The Xin dynasty: a brief interruption with great ambitions

Between the Western and the Eastern Han dynasty lies a remarkable episode in Chinese history: the Xin dynasty, which lasted only fourteen years and had only one emperor — Wang Mang. Although the Xin period was historically an interregnum, an interruption between two phases of the same Han dynastic line, it deserves attention because of the ambitious reforms Wang Mang implemented and the turbulent circumstances that brought down his rule.

Wang Mang: scholar and usurper

Wang Mang was no ordinary successor to the throne. He belonged to an influential family of large landowners and was a nephew of the powerful empress dowager Wang Zhengjun. Through her influence he rose to the highest positions at court. After the death of the last child emperor of the Western Han, Wang Mang seized power and proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty: the Xin, meaning "new."

Wang Mang was a scholar with Confucian ideals and great reform ambitions. He wanted to return to the ideal society as described in the classical texts. He nationalized land, reformed the currency system, abolished slavery, and tried to reduce the great inequality in society. His reforms, however, were too radical and implemented too quickly, and they met with massive resistance from entrenched interests — large landowners, the nobility, and merchants.

Fall and legacy

His reforms failed, and a series of natural disasters — floods, droughts, locust plagues — dramatically worsened the situation. Famine and social unrest led to large-scale peasant uprisings. In AD 23 his capital Chang'an was besieged and taken by rebellious peasants. Wang Mang was killed, and the Han dynasty was restored as the Eastern Han dynasty.

For the history of TCM, the Xin period was not a period of major medical developments. Yet the social and political instability that characterized Wang Mang's reign reminds us that the development of medicine is never separate from the broader social context. Medicine flourishes in times of stability and protection of knowledge — and contracts in times of chaos and destruction.