han13

漢

EMPERORS HE & AN 

88 – 105 Hàn Mùzōng Xiào Hé-huángdì Liú Zhào (漢 穆宗 孝 和皇帝 劉 肇), Twenty-First Emperor of Han, the Harmonious Emperor. Born in 79, the fourth son of Zhangdi, the Twentieth Emperor, he was adopted by the Empress Dòu in 82 and replaced his elder brother as Heir. The Empress had his birth-mother killed shortly thereafter. He became Emperor in 88 at the age of 9, the Empress Dowager Dòu ruling as Regent and her brother Dòu Xiàn (窦 憲) holding de facto control of the Empire. The two did not have a harmonious relationship: Dòu Xiàn was generally disorderly and embarrassing. The final straw came when he murdered the Dowager's lover, so she sent him off north to campaign against the Northern Xiongnu. The campaign lasted from 89 – 91, and was an unmitigated success which led to the complete annihilation of the Northern Xiongnu. He returned with tremendous authority, but the Emperor, aged only eleven, seized control for himself with the aid of the eunuch Zhōu Zhāng Zìshū (周 章 次叔), and had Dòu executed. Having been thus brought into politics, the eunuchs would remain a powerful political force, in opposition to both the bureaucracy and the Imperial in-laws, for the rest of the Dynasty. Reaction to their prominence was a major factor in the dynasty's eventual collapse into disorder.

Nevertheless the Northern Xiongnu had been conquered, and this was surely a good thing for the Empire; their territory was placed under the control of the Southern Xiongnu, who were Chinese vassals, but these proved utterly unable to control the North, and Chinese interventions in their support were generally misguided and served only to further inflame the situation; the Northern steppe became a hotbed of rebellion which the Chinese controlled only through a significant outlay of manpower. The vaccuum left by the destruction of the Norther Xiongnu was rapidly filled by the new Xiānbēi (鮮卑) nomads of the far northeast, who now began to raid China, with more force than the Xiongnu had employed in generations. It eventually became clear that the Chinese had exchanged the broken enemy they knew for a dynamic enemy that they did not. 

For the moment, however, things still looked under control, and by 94 the Chinese had also reconquered the domains in Central Asia which had been lost during Wang Mang's Xin dynasty. The Empire's influence was felt even further afield, and embassies were received in Luòyáng from the Shan in Burma and the Parthians in Persia. The Emperor worked throughout the reign to protect his subjects from the corruptions of the bureaucracy - in 94, he personally administered prison hearings in Luòyáng and, discovering that many had been falsely accused, had the Prefect responsible imprisoned. Following droughts, plagues of locusts and floods in the late 90s he repeatedly authorised donations, state loans and food doles to save the people. The Empire was more than capable of dealing with this expenditure in the short-term, but the sheer frequency of disasters began to take its toll and the Emperor increasingly sought to eliminate wasteful court spending and to scale back the expensive local government. (Handing authority over, intentionally or not, to local notables - the future warlords). He died in 106, aged only twenty-seven - his reign marks the true high point of the Later Han dynasty, its period of greatest prosperity and power, but it also contains the roots of all the institutional difficulties which would bring about the collapse of the dynasty in the following century. He was buried in Shùn Tumulus and granted the postumous title of Mùzōng (穆宗), Solemn Patriarch, but this was cancelled in 190 because he was not felt to have displayed sufficient virtue.

He married (first) Hédì Yīn-huánghòu (和帝陰皇后), a distant relative of the Emperor Guangwudi's Empress. She was Empress from 96, but was childless, fell out of favour, and supposedly dabbled in witchcraft to deal with her rivals; this led to her imprisonment and death in 102. 

He married (second) Héxī Dèng-huángtàihòu Suí (和熹 鄧皇太后 綏), born in 81, an extremely intelligent girl with an interest in the Classics, she entered the Emperor's harem in 95, becoming a rival to the Empress Yin, whom she eventually eclipsed. She replaced her as Empress in 102. After the Emperor's death she became Empress Dowager and placed her younger step-son, Shāngdì on the throne, ruling as Regent on his behalf. After he died she chose another young prince Āndì from a collateral line to be Twenty-Third Emperor and continued to rule as Regent, even when he attained adulthood. This was a period of crisis, marked by the Great Qiang Revolt and a succession of natural disasters, which combined to bankrupt the Empire; she died in 121. 

He took as a concubine (first) Zuǒ-jī Dàé (左姬 大娥), who was taken into the Imperial harem after her uncle was convicted of witchcraft and her family was executed, later she seems to have been sent as a gift to one of the Kings; she died before 106. 

He took as a concubine (second) Zuǒ-jī Shàoé (左姬 小娥), younger sister of the previous, she was later sent as a gift to the Emperor's brother, the King of Qinghe; with him she became the mother of the Twenty-Third Emperor; she died before 106. 

He took as a concubine (third) Féng-guìrén (馮貴人), she was retained in the Capital by the new Empress Dowager in 105.

105 – 106 Hàn Xiào Shāng-huángdì Liú Long (漢 孝 殤皇帝 劉 隆), Twenty-Second Emperor of Han, the Young Emperor. Born in 105, he was chosen to succeed his father as Emperor in 106, aged only three months. His step-mother, the Empress Dowager Dèng ruled as Regent. He died a few months later and was buried in Geng Tumulus, near his father.

106 – 125 Hàn Gōngzōng Xiào Ān-huángdì Liú Hù (漢 恭宗 孝 安皇帝 劉 祜), Twenty-Third Emperor of Han, the Tranquil Emperor. Born in 94, he was a grandson of Zhangdi the Twentieth Emperor, and was placed on the throne by the Empress Dowager Dèng in 106, so that she could continue ruling as Regent. He achieved adulthood in 109 and should then have taken over government for himself, but the Empress Dowager refused to relinquish control of the government. It was she who, after a serious revolt in Central Asia in 107 decide to completely abandon the region as too expensive to retain. The Qiang nomads, Chinese vassals in the northwest, decided this was a sign of weakness and immediately rose up in the Great Qiang Revolt, which was joined by Southern Xiongnu of the north and the Xianbei and Wuhuan of the northeast in 109. The Old Capital, Chángān, was threatened. Fortunately, the leader of the revolt died in 111 and by 118 peace was restored, but at enormous cost - the northern lands were ravaged and largely abandoned, over two million pounds of silver had been expended and the Chinese now felt obligated to restore a military presence in Central Asia. Elsewhere, things were slightly better; tribute was received from Goguryeo (north of Korea), Shan (in Burma) and from the newly discovered isles of Japan. Internally, however, there were more issues. There were frequent earthquakes and droughts (in 109 peasants were reduced to cannibalism not far from Luoyang itself). Grain was sent out to afflicted regions, irrigation and flood-control works were repaired and palace expenses were reduced, but the Empire still had to extort enormous amounts in tax, particularly in light of the Great Qiang Revolt, and it could not keep up with the disasters. When the Regent Empress Dowager finally died in 121, and the Emperor finally gained control of his government the Empire was bankrupt. He vented his frustration at his long marginalisation by purging the Dèng family. In the meanwhile, the Xianbei had solidified their position on the northern steppes and they began intensive raiding in 121. Further rebellions occurred in the south, but the Emperor could do little more than perform the ancient sacrifices and hope for improvement. Control was mostly restored by 123, but was not complete until 125, shortly before he died while returning from a visit to the tombs of his ancestors in Nanyang. He received the posthumous title of Gōngzōng (恭宗), the Respectful Patriarch, but was stripped of this title in 190 when he was judged to have displaying insufficient virtue.

He married Ānsī Yán-huángtàihòu Jī (安思 閻皇太后 姬), who became Empress in 115; she was childless and deeply hated her stepson the Heir (whose mother she had murdered), and had him dismissed as Heir in 124. Once her husband was out of the Empress Dowager Deng's shadow in 121, she dominated him and, on his death in 125, she became Empress Dowager herself and selected an infant prince of a collateral line to be the new Emperor, rather than her own stepson; the child-emperor died within the year and the eunuchs carried out a coup to place the passed-over stepson on the throne and to purge the Yan family. She died shortly afterwards in 126. He took as a concubine Lǐ-shì (李氏), who was poisoned in 115 by Empress Yán.

125 Hàn Shou-huángdì Liú Yì (漢 孝 少皇帝 劉 懿), Twenty-Fourth Emperor of Han, the Minor Emperor. Born shortly before 120 he was a grandson of Zhangdi, the Twentieth Emperor. He became Marquis of Běixiāng (北鄉侯) in 120 and was selected as Emperor in 125 by the Empress Dowager Yán, who planned to rule as Regent. However, he died a few months later and a coup followed, in which the Empress Dowager's faction was eliminated.