The History of China - #31 - W. Han 9: The Decline Of Han

Episode Date: July 20, 2014

The Han Dynasty has slipped into a malaise that seems difficult to pull out of. Emperor Yuan is an indecisive Confucianist, his successor Cheng an impotent and free-spending hedonist, and Ai a flamboyant grandma's boy who will try to bequeath the entire Empire to his male lover Dong Xian, with less than successful results. Is this the end for Han? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. This episode is brought to you by you. Through the generosity of our phenomenal listeners, The History of China is able to continue exploring the tremendous story of the Middle Kingdom. If you, too, think that our show is worth a dollar, or to post suggestions or questions, or simply would like to join the online fun, please go to thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com,

where you'll find out how you can support the podcast. Regardless, please continue to enjoy, and be sure to go to the History of China's iTunes and Stitcher pages and rank us highly. Your ranks are very helpful, and we can always use more. Thanks again very much, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 29, The Decline of Han. Last time, we went over the reigns of the two-and-a-half emperors, child monarch Zhao, Prince Liu He, who didn't last a month before being fired, and the riches to rags and back to riches, Emperor Xuan,

all directed and molded by the guiding hand of the regent lord, Huo Guang. This time, we approach the end of the BCE, and with it the downward spiral of the Han dynasty into factionalism, nepotism, and popular loss of faith in the throne. You'll remember from last time that Prince Liu She was the first son of Emperor Xuan and Lady Xu Pingjun. He was born in 75 BCE, which was before his father's unexpected re-rise to nobility and power. Shortly after becoming a prince, however, he would lose his mother to poison at the hands of Huo Chengjun, who would then take Xu's place as empress in 70 BCE. Three years later, Emperor Xuan declared the then eight-year-old Liu Shi his heir, which placed him squarely in the sights of his stepmother,

who wanted one of her own sons to inherit the empire. Now the crown prince, Liu Shi would survive several attempts on his life in the sights of his stepmother, who wanted one of her own sons to inherit the empire. Now the crown prince, Liu Shi would survive several attempts on his life before enough evidence was presented to Xuan of his wife and her family's machinations. The entire Huo clan was executed, and Empress Huo deposed and placed under house arrest for some 12 years. Crown Prince Shi would spend the rest of his childhood and adolescence in the care of the kindly and childless consort Wang, who was declared Empress Wang in 64 BCE for the express purpose of caring for the heir of Han. Prince Shi would not receive any major position in the government during his young adulthood. Instead, he spent his days studying the Confucian classics, learning from Confucian scholars,

and, as young powerful men are wont to do, cavorting with his retinue of consorts, of which he favored consort Wang Zhengjun, who bore him his first son, Liu Ao, in 51 BCE. As was to be expected from all that Confucian teaching and studying, Crown Prince Shi became an ardent Confucianist in his political and personal leanings, and to be sure, being ardently Confucian generally means being quite mild-mannered and prone to inaction and indecision, descriptors that pretty nicely describe the heir apparent. This would come to grate on Emperor Xuan, who had himself taken the far more pragmatic and workable approach to government of a legalist-slash-Confucian blend.

Tough, but fair. This disagreement had boiled over once at a dinner in 53 BCE, when Prince Shi had insisted that his father should appoint far more Confucian scholars to the court and into key positions. The emperor had grown significantly displeased with this suggestion, and stated that Confucianists were, in effect, impractical, head-in-the-clouds bookworms who couldn't be trusted with deciding what was for lunch, much less run a nation. In the heat of the ensuing argument, Emperor Xuan declared that the Crown Prince would bring about the downfall of the Empire and the Leo clan due to his Confucian leanings. And, spoiler alert, those words would be fairly prophetic.

All right, maybe it's not quite as bad as all that, but Xuan had grown dissatisfied enough with his indecisive son that for a time he considered deposing him in favor of his younger son, Prince Liu Qin. But because of the love he still bore for Prince Shi's long-dead mother, he couldn't bring himself to unseat their child. And so, when Emperor Xuan succumbed to illness in 49 BCE, the same year, by the way, that half a world away, General Gaius Julius Caesar would lead his armies across the Rubicon to become the Roman dictator for life, it would be the 26-year-old crown prince Liu Shi who would take up the mantle of Han. He would be known as Emperor Yuan, and as his first act in office, would enact drastic governmental budget cuts in order to reduce the burden of the people, and stipends for the impoverished as well as entrepreneurs were put into place.

As he had suggested to his father back at awkward family dinner night, Emperor Yuan began filling key positions in his government with Confucians, and relied heavily on their advice throughout his reign. His consort, Wang Zhengjun, was declared empress, and their son, Liu Ao, declared crowned prince. In 46 BCE, still keen on cutting expenditures where he could, Yuan ordered the two prefectural cities on the rebellious southern island Hainan, which today is pretty much China's Hawaii, abandoned to the natives. Later, he would order a drastic reduction in the number of standing temples throughout the empire. So, before we venture further, I think a quick refresher on Confucianism is in order. We covered it pretty thoroughly in episode 13,

but hey, that was 16 episodes and half a millennia ago. I get it. So, the philosophy of Master Kongqiu centered around four virtues. Humaneness, which was best explained by Confucius as, do not do unto others what you would not want done unto yourself. The second was etiquette, which is essentially the rituals, mores, and customs that shape society toward a healthy state. Third is loyalty, which is fairly self-explanatory, but did focus on the bi-directional nature of any such relationship, i.e. both the ruler and the ruled have responsibilities toward one another. And finally, the related concept of filial piety, the duties from one member of society to any other. In terms of governance, all of that

fit into the operational philosophy that so long as the emperor was righteous, that goodness would flow outward through the rest of the society without need for laws or punishments or coercive measures of any sort. Everyone would just be good organically, and the emperor's job would be simply to sit, more or less motionless, and just radiate that positivity out onto his subjects, especially according to the later writings of Mencius, who felt that mankind was innately and totally good. If this is starting to sound all rather a bit utopian and maybe just maybe a little bit unworkable, given all we've seen about the inner workings of the imperial system up to this point, well, now you know where the late Emperor Xuan was coming from

when he called the philosophy completely impractical. And now with Confucian Emperor Yuan in power, it should come as little surprise that all was not well in Han. Almost as soon as Yuan came to power, his court split into two opposing factions, a schism that would plague his entire reign. On one side, Yuan's diehard Confucians, headed by the emperor's old teachers Xiao and Zhou. They derived their power from the fact that Yuan was inherently sympathetic to their philosophies, and consistently lobbied for a return to the policies of the early Zhou dynasty. On the surface, this might sound silly. Who in their right mind would want to go

back to the policies of a failed 800-year-old dynasty? But remember that the Han dynasty had been founded by Emperor Gaozu specifically to emulate the remarkable success of the Zhou dynasty, so such sentiments were not actually so far-fetched. And moreover, remarkable success of the Zhou Dynasty, so such sentiments were not actually so far-fetched. And moreover, the policies of the early Zhou Dynasty had undeniably been successful. The dynasty's failure, you'll remember, had come about during the latter half of its existence. On the other hand, the so-called Court Faction, led by Imperial Secretary Hong Gong and his chief eunuch Shi Xian, achieved influence due to their physical proximity to the emperor, as well as their key role in processing imperial edicts and reports to the sovereign. They argued to maintain the political

traditions of the Han dynasty, and they were absolutely ruthless in protecting their interests. Between engineering demotions and suicides of the Confucian leadership, within a year the court faction would emerge, for a time at least, victorious against their eviscerated rival bloc. This was further compounded in 43 BCE, when a series of strange astrological and meteorological events were interpreted to mean divine displeasure at the policies of the remaining Confucian politicians. Though this resulted in the temporary demotion of two more Confucian officials to local posts, the re-emergence of these strange heavenly signs in 40 BCE reopened the issue. After all, how could the signs have reappeared

if the Confucian officials had been to blame? Unable to offer a reason, the court faction could but watch as the demoted Confucian officials were summoned back to the capital and reinstated, before subsequently being betrayed and killed later on. Honestly, the tit-for-tat nature of the rival factions goes on and on, and gets a little boring. We've covered the general nature of the animosity between them. The Confucians were generally the favorite of Emperor Yuan, but the court faction was much better at politics and deception than their rivals, being after all not bound by strict Confucian ethics, and they routinely undermined their position within the government. You get the picture. One of the brighter moments of Emperor

Yuan's reign would be the establishment at at long last, of complete hegemony within Central Asia. Last time, we discussed the civil war that had broken out within the Xiongnu Confederacy between the three chieftain brothers Zhezhe, Hu Hanyi, and Ren Zhen Chanyu. Ren Zhen had been killed by Zhezhe, and Hu Hanyi had pledged himself to Han in exchange for imperial assistance against his elder brother. As a result, Zhezhe Chanyu's forces had been pushed to Central Asia, where they'd made a living raiding and harassing the Wusen Kingdom, as well as the outlying territories of the Shiyu Western Kingdoms. In 44 BCE, Zhezhe had demanded the return of his son, who had previously been sent as a hostage to Chang'an in hopes of peace between Han and Zhezhe's Xiongnu faction. But when Emperor Yuan obliged the Chanyu, the escort sent along with the returning prince was executed upon arrival at Zhezhe's capital.

No word whether this betrayal occurred anywhere near the Ides of March of the year, but it did seem to be a year of assassinations. Eh too, Zhezhe? This apparently unprovoked murder wouldn't be answered for some eight years, until 36 BCE. Zhezhe Chanyu had by this time established himself as the terror of Central Asia, forcing Wusen, Shiyu, and even the powerful Dayuan kingdoms to pay him tribute. Thus, Han commander Gao Yanshou and his lieutenant Chen Tang reasoned that he might eventually become a threat to Han holdings once again, and took it upon themselves to destroy

him once and for all. Given Zizhe's subjugation of the region, they guessed that he wouldn't have many steadfast friends to call upon for aid in the event of an invasion. And since he had just finished construction of his new capital city on the banks of Lake Balkash in modern Kazakhstan, they reasoned that it was unlikely to be heavily fortified just yet. So the pair planned to requisition the han colonization forces of the western region along with a delayed seeking permission to strike. But when Commander Gan fell ill, Chen took it upon himself to forge the imperial edicts of requisition and led his colonization force and those of the surrounding vassal kingdoms against Zhezhe's Xiongnu. When Commander Gan recovered, he caught up with Chen and tried to make him change his course,

but Chen warned his superior that it was too late to go back. Realizing that his lieutenant had the right of it, the pair drafted reports admitting their forged requisition, along with their rationale for having done so. They then split the force in two, with one half proceeding south of the Taklamakan Desert through Dayuan, while the other proceeded north through Wusun to surround the unsuspecting Zhizhi. The forces rejoined on the outskirts of the Xiongnu capital, and combined with the Wusun armies, laid siege to and captured the city. Zhizhi Chonyu was killed in battle.

As word reached Chang'an of this great victory against the hostile barbarians, the unorthodox means by which they had acquired their army was crushed aside. Who authorized this again? Meh, no matter. Hu Hanyi Chanyu, both impressed and terrified at the display of power and force projection the Han Empire was capable of, to have so utterly crushed his brother from such a distance, made another trip to Chang'an to once again submit himself before the imperial throne and formally ask to become a, quote, son-in-law of Han. Emperor Yuan would grow ill the following year, and questions of succession once again came to

the fore of the imperial court. In a virtual repeat of Yuan's problems with his own father, Crown Prince Ao had grown up to earn the scorn and disappointment of his father, since he was well known throughout the capital for being a womanizer, a drinker, and little more. One of his younger sons, Liu Kang, had become the apple of Yuan's eye, and he came very close to deposing Ao and replacing him with Kang as his heir. But he could not bring himself to abandon his firstborn, and so when the emperor died in 33 BCE, after 15 years of rule and at the age of 42, it would be Prince Liu Ao who would take the throne

as Emperor Cheng of Han. Cheng was 18 upon his accession, and his mother was promoted to Empress Dowager Wang. Cheng placed a huge amount of faith in his uncles on his mother's side, and promoted six of them to marquise in spite of the prohibition on such nepotic practices laid out by Gao Zu when he created the dynasty, and had specifically decreed that only those who had contributed significantly to the empire could be promoted to the highest position in the land. Though the Wang clan did appear to genuinely want to help the empire,

they were, as a rule, quite concerned with their own continued amassing of power and wealth within the system, leading to a continual deterioration of the quality of officials given posts within the government. During the third year of his reign, he declared his favorite consort his Empress Shu. And yes, she was from the same clan as Cheng's poisoned grandmother. However, in spite of his noted love of women, neither his Empress nor any of his many consorts produced him a child. Shu would be deposed after charges of witchcraft were leveled against her in 18 BCE, and eventually replaced with the dancing girl Zhao Feiyan and her sister Zhao Hede. Over the objections of the Empress Dowager against promoting a common dancing girl to the position,

in 16 BCE, Zhao Feiyan was made Cheng's second empress. Still, the emperor remained conspicuously child-free in spite of his many concubines. In 8 BCE, still airless and apparently having come to the conclusion that it simply wasn't going to happen, Emperor Cheng decided to make his nephew Liu Xin the crown prince. Prince Xin was born in 27 BCE to Prince Kang, Emperor Cheng's brother, and once rival to the throne. From birth, he was raised by his paternal grandmother, the domineering consort Fu, and not by his mother. Prince Kang had died in 23 BCE, and the four-year-old Prince Qin had become the Prince of Dingkao. The year before his promotion, the then 18-year-old Prince Xin impressed his uncle, Emperor Cheng, when on an official visit to the capital, Chang'an, he brought three key officials

of his principality, his teacher, his prime minister, and the commander of his capital's defense force to accompany him. Impressively, he cited all the proper legal regulations that, in his opinion, both required and allowed him to bring these three with him, even though it was customary that princes should only bring their teachers. He also showed clear understanding of the Confucian classic Shi Jing, further impressing Emperor Cheng. At that time, the sunless Emperor Cheng was beginning to consider making either his younger brother Liu Xing, the prince of Zhongshan, or his nephew Prince Xin his heir. Impressed by the display of wisdom and legal knowledge the young prince of Dingtao displayed, Cheng became convinced that Prince Xin was more capable.

At the same time, Prince Xin's grandmother, Consort Fu, was busy endearing herself to Emperor Cheng's wife, Empress Zhao Feiyan, and the Emperor Cheng's favorite consort, Zhao Hede, as well as Emperor Cheng's uncle, Wang Gen. And so both the Zhao's and Wang Gen praised Prince Xin as well. In 8 BCE, Emperor Cheng summoned several of his key officials to discuss with him who would be the more proper heir. The majority, likely seeing that Emperor Cheng was already leaning towards Prince Xin and not wanting to end up on the wrong side of that debate, recommended him, citing the general rule of succession that when one lacked an heir,

he should adopt the brother's child to be his own son and heir. Convinced, Emperor Cheng declared his nephew the crown prince of Han. In an act praised as one showing humility, Prince Xin declined the honor of living at the crown prince's palace, stating that he was only at the capital to serve Emperor Cheng until he could produce an heir, and that he should stay at the Ding Town Mission in the capital. But whether Emperor Cheng was formally adopting Prince Xin would quickly become a major controversy within the court.

Cheng viewed the fact that he had promoted Prince Xin to crown prince as a formal adoption, and he believed that Prince Xin was now his son and no longer Prince Kang's. When he declared a cousin to be the new prince of Dingtao to serve as Prince Kang's heir in the winter of 8 BCE, Prince Xin, grateful that his father would continue to be worshipped as an ancestor, submitted a formal note giving thanks. And that simple act of thanking his adopted father for continuing to honor his birth father backfired spectacularly. Much to Liu Xin's surprise, Emperor Cheng was highly offended, having come to the conclusion that Prince Xin was now his son and should not

display any kind of filial affection for Prince Kong or any honors bestowed upon him. In what was one of the more bizarre fits of hyper-possessiveness, Emperor Cheng went further, decreeing that Prince Xin's relationship with his grandmother, Consort Fu, and his mother, Consort Ding, was unacceptable. He decreed that Consort Fu and Consort Ding were to be required to remain in Ding Tao and not allowed to come to Chang'an or to visit Prince Xin. After that whole episode had calmed down, though, Emperor Chang's mother, the Empress Dowager, revisited the issue and decreed that Consort Fu be allowed to see Prince Xin, under the rationale that she, having raised him, was merely providing the role of a wet nurse. His mother, Consort Ding, however, would continue to be disallowed from the capital.

Emperor Cheng died suddenly in 7 BCE, either from a stroke, or possibly from an overdose of aphrodisiacs given to him by his consort Zhao Hede. Curiously, in an official report commissioned by Empress Dowager Wang, it was found that Emperor Cheng had actually not been sterile, and had been able to produce two sons, one to his consort Cao in 12 BCE, and the second to consort Xu in 11 BCE. But both had been murdered by Zhao Hede out of jealousy, with Cheng at least tacitly looking the other way because he was enamored with the infanticidal consort. Fearing reprisals, Zhao Hede killed herself, and the Empress Dowager stripped her clan of their titles and nobility. Empress Zhao Feiyan was spared, and she would become the next Empress Dowager. Crown Prince Liu Xin ascended to the throne as Emperor Ai of Han at 20 years old in 7 BCE.

In stark contrast to his layabout and extravagant predecessor, both the court officials as well as the people of the empire were initially excited about their new monarch, as he appeared to be both intelligent and capable. He quickly ended Emperor Cheng's practice of delegating imperial authorities to his uncles and cousins of the Wang clan, and appeared diligent in his rule. He also reduced personal and state spending greatly. Both the officials and the people thought that after the reigns of the indecisive Emperor Yuan and the impulsive and lavish-spending Emperor Cheng, there would at last be a capable leader. That same year, a major proposal to reduce involuntary servitude was made by several officials. Princes would be limited to 200 servants,

marquises and princesses to 100 servants, and other nobility and commoners to 30 servants, and that those servants would be freed after a period of three years. However, after the proposal was leaked, many owners pushed to have the proposal tabled, and Emperor Ai only issued a limited version of it, one which freed servants over the age of 50. The initial public optimism would quickly turn stale, however, as it became clear that official corruption was becoming even more prevalent under I.

Taxes, though initially lowered, were re-raised, and the Empress Dowagers remained in virtually absolute control of state affairs. And yes, I did say Empress Dowagers, because during the reign of I, we'll have no fewer than four sitting Empress Dowagers, because during the reign of Ai, we'll have no fewer than four sitting Empress Dowagers, a mind-boggling and wholly unprecedented number. There was, of course, the two we expect, Empress Wang, Yuan's wife and Cheng's mother, and Empress Zhao Feiyan, who was Cheng's wife. But in addition, both Ai's grandmother, Consort Fu, and his mother, Consort Ding, would demand their own dowager's heidels, in spite of having never actually been

empress. Consort Fu had always been domineering, and her transition to Chang'an did nothing to help the matter. Though Grand Empress Dowager Wang had initially decreed that Princess Dowager Fu and Consort Ding could see him periodically every 10 days, Fu quickly began to visit her grandson every day, reasserting her control over the 20-year-old. Shortly thereafter, she insisted that two things be done. First, that she receive an Empress Dowager title, and second, that her relatives be granted titles like the Wang clan. Grand Empress Dowager Wang, sympathetic to the bind that Emperor Ai was in, assented to the highly irregular demand, and first granted the deceased Prince Kang the unusual posthumous title of Emperor Gong of Ding

Tao, and then, under the rationale of that title, granted Princess Dowager Fu the title Empress Dowager Gong of Dingtao, and Consort Ding the title Empress Gong of Dingtao. Several members of the Fu and Ding clans were promoted to marquise, and Grand Empress Dowager also ordered that her nephew, Wang Meng, the commander of the armed forces, resign and transfer the power to the Fus and the Dings. Emperor Ai, however, declined and begged Wang Meng to stay in his administration. Several months later, however, Wang Meng would come into direct confrontation with the now Empress

Dowager Fu. At a major imperial banquet, the official in charge of seating placed Empress Dowager Fu's seat next to the Grand Empress Dowager Wang's. When Wang Meng saw this, he rebuked the official and ordered that Empress Dowager Wang's. When Wang Meng saw this, he rebuked the official and ordered that Empress Dowager Fu's seat be moved off to the side. Fu was so upset by this that she refused to attend the banquet entirely, and in order to soothe her anger, Wang Meng offered his resignation, and Emperor Ai this time approved it. Following this, the Wang family gradually began to lose their grip on power. At Empress dowager foo's behest the foos and the dings were installed in their place in five b c e empress dowager foo would finally get what she wanted she had repeatedly and loudly complained that her already completely unprecedented title was not nearly enough she should be the Grand Empress Dowager, and the qualifier of Ding

Tao simply had to go. And so Emperor Ai removed the qualification from his father's posthumous title, thus simply making him Emperor Gong, and gave his grandmother a variation of the Grand Empress Dowager title, Di Tai Tai Hou, compared to Wang's title, Tai Huang Tai Hou, and his mother a version of the Empress Dowager title, Di Tai Hou, compared to Empress Dowager Zhao's title, Huang Tai Hou. There were therefore now four official Empresses Dowager in the capital, each with a full imperial budget. Though that wouldn't be the case for long, as later that same year,

Ai's mother, Empress Dowager Ding, would die. During these years, other than the incessant palatial infighting, what plagued Emperor Ai's administration, not unlike how it had vexed his uncle Cheng's administration, was the general situation in which decent proposals would be made to Emperor Ai, and then he would approve of them personally, but not take any actual actions on them further he was quick to dole out harsh punishments on officials who disagreed with him including but not limited to the issue of his grandmother and mother's titles Compounding the problem, he would then often backpedal after the fact and rescind the punishment, which made him appear both tyrannical and indecisive.

Making things even worse, he was well known to rapidly promote officials that he saw as capable and honest, and then, as soon as that capability or honesty offended him in some way, demote them right back down again. His temper might have been related to the fact that he was apparently chronically ill, although the nature of that illness is unknown. Emperor Ai is also remembered as being one of, and possibly the most effusive of, the ten emperors known or widely thought to have had homosexual lovers. It should be noted that like many ancient societies, including Japan, Greece, and Rome, homosexuality was regarded as a normal facet of life and not morally deviant, and in some cases even promoted as exemplary and more harmonious than heterosexual relationships.

Writings from the Liu Song dynasty of the late 3rd century CE say on the matter, All the gentlemen and officials esteemed it. dynasty of the late 3rd century CE say on the matter, quote, Confucianism and Taoist philosophies saw the practice as essentially morally neutral, though Confucianism's emphasis on close male relationships certainly facilitated male-male sexual encounters. In fact, it wouldn't be until the medieval Tang dynasty of the 7th through 10th centuries CE that objections to homosexuality would begin appearing in Chinese literature, as a result of the influences of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism in the empire. All of this to say, circa the year 4 BCE, Emperor Ai began to favor the minor official, Dong Xian, and the two began an affair, though they

were both, of course, married. Ai bestowed honors and titles on Dong Xian at an alarming rate. He and his wife were invited to move into the imperial palace. Dong's sister became an imperial consort, and his father was made an acting marquis. Shortly thereafter, I ordered that an opulent residence that rivaled the imperial palace in luxury be built for Dong. Anyone who spoke out against these decrees was severely punished by the emperor. In 3 BCE, and against the strong objection of Prime Minister Wang Jia, Ai decreed Dong Xian the Marquis of Gaoyuan, and the next year expanded his march. When the Prime

Minister again objected, Emperor Ai had him falsely accused of crimes and he was forced to commit suicide. Later that same year, Dong, at age 22, was declared the commander of the armed forces, making him in effect the most powerful official in the administration. The Dong clan would highly benefit from this affair as well, and were named to prominent positions, even displacing the Fu and Ding clans following Grand Empress Dowager Fu's death in 2 BCE. The affair between Emperor Ai and Dong Xian spawned a widely known story called

Duan Xiu Zhi Pi, or The Passion of the Cut Sleeve. The story goes that after falling asleep together, Emperor Ai awoke to find Dong still asleep and his head resting on Ai's fine silk sleeve. Rather than risk awakening his lover, he opted to cut the sleeve off his robe. To refer to a cut sleeve still is a euphemism for male-male sexual relationships in China. The good times would come to a sudden stop, however, in 1 BCE, when Emperor Ai's mysterious chronic illness at last got the better of him on his deathbed i ordered that the throne be passed to who else dong seal of command and reinstate Wang Meng as regent. Disgraced, and likely in for a very rough time now that their benefactor, lover, and protector was no longer around to shield them from the court's wrath, Dong Xian and his wife committed suicide.

Emperor Ai would die at age 26, after only six years on the throne. But his abuses of power, first on behalf of his grandmother and then his lover, had turned the imperial court and the people of Han against the dynasty that by all appearances was in its death throes. He died childless, and so once again the throne would pass laterally, this time to his nine-year-old cousin, Prince Liu Jizi. And so here we are, at the cusp of the Common Era, a.k.a. Anno Domini. The emperor is dead, the dynasty is on the ropes, and a major change is just over the horizon.

So this seems like a good place to stop for the time being, don't you think? Next time, the reign of Emperor Ping of Han, the regency of Wangmrial.com slash china, you can receive a free audiobook download along with a free 30-day trial of the service. With over 100,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player, Audible is the nation's leading seller and producer of spoken audio content.