Imperial Bureaucracy: The Han Dynasty

The Han dynasty mitigated the harshest aspects of Qin governance but kept Qin’s system of imperial bureaucracy. As mentioned above, early Han emperors reduced taxes, provided financial relief for the poor, and relaxed legal penalties; the dynasty had nothing to gain from revoking the ghastly memories of Qin. Qin remained an anathema to Han scholars as well. The scholar-bureaucrat, Jia Yi, despite his praise towards Shihuangdi for unifying China, denounced his dynasty for imposing terror upon people and warned that its fall resulted from its inhumane rule. As an expression of condemnation, moreover, the grand historian, Sima Qian, provided a gruesome account in his magnum opus, Shuji, of an incident wherein Shihuangdi burnt all philosophical texts of certain types under private possession and buried more than 460 scholars who opposed the edict. Han, however, had much in common with its infamous predecessor.