Victor V. Bashkeev

The article examines the peculiarities of the description of the participation of representatives of noble families in the political struggle during the reign of Han Gaozu, Liu Bang (202-195 B.C.), in the second part of the first chapter of Han shu (漢書 “History of Han”). The analysis of the content of “historical-literary” texts from this chapter, adjacent to historical texts, makes it possible to study the peculiarities of the struggle for power between the emperor and representatives of various elite groups of hereditary nobility. An open and direct designation of the circumstances of this struggle was apparently not always possible due to the long-lasting influence of the political forces involved. Therefore, historiographers limited themselves to mentioning various personalities, which indirectly indicates the involvement of particular political groups of the hereditary aristocracy of early imperial China in the struggle for power.

The article deals with the period of the first monarch of the Western Han state — Liu Ban, better known as Han Gao-tsu (202–195 B.C.). This period is investigated in the context of collision of different paradigms of future development of the new Han Empire as the largest and longest-lasting state formation of the imperial type in ancient East Asia.

The article considers the reign of the first emperor of the Western Han — Liu Bang, better known as Han Gao-tzu (202–195 BC). Based on the results of the study of the chronicle of the reign, preserved in the main source on the history of the period — Han shu (“History of Han” I century.) we considered the activities of the bearer of supreme power in the sphere of state administration as part of the 1 Автор благодарит своего научного руководителя к.и.н. М.Ю. Ульянова за помощь и поддержку в подготовке данной статьи. political process on the basis of the fact that the chronicle of the reign preserves all the most important actions of the emperor.