Wang+Mang+Maddy+Cole

Maddy Cole 4/11/11   Word Count: 496 Greatness is using cleverness to achieve goals instead of violence and trying new ideas to better a community. This quality of greatness is best demonstrated by the notorious Chinese emperor Wang Mang. He began as Emperor in 9 A.D., ending the Western Han Dynasty, and beginning the new Xin Dynasty. Wang Mang ruled China for fourteen years, using new approaches to governing to close the large gap that lied between the landowners and the peasants that was causing peasant revolts. Unfortunately these approaches led to a brutal rebellion in which he was killed.[1] Wang Mang was great because he was clever and tried new things to improve the lives of ordinary Chinese people. Wang Mang demonstrates greatness in that he was very clever because he was able to work his way to emperor without a violent rebellion. Once he got a position in the house of the Emperor, Wang Mang ruled as a regent for three child emperors whom all died before they were qualified to rule independently. During this time, he was able to develop a strategy to declare himself Emperor of the Xin dynasty.[2] During his reign, he used his power in new ways, shifting the distribution of wealth towards the poor. To do this, he used his intelligence as a way to justify his new reforms to the government. The way he justified one of his was reforms was by saying that it was the will of Confucius for him to alter the landowning in China by making it so every man had land to tend, but it was all owned by the government. He used Confucianism to justify these reforms so people could not argue without arguing against their religion. Unfortunately his attempt to change the laws with religion did not work because people were more interested in having money than following their religion.[3] These examples show that he was so great in the aspect of cleverness, that he was able to become the emperor of the Xin dynasty with his crafty ways. Wang Mang tried new ideas to improve the lives of peasantry in China, which illustrates part of his greatness. To help out peasants and distribute equality among the empire, he decided to cut taxes on land from fifty to ten percent so peasants could own land without financial issues. He also made the reform that every man shall own land, which he made in attempts for less poverty, and more equality.[4] Even though these reforms did not last a long time before he was overthrown, he still tried new ideas to improve his empire to help people. Wang Mang’s greatest strengths were his cleverness and his openness to outside ideas to fix problems. His greatest failures were causing major inflation in China and making too drastic of changes to the government, which unfortunately ended in brutal rebellion. Overall Wang Mang is the greatest leader of all time because he was cunning and was accepting of new ideas for government.

[1] Accessed April 10, 2012. []. (rating 13) [2] Dash, Mike. Accessed April 10, 2012. []. (rating:12) [3] Wu, Jonathan. Accessed April 10, 2012. []. (rating 13)

[4] Accessed April 10, 2012. []. (rating 11)