Vietnamese historians regard Trieu Da as a defender of their homeland against an expanding Han empire.

In 111 BCE, however, the Chinese armies of Emperor Wu Di defeat the successors of Trieu Da and incorporate Nam Viet into the Han empire.

The Chinese are anxious to extend their control over the fertile Red River Delta, in part to serve as a convenient supply point for Han ships engaged in the growing maritime trade with India and Indonesia.

Maritime East Asia (189–46 BCE): Han Dynasty Expansion and Cultural Renaissance

Between 189 BCE and 46 BCE, MAritime East Asia—comprising lower Primorsky Krai, the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese Archipelago below northern Hokkaido, Taiwan, and southern, central, and northeastern China—experiences significant territorial expansion, cultural revival, and technological progress under the Han dynasty.

Establishment and Administration of the Han Dynasty

Following a brief civil war, the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) emerges, establishing its capital at Chang'an. The Han rulers maintain much of the Qin administrative structure but temper centralized rule by introducing vassal principalities to facilitate governance. Confucianism, previously suppressed under Qin, becomes the official state ideology, and Confucian scholars become central to civil administration, establishing the earliest civil service examination system.

This era also sees a remarkable cultural renaissance, notably through the work of historian Sima Qian (145–87 BCE), whose Shiji (Historical Records) documents Chinese history comprehensively from legendary periods through Emperor Wu Di (141–87 BCE). Intellectual, literary, and artistic endeavors flourish, profoundly influencing subsequent generations.

Military Expansion and the Silk Road

The Han dynasty is marked by substantial military prowess, expanding westward into the Tarim Basin region (modern Xinjiang), thereby securing and promoting the Silk Road, a crucial trade route linking China with Antioch, Baghdad, and Alexandria. This route becomes synonymous with the export of Chinese silk to the Roman Empire.

Han armies also penetrate into northern Vietnam and northern Korea, where they establish commanderies, notably Lelang (Nangnang) near modern-day P'yongyang. These commanderies facilitate cultural and commercial exchanges, though their governance remains fragile and heavily reliant on diplomatic tributary relationships, symbolized by intermarriages and periodic exchanges of gifts with local rulers.

Developments on the Korean Peninsula

In Korea, the most notable polity is Old Choson, flourishing along the Liao and Taedong rivers, known for its bronze culture and formidable military strength. Under the leadership of Wiman (194–180 BCE), who synthesizes Chinese influence with indigenous traditions, Wiman Choson expands significantly but ultimately falls to Han conquest in 108 BCE.

This era coincides with the peninsula’s shift from bronze to iron culture, profoundly enhancing agricultural productivity through iron tools such as hoes, plowshares, and sickles. Increased grain cultivation supports population growth and lays continuous agrarian foundations for later unified Korean states.

The Han–Xiongnu Conflict

In response to increasing threats from nomadic Xiongnu tribes on the northern frontier, Emperor Wu Di initiates the prolonged Han–Xiongnu War (133 BCE–89 CE). This shift from defensive to offensive strategy characterizes Han foreign policy, further solidifying its control over frontier regions and protecting key trade routes.

Technological and Mathematical Advancements

The Han dynasty witnesses remarkable technological achievements, including the invention of paper and porcelain. In mathematics, the influential text Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art (Jiu Zhang Suan Shu) introduces negative numbers and innovative methods for solving simultaneous equations, marking significant milestones in mathematical history.

Legacy of the Age: Consolidation and Cultural Synthesis

Thus, the age from 189 to 46 BCE under the Han dynasty marks a pivotal period of territorial expansion, cultural revival, and technological innovation. This era establishes enduring administrative, philosophical, and technological frameworks that profoundly influence East Asian civilization for centuries.

A new Chinese dynasty, called Han (206 BCE- CE 220), had emerged with its capital at Chang'an after a short civil war.

The new empire has retained much of the Qin administrative structure but has retreated a bit from centralized rule by establishing vassal principalities in some areas for the sake of political convenience.

The Han rulers modify some of the harsher aspects of the previous dynasty; Confucian ideals of government, out of favor during the Qin period, are adopted as the creed of the Han empire, and Confucian scholars gain prominent status as the core of the civil service.

A civil service examination system also is initiated.

Intellectual, literary, and artistic endeavors revive and flourish.

The Han period produces China's most famous historian, Sima Qian (145-87 BCE?), whose Shiji (Historical Records) provides a detailed chronicle from the time of a legendary Xia emperor to that of the Han emperor Wu Di (141-87 BCE).

Technological advances also marked this period.

Two of the great Chinese inventions, paper and porcelain, date from Han times.

The Huainanzi, a second century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from the Han dynasty that blends Taoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases, is written under the patronage of Liu An, Prince of Huainan.

Advisor to his nephew, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu An is a legendarily prodigious author.

The text, also known as the Huainan honglie ("The Great Brilliance of Huainan"), is a collection of essays presented as resulting from literary and philosophical debates between Liu and guests at his court, in particular the scholars known as the Eight Immortals of Huainan.

The Huainanzi is the first Chinese classic text to use the Pythagorean comma, and to precisely analyze twelve-tone tuning in Chinese music (McClain and Ming 1979:213, 206), although the latter had been preceded by bronze inscriptions on the (433 BCE) bells of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (Temple 1986:199).

The date of composition for the Huainanzi is more certain than for most early Chinese texts.

Both the Book of Han and Records of the Grand Historian record that when Liu An paid a state visit to his nephew the Emperor Wu of Han in 139 BCE, he presented a copy of his "recently completed" book in twenty-one chapters.

An eclectic compilation of chapters or essays that range across topics of mythology, history, astronomy, geography, philosophy, science, metaphysics, nature, and politics, the Huainanzi discusses many pre-Han schools of thought (especially Huang-Lao Daoism), and contains more than eight hundred quotations from Chinese classics.

Chinese puppeteers develop the shadow play, a form of puppetry in which flat cutout figures are silhouetted against a translucent screen and manipulated with rods while the puppeteer intones the story to musical accompaniment.

Shadow puppetry originates during the Han Dynasty when one of the concubines of Emperor Wu of Han died from an illness.

The emperor was devastated, and he summoned his court officers to bring his beloved back to life.

The officers made a shape of the concubine using donkey leather.

Her joints were animated using eleven separate pieces of the leather, and adorned with painted clothes.

Using an oil lamp, they made her shadow move, bringing her back to life.

Emperor Han Wudi’s reign sees great territorial expansion and a burst of economic and cultural activity.

His armies push north and west into central Asia, east to Korea, and south to the coast.

Commerce with the states of western Asia increases, silk becomes a major export, and inventors discover ways to make paper and porcelain.

Han historiographer Sima Qian writes Shiqi (Shih chi) ("The Records of the Historians"), which will serve as the prototype for the official histories of successive dynasties.

Han scholars direct their efforts to find or reconstruct the Zhou classics banned during the Qin dynasty.

Confucianism begins to replace Legalism as the Han dynasty’s orthodox philosophy.

Wudi’s Han Chinese forces arrive at Nam Viet’s Red River delta in 113 and conquer the kingdom within two years, annexing the Dong-son homeland of Tonkin to the Chinese empire.

The conquered Nam Viet, divided into nine military administrative districts, becomes the Chinese province of Giao Chi.

The empire dispatches Chinese peasant-soldiers to set up villages and build forts in the region, which the Chinese call Annam (“Pacified South”).

Han, having forced the northern invaders to retire behind the Great Wall, pushes Chinese political influence westward into Central Asia.

Han also takes control of the Fujian (Fukien) state of Yue.

Emperor Wu of Han dies in 87 BCE after an illustrious reign spanning more than five decades.

His throne passes to a minor under a regency council.

The Emperors official court historian, Sima Qian, dies the following year, leaving his Shi Ji (“Records of the Historian”), the first general history of China from its earliest times.

Writing in a lively but terse voice, Sima Qian recounts two thousand years of complex history in an orderly chronological style in one hundred and thirty chapters, one hundred of which are biographical and deal with various famous individuals.