THE MIDDLE AGES



Chapter Six


THE HAN DYNASTY (206 B.C.-A.D. 220)

I _Development of the gentry-state_

In 206 B.C. Liu Chi assumed the title of Emperor and gave his dynasty
the name of the Han Dynasty. After his death he was given as emperor the
name of Kao Tsu.[4] The period of the Han dynasty may be described as
the beginning of the Chinese Middle Ages, while that of the Ch'in
dynasty represents the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages; for
under the Han dynasty we meet in China with a new form of state, the
"gentry state". The feudalism of ancient times has come definitely to
its end.

[Footnote 4: From then on, every emperor was given after his death an
official name as emperor, under which he appears in the Chinese sources.
We have adopted the original or the official name according to which of
the two has come into the more general use in Western books.]

Emperor Kao Tsu came from eastern China, and his family seems to have
been a peasant family; in any case it did not belong to the old