of power politics. At the same time, his occultist cosmology preserved the
veneer of legitimation that the Legalists had stripped away with their blatant
naturalism.
Centralization in the Han Dynasty:
The Forming of Official Confucianism and Its Opposition
The crisis of overcrowding in the attention space had produced a wave of
syntheses among the multiple factions of the late Warring States period. Syn-
thesis was accelerated still further by external conditions when the Ch’in
conquest state and the subsequent Han dynasty centralized intellectual life. The
rival centers which had promoted creativity were now reduced to a single
center under imperial patronage. Which intellectual faction would gain control
of the new material base? In the Ch’in, the Legalists had imposed their
hegemony. But the Han revolution had put them under a cloud. Tsou Yen’s
Yin-Yang school and other occult divination schemes remained popular. By the
time centralized Han administration was firmly established around 130 b.c.e.,
Confucianism had made a dramatic comeback and was elevated to the sole
official doctrine.
All subsequent Chinese history has been written in the light of Confucian-
Han Dynasty, 200 b.c.e.–200 c.e.
Innovation by Opposition: Ancient China^ •^153