han15

漢

EMPERORS LING & XIAN 

168 – 189 Hàn Xiào Lìng-huángdì Liú Hóng (漢 孝 靈皇帝 劉 宏), Twenty-Ninth Emperor of Han, Emperor of Efficacious Spirit. Born in 156, he was a great-great-grandson of Zhāngdì, Twentieth Emperor of Han and succeeded his father as Village Marquis of Jiědú shortly after his birth. In 168, at the age of eleven, he was selected by the Empress Dowager Dòu to be the new Emperor. He was chosen because he had passed throught the age of high infant mortality, but was still too young to govern on his own; the Empress Dowager ruled as Regent, her father, Grand General Dòu Wǔ (竇 武) holding defacto supreme power. The father, a Confucian scholar, hoped to take control of the state from the palace eunuchs and return it to the Confucian officials. The Empress Dowager was unwilling, they squabbled, Dòu Wǔ was indicted, attempted a military coup, and was defeated by the war hero Zhāng Huàn (張 奐). The Dowager was placed under house arrest and control of the state fell to the eunuchs. 

On the frontier a massive rebellion of the Eastern Qiang nomads in the previous reign remained poised to strike at the Capital; but by 169 it had been pacified with extreme ferocity by Dǒng Zhuō (董 卓), future Regent. Meanwhile, the eunuchs had convinced the Emperor that the most prominent Confucian scholars, proscribed in the previous reign, were plotting against the state. Some seven hundred people were killed immediately, marking the beginning of the Great Proscription. Pleas for leniency only provoked the Emperor further; Confucian scholars were arrested and executed along with even their most distant relatives (It is worth remembering, though, that the historical accounts were all written by Confucians). He set up an alternative university through which students might enter the civil service; one which concentrated on practical matters like calligraphy and poetry rather than the Confucian classics. The Classics themselves remained important; an orthodox version, the Stone Classics, was compiled and carved into stone in 183. The Emperor himself was well-educated, writing a fifty-chapter study of the mythical Emperor Fuxi. 

Internally, the government was highly unstable; ministers rarely held office for more than four months, being dismissed whenever a particularly bad portent or disaster was reported. By 175 all Ministers were eunuchs, and all lower government positions were for sale from 178 - purchasers were keen to make back their investment by ruthlessly extracting wealth from the Empire, and corruption skyrocketed. The Emperor, meanwhile, lavished money on his harem, and his palace, building the extravagent Jade Sceptre Park for Bird-netting and Park of Spiritual Jade and gathering all the Empire's best horses in a new personal stable. Such opulence in the palace contrasted with the uncertainty on the frontier, from which the fierce Xianbei nomads had launched raids deep into the Empire from 174. The problem was serious, but it took until 177 for the court to resolve to send an army into the steppe to destroy the Xianbei. Instead the force was entirely destroyed by the nomads, and the raids continued, until, in 181, the nomads became occupied by a protracted succession dispute.

This was no respite, for in 184 the Empire was riven from within by the Yellow Turban Rebellion. From 171 the Empire (along with the rest of Eurasia) had been beset by massive epidemic, probably smallpox or measles. The messianic Huang-Lao and Daoist religious movements of the previous reign now produced faith healers, and these, in time, produced mass-movements. One of these was the Way of Great Peace, Tàipíng-dào (太平道), led by Zhāng Jué (張 角). He called on the sick to confess their sins, treated them with holy water and dressed them in yellow turbans. In 184 styling himself the Lord of Heaven General (天公將軍), he called for his Yellow Turbans to overthrow Han. Half the Empire answered his call and rose in rebellion. The government had suppressed the rebels by 185, but at great cost; infrastructure was destroyed, massive armies soaked up manpower that should have been working the land, several regions fell into utter anarchy (particularly in the northeast), and the Empire was never at peace again. No sooner had the Yellow Turbans been neutralised than another rebellion broke out in the northwest province of Liang; these forces pushed into the Imperial heartlands and threatened the old capital Chángān. The rebels were blocked in 188, but control was not restored over the northwest. Another rebellion stirred in 186, in the south, and was quelled by the governor, who thereafter acted as a semi-independent warlord. Provinces were grouped together under higher-level administrators with large armies and broad exclusive mandates; these, too, soon became autonomous warlords. Closer to home, in the Capital district, the Emperor was unable to put down local bandits and forced instead to grant them official titles so that it at least looked like they acted under his authority. Money being tight and expenses great in the aftermath of all these rebellions, the Emperor levied a new land tax and sold Marquisates to help with the rebuilding, but most of the money was spent on his own palace or siphoned off by corrupt officials. The Emperor soon abandoned all pretence of austerity once more and, rather than deal with the issues facing the Empire, retreated into play-acting - he established his own private, eunuch-commanded, army and led it in processions riding on a donkey and styling himself 'Absolute Highest General' (Again, it bears remembering that the Confucians who wrote our historical accounts did not like him). He died in 189 and was granted no temple name.

He married (first), in 171, Lìngdì Sòng-huánghòu (靈帝 宋皇后). She slowly lost her allies in court to envy and conspiracies; in 178 she was charged with witchcraft, dismissed and died 'of grief.' 

He married (second) Lìngsī Hé-huángtàihòu (靈思 何皇太后). Empress from 178, she became Empress Dowager at the death of her husband in 189 and Regent for her infant son. De facto power rested with her brother, Grand General Hé Jìn (何 進). Neither had many allies at court and they were unpopular with the eunuchs, who attempted a coup, which led to the collapse of order in the Capital. The General Dǒng Zhuō (董 卓), a cousin of the Emperor's deceased grandmother, marched in, restored order and seized control of the government. Conveniently for him, the Empress Dowager died two days later. 

He took as a concubine Wáng-měirén (王美人), she became pregnant with the future Thirty-First Emperor in 180. Out of fear of the Empress Hé, she attempted to abort the child, but failed. She was killed by the Empress within days of giving birth.

189 Hàn Shou-huángdì Liú Biàn (漢 少皇帝 劉 辯), Thirtieth Emperor of Han, the Minor Emperor. Born between 173 and 176, he was raised outside the Imperial household, because a number of older siblings had died in infancy. He became Emperor in 189, the first Emperor to directly succeed his father in over a century. As he had not yet come of age, his mother exercised the Regency on his behalf, with her brother, Grand General Hé Jìn (何 進) holding defacto power. He attempted to curb the power of the eunuchs, who had been indulged in the previous reign. They rebelled, and killed Hé Jìn. One group then attempted a coup, and were slaughtered, while another group kidnapped the Emperor and attempted to flee the Capital. The General Dǒng Zhuō (董 卓), a war hero, caught this group, gained control of the Emperor and entered the Capital in force, assuming control of the government. Blaming the Emperor for the debacle, he demoted him to King of Hóngnóng (弘農王) and appointed his brother, to whom the General was related, as Emperor instead. In 190 Dǒng Zhuō forced him to drink poison.

He took as a concubine Tang-ji (唐姫), who gave him a final dance as he drank the poison.

189 – 220 Hàn Xiào Xiàn-huángdì Liú Xié (漢 孝 獻皇帝 劉 協), Thirty-First Emperor of Han, the Donating Emperor. Born in 181, his mother was murdered within days of his birth by the jealous Empress and he was raised by his grandmother, the Empress Dowager Dǒng. He was appointed King of Bóhǎi  (勃海王) when his brother took the throne in 189. Shortly after, the palace eunuchs attempted a coup against the Regent Dowager Hé, throwing the Capital into chaos and leading the General Dǒng Zhuō (董 卓) to march in and seize control of government.  Dǒng Zhuō, a distant cousin of Xiandi's grandmother Dowager Dǒng, chose him to be the new Emperor and used the family connection to justify taking control of government. Dǒng Zhuō attempted to restore the traditional Confucian government, but as an uncouth general of the frontier he had no real patience for it and received no respect from it. He brutally murdered loyalists of the old regime and, by 190, Eastern China was united in rebellion against him (having previously been split into various different rebellions and nominally loyal warlord fiefs). He responded by moving the court west to the old capital Cháng'ān, converting Luoyang into a military garrison. 

Dǒng Zhuō was assassinated by his own ministers in 192. The assassin, a Confucian scholar and Minister over the Masses, Wáng Yǔn (王 允), took control of government in the Cháng'ān but proved erratic and arrogant and was toppled within a month by a clique of Dǒng Zhuō's generals, led by Lǐ Jué Zhìrán (李 傕 稚然). The generals were incompetant and soon quarrelled. In 195 the Emperor fled Chángān, pursued by Lǐ Jué's army, and managed to establish himself at Luoyang. Success was short-lived; the city was depopulated, starving, beset by rebels and counter-rebels on all sides, and had no personal connection to or respect for the fifteen year old Emperor. The Eastern warlord Cáo Cāo (曹 操) entered the capital in 196, and took the Emperor back to his own capital, Xǔ (soon to be renamed Xǔchāng). Cáo Cāo had pacified all of northern China by 208 in the name of the Emperor, and took the title of Chancellor. He proved unable to take control of the southwest, which was under the control of Liú Bèi (劉 備) an extremely distant cousin of the Emperor; this region would become the state of Shu Han. Neither could he bring South China under his control; it was controlled by Sūn Quán (孫 權), and would become Eastern Wu. In the north, however, Cáo Cāo's power was absolute; he steadily accreted more and more titles, insignia and symbols of status. The Emperor attempted a coup in 220, but this achieved nothing and cost him many of his friends, his wife and his favourite concubine. Cáo Cāo's son Cáo Pei succeeded him as Chancellor in 220 and forced the Emperor to abdicate so that he could found a new dynasty: Cáo Wei. The Han Dynasty was over. Liú Xié was granted the title of Duke of Shānyáng (山陽公) and sent out to the countryside. He died in 234 and Cáo Pei gave him the posthumous title of  Xiàndì (獻帝), the Donating Emperor, commemorating the fiction that he had donated the mandate of heaven to the new dynasty.

He married (first) Xiàndì Fú-huánghòu Shòu (獻帝 伏皇后 壽). She became an Honoured Lady in 190 and became Empress in 195. She became increasingly nervous of Cáo Cāo, and privately urged her father to act against him. He did not, but the correspondence was discovered after his death in 214 and, against the Emperor's will, she was arrested and executed, along with her children and extended family. 

He took as a concubine (first) Dǒng-guìrén (董貴人), who was executed, while pregnant, in 200 after a plot of her father's was discovered. 

He married in 214 (second) Xiànmù Cáo-huánghòu Jié (獻穆 曹皇后 節), daughter of Cáo Cāo (See CAO WEI). 

He took as a concubine in 213 (second) Cáo-guìrén (曹貴人), daughter of Cáo Cāo (See CAO WEI). 

He took as a concubine in 213 (third) Cáo-guìrén (曹貴人), daughter of Cáo Cāo (See CAO WEI).