the elderly groups of Han and Han Dynasties from the following five aspects.The first is the age factor of the emergence of the Han and Han elderly groups.1.The mind of people in the late Qin and early Han Dynasties was quiet and the psychological needs of people in the Han Dynasty.The long war of the parties made the intellectuals exhausted,and the emergence of the elderly group smoothed the wounds brought by the continuous military revolution to the people.2.The imperial policy of sharing the world with the meritocracy in the early Western Han Dynasty and the imperial policy invited by the court in the early Eastern Han Dynasty.After the establishment of the unified empire,how to properly place the meritorious officials is a big problem to be solved urgently in the feudal dynasty.In the early Han Dynasty,the court was threatened by the increased power of the meritocracy,while the elders advocated the unification of power and maintained the supreme authority of the monarch.3.The change of political thought from yellow old man doing nothing to tyrant King.The rulers of the Han Dynasty chose the political guiding ideology according to the social development situation,and the elders,as the executors of the power due to the situation,always kept pace with the development of the dynasty’s governing strategy and political ideas.4.Changes in the status of powerful landlords.The emperors of the Han Dynasty both attacked and used the powerful landlords,and gradually incorporated them into the ruling regime.With the increasing gentrification of the powerful landlords,more and more members of the elders in the Eastern Han Dynasty came from the families of the powerful landlords.5.Continuous improvement of the investigation system.Under the influence of the Chaeju system in the Han Dynasty,most members of the elderly group took the sutra-filial piety and honesty as the path to official life.Second,the composition and characteristics of the Han elderly groups.The members of the elderly group in the Han Dynasty were officials,rangers,merchants,hermits,officials,literati and so on.In the early Western Han Dynasty,the members of the elderly group were mainly rangers,merchants and literary officials.After Emperor Wudi commended the Six Classics,the number of official elders who practiced Confucianism,promoted the custom of leniency and administration,and eased the law increased.In the Eastern Han Dynasty,the members of the elderly group were mainly scholar-officials.They are just and incorruptible officials,and their ambition is to help the world and reassure the people.The characteristics of the elderly group include the virtues of the elderly,the rules of the elderly and the words of the elderly.The virtues of the elders included the common ideas of Confucianism,Taoism and law,etc.However,in the increasingly strong atmosphere of Confucian classics governing the country and promoting Confucianism,the elders were more endowed with the Confucian spirit of loyalty,filial piety,benevolence,frugality,modesty and comity.The rules of the elderly are manifested as resolving conflicts and contradictions in an outward-wide and inside-clear way,and carrying on moral education to the people with their own example.The words of the elders refer to the period of Emperor Xuan,Emperor Guangwu and Emperor Ming,when "good officials were acting as festival officials",the elders who served as officials used simple and sincere words to advise the emperor not to be overly harsh on the two thousand stone officials who were shouldering the responsibility of promoting discipline and ethics.The third is the temporal and spatial distribution of the elderly groups in Han and Han Dynasties.In terms of time distribution,members of the Western Han elderly group appeared more frequently in the periods of Emperor Wen and Emperor Wu.Tracing back to its origin,it is related to the succession of Emperor Wen,who was once a foreign vassal,because of the name of "the elder gentleman of Bo’s mother family".There are former emperor meritorious officials in the side,outside there are other princes covetously.Emperor Wen ruled the world with the virtue of being generous to the elders,and attracted a group of elders with the same characteristics to guard the Han Dynasty.Emperor Wudi inherited the rule of Wenjing and opened the heyday of the Han Dynasty,so the elders appeared more frequently in this period.In terms of space,the members of the elderly group of the Western Han Dynasty were mainly distributed around the Liangdi,that is,Sima Qian said that "Liangduoelderly".In terms of time distribution,the members of the elders in the Eastern Han Dynasty mostly concentrated in the early period of Emperor Guangwu and Emperor Xian of Han.The reason is related to the troubled times at that time.In terms of space,the distribution of elders is more in Nanyang County and Jingshi area.Nanyang County,as the emperor’s township,was the base camp of Liu Xiu’s establishment of political power.The capital Luoyang was the political,economic and cultural center of the Eastern Han Dynasty.It is not surprising that there were a large number of people living,serving as officials and studying here.The fourth is the comparison of the elderly groups in Han and Han.In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty,most of the members of the elderly group came from the lower echelons of Qin officials,social rangers,and peddlers.Neither social status nor academic accomplishment can be compared with the Eastern Han Dynasty.The founder of the Western Han Dynasty,the elder Liu Bang,did not pay much attention to Confucianism because of the social reality and the characteristics of Confucian scholars who could speak but could not act.Even later,Confucian scholars helped him to uphold the title of king and minister and maintain the authority of the monarch by making rites and music.However,in the early period of the Western Han Dynasty,the political thought pursued by the ruling class was still based on the learning of Huang and Lao.In order to strengthen ideological control,Emperor Wudi ordered that "all schools of thought be dismissed and Confucianism be respected exclusively." With the consolidation of the official status of Confucian classics in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty,Confucianism became the mainstream ideology of feudal society in the Eastern Han Dynasty.At the same time,there are more members of the elderly group who study Confucian classics and are proficient in Confucianism.Fifth,appellation statistics and social impact of the elderly group.The title of "elder" has something to do with the Han government’s emphasis on rural discussion.It is not only an important way to understand local customs,but also an important standard for selecting talents and judging officials’ achievements.As an important character evaluation words in the Han Dynasty,elders were appraised as elders,which proved that they had high morality and good conduct,and were worthy of public communication and trust.Therefore,the social celebrities and ordinary scholars of the Han Dynasty tried their best to establish a good reputation for themselves.At the same time,the elderly group also carried forward the good character of keeping faith and maintaining integrity,cultivated the social atmosphere of respecting the elderly and the wise,and effectively promoted the interpretation and development of the political thoughts and social ethical concepts of the Han Dynasty.