Essay On Han China And Rome

608 Words2 Pages

Han and Rome were two of the greatest empires in the ancient world. But all great empires have great falls. The Han dynasty fell in 220 C.E., and Rome fell in 476 C.E. There are several contributing factors that tipped them over the edge. Three of those factors are: difficulty in collecting taxes, invasions, and government problems. Difficulty in collecting taxes are a big contributing factor to the fall of both the Han Dynasty and Rome Empire. Rome couldn’t collect taxes from the upper classes because they made their own fiefs. Rome really needed the tax money to pay for their army and all their wars. Because of the shortage of people and funds the roman army was dwindling. To fix this they hired barbarians. The only problem with this is the barbarians weren't …show more content…

Rome was having problems with invasions, but having much of their army composed of barbarian mercenaries caused problems because the same people that fought with Rome, would then fight against Rome. Different barbaric tribes slowly encroached on Rome and took more and more of Rome's territory until they took the city Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The barbaric tribes eventually took over all of western Rome. In Han Dynasty the raids and revolts greatly influenced how it fell in the end. Invaders and revolts didn’t completely take over china like they took over western Rome, instead the slowly picked away at the Han Dynasty's economy. It took the government 21 years to get rid of the yellow turban rebellion, in that time the yellow turban rebellion ransacked and destroyed government offices while forcing the imperial armies onto the defensive. For over 200 years China fought with the Xiongnu, this fighting disrupted a portion of the silk road which was a main way of transportation and trade to the other Han cites. The Han finally defeated the Xiongnu, but in doing so they destabilized the Han

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