Historic China, and other sketches - University of Macau Library

THE HANS.
subjection, and their territory may be considered as
added to the empire from this date.
At home, the eunuchs gave an immense deal of
trouble by their restless spirit of intrigue; besides
which, for nearly twenty years the Imperial power was
in the hands of a famous usurper, named Wang Mang,
who had secured it by the usual means of treachery and
poison, to lose it on the battle-field and himself to perish
shortly afterwards in a revolt of his own soldiery. This
dynasty also witnessed the spectacle—most unusual in
the East—of a woman wielding the Imperial sceptre;
and hers was not a reign calculated to inspire the people
of China with much faith either in the virtue or the
administrative ability of the sex. In Chinese history,
however, her place is that of the only female sovereign
who ever legitimately occupied the throne.
The founder of the Hans, on his entry into the
capital of the fallen Ch'ins, at once issued a procla-
mation embodying what have since been known as the
'Three Laws,' the object in view being to attach the
people to his cause by an abandonment of the more
barbarous legal penalties in force at that date. By
these laws, murder was still to be punished with death,
but wounding and robbery only in proportion to the act
committed. His next care was to entrust an able and
faithful adherent, named Hsiao Ho, with the construc-
tion of a Penal Code, which was ultimately pubUshed,
and contained no fewer than 359
35
statute laws, upon one
of which, namely capital punishment, we read that
there were 409 additional clauses and 13,472 quoted
D 2