-180 BC- so, it seems like things had finally settled down for the most part following all of the violence during the Lǚ Clan Disturbance and the subsequent enthronement of Emperor Wén of Hàn.
-Emperor Wén (born Liú Héng in 202 BC) had grown up as the son of Emperor Gāozǔ and Consort Báo (AKA Empress Dowager Báo (or Bo), Empress Dowager Xiàowén, Empress Gāo, etc.), one of Emperor Gāozǔ's concubines.
-His father had named him the Prince of Dài in 196 BC (when he was like six years old haha), and because this region was considered a key strategic point of defense against the Xiōngnú Empire by the Hàn dynasty Liú Héng grew up with a strong military/national defense-related background (although it's unclear as to if he himself ever served in the army).
-Upon being enthroned, Emperor Wén immediately seemed like a breath of fresh air for the position because a) an adult (as opposed to previous succession of child-emperors) and b) was a competent administrator and compassionate ruler.
-His rule was heavily influenced by Taoism (in large part because of his ardent Taoist wife, Empress Dòu (AKA Empress Xiàowén (not to be confused with Emperor Wén's mother, Empress Dowager Xiàowén (see above))), which was a departure from the strictly Legalist "no-nonsense" rule of law imposed by the Qín dynasty (and, to a lesser extent, the previous Hàn rulers). Emperor Wén just seemed like a chill bro.
-Property taxes were greatly reduced and food surpluses were increased in order to prevent starvation and shit.
-He outlawed the arrest and imprisonment of family members of criminals (except in cases of treason).
-He started various government assistance programs for the poor (including quite possibly the world's first social security program!).
-He introduced the very first imperial examination system (kējǔ), which was a huge development because before that there hadn't been any official standardization for who was qualified to serve as government officials (which obviously was a huge source of government corruption).
-In 179 BC he also made peace with Nányuè (AKA Nam Việt), a kingdom (in modern-day north Vietnam and southeast China) to the south established by the Qín dynasty general Zhào Tuó (AKA Triệu Đà in Vietnamese) after the collapse of the Qín dynasty in 204 BC.
-Although Nányuè had been considered an independent vassal kingdom of the Hàn dynasty things quickly turned sour between the two governments after the death of Emperor Gāozǔ (around 183 BC Zhào Tuó crowned himself emperor of Nányuè (obviously implying that he was no longer a subordinate of the Hàn dynasty) and began to raid the Hàn Empire's southern border with Nányuè), but Emperor Wén was able to improve relations once again between the two and soon Zhào Tuó had once again pledged fealty to the Hàn dynasty and renounced his imperial claim.
-He even went so far as to take seriously a solar eclipse (which was an ill omen for the ancient Chinese (and probably many other cultures during this time)) by allowing for government officials to voice their honest criticisms and concerns regarding his rule and taking their recommendations seriously!
-However, Emperor Wén's rule wasn't without its blemishes as well.
-For example, for whatever reason he decided that it would be OK to allow anyone to mint their own coinage as long as they could provide the copper and tin required for it. Of course, this immediately provided a huge benefit for those who happened to own copper and/or tin mines, which resulted in an imbalance of power because it allowed for a few individuals to become ludicrously wealthy really fast (and thus took some power away from the government) and would have disastrous consequences for the Hàn dynasty in the near future.
-174 BC- Mòdú Chányú dies and is replaced by his son, Jīzhōu (AKA Jiyu), who was enthroned as Lǎoshàng Chányú of the Xiōngnú Empire.
-In order to renew the héqīn system with the the new chányú, Emperor Wén sent a princess (among other things, presumably) of the royal family to be Lǎoshàng Chányú's new empress/concubine.
-Of course, this still didn't stop Xiōngnú raids into Hàn territory (for some reason; maybe the chányús either couldn't stop it or just didn't care because they'd receive tribute anyway), so in response to these raids a Hàn court official named Cháo Cuò convinced Emperor Wén to set up a system in which anyone who donated food or supplies to the war effort against the Xiōngnú would be granted new titles for their contributions as well as have any past crimes pardoned by the state.
-Emperor Wén must have thought this was a genius idea because upon implementing this new system of resource gathering from the population Cháo Cuò was elevated in status to where he was allowed to become a personal servant of Crown Prince Liú Qǐ's house, which must have been quite the honor!
-167 BC- Emperor Wén bans the punishment of torture and mutilation (specifically face tattoos branding criminals as such for life as well as the cutting off of noses and feet and shit), decreeing that criminals were to be whipped for their crimes, instead, believing this to be more humane.
-However, this actually backfired, unfortunately, and proved to actually be more fatal than the previous methods of punishment!
-165 BC- even though he wasn't that old, apparently Emperor Wén began to become increasingly concerned about his own mortality, and this caused him to become more superstitious which of course resulted in him inviting a mysterious self-proclaimed "sorcerer" named Xīnyuán Píng to the court in order to advise him on supernatural matters.
-Because of Xīnyuán Píng's influence, Emperor Wén began building a bunch of temples to the gods and shit and becoming overly-preoccupied with stuff like this but by the following year eventually the emperor realized that the sorcerer was a fraud and had him executed (along with his family!). After this, Emperor Wén went back to ruling as he had before (probably feeling most foolish, too).
-158 BC- the Xiōngnú launched a major invasion deep into Hàn territory, which eventually got serious enough that the Hàn armies began to prepare for a defense of Cháng'ān (Hàn dynasty capital).
-It was during this time that Emperor Wén met Zhōu Yǎfū (son of General Zhōu Bó, one of Liú Bāng / Emperor Gāozǔ's best generals during the Chǔ-Hàn Contention), a young military commander.
-As the emperor was taking a tour of the Hàn camps and fortifications he noticed that all the officers seemed to bend over backwards to accommodate his every need or request, but Zhōu Yǎfū was more focused on remaining alert and making sure everyone was still following protocol and stuff haha.
-Emperor Wén was so impressed with Zhōu Yǎfū that he instructed the Crown Prince Liú Qǐ to get Commander Zhōu as his main general in the future if the Hàn dynasty ever faced an existential threat (foreshadowing!).
-Anyway, I guess the Hàn armies ended up driving off the Xiōngnú because it doesn't look like this particular invasion really went anywhere after this.
-157 BC- Emperor Wén dies and is replaced by Crown Prince Liú Qǐ (enthroned as Emperor Jǐng of Hàn (AKA Emperor Xiàojǐng ("The Filial and Decisive Emperor"))), who was 32 years old at the time of his enthronement (his dad was like 14 when he was born haha).
-In his will Emperor Wén made it explicitly clear that he didn't want some super-long drawn-out mourning period (before this, whenever an emperor died there was always a lengthy period of mourning in which weddings, sacrifices, drinking, and the consumption of meat were all disallowed, which I'm sure was really annoying for everyone else), and instead just limited it to three days instead. He also allowed for all of his concubines to be relieved of duty (instead of the usual custom which was for the concubines who never produced any children (or sons maybe?) to be forced to "guard" their emperor husband in his tomb "for the rest of eternity" (which I'm assuming means they had to be buried alive with the emperor's corpse in his tomb)).
-Definitely seems like he was probably a chill bro.
-In addition to the crown prince and his various other children, Emperor Wén was survived by Empress Dòu (mother of Crown Prince Liú Qǐ / Emperor Jǐng), who thus became Empress Dowager Dòu after her husband's death.
-Empress Dowager Dòu would continue to have a strong influence on her son the emperor, but it definitely wasn't anything close to the insanity that was Empress Dowager Lǚ's psychopathic reign of terror.
-Emperor Jǐng's wife was Empress Bò (most likely his like second cousin or something), although she quickly fell out of favor with her husband because she didn't produce a male heir (with the possible addition that she also either wasn't very attractive and/or not good at sex, unfortunately).
-Upon being enthroned, Emperor Jǐng continued many of the same policies that had been put in place by his father (although he did reduce the severity of flogging as punishment seeing as it was actually resulting in deaths as opposed to "just" being mutilated (used as punishment before that)).
-Although things were going pretty well for Emperor Jǐng, there was trouble brewing on the horizon due to so many of his family members (who had become powerful princes or lords in their own regions of power) who slowly began to challenge his authority.
-How had these family members gotten so powerful in the first place?
-Emperor Gāozǔ had created too many titles for so many of his various family members and relatives (most likely in order to get them away from the capital so that they wouldn't constantly be challenging him in the imperial court, but also in order to consolidate all of the empire under the control of a relatively unified clan), and these various vassal princes and lords were able to mint their own coinage (thanks Emperor Wén!), raise their own armies (since they were largely responsible for defending their respective territories), as well as make their own laws and even ignore imperially-decreed laws (most likely due to the lax nature of Emperor Wén and Emperor Jǐng's rule).
-Obviously, these various vassal princes and lords had gotten too powerful.
-The worst offender in terms of challenging Emperor Jǐng's authority was Prince Liú Pì of Wú (nephew of Emperor Gāozǔ).
-Wú had really thrived under Emperor Wén due to its abundance of copper, salt, and other natural resources, and its most likely that the vassal kingdom took full advantage of the emperor's lax attitude about them minting their own coinage and shit.
-It seems like the drama between Emperor Jǐng and Prince Liú Pì started before Emperor Jǐng's imperial enthronement (when he was still Crown Prince Liú Qǐ).
-Liú Qǐ was playing a board game (liùbó) with Liú Xián (Liú Pì's heir apparent) and eventually the two got in an argument and Liú Qǐ got so pissed off that he threw the board at Liú Xián's head, killing him. Naturally, this resulted in Liú Pì hating Liú Qǐ for killing his son and heir apparent (justifiably so, I'd say!).
-In order to try and force Wú to submit to imperial authority, the imperial advisor Cháo Cuò suggested that they should annex a portion of Wú's territory (along with portions of any other uppity vassal kingdom's) and bring it under imperial control directly.
-Although Emperor Jǐng did initially express concern that this would spark a mass rebellion against the throne, he also realized that this was probably inevitable anyway given the increasing arrogance of these upstart vassal kingdoms (and that it was also probably better to spark a rebellion now rather than later when they could become more organized).
-154 BC- Emperor Jǐng decreed that he would be annexing portions of the vassal kingdoms of Chǔ, Zhào, Jiāoxī, and Wú. These portions would then be ruled directly by the imperial throne. Of course, this sparked a rebellion (haha) by all the vassal kingdoms being annexed (in addition to being joined by the vassal kingdoms of Jiāodōng, Jǐnán, and Zīchuān).
-A couple other vassal kingdoms were planning on rebelling as well but it ended up not working out (for various reasons).
-The rebels also reached out to the "independent" (or maybe they were also vassal states? idk) kingdoms of Dōng'ōu (AKA Ōuyuè) and Mǐnyuè (both of whom ended up sending troops to help the rebellion) as well as the Xiōngnú Empire (who ended up flaking out)!
-Thus began the Rebellion of the Seven States ("Qī Guó Zhī Luàn", AKA the Revolt of the Seven Kingdoms).
-Initially, the rebel states claimed that Cháo Cuò was just trying to pick a fight with them (for whatever reason); at the same time, other officials began putting it out there that perhaps all of this was Cháo Cuò's fault and that if the emperor had Cháo Cuò executed then maybe these rebel states would calm down and there wouldn't be a civil war after all.
-Surprisingly, this actually seemed to convince Emperor Jǐng that maybe they were right, and soon he had Cháo Cuò imprisoned and executed! Of course, this wasn't true at all and it wasn't long before the rebel states declared an open hostility towards the Hàn dynasty (so that was pretty shitty what happened to Cháo Cuò, then!).
-After much debate, the rebel kingdoms decided to focus on invading the vassal kingdom of Liáng (ruled by the emperor's younger brother, Prince Liú Wǔ), and it didn't take long for them to successfully do so.
-Heeding his father's advice, Emperor Jǐng entrusted General Zhōu Yǎfū to lead the imperial forces in quelling the rebellion. However, when the emperor ordered General Zhōu to rush to Liáng's defense, the general refused. Instead, he argued, the army should focus on breaking down the rebels' supply lines and retreat options; he also believed that Prince Liú would be able to survive long enough under siege (at Suīyáng (modern-day Shāngqiū, Hénán Province), Liáng's capital) that by the time the Hàn army took out out the rebels' supply lines they would have no choice but to try and fight off the Hàn as opposed to wasting their time laying siege to Suīyáng.
-General Zhōu's strategy ended up working out well, and when they rebel armies tried to drive off the imperial army and reestablish their supply lines they failed, and soon were crushed. Eventually, the rebellion fell apart and the rebel princes were either imprisoned and executed (by their own people for getting them involved in such a dumb war) or they just ended up committing suicide since they believed they were fucked. However, those that survived the ordeal found themselves pardoned by Emperor Jǐng (!) and allowed to just return to their normal lives!
-Everything more or less then went back to the way it was before the war, and Zhōu Yǎfū was made prime minister.
-The Rebellion of the Seven States had come to an end, and the Hàn Empire was united once more!
-Although Emperor Jǐng was still in good health (I'm assuming), the focus of the court now turned to the question of succession.
-Empress Bò had "failed" to produce any sons, so during this time it was still kind of up in the air as to who would succeed Emperor Jǐng after he croaked.
-The emperor eventually decided on Liú Róng (his son with his concubine Lady Lì), who was then officially named Crown Prince Lì.
-However, this ended up not working out because Lady Lì fucked it all up by being shitty to the emperor's older sister, Princess Guǎntáo (AKA Liú Piáo), among other things, which caused a bunch of drama and resulted in the emperor demoting Crown Prince Lì to simply "the Prince of Línjiāng" (womp womp).
-151 BC, Emperor Jǐng decided that he was done with Empress Bò and so he had her title as empress removed and took his favorite concubine, Lady Wáng (AKA Wáng Zhì), as his new wife; she was thus given the title "Empress Wáng of Jǐng", and their son, Liú Chè, was then named crown prince.
-147 BC- although Zhōu Yǎfū was probably a wise and competent prime minister, he kept on stubbornly clashing with too many others (including the emperor himself) on important decisions, and eventually he was fired from the job.
-A few years later there was some more weird drama and Zhōu Yǎfū ended up getting arrested and imprisoned, whereupon he committed suicide.
-141 BC- Emperor Jǐng dies, replaced by Crown Prince Liú Chè who is then enthroned as Emperor Wǔ of Hàn ("The Martial Emperor of Hàn").
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