Han Dynasty...in five minutes or less

Hello, hello, and welcome to History in 5 Minutes Han Dynasty edition. Alright, so let's get right into it. The Han Dynasty, it's in China. It's much larger than the previous dynasties. Check how far it goes into Asia. Now, is that going to be a problem for the dynasty? Possibly. But, this dynasty ruled for over 400 years. That's a pretty long time. During that time, they had what's called a Golden Age. We'll work on that in a little bit. First, let's talk about this handsome fella. This is Liu Bang. He is the typical rags to riches story. He was a peasant who eventually led a revolt because he was sick of peasant life. He would eventually conquer the Qin army. Let's talk more about this so-called Golden Age. The Golden Age is a long period of stability and wealth. On top of that, new inventions, discoveries, and advancements are helping improve the lives of the Chinese. Some specific advancements are in warfare. Probably the most important advancements came in the form of iron weapons and the crossbow. The crossbow, in case you don't know, helped the Chinese kill enemies from a far safer distance. They had a big improvement in government. If you remember, the Qin dynasty had a very legalist government. This dynasty now turned their government around to more Confucian values. What they did was they had this civil service test where they forced people who wanted to work in government to pass a test to prove that they were worthy of working in the government. Some other advancements happened in agriculture. The chain pump made it easier to move water from a low point to a high point. The wheelbarrow helped the ancient Chinese move stuff easily. A very popular fabric, silk, was invented by the ancient Chinese. This was an extremely valuable trade commodity. Some other advancements in art. The ancient Chinese had a very fancy form of writing called calligraphy. They would originally do this calligraphy on silk until they invented paper. Paper encouraged the cheaper creation of artistic things and especially cheaper versions of books. The Han dynasty had a lot of advancements in medicine and science. Acupuncture was one of them. This was thought to cure illness. The ancient Chinese also figured out that blood circulated from the heart. On top of that, some advancements in science was the seismograph. The seismograph helped the ancient Chinese detect earthquakes. These were just a few of the achievements of the Han dynasty. I encourage you to read more about the Han in order to learn about their other achievements during this golden age. Thanks for listening. Here are some sources.