The Han Empire built the largest agrarian economy of the ancient world. Across the fertile basins of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, peasant households raised millet, wheat, and rice on a scale no contemporary empire could match — feeding cities, armies, and an imperial bureaucracy that stretched from the Pacific coast to the edge of Central Asia.

Alongside grain, the Han ran the world's most advanced workshops. State factories cast iron tools and weapons, wove silk for tribute and trade, lacquered wooden vessels traded as far as Korea and Vietnam, and minted bronze coins that became the standard currency from Manchuria to the oases of the Silk Road. Salt and iron were declared imperial monopolies under Emperor Wu, channeling enormous wealth into the imperial treasury.

Han wealth flowed outward through the Silk Road, opened in the 2nd century BCE when the envoy Zhang Qian returned from Central Asia with maps of the western kingdoms. Han silk reached as far as Rome, where senators complained that imperial wealth was draining east to pay for it. Meanwhile, on the northern frontier, the Han spent equally vast sums to buy peace from — or wage war against — the Xiongnu confederation.