Founding of the Han Dynasty

The Han dynasty was founded in 206 BCE by Liu Bang, a commoner-born rebel leader who had risen during the collapse of the short-lived Qin dynasty following the death of its First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, in 210 BCE. Liu Bang, who took the throne name Emperor Gaozu, emerged victorious from the Chu-Han Contention, a four-year civil war against his chief rival Xiang Yu, culminating in Xiang Yu's defeat and suicide at the Battle of Gaixia in 202 BCE, after which Liu Bang formally established the Han dynasty with its capital at Chang'an. The Han dynasty softened many of the harsh Legalist policies of the preceding Qin state while retaining its centralized bureaucratic structure, and over its roughly four centuries of rule, punctuated by the brief Xin dynasty interregnum, the Han presided over a lasting golden age of Chinese governance, territorial expansion, Confucian scholarship and the opening of trade routes across Central Asia, leaving so deep an imprint on Chinese civilization that the ethnic majority of China is still known as the Han people today.