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From Nameless Slave to Warlord At the end of the Western Jin dynasty, chaos engulfed China. Borderland peoples – Xiongnu, Xianbei, Jie, Di, and Qiang – rose in rebellion, carving out kingdoms across the north. This era, later called the Sixteen Kingdoms, saw over twenty states emerge, many founded not only by non-Han groups…
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Empress Jia’s Bloody Ascendancy After orchestrating the successive eliminations of Yang Jun, Prince Sima Liang of Ruyan, Wei Guan, and Prince Sima Wei of Chu, Empress Jia Nanfeng seized sole control of the Western Jin court. Outwardly, she feigned grief; inwardly, she gloated. When ministers proposed Zhang Hua as chief minister to stabilize the…
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A Scholar’s Son, a Warrior’s Heart After leaving the warlord Wei Xiao, historian Ban Biao joined Dou Rong in Hexi. Later summoned by Emperor Guangwu, he began compiling the Sequel to Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji Houzhuan) – but died before completing it. He left behind two gifted sons: Ban Gu, the elder,…
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In 9 CE, Wang Mang, a former minister of the Han dynasty, usurped the throne and declared the establishment of the “Xin” dynasty. Obsessed with antiquity, he sought to restore the institutions of the ancient Zhou dynasty, believing that older systems were inherently superior to those of the Qin and Han. Rather than advancing…
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A Fragile Peace, A Fateful Mission After their crushing defeats by Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the Xiongnu retreated beyond the Gobi Desert. For years, they pretended to seek peace – sending envoys to Chang’an while secretly rebuilding their armies. Both sides routinely detained each other’s diplomats: over a dozen Han envoys had been…
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A Call Beyond the Frontier In the early reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BCE), a young courtier named Zhang Qian from Hanzhong served as a Langzhong – an imperial attendant. At court, defectors from the Xiongnu revealed tantalizing news: far beyond the deserts of Dunhuang, in the lands between the Tianshan…