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Introduction to Chapters II and III
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 to be a bride of the Hun
emperor, the Shan-Yü. There was only one 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 to take vengeance upon her rival. She imprisoned closely in
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 the son of the Empress and
killed his mother. The babe was made 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 as marquises and sons of Emperor Hui and appointed him
Emperor. 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. They were actively aided by the Liu faction, composed of the Liu
family 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.
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