Age of Empires

Jun and States in the Western Han Dynasty

“Jun” (郡) was the name of first-level administrative regions in the Western Han Empire, and its subordinate regions were named “Xian” (縣). The administrative governor of a Jun was called “Taishou”(太守), and the commander of a Jun’s army was called “Duwei” (都尉). Both of them were appointed by the imperial government. A Duwei’s salary was lower than a Taishou’s, but a Taishou couldn’t intervene in the work of a Duwei.

The First Try of Human Flight

The early Chinese nation was a people who had a lively fancy. In the Warring-States Period, Mo-tse (墨子), the founder of Mohist School, made a bird by wood, and this bird could fly continuously for three days. Liezi (列子), a book which was originally written in the Warring-States Period and rewritten in the Eastern Jin (东晋) Dynasty, said that, a craftsman had once presented a robot actor to Zhou Mu-King (周穆王) in the 10th century B.C..

The Torch Relay in Ancient China

In the Han Empire (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), there was a torch relay in the Nuo (傩) ritual of every 12th lunar month. The Nuo ritual was a very old religious ceremony for lustrating plagues. In the Han Empire, a torch relay was added to the ritual. In the Nuo ritual, a man acted the part of the god named Fangxiang (方相) whose duty was to drive devils away. Twelve men acted the parts of twelve divine animals in myth. They intoned the litany which described that the divine animals ate the devils. One hundred and twenty boys joined in chorus.

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