Lo-lang Liu then assumed the title of huangdi (huang-ti), or emperor, of the Han dynasty, becoming known by his reign title Gaodi He chose Chang’an (Ch’ang-an) as his capital for its strategic location (it lies in the vicinity of Qin capital Xienyang) Gaozu was a pragmatic and humane ruler He lowered taxes, relaxed the severe Qin laws, proclaimed a general amnesty, and practiced frugal government so that the people could recover from decades of wars and high taxes He maintained the Qin system of central government but was realistic: He divided the empire into two halves The western portion was organized into 14 provinces and counties, which were administered by central government appointees, while the eastern half was organized into 10 kingdoms ruled by his independently powerful allies over whom he only gradually gained control Gaozu’s greatest problem was how to deal with the nomads called Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu) along his northern frontier Qin armies under the formidable general Meng Tian (Meng T’ien) had defeated the Xiongnu, linking existing walls into the Great Wall of China In 209 b.c.e the Xiongnu came under a ruler named Maotun (Mao-t’un) who not only led raids into Han territory but also enticed some of the semi-independent kings under Gaozu to defect to him In 201 b.c.e Gaozu led a mostly infantry force of 300,000 men to battle Maotun’s larger cavalry force and narrowly escaped capture The two sides signed a peace treaty to the Xiongnu’s advantage In addition to establishing a border along the Great Wall, Gaozu agreed to marry his only daughter by his wife Empress Lu to Maotun and to give him regularly large quantities of silks, food, and liquor Empress Lu vetoed the handing over of her daughter, and another girl from the Liu clan was given the rank of princess and sent to be Maotun’s wife Thus began 60 years of appeasing the Xiongnu because the Han government thought peace necessary to China’s economic recovery Gaozu died of an arrow wound in 195 b.c.e while campaigning and was succeeded by his young son; in reality his strong-willed widow, Empress Lu, also of commoner origin, would rule for the next 15 years Further reading: Dubs, Homer H The History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku, a Critical Translation with Annotations vols Baltimore, MD: Waverly Press, 1938–51; Twitchett, Denis, and Michael Loewe, eds The Cambridge History of China, Vol 1, The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.–A.D 220 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur 251 Lo-lang Lo-lang commandery was one of four commanderies established in Korea after the conquest of the northern and central part of the peninsula by China’s Han dynasty in 108 b.c.e It was the most prosperous among the four commanderies and remained under Chinese control until 313 c.e Contacts between China and the Korean Peninsula intensified after the establishment of the Han dynasty in China (202 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) In 194 b.c.e a Chinese named Wei Man (Wiman, in Korean) fled China after a failed revolt and established a state called Choson in northern Korea In 109 b.c.e., on pretext that Wei Man’s successors were harboring Chinese fugitives, Emperor Wu sent an expedition against Choson, defeating it and establishing four commanderies on the peninsula after 108 b.c.e They were Lo-lang (Korean: Nangnang) in the northwest, whose administrative capital was that of the Choson kingdom, near modern Pyongyang; Chen-fang (Korean: Chinbon) to its south; Lin-tun (Korean: Imdun) in the northeast; and Xuan-tou (Korean: Hyondo) in the north By 1–2 c.e only Lo-lang and Xuan-tou remained, comprising 28 counties The retreat was motivated by native unrest and the lack of strategic reasons to maintain control in remote regions on the peninsula But even as the Han dynasty was disintegrating in the early third century c.e., the Chinese were still powerful enough to found a new commandery called Tai-fang (Korean: Taebang) in the Han River valley in west-central Korea Lo-lang was a rich outpost of Chinese civilization for four centuries It had 25 counties with 400,000 registered inhabitants Many tombs excavated near Pyongyang contained some of the best products of Han artisans: many items, such as lacquerware, were made in other regions in China, but some must have been the products of local Chinese immigrants Because of its cultural dominance and the lure of trade, Korean tribal leaders in areas outside the commanderies offered tribute and received patents of office from the Han government With China divided and in a state of civil war at the end of the Han dynasty, Lo-lang commandery fell in 313 c.e and Tai-fang soon followed Lo-lang and other Chinese commanderies in Korea were comparable to Roman colonies in Britain They served to transmit advanced culture to the occupied countries, however, more effectively in the case between China and Korea than between Rome and Britain As Chinese political influence ended in Korea in the fourth century c.e., naive Korean states would emerge Though these states were not the direct political heirs of Chinese rule, they nevertheless received much of their