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#|< Previous #|Next > **Economic System in Han China and Imperial Rome**

Monty Burns is a hedge fund manager and interested in the economic system of Han Dynasty China and Imperial Rome. Mr. Burns has helped many of his clients amass large fortunes and is well known on Wall Street. A proponent of free trade, Mr. Burns and his associates have invested heavily in foreign companies with low labor costs. To help him decide which dynasty to visit, you will need to research answers to the following key questions:

= **Key Questions:** =
 * 1) What type of economy did the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire posses?
 * 2) What were the major products or goods produced in each place?
 * 3) How did the economy run? How did people buy or trade products?
 * 4) What types of jobs did people have in the economies of Rome and China?
 * 5) What other civilizations or empires did Rome and China trade with?
 * 6) Which empire should Mr. Burns, an investment banker, visit? Why?

=Resources= Your research will be confined to the following web resources and library databases. If you wish to use a resource not on this list you must seek approval from your teacher.

**Rome**
 * [|http://www.classicsunveiled.com/]
 * [|http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/index.html]
 * [|http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/]
 * __ [|http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/europe/ancient_roman_culture.html] __
 * __ [|http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webunits/greecerome/] __


 * China **
 * [|http://wapedia.mobi/en/Society_and_culture_of_the_Han_Dynasty]
 * __ [|http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/early_imperial_china/han.html] __
 * __ [|http://gallery.sjsu.edu/silkroad/civilization.htm] __
 * __ [|http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hand/hd_hand.htm] __
 * __ [|http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHEMPIRE/FORMHAN.HTM] __
 * __ [|http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia-archive/lessons/zarou/WSHan.htm] __


 * Library Databases **
 * http://www.micdslibrary.com/databases.html

Scroll down to the History/Social Studies menu; the ABCCLIO Ancient World History database is particularly helpful.

=Research and Citations= Use the space below to record your research for each question. Remember that you will need to cite your sources using the format found on the MICDS Library resource page.

=== What type of economy did the Han Dynasty and Roman Empire possess? === Han China: The Han Economy was defined by many things such great population growth, increasing organization, and fantastic growth of industry and trade. It also was known by big government experimentation, the Han economy had significant coin currency and levels of minting forming the foundation of a stable monetary system. This is what the economy of the Han Dynasty was known as.

Imperial Rome: The Roman economy was not a complex economy at all. It was only based on slaves and argrarian. Over time trade and agriculture dominated Roman economic fortunes. This is how not complex the Roman economy was.

=== What were the major products or goods produced in each place? === Han China: The Han Dynasty has two major products produced in China, silk and salt, these were traded with a ton of different civilizations and cultures. Silk weaving was very time-consuming and challenging. Several years passed by, people were still weaving silk with their hands taking up so much time, then the Chinese invented a foot-powered machine that could weave silk fibers onto a big reel. Salt and silk were very valuable while trading, silk was used for clothing while salt was used for preserving meat and vegetables. People dug deep holes in the ground until they reached salt water, they got the water they needed and then put them in large, iron pots and waited until all the water evaporated and all that was left was salt. The tool the Chinese used to do that was an iron-tipped bamboo drill. This is how valueable and important these two major industries were to the Chinese and so many other civilizations.

Imperial Rome: The Roman economy only had a few major products that were produced in Rome. The three major crops they grew were grapes, grains, and olives. The most important products that were produced in Rome were olive oil and wine. To grow these items it needed many slaves to help. They had a tier crop rotation and also had a low output on crop production. Another big product produced in Rome was mining stones and rocks. It was the largest industry in Rome and provided a lot of stones for major building projects. Gold and silver were mostly mined, they were used for coinage and making jewelry. Imported metals such as iron, lead, and tin were from Britian and the Romans then made the metals into pottery, glassware, weapons, tools, jewelry, and textiles. These are the major products the Romans produced in their times. === How did the economy run? How did people buy or trade products? === Han China: The people of the Han Dynasy traded with other people by the Silk Road. The Silk Road spread as far as the Black Sea all the way over to South and Central Asia and the North part of the Caspian Sea. It let China and other civilizations trade with more people. This is how the Han Dynasty people traded with others.

Imperial Rome: The Romans had two choices of how to travel and trade, either by water or by land. Land took longer and expensive, soldiers and goods traveled on roads. Big deliveries were exposed to raids and adverse weather. The horse drawn loads had to be lighter because the horses couldn't pull that much. Caravans of donkeys or camels carried baskets although some slaves carried them too making cheap work. Specific items such as food, stones, metal, and building supplies were shipped by water. There were a lot of sea lanes the you could be able to access all of the ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Even though this was the best way to travel it was more dangerous to travel by water, you had some dangers such as inclement weather, inaccurate charts, and poor navigational equipment. These were the two choices the Romans could choose to trade and travel.

=== What types of jobs did people have in the economies of Rome and China? === Han China: The three major jobs that the ancient Chinese took part of was either a farmer, a silk weaver, or someone who spent hours digging holes in the ground to find salt. Farmers were expected to grow enough crops to feed their own families. They were also expected to help stock up the grain houses, make their own clothes, build the houses they lived in, and pay one month of unpaid labor each year. Some of the labor they to do was work on projects such as roads and canals. Silk and salt were the biggest industries in China and were very important in trade, thats why they were such popular jobs. Silk weavers spent long days weaving fibers of silk together from silkworms. It was very time-consuming and hard although one time they invented a foot-powered machine to weave it for you. Salt finders were important too, they dug holes in the ground with iron-tipped bamboo drills for hours and hours a day (some of the holes were more than 1,000 feet deep). The holes had to reach salt water, they would stick tubes in and gather the water they needed. Eventually the water was evaporated in large, iron pots so all that was left was salt for trade. This is how important all of these three jobs were in the Han Dynasy time period.

Imperial Rome: The two jobs a lot of people had in the Roman economy was either a farmer or miner. Farmers had to donate crops to government instead of paying montary taxes. This job had some negative things though, for example this allowed the Republic and Imperial rulers to gain popularity and that just leaves the farmers with little incentive to increase crop production because crops were turned into tax. Miners were apart of the biggest industry in Rome, mining was used for many things such as providing stones for building major projects. People mined gold and silver for hours a day and then used them to make jewelry and mint coins for trading. They imported such metals from Great Britian and then hand made them into pottery, glassware, tools, weapons, textiles, and jewelry. These were both very important jobs in the Roman economy, the farmers' crops fed the citizens and the military and the metal items were used for the army and everyday life. These were the two jobs a lot of the population took part of to participate in the Roman economy.

=== What other civilizations or empires did Rome and China trade with? === Han China: The Han Dynasy traded with many people and civilizations. They traded with people from far away places like Europe. They civilizations they trade with the most were Eurasia (Europe and Asia combined) and inner Asia. A lot of these places that China started trading with was caused by expansions and the silk road. These are the civilizations the Han Dynasty traded with a lot.

Imperial Rome: Rome traded with many city-states for many different products, all of this had a very big impact on Rome. Some of the places Rome traded with was China and the Far East for silk, cotton and spices from India, and ivory and wild animals from Africa. Also some mined metals were imported from places like Spain and Britian and fossilized amber was traded from Germany. A lot of these items were used in a Roman citizens' daily lives, for example, silk and cotton was used for clothing, animals were used for grazing and food, mined metals were used for coinage and making jewelry. This is what other civilizations the ancient Roman economy traded with.

Similarities and Differences
Before deciding which dynasty your client should visit, you may wish to create a simple Venn Diagram to compare/contrast the two empires. You may use [|this template]or create one online at Read-Write-Think.

Which empire should Mr. Burns, an investment banker, visit? Why? Personally, I think that Mr. Burns should travel back in time to the Han Dynasty economy. Why? Well, the Han economy was known for many positive things, a lot more things Rome  was known as. The Han economy was known well to have great population growth, increasing organization, fantastic growth of trade and industry, and lots of government experimentation. Silk and salt were the two major industries in China, they led to a lot of trading with more civilizations all over inner asia. Silk was used for clothing and salt was used for preserving meat and vegetables, this is why they were very valuable in trade. The only way the Chinese could trade was by the Silk Road which reached as far as the Black Sea all the way to the south and central areas of Asia and also the northern parts of the Black Sea. This meant you were able to trade with many civilizations in Eurasia and Inner Asia. The Chinese had three major jobs that a lot of the population took part of. Farmers had a lot of expectations such as growing crops to feed their family, making their own clothes, and building the houses they lived. The other jobs were silk weavers and people who spent hours digging holes in the ground looking for salt to trade. These were good jobs because salt and silk were the largest industries in China and were traded a lot. China traded with many civilizations from all the way in Europe to people in Inner Asia. It let them trade many goods and items from other people and cultures. This is why I think Mr. Burns should travel back in time to the Han Dynasty economy.

= **Travel Poster Components:** =

You will create a travel poster for each of the two empires. Each poster should be attractive, persuasive, and highlight the major features related to your topic. You will create the posters using Glogster.edu (instructions will be provided in class) and they should contain the following components:

__**Travel Poster Components**__
 * 1) One Glogster.edu poster for each dynasty
 * 2) At least three "must see" tourist features with detailed text and relevant images for each dynasty
 * 3) At least one audio recording on each poster

The **[|Poster Rubric]**will be used to evaluate your work; you should refer to it before handing in your final product. When you have completed the poster, embed it below the "Travel Poster" heading below:

Travel Posters
//embed your posters here by copying the embed code from Glogster and adding an HTML widget//



 = **Oral Presentation Guidelines** = The oral presentation is your opportunity to share your posters, explain whether your client should visit Han China or the Roman Empire, and should follow these guidelines:
 * 1) Less than three minutes in length
 * 2) Should address/explain the "must see" features of each dynasty
 * 3) Should explain which destination the client should visit and why

This presentation is about speaking skills and the use of your posters. You will be permitted to use notecards but are NOT to simply read your notes to the audience. The **[|Presentation Rubric]**will be used to evaluate your work; you should refer to it before giving your final presentation.