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| 201 B.C.E |
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| The Xiongnu, a nomadic, tribal people living along the northern and western border of China, having formed an empire in Mongolia in the previous decade, attacked and encircled Gaozu for a week. The emperor gained his freedom by offering tribute payments. Subsequent emperors also paid them off. | 1 |
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| 195 B.C.E |
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| Upon Gaozu's death, his wife, the Empress Lü effectively ruled as regent for the next 15 years. | 2 |
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| 180–157 B.C.E |
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| The reign of their son, Wendi, kept the regime intact, as did their grandson, Jingdi (r. 157–141 B.C.E.). Most high posts through these years were in the hands of Gaozu's former advisers and generals. Aside from a revolt of seven princes in 154 B.C.E. that was crushed, this was an era of peace, during which the population and the economy grew; taxes were further cut in half by Jingdi to about 130 of a crop yield, and the state granaries and treasury remained well stocked. | 3 |
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| 141–87 B.C.E |
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| The reign of Wudi (b. 159), the “Martial Emperor,” was a period of widespread imperial activism. Wudi moved to stem the growth of class polarization, to reduce the powers of enfeoffed princes, and to centralize authority. In 114 B.C.E., he returned 104 fiefdoms to the state, and they were incorporated into the districts and prefectures; and he demanded they divide all holdings among all male heirs, not just the eldest, to ensure parcellation of power. He moved to eradicate abuses of a now freer merchant class and taxed them to bring more money to the central government and reduce their power; they were also forbidden from owning land. He began the “ever-normal granary” system to ensure state control over the grain supply, and he instituted state monopolies on iron, salt, and liquor. | 4 |
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| 140 B.C.E |
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| Dong Zhongshu (c. 179–140 B.C.E.) advocated Confucian training for civil service and making Confucianism state orthodoxy, effectively outfitting it for the structure of the Legalist state. He also urged limitations on private landholdings and servants so as to counteract the growing imbalance of wealth. | 5 |
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| 139 B.C.E |
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| In an effort to forge an alliance with the Yuezhi (an Indo-European people driven out of Gansu to the west by the Xiongnu into Yili) against the Xiongnu, Wudi sent Zhang Qian (d. 114) to find them. Zhang was captured by the Xiongnu, among whom he married and settled. Ten years later he escaped to continue the search, finding the Yuezhi in the Pamir Mountains of northern Pakistan. | 6 |
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| 136 B.C.E |
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| Doctors (or Erudites) of the Five Classics were established at court by Wudi, each expert in one of the Five Classics. | 7 |
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| 133 B.C.E |
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| Wudi began attacks on the Xiongnu, first in the Ordos region north of the Han capital at Chang'an. | 8 |
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| 127 B.C.E |
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| Victorious, the Han armies spread farther to drive the Xiongnu out of the north and northwest generally. Han then established military colonies from Gansu into central Asia with 700,000 colonists. Subservient central Asian states sent tribute to Wudi to acknowledge China's nominal suzerainty. | 9 |
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| 126 B.C.E |
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| Captured again on his return trip, Zhang Qian ultimately arrived back in the capital with much new information on the lands and peoples to China's west and southwest. | 10 |
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| 124 B.C.E |
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| A National University was created to train civil officials in Confucian principles and texts. Examinations began, too. Great families still continued to have much social, political, and economic power. | 11 |
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| 122 B.C.E |
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| Death of Liu An, prince of Huainan who directed the compilation of a compendium, the Huainanzi, primarily of Daoist philosophical interest. | 12 |
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