The Eastern Han Dynasty was another unified dynasty after the Western Han Dynasty, and together with the Western Han Dynasty, it was collectively known as the "Two Han Dynasties".
The Eastern Han Dynasty inherited some of the mature rules and regulations of the previous Qin and Western Han Dynasties. However, the development of politics in the Eastern Han Dynasty must be traced back to the third century BC. After that, Dong Zhuo settled in Luoyang, and since then, there has been great chaos in the world, and the inherent order has begun to collapse, while the actual disintegration of the Eastern Han Dynasty was in 189 AD.
At the same time, in the history of Europe, the Roman city-states not only established the Roman Republic, but also gradually evolved into the Roman Empire. In 264 BC, Rome unified the Italian peninsula; in 165 BC, Rome destroyed Macedonia and became the hegemon of one side, thus dominating the cultural circle of Greece.
In 30 BC, the national hero Octavian took control of Rome. Three years later, Octavian changed the "Roman republic" to the "imperialist system." Between 193 and 284 AD, after a century of strife and chaos, the Roman throne changed many times, because civil wars were frequent and politics were left unattended, and the lives of ordinary people were very difficult.
It wasn't until 50 years later that the dispute really ended. By 364 AD, Rome was divided into East Rome and West Rome, and the Mediterranean world was divided in two. In 476 AD, the orthodoxy of western Rome was terminated, while eastern Rome continued until a thousand years later.
Around the 5th century AD, the mysterious races of northern and western Western Rome, the Germanic tribes, could not resist the invasion, divided the territory of Western Rome, established their own regime, and since then, a "multinational system" has emerged in Europe.
However, from the perspective of time, the time of great changes in Western Rome is consistent with the time from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties of the Three Kingdoms.
After the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a situation of "three kingdoms standing tall" was formed. Against this backdrop, the Wuhu entered the Central Plains one after another, and as a result, China entered a long-term state of division.
It can be said that these two ancient empires, in terms of political changes, are very similar.
As a major issue in European history, the decline and fall of Western Rome has always been controversial. Some scholars have made a comprehensive discussion on this: internal and external troubles, natural disasters and man-made disasters, all weakened Rome's actual national strength to varying degrees.
To this end, the scholars have summarized two important reasons:
The first reason: the Church and state of Rome were two separate systems, so it was difficult for the Roman Empire to integrate;
The second reason: Rome not only underestimated the power of foreign nations, but also suffered from the corrosion of other civilizations in terms of spirit and lifestyle.
In addition, another Roman historian analyzed the fall of Rome in terms of socio-economic history and the development of social structure. He pointed out that Rome fell because of the division of Roman society. The social class hierarchy was too obvious, and the distinction between the family clan and the common people was clear, and eventually, the Roman world based on urban culture was dragged down by the underlying culture.
In terms of social structure, Rome's inferior "slave production" was one of the most important reasons for Rome's demise. Moreover, Rome's early wars not only plunged Rome into a huge financial crisis, but also led to an imbalance in Rome's "internal weight and external light". Therefore, the pressure of foreign invasion was also an important reason for the demise of Rome.
As the saying goes, the world is unpredictable, Rome is already facing serious external pressures, and the disaster will eventually lead directly to the demise of Rome. At that time, the main disasters in Rome were: natural disasters and changes in the ecological environment. Eventually, the catastrophe directly led to a rapid decline in the population of the Roman Empire and a sharp decline in agriculture.
In fact, the demise of Rome, as Chinese historians usually say: the change of each dynasty is the inevitable development of history.
Here, we look at the Eastern Han Dynasty, the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty also has many reasons:
The lack of communication between the local and central governments led to the rise of the clans, the formation of new nobles, who controlled local power, and eventually, the local upstarts became the real rulers.
At the peak of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the population reached more than 40 million, which was comparable to the population of the Western Han Dynasty. However, the distribution is very different. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the population in the south increased suddenly, while the population of the Central Plains was rapidly decreasing. In addition, the power of the state department at that time was too large, which led to the formation of a divided situation in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
What's more, after the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the prestige of the Eastern Han imperial family was wiped out, and in the end, the country lost the hearts of the people and formed a situation in which the Three Kingdoms were established. However, although Rome did not have a complete county system like that of the Han Dynasty, The rule of Rome was in the hands of the armed forces. In such a situation, the situation is complex and the system is grim.
This system of roman rule was called the "diffusion system", and the Han Dynasty was called the "cohesion system". The most special feature of the diffusion system is that the city is the central point, and the farther away from the center point, the weaker the central control, and its structure is quite loose. From the comparison of the reasons for the disintegration of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Roman Empire, the main reason for the two is that the "structure" is not sound enough and not strict enough.
China's Han Dynasty, a fairly complete map of market networks, organically linked agriculture and handicrafts to become a national economic system. Although it has experienced wars and divisions, the inheritance and infiltration of traditional Chinese Confucian culture have made the cohesion of the country stronger and stronger, thus forming a stable structure.
However, compared to the Han Dynasty, Rome was different. Because, depending on religious beliefs, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, can replace the Imperial Church, but neither is a continuation of the true political system. From this point of view, the destruction of the two empires of the Eastern Han Dynasty and Rome seems to have many similarities, but they are not the same in structure.
The condensed structure, although dispersed, is bound to be composite; the diffusion structure, on the contrary, once split, it is difficult to re-aggregate. In fact, no matter what kind of glory the Eastern Han Dynasty and Rome experienced, they all became the dust of history with the development of society; no matter how similar the reasons for their demise, in the end, they could not escape the process of the times.
Resources:
[Book of the Later Han Dynasty", "Roman Empire", "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"]