-49 BC-
Emperor Xuān dies and is replaced by his son, Crown Prince Liú Shì (enthroned
as Emperor Yúan).
-As he was growing up, Liú Shì spent
much of his time studying Confucian classics, studying from scholars, and
having sex with his concubines (his favorite being Lady Wáng Zhèngjūn).
-Before he
died, Emperor Xuān assigned Xiāo Wàngzhī (one of Liú Shì’s teachers), Zhōu Kān (Xiāo Wàngzhī’s assistant), and Shǐ Gāo (a
cousin or something) to serve as regents upon Liú Shì’s enthronement.
-Together Emperor Yúan and
Lady Wáng had a son, Prince Liú Ào (who was born back in
61 BC).
-Given his background, it’s
no wonder that by the time he was enthroned Emperor Xuān was a
hardcore Confucianist (and thus was also typically mild-mannered, indecisive,
and prone to inaction).
-This was
a major contrast with how Emperor Xuān had rocked things since his
style was a blend of Legalism with Confucianism (he was involved, dutiful, and
strict, but also fair). This difference also resulted in some tension
between Emperor Xuān and the crown prince because Liú Shì had
actually gotten into arguments with his dad about appointing more Confucian
scholars to high-ranking positions of power. Emperor Xuān was
a wise dude, and when he warned Liú Shì that his Confucian
zealotry was toxic and would potentially be the downfall of their civilization,
he was kind of right.
-It was commonly believed by Confucians that if a ruler was
“righteous”, then this righteousness would flow downwards among everyone below
him; everyone would be happy, and there’d be no need for like laws or
prisons (which obviously the wise Emperor Xuān knew was
absolutely bollocks).
-Anyway, as emperor he ignored his father’s
orders and immediately began appointing Confucian officials to high positions
of power in the government.
-46 BC- Emperor Yúan orders for
the abandonment of various Hàn garrisons on the island of Hǎinán (“South
of the Sea”) to be abandoned.
-It looks like the Hàn dynasty
first invaded Hǎinán Island around 110 BC (which I’m assuming
was inhabited by the indigenous Lí people (still there today!)), but
by 46 BC the Hàn court had found it to be too costly to station
forces there.
-Eventually, Emperor Yúan’s court would
split into two factions:
-the Confucians- led by Regent Xiāo, Regent Zhōu, Liú Gēngshēng (AKA Liú Xiàng,
a scholar), and Jīn Chǎng (a court official); they wanted
to go back to the pre-Qín dynasty way of law and order.
-the “Court Faction”- led by Regent Shǐ Gāo, Hóng Gōng (imperial
secretary), and Shí Xiǎn (chief eunuch); they wanted to
continue the Hàn dynasty way of doing things.
-This split would plague Emperor Yúan for
the rest of his reign.
-Although Emperor Yúan favored
the Confucians, the Court Faction was much better at deception and manipulation
in order to continue to hold onto power and exert influence (not bound by
Confucian ethics haha).
-43 BC- a number of astrological and meteorological
signs are interpreted as divine disapproval or ill omens.
-During this time, the Hàn dynasty began to
experience an escalation in tensions with the renegade Xiōngnú chanyu Zhìzhī,
whom had been driven west by his brother, the Hàn-allied chanyu Hūhánxié.
-Things finally came to a
head when Emperor Yúan agreed
to send back Chanyu Zhìzhī’s son to be reunited with his father (he’d
been living under the protection of the Hàn court
as collateral I guess) as
a sign of good faith between the two powers, but Chanyu Zhìzhī ended up killing his son’s escort once they
arrived which obviously wasn’t going to make the Hàn dynasty very happy. On top of that, Chanyu Zhìzhī also began
attacking the (Indo-Aryan/Indo-Scythian) Wūsūn steppe tribes
(who were also Hàn allies).
-Surprisingly, it would take
eight years (!) for the Hàn court to properly respond to Chanyu Zhìzhī’s actions.
-36
BC- at this point, Chanyu Zhìzhī has grown powerful enough
that he’s now collecting tribute from the Wūsūn and other Xīyù (Western
Regions) tribes/kingdoms.
-The Hàn dynasty’s plan was to invade Chanyu Zhìzhī’s newly built capital city (on
the banks of Lake Balkhash in modern-day southeast Kazakhstan), and although
ti’s kind of a complicated story basically all we need to know is that their
plan was successful and that Chanyu Zhìzhī died during the siege of his
capital.
-Impressed
(but also most likely fearful) by the might of the Hàn armies, Chanyu Hūhánxié immediately traveled to Cháng'ān upon hearing the
news about the death of his brother. During his audience with Emperor Yúan, he requested for his empire to be a tributary
of the Hàn dynasty, which the emperor accepted (although he didn’t go so
far as to accept the additional proposition of a military alliance between the
two empires).
-35 BC- Emperor Yúan gets sick, with many fearing
that he was probably going to die soon.
-To make matters worse, the emperor was
also growing increasingly dissatisfied with his choice in Crown Prince Ào to be
heir to the throne since he was generally seen as a womanizer, a drunkard, and
unfit to rule. However, he couldn’t bring himself to name a
different heir apparent.
-33 BC- Emperor Yúan dies and Crown Prince Ào is
enthroned as Emperor Chéng of Hàn.
-Upon his enthronement, Emperor Chéng
immediately appointing his uncles (brothers of his mom, Empress Dowager Wáng)
to positions of power.
-Although the Wáng clan
overall weren’t necessarily bad administrators, the issue was that their
priority was expanding their family’s power (as opposed to putting the
well-being of the empire first).
-31 BC- Emperor Chéng marries his favorite concubine, Xǔ Kuā
(maybe? We don’t actually know her real name for sure).
-Empress Xǔ came from the same clan (Xǔ) as Empress Gōng’āī (AKA Xǔ Píngjūn or Empress Xiàoxuān),
mother of Emperor Yúan and grandmother of Emperor Chéng.
-Although Emperor Chéng was now married and had many
consorts, neither Empress Xǔ nor any of his
concubines were able to become pregnant.
-18 BC- Emperor Chéng becomes enamored with the dancing girl Zhào Fēiyàn and her sister, Zhào Hédé,
and makes both of them imperial consorts (and eventually married Zhào Fēi Yàn,
officially making her an empress).
-Presumably because of
drama and jealousy, the Zhào sisters then accused Empress Xǔ of witchcraft,
which resulted in the empress subsequently being arrested, stripped of her
title as empress, and put under house arrest.
-8 BC- Still unable to produce an heir, Emperor Chéng finally panics and declares his nephew Liú Xīn as heir to the throne.
- Liú Xīn
was born in 27 BC to Prince Liú Kāng and one of his concubines, Lady Dīng.
-Raised
by his grandmother, the domineering Consort Fù (empress dowager (and later
grand empress dowager), mother of Liú Kāng, and former concubine of Emperor Yúan’s).
-Studied extensively
the Confucian classics.
-There was some drama during this time in
terms of if Emperor Chéng had actually officially adopted Liú Xīn or not and the legality of Liú Xīn’s
accession to the throne, but it got figured out.
-7 BC- Emperor Chéng dies; Crown Prince Liú Xīn
is enthroned as Emperor Āī (AKA Emperor Xiàoāi).
-Curiously, after Emperor Chéng’s death
an autopsy by the imperial coroner suggested that the emperor had actually not
been sterile, and that he’d actually had two sons that somehow went unnoticed-
one with Consort Zhào Fēiyàn and
another with Empress Xǔ. However,
both of these sons had been murdered by Consort Zhào Hédé out of jealousy.
-When
this was found out, Zhào Hédé committed suicide, and after this the entire Zhào
clan was stripped of their titles and noble status.
- Consort Zhào Fēiyàn
becomes Empress Dowager, with Wáng Zhèngjūn becoming grand
empress dowager.
-People seemed to initially be positive
about Emperor Āī’s potential as a ruler
because he seemed pretty sharp, diligent, fiscally conservative, granted
freedom to elderly slaves, and had also stopped appointing random family
members to positions of power.
-Unfortunately,
corruption seemed to grow worse under Emperor Āī. In addition, the
real power behind the throne lay with the empress dowagers (Empress Dowager Zhào Fēiyàn,
Grand Empress Dowager Wáng Zhèngjūn,
Grand Empress Dowager Fù (formerly
consort), and Empress Dowager Dīng (formerly consort)).
-The
latter two had never actually been empresses but had been granted the status of
empress dowager for some reason)).
-Initially,
Grand Empress Dowager Wáng tried to limit Grand Empress Dowager Fù’s domineering influence in
particular by making it so that she could only visit Emperor Āī once every
10 days, but this quickly turned into a daily thing. It wasn’t long Grand
Empress Dowager Fù had successfully dominated her grandson once again, and because
of this the Wáng clan’s power began to diminish.
-5 BC- Empress Dowager
Dīng dies.
-At this point, it was clear that Emperor
Āī was kind of a shitty ruler.
-He was inconsistent in
his punishments (and commitment to carry them out), hasty in his promotions
(and demotions, too, if you pissed him off for whatever reason), moody, and
chronically ill.
-Apparently, it’s been well-documented
that Emperor Āī was a homosexual and had male lovers/concubines, although this
wasn’t considered weird at the time I guess (especially in ancient times
throughout the world), and perhaps might have even been facilitated by
Confucianism.
-This is important to
keep in mind because Emperor Āī strongly favored one of his lovers, Dǒng Xián
(a minor court official), so much that Dǒng Xián and his family began to
rapidly acquire positions of power and influence within the court.
-Fun
fact: one time when the emperor and Dǒng Xián were sleeping together
in their robes, the emperor woke up but Dǒng Xián was still asleep. Apparently,
the emperor wanted to get out of bed or something but Dǒng Xián was
sleeping on the emperor’s sleeve, so the emperor got a knife and cut the sleeve
of his robe so that he wouldn’t disturb Dǒng Xián’s sleep. Because
of this story, “the passion of the cut sleeve” (“duàn xiù zhī pǐ”) is a
euphemism for homosexuality in China to this day.
-Oddly
enough, Dǒng Xián’s sister actually became an imperial consort.
-3 BC- in an attempt to check Dǒng Xián’s
rising power, Prime Minister Wáng Jiā tried to persuade Emperor Āī to cut
it out with all the honors and promotions with Dǒng Xián and his family,
but Emperor Āī responded to this criticism by having the prime minister
arrested and forced to commit suicide.
-Soon after this, Dǒng Xián
was named supreme commander of the Hàn
military.
-2 BC- Grand Empress
Dowager Fù dies.
-1 BC- Emperor Āī dies, but before he
does he declares that he wants Dǒng Xián to be enthroned as his successor
(since there was no crown prince), but this ended up getting ignored.
-Instead, the throne was
passed to Liú Jīzǐ, Emperor Āī’s cousin (his father was Prince Liú Xīng,
one of Emperor Yúan’s sons), who's
enthroned as Emperor Píng (AKA Emperor Xiàopíng).
