A Study of Military Defense in the Ancient Chinese City of Chang’an During the Han Dynasty

Abstract

The Western Han Dynasty’s two hundred years were a critical stage in developing the capital of ancient China’s unified dynasty. Since the 1950s, with the continuous archaeological excavation work in Chang’an City during the Western Han Dynasty, over half a century has passed and many material and cultural relics have been unearthed, greatly enriching people’s understanding of the civilization of the Han Dynasty in China. Although scholarship was fruitful in the Han dynasty capital, the discussion of military aspects was weak. Therefore, the paper aims to explain the military defense of the capital of the Western Han Dynasty in the historical period and, to some extent, supplement the current academic community’s shortcomings in the military field of capital research. Based on the above considerations, the methods used in this paper are bottom-up reconstruction of archaeological materials, top-down reconstruction of documentary materials, and a large-scale spatial review of historical geography. It will take Chang’an, the central city of China’s Western Han Empire, as an example to analyze the development process of military defense and try to explore the success or failure of this city’s military management. This study found that Chang’an City during this period became the focus of centralized defense with its complete political system and ritual system.

Keywords: Ancient China; Han dynasty capital; Chang’an City; Western Han Dynasty; military defense