Imperial Edicts and people's Livelihood in the Han Dynasty

Many of the imperial edicts in the Han Dynasty show concern about the people's livelihood.According to the number of certain imperial edicts in different periods,it can be inferred that the imperial edicts put different focus on the people's livelihood.In general,the emperors in the Early Western Han Dynasty put more focus on the agriculture and penalties and administrative work,while in the Late on the amnesty and asking for good policies and talents.In the Eastern Han Dynasty,the imperial edicts show more concern about penalties and administrative work,but in the Middle and Late Eastern Han Dynasty more about relieving the people in the disaster areas.The function of these imperial edicts depends on the their contents,but more on the officials' implementation.The ideological background driving the emperors to issue edicts on people's livelihood mainly comes from three following aspects as the ideas of god blessing the virtuous person,faith in the description of ancient emperors's management of morality,and belief in the theory of yin and yang catastrophism.