Chinese history has always been trapped in a vicious cycle: conquer the realm, rule the realm, then conquer it all over again. This is what is known as the historical cycle of “a dynasty rises in a blaze of glory” and “falls in the blink of an eye.” The Romance of the Three Kingdoms opens with the words: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.” The Eastern Han gentry clans were immensely powerful, forming a tight-knit whole made up of wealthy landowners, scholars and academies, and the bureaucracy. These powerful clans owned land and the tenant farmers who worked it, maintained their own estates and private troops, monopolized learning, and controlled the government.
In contrast, imperial authority had waned, and the loss of much of the registered population caused state revenues to plummet as wealth gradually accumulated in the hands of powerful nobles and local magnates. To counter this formidable force, emperors had no choice but to rely on the imperial relatives and eunuchs. Traditional historical accounts blame the crisis at the end of the Eastern Han on the grip of these two groups on power, but in reality, they have completely misunderstood the cause and effect.
