The Han Dynasty suffered from economic and social difficulties brought about by their greatest emperor, Han Wudi.  Han Wudi was responsible for some beneficial things such as the Confucian educational system which would help men prepare for government jobs.  Other actions of his weakened the Han Dynasty.  Expanding the empire into Korea and North Vietnam placed a lot of economic strain and consumed a lot of the empire’s excess wealth.  As a result, Han Wudi collected land from the wealthy, often illegally, and raised taxes to restore some wealth.  These two actions hurt their economy by discouraging investments in manufacturing and trading.

            Despite the fact that Han Wudi brought down the economic and political structure of China, the best place to intervene would be during the Later Han Dynasty.  Han Wudi helped with the survival of China; his conquests into central China conquered areas of the Xiongnu people.  These conquests sent the Xiongnu into disarray, thus ending the threat of Xiongnu army.  Taking over before Wang Mang comes to power does not seem to be the best place.  Tensions were already high from the degrading economy and development of social distinctions.  Taking over at this time would be problematic because of the insurrection against Wang Mang by irritated landlords and peasants.  The best place to take over would be the early Former Han dynasty.  The Han dynasty was in a weakened state, but they had the military to enforce boundaries against the Xiongnu.  I would take power during this time and distribute the land from landlords to peasants.  By learning from Wang Mang’s errors, I would take some of the military power to enforce distribution of land.  This distribution of land would hopefully destroy social distinctions.  This would be done by taxing the landlords to the point where they have to sell their land in order to pay them, and the peasants would be taxed so that they would have enough money to pay for food and a bit extra to save up to buy land from the landlords.  I would also unite factions by establishing a common enemy.  The enemy would probably be the Xiongnu because China had already been keeping the Xiongnu submissive and had been controlling the silk roads that supported the Xiongnu.