ABSTRACT
Transference of registered residence from a frontier commandery to an inner one was prohibited according to the Later Han law code; it was only by his remarkable military feats did Zhang Huan earn an unprecedented imperial favor. Based on the limited extant sources, we can roughly put the Qin-Han northwesterners into two categories as the elite and non-elite, based on their political status and family fortunes in the Qin-Han period. On the defensive side, the northwestern frontier played a crucial role in protecting the western flank of the imperial core when the Qin and Former Han dynasties located its capital in the Guanzhong area. The emperor did move the Pass eastward, not so much to satisfy a general's desire but out of a strategic consideration to redraw the defense line of Guanzhong. The ascendancy of scholar-officials not only sidelined clerical officers but also hindered the advancement of military officials.
