 | CHAPTERS II and III The history of the former Han dynasty |  |
INTRODUCTION
These two chapters give an account of the chief events during the
time that the government was in control of the Empress née Lü, the wife
of Emperor Kao-tsu. Chapter II treats of the period when her son,
Emperor Hsiao-hui, was on the throne and chapter III of the period
after his death when she openly took control. These chapters, like
chapter I, are largely based on the corresponding chapter in the SC,
chapter IX. Pan Ku, however, added some new material; he seems
to have had available a collection of imperial edicts and possibly an
official annalistic chronicle, upon which he drew.
The SC puts this material into one chapter; Pan Ku divides it into
two because there were two rulers. Pan Ku furthermore has transferred
into his "Memoirs" the more sensational stories given in the SC,
seemingly because he felt that these accounts concerned the private
lives of the actors, rather than their public acts. Thus he has left in
these "Annals" only the bare mention of Liu Ju-yi's death and that of
Liu Yu, and has said nothing about the Empress's treatment of the
Lady née Ch'i. Concerning the attempted assassination of Liu Fei, he
mentions only its administrative result. He gives those accounts in full
in his "Memoir of the Imperial Relatives by Marriage" and the "Memoir
of the Five Kings who were Sons of Kao-tsu." Thus Pan Ku seems to
have conceived of the "Annals" as chronicles properly devoted to the
official acts of the ruler and the important events of the reign, rather
than as an attempt to give in full an account of the period. Such an
account must be gathered from the mine of material in the remainder of
this encyclopedic history.
This period of fifteen years constituted a period of rest and recuperation
after the fighting and destruction preceding the reign of Kao-tsu
and the civil war during it. The only serious conflict was an internal
one, which did not come to a head until the very end of the period.
Kao-tsu had eliminated all his important feudal kings except those of his
own family, so that during this period there were no revolts, such as had
plagued him. Peace was made with the only important external enemy,
the Huns, and it was cemented by sending a girl of the imperial family
war—with the state of Nan-yüeh, located at the present Canton; but the
mountains proved such a barrier that the war was confined to border
forays, and the Chinese generals did not even try to cross the mountains.
Thus the people secured a rest, the population could increase,
and the country became prosperous.
The Chancellor of State, Hsiao Ho, who had administered Kao-tsu's
empire, died in the second year of this period. He nominated Kao-tsu's
greatest fighter, Ts'ao Ts'an, as his successor, thus emphasizing the tradition
that since the empire had been conquered by Kao-tsu's personal
followers, it should be ruled by them. This tradition was followed as
long as any capable followers of Kao-tsu remained alive and was the
factor that prevented the overturn of the state.
Liu Ying, known as Emperor Hsiao-hui, proved a kindly but weak
young man. He was only in his sixteenth year when he came to the
throne, and the real power went to his mother, then entitled the Empress
Dowager née Lü. She had taken an active part in the conquest of the
empire, had suffered severely in that contest, and had gathered around
her a faction, chiefly composed of members of the Lü family (including
two of her older brothers who had been generals of Kao-tsu and had
been ennobled by him as marquises) and of her relatives by marriage,
especially the valiant Fan K'uai, who had married her younger sister,
the able and determined Lü Hsü. This faction ennabled the Empress
Dowager to enthrone her son, although he was not the oldest nor the
favorite son of Kao-tsu. The oldest son was Liu Fei, who had been
made King of Ch'i, the most important part of the empire next to Kuan-chung.
But Liu Fei was not the son of Kao-tsu's wife, and so could
be passed over.
Since the Empress Dowager had only barely succeeded in enthroning
her son, she felt driven to cultivate the interests of the people in order
to bolster up her power. Hence, although she committed grave crimes,
she proved a good ruler. She could not afford the unpopularity of misrule
and was too intelligent to indulge in it. She lightened the taxes and
removed some of the severe punishments that had been inherited from
the Ch'in dynasty, repealing, for example, the Ch'in law against the
possession of proscribed books. She allowed the commutation of punishments,
even of capital punishment, for money payment, which, in
those days of severe and harsh punishments, was a lightening of penalties
rather than an invitation to the wealthy to commit crime. The most
serious crimes were not commuted.
But she came into conflict with her son the Emperor when she attempted
the Palace the favorites of her husband, especially the Lady née Ch'i,
who had almost succeeded in displacing her as Empress. The Empress
Dowager wanted a keener revenge, but dared do nothing more as long
as the Lady's son was alive. This ten-year-old boy, Liu Ju-yi, Kao-tsu's
favorite child, had been made King of Chao with a capable and brave
Chancellor to guard him. When this Chancellor would not send the
boy to the capital, the Empress Dowager removed the Chancellor and
had the boy brought. But he was a favorite of the Emperor too, so the
sixteen year old Emperor met his half-brother at a village ten miles from
the capital and carefully conducted him to his own apartments, where
he guarded him by always keeping him by his side. After several
months, one morning early the Emperor went out hunting, leaving Ju-yi
sleeping. The Empress Dowager immediately had her step-son poisoned.
The Emperor could do nothing to his own mother, not even for
murder.
Then the Empress Dowager had the dead boy's mother, the Lady née
Ch'i, terribly mutilated and thrown out into the gully through which
ran the sewer, naming her "the Human Swine." She took her son to
see her mutilated rival; he did not recognize the poor lady; when an
attendant informed him of her identity, the Emperor wept himself into
a nervous breakdown. For a year he could not leave his bed. When
he recovered, he sent this message to his mother: "Your deed was
utterly inhuman. I am your son, so I cannot again govern the country."
Then he gave himself over to drinking, to women, and to pleasure.
The next year Liu Fei came to court. At a family dinner the Emperor
seated Fei above himself, as befitted the oldest brother. The
Empress Dowager became angry and ordered two goblets of poisoned
wine for Fei. Then she commanded him to drink a toast. But the
Emperor took one of the goblets to drink; without a descendant on the
throne the Empress Dowager would have been helpless; she hastily arose
and upset her son's goblet. Then Fei took alarm and left. He feared
for his life, but found that the Empress Dowager had merely acted in a
fit of anger; so he made his peace with her by presenting her daughter,
Kao-tsu's oldest child, the Princess Yüan of Lu, with a commandery
and appointing this step-sister as his Queen Dowager.
Emperor Hui died in the seventh year of his rule. The Empress
Dowager had married him to the daughter of Princess Yüan. Such a
union was quite proper, since the girl had a surname different from that
of her husband. But she had no child. The Emperor had however had
a son by a lady of his harem; the Empress Dowager named this babe
Heir-apparent and was enthroned as Emperor. Since he was her grandson,
and the Empress was her granddaughter, the Empress Dowager
herself boldly took the Emperor's place in court and issued imperial
decrees and edicts in her own name.
Then she strengthened her position by appointing four of her nephews
from the Lü family as kings, and, to forestall trouble over the succession,
if anything should happen to the babe, she took six babes of the Lü
family and named them marquises, asserting that they were children of
Emperor Hui.
This action brought her into conflict with one of the established practises
of the dynasty, which was after her death to prove stronger than she.
Kao-tsu had gathered his immediate followers and made them swear a
solemn oath in a ceremony in which a white horse had been killed and
the lips of each had been smeared with the blood. This oath was to the
effect that no one except members of the imperial Liu family should be
made king and no one should be made marquis except for deeds of
valor. Kao-tsu had taken this step when he was plagued by the rebellions
of those vassal kings not members of the imperial clan; but he had
himself violated this oath in the appointment of his boyhood and close
friend, Lu Wan, as King of Yen. The Empress Dowager's important
officials had all been followers of Kao-tsu and had taken this oath; yet
they respected her ability and recognized that she had materially assisted
in winning the empire, so that she also was one of the followers of Kao-tsu;
these facts and the power of the Lü faction kept the officials from
making any overt move against her. The Senior Lieutenant Chancellor,
Wang Ling, protested in private, but he was promoted to an
advisory post which left him powerless. The Empress Dowager thus
succeeded in establishing herself firmly in control. She had a committee
of the high officials and nobles arrange the precedence of the
nobles in the court, thus increasing the prestige of her faction.
In 184 B.C. the child emperor learned of his real mother. Boy-like
he boasted, "The Empress could have killed my mother and pass me as
her son. I am not yet grown up, but when I am grown up, I will change
things." Such a threat to the Empress Dowager's power could not be
tolerated; the child was pronounced insane, imprisoned to death in the
palace prison, and the ministers were ordered to suggest his successor.
They knew that he was the only natural son of Emperor Hui; in
seeming deference to the Empress Dowager but in real unwillingness to
be a party to her action they replied merely that they accepted her
orders. She then selected one of the six babes she had previously named
The ministers said nothing; this appointment was not their work; they
consequently felt free to overturn it later.
In order to consolidate her power, the Empress Dowager had married
some of Kao-tsu's sons to girls of her family, the Lü. One of them, Yu,
did not love his wife and favored a concubine; he was slandered to the
Empress Dowager as having said that after her death he would attack
the Lü family. She summoned him to the capital and starved him to
death in his lodgings. Another son, K'uei, was so oppressed by his
wife, a Lü girl, who poisoned his beloved concubine, that he committed
suicide. A third, Chien, died; the Empress Dowager sent to have his
son killed and end his kingdom. There were left now only two out of
the eight sons of Kao-tsu, only three of whom had died a natural death.
The Empress Dowager knew she could not live much longer; to perpetuate
her clan's power she appointed her two nephews, Lü Ch'an and
Lü Lu, the first as Chancellor of State, in charge of the civil government,
and the second as First Ranking General, in charge of the military. To
placate the Liu faction, she appointed its head, Liu Tse, a venerable
cousin of Kao-tsu, as King of Lang-ya, and gave royal posthumous
titles to Kao-tsu's mother, older brother, and older sister. Thus she
prepared for the inevitable.
In March/April 181, as the Empress Dowager was returning to the
capital from a religious ceremony in the suburbs, she was bitten in the
side by a dog, which immediately disappeared. When she was brought
back to the Palace, the diviner brought the response, "It is the ghost of
Ju-yi, become an evil spirit." The wound probably became infected;
she died on August 18. By a testamentary edict she made grants to the
nobles, generals, and officials, leaving the government in charge of her
two nephews.
Revolution arose immediately. There had been much criticism
of the Empress Dowager; one portent after another had been noted.
Twelve days after the death of Liu Yu there had been an eclipse total at
the capital, and the Empress Dowager was said to have declared, "This
is on my account." Those of Kao-tsu's personal followers, such as the
famous Lu Chia, who had been unable to stomach the Empress Dowager's
rule and had retired to their estates, returned to the capital to readjust
matters. The Lieutenant Chancellor Ch'en P'ing and the Grand Commandant
Chou P'o were both old friends of Lu Chia. They had all been
companions of Kao-tsu and had taken the oath. They were ready to
eliminate the Lü faction, for they owed their positions to having been
followers of Kao-tsu even more than to the favor of the Empress Dowager.
and its adherents.
Overt action was taken by the King of Ch'i, who was the eldest son
of Liu Fei, the eldest son of Kao-tsu. He mobilized his army and
tricked Liu Tse into aiding him. Kuan Ying, one of Kao-tsu's best
generals, was sent against the rebels; but Kuan Ying had also taken
the oath. He went half-way and encamped, sending word to the King
of Ch'i that he would later join him. Thus the Lü power crumbled.
Kao-tsu's followers in the capital meanwhile conspired to overthrow
the Lü, with Chou P'o and Ch'en P'ing at their head. They had a friend
of Lü Lu point out to him that the appointment of nine kings from the
Liu family and three kings from the Lü family had been quite legal,
since it had been done after deliberation by the high officials and with the
concurrence of the kings—that thus the imperial power was not absolute,
but was limited by the consent of the high ministers and the highest
nobles. He was told that if the Lü promptly surrendered their power
and retired to their estates, they would not be molested; but if not,
they would be suspected of rebellion and proceeded against. Lü Lu saw
the correctness of this reasoning and agreed, but he had to submit the
matter to his clan, and so action was postponed.
On September 26 the defection of Kuan Ying was reported to Lü Ch'an.
The bureaucracy was so honeycombed with conspirators that word of
this news was immediately taken to Chou P'o. Lü Lu was promptly
tricked into giving up control of the army; the troops unanimously
declared for the Liu faction, and Lü Ch'an, seemingly the only able man
among the Lü faction, was killed. The next day the whole Lü clan was
massacred. Thus the power of the Empress Dowager collapsed like a
house of cards within six weeks after her death. Then the high officials
and heads of the Liu clan met and chose as the next emperor the oldest
surviving son of Kao-tsu, whose reputation and that of his wife's family
were better than that of the King of Ch'i.
In this manner the first threat to the House of Liu from members of
clans allied by marriage was removed by the action of Kao-tsu's loyal
followers. The House of Liu was securely fixed on the throne and its
continuation secured. It is interesting that this House was finally
overthrown by another clan whose power likewise came from intermarriage
with the royal house.
| CHAPTERS II and III The history of the former Han dynasty | |