Describe Han Dynasty innovations and government, and trace how the Silk Road connected Han China to the Mediterranean world.
After Qin Shi Huang's harsh dynasty collapsed, Liu Bang founded the Han Dynasty in 206 BCE, which (with one brief interruption) ruled China for about four centuries, until 220 CE -- so long and so influential that Chinese people still often call themselves "Han Chinese" today. Han rulers kept the Qin's useful standardizations but replaced strict Legalism with a state philosophy built on Confucian ideas, and created an early civil service examination system testing knowledge of Confucian texts, so that officials could in principle be chosen for merit and learning rather than birth alone.
The Han Dynasty produced major innovations, including an early form of paper (traditionally credited to the official Cai Lun, around 105 CE) and an early seismograph built by the scholar Zhang Heng to detect distant earthquakes. Under Emperor Wu, the general Zhang Qian was sent west around 138 BCE and returned with detailed knowledge of Central Asia, helping open the Silk Road: a network of trade routes eventually stretching about 4,000 miles, connecting Han China to the Mediterranean world. Silk, the luxury good that gave the route its name, traveled west, while horses, glass, wool, gold, and ideas -- including Buddhism, arriving in China from India along these same routes -- traveled east.
Mastery looks like: They can describe at least two Han innovations and trace how a good like silk moved along the Silk Road through multiple traders.
Common stumbles: Picturing the Silk Road as one continuous road one merchant traveled start to finish, rather than a relay network of many traders.