Page 77 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

77 The hunt among mountains. Detail
ofdecoration of a bronze tube inlaid
with gold and silver. Han Dynasty.
It is these diverse elements in Han culture—native and foreign,
Confucian and Taoist, courtly and popular—that give to Han art
both its vigour and the immense variety of its styles and subject
matter.
When Wu Ti died, China was at one of the highest points of
power in her history. The empire was secure; her arms were feared
across the northern steppes, Chinese colonies were flourishing in
Tonkin, Liaoning, Korea, and central Asia. But Wu Ti's succes-
sors were weak and the administration crippled by palace in-
trigues and the power of the eunuchs, a new force in Chinese pol-
itics. In a.d. 9, a usurper named Wang Mang seized the throne and
under the cloak of Confucian orthodoxy embarked upon a series
of radical reforms which, had he been served by an honest and
loyal administration, might have achieved a revolution in Chinese
social and economic life. But by antagonising the privileged class,
Wang Mang ensured his own downfall. He was murdered by a
merchant and his brief Hsin Dynasty came to an end in a.d. 25.
The Han house was restored and at once began the task of recon-
struction. From their capital at Loyang, the Later, or Eastern, Han
reached out once more into central Asia, consolidated their hold
on Annam and Tonkin and for the first time made contact with Ja-
pan. By the end of the century, so great was their prestige that for
a time even the distant Yiieh-chih, now established as the Kushan
Dynasty in Afghanistan and northwest India, sent embassies to
Ch'ang-an.
The Kushan brought Indian culture and religion into central
Asia. This region became a melting pot of Indian, Persian, and
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