s. Under
the name "Discussions on Salt and Iron" the gist of these talks is
preserved and shows that one group under the leadership of Sang
Hung-yang (143-80 B.C.) was business-oriented and thinking in economic
terms, while their opponents, mainly Confucianists, regarded the
situation mainly as a moral crisis. Sang proposed an "equable
transportation" and a "standardization" system and favoured other state
monopolies and controls; these ideas were taken up later and continued
to be discussed, again and again.

Already under Wu Ti there had been signs of a development which now
appeared constantly in Chinese history. Among the new gentry, families
entered into alliances with each other, sealed their mutual allegiance
by matrimonial unions, and so formed large cliques. Each clique made it
its concern to get the most important government positions into its
hands, so that it should itself control the government. Under Wu Ti, for
example, almost all the important generals had belonged to a certain
clique, which remained dominant under his two successors. Two of the
chief means of attaining power were for such a clique to give the
emperor a girl from its ranks as wife, and to see to it that all the
eunuchs around the emperor should be persons dependent on the clique.
Eunuchs came generally from the poorer classes; they were launched at
court by members of the great cliques, or quite openly presented to the
emperor.

The chief influence of the cliques lay, however, in the selection of
officials. It is not surprising that the officials recommended only sons
of people in their own clique--their family or its closest associates.
On top of all this, the examiners were in most cases themselves members
of the same families to which the provincial officials belonged. Thus it
was made doubly certain that only those candidates who were to the
liking of the dominant group among the gentry should pass.

Surrounded by these cliques, the emperors became in most cases powerless
figureheads. At times energetic rulers were able to play off various
cliques against each other, and so to acquire personal power; but the
weaker emperors found themselves entirely in the hands of cliques. Not a
few emperors in China were removed by cliques which they had attempted
to resist; and various dynasties were brought to their end by the
cliques; this was the fate of the Han dynasty.

The beginning of its fall came with the activities of the widow of the