Wang Mang tried to restore a perfect Zhou dynasty — and destroyed the empire in 14 years

Wang Mang was a Confucian scholar who seized the Han throne in 9 CE, founded the Xin dynasty, and set out to rebuild society according to a utopian reading of the Zhou dynasty classics. He believed that if the institutions were correctly designed, the empire would naturally prosper. Within 14 years every one of those institutions had failed, the realm was in famine and civil war, and Wang Mang was dead — his body cut apart, his head kicked through the streets of Chang'an.

His reforms were sweeping. In AD 9 he nationalised all land, banning private sales and ordering large estates to distribute land to the landless. He issued 28 coin types — gold, silver, tortoise shells, cowries, copper — halting the economy. He established state monopolies on salt, iron, alcohol, coinage, forestry and fishing, plus price controls. He introduced China's first income tax, at 10% on earnings from gathering, fishing, herding and trade. He abolished slavery — then made law-breakers into state slaves, while the poor sold themselves into bondage to pay his new taxes.

Every reform was devised in the capital by Wang Mang alone and imposed by officials who were not paid for years. Corruption was endemic; enforcement was brutal. The aristocracy resisted land nationalisation by bribing officials — the policy was repealed in AD 12, three years in. The currency system made everyday transactions impossible. The Yellow River flooded in AD 11, spreading famine across the central plains. By AD 17, armed bands had gathered across the eastern provinces. The most powerful, the Red Eyebrows (Chimei), grew into a mass movement hundreds of thousands strong.

Wang Mang's military response was disastrous. In AD 23 he sent his cousin Wang Yi with a 430,000-strong army to crush a Han revivalist force at Kunyang. The Xin army was routed by a much smaller Han force led by Liu Xiu and the siege collapsed. Within weeks the Gengshi Emperor was proclaimed, rebel armies converged on Chang'an, and the capital fell. Wang Mang died in the melee at Weiyang Palace on 6 October AD 23. His head was delivered to the new Han capital, hung on the city wall, kicked around by the crowd, and eventually preserved in a court vault until a fire destroyed it centuries later.