There were constant wars with the Tartar tribes on the north, against whom the Great Wall proved to be a somewhat ineffectual barrier.

Also with the Huns, the forbears of the Turks, who once succeeded in shutting up the founder of the dynasty in one of his own cities, from which he only escaped by a stratagem to be related in another connexion.

There were in addition wars with Korea, the ultimate conquest of which led to the discovery of Japan, then at a low level of civilization and unable to enter into official relations with China until A.D.57, when an embassy was sent for the first time.

Those who are accustomed to think of the Chinese as an eminently unwarlike nation will perhaps be surprised to hear that before the end of the second century B.C.they had carried their victorious arms far away into Central Asia, annexing even the Pamirs and Kokand to the empire.

The wild tribes of modern Yunnan were reduced to subjection, and their territory may further be considered as added from about this period.
At home, the eunuchs gave an immense deal of trouble by their restless spirit of intrigue; besides which, for nearly twenty years the Imperial power was in the hands of a famous usurper, named Wang Mang (pronounced _Wahng Mahng_), who had secured it by the usual means of treachery and poison, to lose it on the battle-field and himself to perish shortly afterwards in a revolt of his own soldiery.