History of The Han Dynasty - Middle Age of Eastern Han - Reforms and Policies of Middle Eastern Han

Reforms and Policies of Middle Eastern Han

Further information: Government of the Han Dynasty

To mitigate the damage caused by a series of natural disasters, Empress Dowager Deng's government attempted various relief measures of tax remissions, donations to the poor, and immediate shipping of government grain to the most hard-hit areas. Although some water control works were repaired in 115 CE and 116 CE, many government projects became underfunded due to these relief efforts and the armed response to the large-scale Qiang people's rebellion of 107–118 CE. Aware of her financial constraints, the Empress Dowager limited the expenses at banquets, the fodder for imperial horses who weren't pulling carriages, and the amount of luxury goods manufactured by the imperial workshops. She approved the sale of some civil offices and even secondary marquess ranks to collect more revenue; the sale of offices was continued by Emperor Huan and became extremely prevalent during Emperor Ling's reign.

Emperor An continued similar disaster relief programs that Empress Dowager Deng had implemented, though he reversed some of her decisions, such as a 116 CE edict requiring officials to leave office for three years of mourning after the death of a parent (an ideal Confucian more). Since this seemed to contradict Confucian morals, Emperor An's sponsorship of renowned scholars was aimed at shoring up popularity among Confucians. Xu Shen (58–147 CE), although an Old Text scholar and thus not aligned with the New Text tradition sponsored by Emperor An, enhanced the emperor's Confucian credentials when he presented his groundbreaking dictionary to the court, the Shuowen Jiezi.

Financial troubles only worsened in Emperor Shun's reign, as many public works projects were handled at the local level without the central government's assistance. Yet his court still managed to supervise the major efforts of disaster relief, aided in part by a new invention in 132 CE of a seismometer by the court astronomer Zhang Heng (78–139 CE) who used a complex system of a vibration-sensitive swinging pendulum, mechanical gears, and falling metal balls to determine the direction of earthquakes hundreds of kilometers (miles) away. Shun's greatest patronage of scholarship was repairing the now dilapidated Imperial University in 131 CE, which still operated as a pathway for young gentrymen to enter civil service. Officials protested against the enfeoffment of eunuch Sun Cheng and his associates as marquesses, with further protest in 135 CE when Shun allowed the sons of eunuchs to inherit their fiefs, yet the larger concern was over the rising power of the Liang faction.

To abate the unseemly image of placing child emperors on the throne, Liang Ji attempted to paint himself as a populist by granting general amnesties, awarding people with noble ranks, reducing the severity of penalties (the bastinado was no longer used), allowing exiled families to return home, and allowing convicts to settle on new land in the frontier. Under his stewardship, the Imperial University was given a formal examination system whereby candidates would take exams on different classics over a period of years in order to gain entrance into public office. Despite these positive reforms, Liang Ji was widely accused of corruption and greed. Yet when Emperor Huan overthrew Liang by using eunuch allies, students of the Imperial University took to streets in the thousands chanting the names of the eunuchs they opposed in one of the earliest student protests in history.

After Liang Ji was overthrown, Huan distanced himself from the Confucian establishment and instead sought legitimacy through a revived imperial patronage of Huang-Lao Daoism; this renewed patronage of Huang-Lao was not continued after his reign. As the economy worsened, Huan built new hunting parks, imperial gardens, palace buildings, and expanded his harem to house thousands of concubines. The gentry class became alienated by Huan's corrupt government dominated by eunuchs and many refused nominations to serve in office, since current Confucian beliefs dictated that morality and personal relationships superseded public service. Emperor Ling hosted much less concubines than Huan, yet Ling left much of the affairs of state to his eunuchs. Instead, Ling busied himself play-acting as a traveling salesman with concubines dressed as market vendors or dressing in military costume as the 'General Supreme' for his parading Army of the Western Garden.