Notes

1. For names of persons, places, and official titles, cf. the "Glossary of Names".

2. HS 1 B; 23a.

3. This date was June 23, 195 B.C., 22 days after his predecessor's death, the same day as that on which his predecessor was buried.

4. At the accession of an emperor, favors were generously bestowed. This was not the first time, as Shen Ch'in-han thought, that aristocratic ranks were given to the common people, for they had previously been bestowed in 206 B.C. Cf. 1A: 30b. These ranks were probably awarded to the heads of families. In 262 B.C., when Chao Shêng received his territory, according to the Chan-kuo Ts`e (iii cent. B.C.), section on Chao, chap. 21, he granted to all the officials an increase of three steps in rank and to the common people who could gather together, to each family he granted six catties of gold. (But SC 43: 35a, in repeating this story, tells that he granted to the officials and people three steps in rank and to the officials and people who were able to maintain peace among themselves six catties of gold. Cf. Mh V, 118.) Kao-tsu had given to all his soldiers at least the fifth rank (cf. 1B: 5a). The first rank was Official Patrician 公士, cf. Mh II, 528, 1°; Duyvendak, Book of Lord Shang, p. 62.

5. Very possibly the edict went on to award proportionate advancements in rank for other periods of service. At this time, according to this edict, 10,000 cash is counted as worth less than one step in rank, whereas in 18 B.C. a step in rank could be purchased for 1000 cash. Cf. HS 10: 10a.

6. Ying Shao (ca. 140-206) says that these eunuchs 宦官 were hun-szu 閽寺, door-keepers and eunuchs. The Chou-li (Biot. trans. I, 150-153) tells that the hun-jen 人 were doorkeepers and the szu-jen were eunuchs in charge of the imperial women. Cf. 19A: 16b, 17a.

7. In view of the high dignity of these two officials and of the fact that they served in the inner apartments, Su Yü (fl. 1913) suggests that the words, "Gentlemen-of-the-Palace, lang-chung" should be interchanged and we should read, "Gentlemen-of-theHousehold, chung-lang."

8. Fu Ch'ien (ca. 125-195) and Ju Shun (fl. dur. 221-265) say that 斥上 means to open up the earth for a tomb.The Official ed. (1739) emends shang 上 to t'u 土; but Chang Chao (d. 1745) says that the Academy ed. (1124) and Sung Ch'i's ed. (xi or xii cent.) read shang. He says that Fu Ch'ien's and Ju Shun's comments show that the text originally read t'u. Chou Shou-ch'ang (1814-1884) however argues that probably at that time there was a current expression using shang.

9. Mr. Cheng (fl. dur. 265-317) says 四十金 that 四十斤金 means . Cf. p. 111, n. 3. Chin Shao (fl. ca. 275) remarks, "This speaks of . . . the equivalent of gold. In later [passages], whenever it says huang-chin 黃金, [it means] actual gold. When it does not say huang, it means cash. HS ch. 24 says that a catty of actual gold was worth 10,000 cash." Then a gift of huang-chin means actual gold, whereas a gift of chin means so many times 10,000 cash. Yen Shih-ku (581-645) agrees with the foregoing interpretation, but Liu Pin (10221088) says, "I say that whenever any book says so much chin, one chin is 10,000 cash; when there is [made] a grant of so many catties of chin, it is entirely of [actual] gold." We have adopted the earlier interpretation.

10. Teng Chan (fl. ca. 208) writes, "In the beginning, the Han dynasty taxed [at the rate of] one-fifteenth [cf. 24A: 9b], less than the Chou [dynasty's] tax of one-tenth; in the mean time [the land tax] had been abolished, now it was revived."

11. The shackles 械 were boards which held together the hands and feet of prisoners. Ju Shun says, "頌繫 means that they should be treated leniently and should be merely made to live in the residences of Division Heads and not enter the goal." Shen Ch'in-han however says, "This `honorable detention' is the T'ang [dynastic] Code's 散禁, it does not mean that they do not have to go to prison." According to 23: 19b, in 145 B. C., Emperor Ching ordered that people over the eightieth and under the eighth year of age, together with pregnant women, blind musicians, and dwarfs, who must be held for criminal examination, should also be given "honorable detention." In 97 A. D. Emperor Ho established a special office for the criminal examination of Lieutenant Chancellors and high ministers. In a note to 23: 19b, Yen Shih-ku interprets "honorable detention" as "without the boards that hold together [a criminal's] hands and his feet 桎梏."

12. Superior Accomplished 上造 was the second rank in the honorary hierarchy, next to the lowest; the fifteenth rank (from the bottom) was called the Somewhat Superior Accomplished 少上造 and the sixteenth the Greatly Superior Accomplished 大上造; Ying Shao (ca. 140-206) thinks the sixteenth rank is meant here; Yen Shih-ku (581-645) thinks the second rank is meant.

13. Chang Yen says that 公孫 are descendants of marquises or kings of the imperial house. 耳孫 is pronounced, according to Yen Shih-ku, jen(1)-sun, the first word being pronounced jen(2) 仍. Chin Shao (fl. 275) says that it is the great-grandson of the greatgreat-grandson, i.e., the eighth generation of descent (counting the person from whom descent is counted as the first generation). In HS 12: 10a, however, Liu Yin is said to have been made King of Liang because he was a jen(1)-sun of a great-great-grandson of King Hsiao of Liang whereas 14: 12a and 47: 11a both say he was a great-grandson of a great-great-grandson of King Hsiao. HS 12:2b speaks of the appointment of Emperor Hsüan's jen(1)-sun and 99 A: 19b says plainly that they were his great-grandsons. The ancestry of Liu Hsin in 15 A: 5a confirms this statement. Yen Shih-ku says that in every instance the HS means great-grandson by jen-sun. The term is also used in HS 94 A: 32b. According to the Erh-ya (written before Han times, added to in Han times), the jen(2)-sun is however the eighth generation in descent. Yen Shih-ku thinks that because the pronunciation of these two words jen is similar, the two phrases jen-sun mean the same. But others disagree. Ying Shao (ca. 140-206) says that jen(1)-sun is the sixth generation. Li Fei (prob. iii cent.) says it was the fourth generation.

14. The five "mutilating punishments" were: tatooing on the face, amputation of the nose, amputation of the feet, castration, and capital punishment.The punishment of [building] the fortifications or [patrolling from] the break of day 城旦 consisted, according to Ying Shao, in "rising early in the morning and patrolling or building the fortifications. . . . It was a four year punishment." Cf. Chavannes, Documents chinois decouverts, p. 63.According to Ying Shao, "Females were not employed in outside work, but were made to pound 舂 [the husks off of] rice. It was a four year punishment." Cf. Chavannes ibid.For the punishment of shaving the whiskers, cf. p. 118, n. 1.Ying Shao tells that the punishment of "spiritual firewood" 鬼薪 consisted in "gathering firewood for the ancestral temple. . . . It was a three year punishment."Ying Shao also says, "Sitting and selecting rice to make it pure white [for use in offerings at the ancestral temple] is [preparing] pure rice 白粲. It is a three year punishment." Evidently it was for women, just as "spiritual firewood" was for men.The Han-chiu-yi, written by Wei Hung (fl. 25-57) B: 9b contains the following: "All who have committed crimes, if male, have their heads shaved, wear an iron collar, and are made to [work on] the fortifications in the morning---to [work on] the fortifications or [patrol] from the break of day is to build the fortifications. Females are made to pound---to pound is to prepare [unhulled] rice; both serve for five years; those who are not mutilated [serve] four years. [Cutting] firewood for the spirits is for three years. Of those who [are sentenced to cut] firewood for the spirits, the males cut down the firewood and twigs on the mountains for the sacrifices to the spirits and divinities; the females who are [sentenced] to [make] pure rice, pick over the rice for the sacrifices; both serve for three years. When the punishment is to work as a robber guard, the robber guard, if male, stands on guard; if female, she works. As a robber guard, both serve for two years. Males are [also] made to serve in frontier garrisons at hard labor and females are made to do labor in the official buildings; both serve for one year."

15. Mutilating punishments (cf. above) all involved some bodily mutilation; the aged and children were not to be punished thus. Cheng Chung (ca. 5 B.C. to A.D. 83) in a note on the Chou-li 35: 33a, Autumn, Chang-lu, says, "Not to be mutilated 完 says nevertheless that they should be held and work for three years, [but] not to have their bodies damaged." The Han-chi (ii cent.) misunderstands the text and says they should "escape" punishment. Stein found in the desert tablets indicating that certain persons were sentenced to forced labor and escaped mutilation. Cf. Chavannes, Documents chinois, p. 63.

16. Yen Shih-ku says "The 同居 are, besides father, mother, and wives, [those persons] like older and younger brothers, together with the older and younger brothers' children."

17. According to HS 5: 6a, only in 148 B.C. was the title of Chief Commandant used for the previous Commandery Commandant. In the SC, Chief Commandant is found used of a Ch'in dynasty high military official as early as 207 B.C. (cf. Mh II, 273), and it is used in the HS under the date of 167 B.C. (cf. 4: 15a) as well as here. Possibly these early uses are anachronisms. Cf. Mh II, 524, xxv. More probably Chief Commandant was the title of an army officer lower than a General and higher than a Colonel, as well as being the title of a regular official in the commandery hierarchy.

18. Previously the vassal kings had been ordered to establish temples to Kao-tsu's father (1B: 15b). Now the Han dynasty was attempting to unify the empire by giving it a common religion. The commanderies and kingdoms likewise established temples for the other emperors of the dynasty; we hear of a temple to the Emperor Wen in Lin-chiang; cf. 5: 6a.

19. Years are counted from the first New Year's day after the emperor takes his throne. The remainder of the preceding year is counted as still belonging to his predecessor. Cf. 9: n. 1.1.

20. He was poisoned by his step-mother. The HS relegates this story to the "Memoir of the Imperial Relatives by Marriage," 97 A: 4a, and is here content to chronicle the bare fact of his death. Cf. Mh II, 409 f. The HS does not seem to have any fixed practise about referring to persons by their names or by their posthumous titles, sometimes using one and sometimes the other. In this translation, a posthumous name (such as Yin) will be preceded by the title of the person's rank (such as King); a personal name (such as Ju-yi) will be preceded by the person's surname.

21. Wang Nien-sun (1744-1832) argues that this sentence should be preceded by the word ling 令, just as in the similar passage in 1B: 12a. For the meaning of ling, cf. 8: n. 11.2. Yen Shih-ku's comment contains this word, showing that it was in his text. The T'ai-p'ing Yü-lan (978-983), "Feng-chien," section 1, quotes this imperial order but without the ling. The old ed. (prob. Sung period) of the Pei-t'ang Shu-ts'ao (ca. 618), "Feng-chio," last section, quotes this order with the ling, although Ch'en Yü-mo's ed. (1600) deletes it.

22. Ying Shao writes, "Each step cost 2000 cash, [so that capital punishment could be ransomed by paying] altogether 60,000 cash, like the present ransoming of crime by paying 30 bolts of fine close-woven silk." Possibly this value for noble ranks was only for the purpose of ransoming crime, for in the previous year a single step was worth more than 10,000 cash. Cf. p. 174, n. 1; also 10: n. 10. 2. Or else Ying Shao is guessing. This order does not allow the actual purchase of aristocratic ranks, but merely the commutation of capital punishment for a large money payment.

23. Hu San-hsing (1230-1287) says, "The Han [dynasty] made its capital at Ch'ang-an. Altho Hsiao Ho had built the palaces and halls there, there had not yet been leisure to build a city wall. Emperor [Hui] began building it, and it was only finished in his fifth year [190 B.C.]." The Tzu-chih T'ung-chien (1084) says, "At first the northeast quarter of the wall was built." It is interesting that the edict allowing the building of city walls was issued in 202 B.C. (cf. 1B: 7b), but the city wall of the capital was not begun until 194 B.C. HS 16: 62a says that the Privy Treasurer Yang-ch'eng Yen built the Ch'ang-lo and Wei-yang palaces and the Ch'ang-an city wall.

24. She was the step-sister of King Tao-hui, and was older than he. The Empress Dowager Lü had tried to poison her step-son, King Tao-hui. His Prefect of the Capital had advised him to placate her by presenting some territory and this title to her daughter, the Princess Yüan. Since a Dowager practically controls her son, King Tao-hui was thus putting himself and his property largely under the control of the Empress Dowager Lü's daughter as well as flattering her. According to 32: 9a, b, "In 187 B.C., the Dowager Queen Yüan of Lu died and the sixth year after the Marquis of Hsüan-p'ing, [Chang] Ao, [her husband], also died. The Empress Dowager [nee] Lü made the son of [Chang] Ao, [Chang] Yen, the King of Lu, [instead of merely making him a marquis], because his mother had been a Dowager Queen [of Ch'i]."The account of these intrigues is given in the SC (cf. Mh II, 411) and in HS 38: 1b, hence the HS does not feel it necessary to do more here than merely mention its administrative result. According to later Chinese conceptions, it was quite improper for a king to make his half-sister his Queen Dowager, for that meant he was treating her as his mother, whereas she was of the same generation as he. Emperor Hsiao-hui was married by his mother to the daughter of his own full sister (cf. 2: 5a), which is also improper, according to those conceptions, for this girl was also of a different generation (cf. Mh II, 413, n. 1). But in ancient times, while a man normally married only girls of the same generation as himself, it was the custom among the highest classes of the nobility to marry also one niece, who was the daughter of one's oldest maternal first cousin, and hence was of the generation following that of her husband. Cf. Granet, Chinese Civilization, p. 339. The rule of generations was regularly disregarded in the Han period; Emperors Hsüan and Ch'eng both married cousins of a different generation than they, so that King Tao-hui's appointment of his older half-sister as his mother may have also been in accord with the conceptions of his time, altho it was out of accord with conceptions current later.

25. The text writes 家人; Ch'ien Ta-chao (1744-1813) says the words should be interchanged, to read as they are written in the Han-chi (ii cent.). HS 27 Ca: 16a writes, "There were two dragons seen at Lan-ling, in the T'ing-tung hamlet, in the [family] well of Wan Ling."

26. HS 27 Ca: 9a says it crushed more than 400 people.

27. Mr. Cheng (fl. dur. 265-317) says they finished one side of the city wall.

28. In 1B: 4a, b, Tsou Wu-chu is made King of Min-Yüeh.

29. Ho Ch'uo (1661-1722) remarks, "The distances of the vassal kingdoms [from the capital] were different, hence beforehand in the sixth month, these [people] were mobilized, causing each [group] to arrive at the [appointed] time. The building of the city wall was done in the spring, the first month, as previously."

30. The text uses 災. The Shuo-wen (ca. 100) defines it as 天火, "a fire [started by] Heaven." HS 27A: 6b writes, "A fire [started by] human agencies is called a fire; a fire [started by] natural [or spiritual] means is called a visitation. 人火為火, 天火為災." Fires, floods, droughts, and sickness are now all called visitations 災. Etymologically this word means "fire."The San-fu Huang-t'u (iii to vi cent.) says, "The stables at the capital were the places where the emperor's carriages and horses [were kept]."

31. He had been enfeoffed by Kao-tsu; now that Kao-tsu was dead, he renewed his allegiance to the new emperor. He revolted soon after the death of Hsiao-hui. Cf. 95: 10a, b.

32. For Liu Hsiang's reaction, cf. 27 A: 10b.

33. Hsiao-hui was then in his twentieth year. Capping was a ceremony performed when a youth came of age. Wang Ming-sheng (1722-1797) notes that in 141 B.C. the boy who became Emperor Wu was capped in his 16th year; in 77 B.C. Emperor Chao was capped in his 18th year; HS 11: 1b records that Emperor Ai was capped in his 17th year; according to 12: 10a Emperor P'ing died in his 14th year and was capped when being dressed for burial. Wang Ming-sheng adds, "In ancient times emperors and nobles were all capped in their 12th year. After they had been capped they begot children. At the beginning of the Han [period] the classics were lost and incomplete, and there was no plain passage about the rites for the capping of the Son of Heaven, hence [that ceremony] had no definite time." However, after the classics were recovered, the Han emperors seem to have been just as irregular as formerly in performing this ceremony. Probably in Han times there was no definite age for capping the heirs apparent.

34. The criminal law now abrogated was the famous decree of the Ch'in First Emperor which ordered that anyone concealing books should be executed together with his three sets of relatives.

35. HS 27 Bb: 10b says that this event happened in the second year.

36. This date is Aug. 10, 191 B.C., but 27 A: 10b, in narrating this event, dates it in the tenth month, which is impossible because there was no yi-hai day in that month; the Han-chi (ii cent.) puts it in the third month.

37. HS 27: Bb 1a says that laxity is punished by an unseasonably long warm spell at which time there may be plant anomalies.

38. HS 27 Ba: 23b says that the water in the Yangtze and Yellow rivers was low and the gorges and valleys were dry.

39. There was no chi-ch'ou day in that month. There was such a day in the 8th month of the preceding year and in the 7th and 9th months of the same year. His biographies in SC ch. 54 and HS ch. 39 do not date his death. HS 39: 12b says, "[Ts'ao] Ts'an was Chancellor of State to the third year and died." Hsiao Ho, the previous Chancellor of State, died in Hsiao-hui's second year (2: 4b), whereupon Ts'ao Ts'an was installed; three years later would be the fifth year; so that the year is corroborated. SC 22: 5a (Mh III, 189) notes the death of Ts'ao Ts'an in the 8th month on the day yi-ch'ou, which would give a date possible in the 8th month, viz. Sept. 24, 190 B.C. Chavannes (T'oung Pao, vol. 7, p. 525) approves this reading. The error of transcription involved in writing 己 for 乙 is quite likely.

40. Yen Shih-ku remarks, "The head of the family received it."

41. There was no hsin-ch'ou day in that month; SC 22: 5a (Mh III, 189) notes this death in the seventh month of the sixth year, the hsin-ch'ou day of which was Aug. 25, 189 B.C. I find no evidence that this was anything but a natural death. His son succeeded him; the Empress Dowager after his death merely took away some of his territory.

42. The Official ed. (1739) writes "purchase 買" for the text's "sell 賣."

43. Ying Shao (ca. 140-206) writes, "The Kuo-Yü (iii cent. B.C.) [says], `The King of Yüeh, Kou-chien, ordered that if in his state a girl was in her seventeenth year and unmarried, her parents had committed a crime, for he wished that his people would multiply abundantly.' According to the Han Code, each person paid one poll-tax---a poll-tax was 120 cash; only merchants with male or female slaves [paid] two poll-taxes. Now they were caused [to pay] five [times] the poll-tax, it was a punishment for crime." Fu Ch'ien (ca. 125-195) however says, "A poll-tax is 127 [cash]." Liu Pin (1022-1088) remarks, "I say that `girls [being taxed] five [times] the poll-tax' does not however [imply] that they were punished all at once with this [amount]. From 15 to 30 there are five stages [of five years each]. Each stage added one poll-tax."The amount of the poll-tax in the above statements, about 120 cash, seems to have been the amount to which this tax was stabilized at the close of the Former Han and during the Later Han period; S. Kato, "A Study on the Suan-fu, the Poll-tax of the Han Dynasty," in Mem. of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, No. 1 (1926), 51-68, comes to the conclusion that this poll-tax was 190 cash under Emperor Wu; the evidence that it was 40 cash under Emperor Wen is not of the best.

44. The death of a mere noble is not usually mentioned in the Imperial Annals. But Fan K'uai's wife was the younger sister of the Empress Dowager, and he belonged to her faction, that of the Lü family. Hence his death was a piece of good fortune for the Liu family.

45. Yen Shih-ku (581-645) says, "Chariots are usually those who have been sentenced to military service and take arms, like the present frontier garrison chariots 車常擬軍與者，若近代之戎車也. Cavalry are usually horses which have been kept, together with the persons [who have kept them], who have been ordered to be sent [away] and sentenced to cavalry service, like the present horses for war and their [former] owners who care for them. 騎常所養馬并其人使行充騎， 若今武馬及所養者主也."

46. According to ch. 19 and his biography, he did not secure this title until the time of Emperor Wen.

47. For eclipses, cf. App. I.

48. According to Shen Ch'in-han (1775-1831), the Hsi-Ching Tsa-chi (prob. vi cent.) says, "In the seventh year of Emperor Hui, in the summer, it thundered and there was an earthquake. Several thousand of the great trees on the Southern Mountains [near the capital] were all on fire, but [the fire] did not reach below them; on several tens of mou of land the grass was all scorched and yellow. More than a hundred days afterwards, people went there and got one set of dragon bones and two sets of alligator bones [fossils?]."Emperor Hui was in his twenty-third year when he died and he was buried 23 days after his death.

49. Cf. p. 146, n. 8.

50. These two boys were his half-brothers. He tried to protect the second by always keeping him with himself; the Empress Dowager had to wait to kill Ju-yi until Hsiao-hui was out shooting and Ju-yi was sleeping alone. When the Empress Dowager tried to poison Liu Fei by giving him two cups of poison at a feast, Hsiao-hui took one cup; the Empress Dowager upset it and thus revealed her plan. These stories are told in the SC and in HS 97A: 4a; 38: 1b. Cf. Mh II, 409 ff.

51. HS 43: 17a, b, 18a says, "When they were building the double passageways [which seem to have been elevated roofed passageways, cf. p. 113, n. 2] just south of the arsenal [which was near the Wei-yang Palace], as [Shu-sun] T'ung was reporting to [the Emperor] on business, he took the opportunity to ask for a word in private and said, `Why does your Majesty yourself build this double passageway? The robes and hat of Emperor Kao-[tsu, which are preserved in] the funerary chamber [at his tomb], are carried monthly [in procession] to the Temple of Kao-[tsu]. Why should his descendants climb up and travel above the [sacred] road of the ancestral temple?' Emperor Hui was dismayed and replied, `I shall quickly destroy it.' [But Shu-sun] T'ung said, `The lord of men can manifest no faults. Now it is already made and the people all know about it. I hope that your Majesty will make the Second Temple 原廟 north of the Wei [River, by the tomb of Kao-tsu], and that [Kao-tsu's] robes and hat will be carried monthly [in procession] to it, thus increasing and broadening the fundamental [conception] of filial piety [underlying] the ancestral temple.' Then the Emperor promulgated an imperial edict that the [high] officials should erect the Second Temple." The point was that a gallery of the "double passageways" (q. v. in Glossary) was carried above the sacred road.

52. When the famous Chancellor of State, Hsiao Ho, died, he recommended Ts'ao Ts'an as his successor, even though there had been jealousy between the two. HS 39: 11b ff. says, "When [Ts'ao] Ts'an took the place of [Hsiao] Ho as Chancellor of State, in all matters there was no change or alteration; he entirely followed the agreements and regulations of [Hsiao] Ho." But he gave himself to drinking day and night. When anyone would come to talk with him, he would give them to drink before they could get started, and give them more drink whenever they showed any signs of re-opening the subject, so that they went away drunk without having had a chance to speak. His subordinates in the office behind his residence likewise fell to drinking and singing and shouting daily. Someone invited him to visit this office, but when he visited it, he too took wine, sat down, and drank, singing and shouting louder than they! He shielded those who had committed small crimes, so that there was no business done in his office. Emperor Hui was much younger than Ts'ao Ts'an, so when he wondered at his Chancellor's behavior, he sent Ts'ao Ts'an's son to remonstrate with him. But Ts'ao Ts'an became angry and had his son beaten 200 stripes for doing so. "When the time came [for him to go] to court, [the Emperor] reproved [Ts'ao] Ts'an, saying, `What sort of treatment have you given [your son], K'u? Formerly I sent him to remonstrate with you, sir.' [Ts'ao] Ts'an doffed his hat, begged [the Emperor's] pardon, and said, `When your Majesty yourself considers the deeds of the Sage Hero [Kao-tsu], how do you compare with Emperor Kao-[tsu]?' Emperor [Hsiao-hui] replied, `But how would We dare to hope [to compare Ourself with] the late Emperor?' [Ts'ao] Ts'an said, `When your Majesty considers me, [Ts'ao] Ts'an, which [of us] is the more capable, I or Hsiao Ho?' The Emperor replied, `You, sir, do not appear to be his equal.' [Ts'ao] Ts'an replied, `What your Majesty says is right. [Since] moreover Emperor Kao-[tsu] and Hsiao Ho have subjugated the world and the laws and ordinances have all been made plain, is it not right that your Majesty [sits] with unruffled garments and with folded hands while I, [Ts'ao] Ts'an, and my colleagues [merely] guard our charges, following in the way [of Kao-tsu and Hsiao Ho, taking care that we] make no slips?' Emperor Hui replied, `Good. You, sir, need not say anything more about it.' "Ts'ao Ts'an was a devotee of Lao-tzu's doctrine that the best government is the one that governs least (cf. Tao-te-ching, ch. 60, 80); he tried to give the people a relief from the overexacting government that characterized the Ch`in dynasty with its numerous laws and the period of Kao-tsu with its continual wars.

53. The historian is thinking of the murder of the Emperor's beloved half-brother, Liu Ju-yi, and the terrible revenge wreaked upon Ju-yi's mother, the Lady née Ch'i, by the Dowager Empress née Lü. When the Emperor's mother called him to see his mutilated step-mother, he did not recognize her; when he was informed who she was, he wept abundantly and became ill for more than a year (possibly he had a "nervous breakdown"), and sent people to say to his mother, the Empress Dowager, "This is an inhuman deed. I am your son, [but, because of you] I am not able to rule the empire [rightly]." Then he gave himself up to drinking and debauchery and did not pay any attention to government. Cf. Mh II, 410. This story is told in 97A: 4b; it was perhaps the worst deed of the Empress Dowager.