Eastern Han policy regarding northern neighbors and its consequences for the economics of the empire

Eastern Han Empire was not fully aware of the resources and possibilities it possessed, but was still an ambitious one, and such conjunction led to its exhaustion. In a pursuit of maintaining the status of powerful state, Eastern Han mounted a number of military invasions, with Dou Xian and Ban Chao as their commanders, but such actions were not fully effective. In strategic terms the elimination of predictable Xiongnu state created the political blank space at the northern frontier, which was quickly filled with aggressive and unorganized Xianbi (Xianbei) tribes. Control over «Western region» steadily became too expensive, and could not be executed by Han. While court, palaces and civil powers were sponsored by the central part of China, military efforts relied on the border districts. Once their resources were exhausted because of the dynasty’s ambitions, the government tried to squeeze more from local landholders, but, instead, faced resentment and indignation. The problem was aggravated by consecutive epidemics and revolts. In an attempt to fix the situation, the military campaign in the north was curtailed and the army received a command to withdraw. It caused immediate effect - part of troops mutinied; most of the peasants in the region raised an insurrection. Unstable situation in the north-west could not be balanced even by military force, because the Empire didn’t posses resources to do so. High demands of the military actions destroyed the government budget. In a long-term plan the loss of the Western region and lack of tax revenues due to it meant that taxes must be collected from the prosperous territory of the central regions, which were fully controlled by the land-owning families. In the end, weakened government couldn’t impose its demands on land owners, and any attempt to do so was met with indignation. The roots of military and political border crisis can be traced back to Guan Wu-di, who started the policy of disarmament of the population and continued to «colonize» north-western districts with criminals. As a result, Later Han had an unstable, «barbarized» frontier army, which has easily turned on the capital with a wave of Dong Zhuo’s hand. Moreover, «private armies» were nothing but a consequence of local militia’s attempts to stop insurrections. Torn apart, bureaucracy had no one to rely on, since scholars were not eager to follow Dou Wu’s fate, generals were interested in spoils of war and in power, and big landowners - in their own profit.