Wang Mang's Usurpation

Wang Mang, a powerful court official and regent related by marriage to the Han imperial family, deposed the child emperor Ruzi Ying and declared himself emperor of a new Xin dynasty in 9 CE, ending, though only temporarily, more than two centuries of Han dynasty rule. Wang Mang, who had built a reputation as a Confucian moral reformer before seizing power, implemented sweeping and often disruptive reforms once in power, including nationalizing land to redistribute it more equitably, abolishing private slavery, reforming the currency multiple times, and reviving idealized ancient Zhou-dynasty institutions, policies that combined with natural disasters, including catastrophic Yellow River flooding, to produce widespread economic disruption and famine. Wang Mang's rule collapsed amid the Red Eyebrows and other peasant rebellions that erupted from roughly 17 CE onward, and he was killed when rebel forces stormed the capital, Chang'an, in 23 CE, after which a distant Han relative, Liu Xiu, eventually restored the dynasty as Emperor Guangwu in 25 CE, inaugurating the Eastern Han period that followed the earlier Western Han.