The First Empires 25
the world of the moral and political legitimacy of his new empire. Liu
Bang was one of only two emperors in all of Chinese history to rise
from humble peasant background to ascend the dragon throne. He
established his capital at the northwestern city of Chang’an (Eternal
Peace), very near the old Qin capital, and kept many of the govern-
ing institutions established by the Qin, but declared several amnesties,
freeing many of the victims of the harsh penalties of Qin law. Liu Bang
kept about one-third of the empire, in one hundred commanderies in
the west, under his own direct administration while parceling out two-
thirds of the empire in the east as semi-independent kingdoms to his
brothers, sons, and most trusted generals. This rather informal style of
early Han rule notwithstanding, the old indirect feudal rule of the early
Zhou period was gone forever. As the founding generation passed from
the scene, Han emperors gradually abolished the kingdoms and brought
most of the empire under the direct control of the central government.
Liu Bang died in 195 bce and left his fi fteen-year-old son on the
throne, in part because of his confi dence in the young man’s mother,
the formidable Empress Lü. When her son died in 188 bce, she placed
an infant on the throne so she could hold power herself, and when
that young emperor died, she replaced him with another infant, so she
basically held power herself from 188 to her death in 180. Empress Lü
was a ruthless woman who has long been condemned by Confucian
historians as usurping power from the Liu founding family, killing the
rightful heirs to the throne, and placing many of her own relatives in
powerful positions, but she was also a competent ruler who provided
stable leadership at a time when the Han dynasty came under signifi cant
military threat from a nomadic people, the Xiongnu, on its northwest-
ern frontier. Once Empress Lü died, many of her relatives were killed
or dismissed from offi ce, and power was restored to the Liu family. She
was cited ever after by Confucian historians as evidence of the dangers
of powerful women in the imperial palace.
The most signifi cant threat to the Han dynasty in its early years
came from the Xiongnu nomads of central Asia who united under a
charismatic leader, Modun, at about the same time as the Qin unifi ca-
tion of the Warring States. By unifying and extending a network of
northern walls, the Qin and early Han rulers attempted to push the
Xiongnu off their traditional grazing lands and expand the agricultural
base of the Chinese state. But as Modun united more and more nomadic
tribes under his own control, he frequently led successful raids inside
the Chinese walls. Chinese troops could seldom match the nomads’
mobility and shooting accuracy from horseback. The early Han court