The Han People

The Han People is the first full-length historical novel by the officialdom novelist Xiao Renfu, published by Jiangsu People's Publishing House in January 2010. Set against the background of the late reign of Emperor Wu of Western Han and the reigns of Emperors Zhao and Xuan, it follows the life of Huo Guang, the entrusted regent, as its main thread, telling how a boy of humble birth rose step by step into the imperial court, received Emperor Wu's testamentary edict to assist the young ruler, and then, amid the exhaustion left by the late emperor's reign, changed course: halting military campaigns, letting the people recover, lightening corvée and taxes, and giving the populace rest, so that the Western Han regime recovered from turmoil and hardship—a period known in history as the "Zhao-Xuan Restoration." While unfolding Huo Guang's growth and governance, the work also confronts his controversies: eliminating his fellow regent Shangguan Jie and others, deposing Liu He, Prince of Changyi, who reigned less than a month, and installing the commoner Liu Xun as Emperor Xuan; though honored after death with imperial rites, the Huo clan soon suffered extermination. Combining fact and fiction, the author makes the motives behind these major events concrete and palpable, letting readers see the delicate relationship between powerful ministers and imperial authority—each relying on and guarding against the other. The title "The Han People" is both a historical designation and the author's question: where does the spiritual character of the Han people come from? What did the Huo Guang era mean for later generations of Han people? The author handles weighty historical material in a popular, humorous narrative style, writing about power and also about the human heart. The book runs about 285,000 characters and includes an afterword, "We Are the Han People."