them fought the Red Eyebrows. In those years millions of men came to
their end. Finally, in A.D. 24, Liu Hsiu prevailed, becoming the first
emperor of the second Han dynasty, also called the Later Han dynasty;
his name as emperor was Kuang-wu Ti (A.D. 25-57).

7 _Reaction and Restoration: the Later Han dynasty_

Within the country the period that followed was one of reaction and
restoration. The massacres of the preceding years had so reduced the
population that there was land enough for the peasants who remained
alive. Moreover, their lords and the money-lenders of the towns were
generally no longer alive, so that many peasants had become free of
debt. The government was transferred from Sian to Loyang, in the present
province of Honan. This brought the capital nearer to the great
wheat-producing regions, so that the transport of grain and other taxes
in kind to the capital was cheapened. Soon this cleared foundation was
covered by a new stratum, a very sparse one, of great landowners who
were supporters and members of the new imperial house, largely
descendants of the landowners of the earlier Han period. At first they
were not much in evidence, but they gained power more and more rapidly.
In spite of this, the first half-century of the Later Han period was one
of good conditions on the land and economic recovery.

8 _Hsiung-nu policy_

In foreign policy the first period of the Later Han dynasty was one of
extraordinary success, both in the extreme south and in the question of
the Hsiung-nu. During the period of Wang Mang's rule and the fighting
connected with it, there had been extensive migration to the south and
south-west. Considerable regions of Chinese settlement had come into
existence in Yuennan and even in Annam and Tongking, and a series of
campaigns under General Ma Yuean (14 B.C.-A.D. 49) now added these
regions to the territory of the empire. These wars were carried on with
relatively small forces, as previously in the Canton region, the natives
being unable to offer serious resistance owing to their inferiority in
equipment and civilization. The hot climate, however, to which the
Chinese soldiers were unused, was hard for them to endure.

The Hsiung-nu, in spite of internal difficulties, had regained
considerable influence in Turkestan during the reign of Wang Mang. But
the king of the city state of Yarkand had increased his power by
shrewdly playing off Chinese and Hsiung-nu against each other