The History of China - #34 - E. Han 1: One Han, Two Han, Red Han, True Han

Episode Date: August 10, 2014

In the power vacuum left by the defeated Xin Dynasty's collapse, no fewer than six claimants to the long-vacant Throne of Han will vie for power... one backed by the Lülin Rebels, another by the Red Eyebrow Army, another a northern lord with an axe to grind, and a fortune-teller playing the role of a lifetime... who will emerge victorious to reunify the fractious Chinese Empire? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And again, thanks so much for listening, and please enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. at the hands of the Red Eyebrow and Lulin rebel factions. Between the flooding and famines that precipitated the conflict and the six years of ensuing civil war, somewhere on the order of 20 to 25 million people had died, a staggering death toll that wouldn't be topped until the An Lushang Rebellion of the Tang Dynasty more than 700 years later. This time, the aftermath of that conflict, as the factions of the would-be reinvigorated Han dynasty seek to reassemble the

shattered remnants of imperial power for themselves. We start off with the ruler that had been crowned by the Lulin rebels prior to their successful siege of Chang'an, Liu Xuan, the Gengshi Emperor. Now, calling Liu Xuan an emperor is at best ambiguous. You'll hear a fair number of historians, especially traditional historians, for whom any failed attempt at power automatically brands one as either a usurper or pretender, as per the rules of the Mandate of Heaven. And yes, I'm looking at you sympathetically, Wang Wang.

They tend to refer to his person and rule as the prince or king of Huayang, implying that he was little more than a pretender to the true line of Han. I tend to disagree with this line of thought, though. Geng Shi, however incompetent he was as a ruler, he could both a. legitimately trace his lineage back to the imperial Liu clan, and b. realistically claim to have reunited, however temporarily, China under his rule. In my mind, at least, kilometers southeast of Chang'an. But as the smoke began to clear and the dust settled following the successful siege of the Xin capital, Two things became clear. First, that Wangcheng wasn't a remotely suitable choice for the restoration of the Han dynasty, and second, that, at least for the time being,

Chang'an was in no position to host the imperial seat either. The imperial palace had been burned to the ground, and while much of the rest of the city's infrastructure had remained relatively untouched, the city's populace was in no mood to be receiving yet another emperor just at the moment. That left only one real logical option, the ancient seat of the Eastern Zhou, the holy city of Luoyang. You remember, right, the city that had been built at the precise center of the universe, but was abandoned when, curiously enough, trade routes didn't actually run through the center of the universe? Once comfortably arranged in Luoyang,

the Gengsha emperor began issuing edicts to the whole of his much-reduced empire. In a deft maneuver, he declared that he would allow any local officials of the defeated Xin dynasty to retain their posts, provided, of course, they swore fealty to him and the restored Han. Further, he promised titles, positions, and wealth to those political and military leaders who disarmed and came to Luoyang to pay him homage, including the powerful leader of the Red Eyebrow Army, Fan Chong. This worked well in the short term, but rather quickly began to backfire when Geng Shi applied

the policy inconsistently, allowing a large backlog of expectant and increasingly impatient governors and leaders to begin to wonder whether giving up their power for the vague promise of an eventual reward, maybe, was really their best option. In particular, Fan Chong quickly became fed up with the process and departed the capital, back to his waiting Red Eyebrow Army. Over the course of the year 23, the tide of dissatisfaction among the empire's governors grew to the point that Geng Shiu was forced to dispatch his general staff to the various provinces in an attempt to calm and appease the disgruntled vassals. Among them, notably, was the governor of the capital region, Liu Xiu, brother of the betrayed and murdered former leader

of the Lulin, Liu Yan, from last episode. Xiu was sent to quell the unrest north of the Yellow River in autumn of 23. His arrival was initially met with great gladness by the people north of the Yellow River, and it was around this time that he was joined by his old friend, the 22-year-old Deng Yu, who, having heard of Xiu's departure to pacify the north, left his home and gave chase. He finally caught Xiu outside Handan City in Hebei. When Liu Xiu saw Deng, he asked whether he was looking for a commission. Deng gave the famous reply, What I want is that your power and grace be extended to all territory under heaven,

and that I may contribute in a minor but sufficient way, so that my name may be recorded in history. End quote. Leo was impressed and requested Deng to remain and give him suggestions. Deng analyzed the situation and suggested to him that Emperor Gengshi's administration would eventually fall and that he should be ready to establish great things. Leo agreed.

The pair had more immediate concerns to occupy them, however. Beginning that winter, with the appearance of Wang Lang, a fortune teller from Handan who had gathered a sizable following by claiming that he was the rightful heir to the Han throne. He had concocted a story in which he claimed to have been the long-lost son of the late Emperor Cheng, whom, you'll recall, famously had such significant trouble conceiving any sons at all that he was thought until his death to have been entirely sterile. Only posthumously did the truth surface that he'd actually conceived two sons, but both had been murdered in their infancy by his jealous consort Zhao Hede.

Wang Long had given himself the name Liu Ziyu, and claimed that in fact his mother was a singer in Emperor Cheng's service, and that Cheng's empress had tried to kill him after his birth, but that a substitute child was killed instead. As his rumors swirled around the city, the people of Handan began to believe that he was the genuine son of Cheng, and the prefectures north of the Yellow River quickly began to pledge their allegiance to him as emperor. Liu Xiu and Deng Yu, taken aback by the rise of this pretender to the throne, decided to pull back to the city of Ji, which is actually the most ancient portion of modern Beijing, dating back to at least 1045 BCE. From there, they assessed the situation and prepared to confront the imperial pretender.

From Ji, Liu Xiu managed to contact and, with some difficulty, convince those northern lords as yet still unaffiliated with the pretender Wang Long to unite against him. In the depth of winter of early 24, a combined force led by Liu Xiu and Deng Yu laid siege to the formidable defenses of Han Dan, finally breaching the city walls and killing Wang in early spring. For this great victory, the Gengxia Emperor rewarded Liu Xiu by declaring him the Prince of Xiao and summoned him back to the capital, which confusingly enough had already been removed back to Chang'an from Luoyang. But Liu Xiu, persuaded both by his old friend Deng Yu

and his trusted clerk Geng Yu, declined the emperor's invitation, deftly claiming that the region still needed his guiding hand to maintain its pacification. In truth, though, he began making preparations to steer his own course away from the foundering Geng Shi regime, shaken as they all were by Geng Shi and his Lulin officials' blatant misrule. To that end, Liu Xiu began to strip other imperially commissioned generals of their

powers and troops, concentrating both under his own command, and bided his time. So let me explain what I mean when I say that the Geng Shi regime had already begun to take on water. Remember from last time that Liu Xuan had been chosen by the Lu Lin rebels to become emperor precisely because he was a weak-willed, timid sock puppet his military commanders rightly felt they could dominate. Unfortunately, for all their battlefield brilliance, the Lu Lin proved to be just completely awful at civil rule. Chalk it up, perhaps, to the habits formed from a decade of pillaging,

stealing, and murdering, not equating to great officialdom. Early on in his reign, Geng Shi had effectively entrusted the affairs of state to Zhao Meng, who had endeared himself to the emperor by offering up his daughter as an imperial consort. So, while Geng Shi busied himself with drinking, women, and general hedonism, Zhao did a wonderful job of plunging the imperial government into a tailspin through rampant abuses of power and criminal misconduct. We don't know the specifics of it, but suffice it to say that when an honest official, or at least more honest, laid out Zhao's crimes in unmistakable fashion to Geng Shi, he was immediately placed under arrest and executed.

But Zhao Meng was but a symptom of the disease, and stamping him out helped almost nothing. Other officials throughout the empire, those not so close to Chang'an as to be under Gengx's direct scrutiny, were able to use and abuse their power with virtual impunity, causing great confusion and anger throughout the empire. Wasn't the Han supposed to be a stabilizing, just anchor for China? Hadn't that been what the last six years of bloody warfare had been trying to restore? Certainly not this farcical, mafia-esque shakedown calling itself the Han. Popular support is one thing, but the support of powerful military factions is a whole other ball of wax. As mentioned before, promising to red-eyebrow leaders marquee titles in exchange for their submission

had been among the more brilliant maneuvers of the Genghis Emperor. At least, until he continually failed to deliver on said assurances. Fed up with the continual excuses and delays from the throne, in the winter of 24, the Red Eyebrow troops, then stationed in Puyang, were just plain exhausted and wanted to return to their homes. Seeing that their men, and thus power, were about to disband, the Red Eyebrow leadership abandoned Luoyang, back to Puyang, to rally their men and keep them together. The Red Eyebrow generals felt that if they were to disband now, their forces would

scatter to the four corners of the empire, and their power base would be forever broken. To prevent that, they felt that a clear goal needed to be created. Ultimately, they announced that it would be Chang'an itself they were attacking, the reason being that the Gengsha emperor had failed to deliver on his promises to the Red Eyebrows. Thus, they were divided into two armies and began to head west. North of the Yellow River, Liu Xiu watched this turn of events with keen interest. While he had a fairly strong contingent of troops, rather than intervening on Chang'an's behalf, he instead chose to stand by and wait and see what the Qimei would

do to the Gengxia Emperor. He used the Henan region of northern Henan as his base of operations for its strategic position as well as fertile farmland to feed his growing army. The two Red Eyebrow armies rejoined in Hongnong, about 230 miles due east of Chang'an, defeating every single army that the emperor had sent to stop it. There they would wait out the winter of 2425, in preparation to attack the following spring. And so we come to the year 25. Early that year, two conspirators had set out on a frankly ridiculous bid for power, betting everything on Emperor Baby of Han. That is to say, the now-grown Ru Zi, Liu Ying, the nominal Duke of Ding'an, the one who had spent his

entire life under house arrest at the behest of Wang Meng, and had been so purposefully uneducated that he couldn't even identify a dog. Ru Zi was kidnapped by the conspirators and brought as a figurehead to the occupied city of Linjing, where he was declared the legitimate ruler of the restored Han dynasty. In response, Gengxia dispatched his prime minister Li Song to attack the rebel stronghold. Li made short work of the haphazard rebel force, and in at least my own opinion, one of the more tragic moments of the era, executed the infantile and entirely innocent Ru Ziyin at age 19 or 20, whose entire life had been an elaborate and sad puppet show, the pawn of court politics he could

neither understand nor control. That summer from Henan, Liu Xiu would at last make his formal break from the rule of Geng Shi, following an outbreak of hostilities between his and imperial troops over control of the plains surrounding Luoyang and Henan. Xiao declared himself emperor, establishing a new Han dynasty, which would in time come to be called the Eastern Han, to differentiate it from the supposedly restored Western Han of his now rival, Geng Shi. And for a brief explanation of the East-West naming scheme, it has to do with the eventual capitals. Much like the ancient Eastern and Western Zhou dynasties, the early, or Western Han's capital had been,

you remember, Chang'an. While the later, Eastern Han, would eventually establish its permanent capital at Luoyang, which is about 500 kilometers due east of Chang'an. Now irrevocably committed to this course of action against Emperor Geng She, Liu Xiu deployed his general Deng Yu to Shanxi in the northeast, and in short order, the brilliant commander had seized the territory and further cut off the Geng She regime's access to supplies and troops. As the winter snows gave way to spring, the Red Eyebrows once again began their march toward Chang'an from their winter quarters in Hongnong City.

Now with two massive rebellions against their reign, a number of Gengsha's generals began to panic and look for an out. They began conspiring to kidnap the emperor and flee to their home region of Nanyang with him in tow. Before they could put that plan into action, though, they were discovered and most arrested and executed. But one, General Zhang Ang, would not go quietly into the night. At his command, his forces seized and occupied most of the capital city. With a red-eyebrow army approaching just over the horizon, Gengxian knew he no longer had the strength or time to deal with this problematic general,

and so abandoned Chang'an entirely, fleeing with his retinue of only a few loyal retainers into hiding. It was somewhere around this time that the Red Eyebrow Army decided that they, too, ought to have an emperor to fight for. This idea had been repeatedly pushed by the priests of the cult of Liu Zhang, the ancient prince of Qingyang, the region many of the Red Eyebrows hailed from. Liu Zhang had come to be worshipped as a god by locals following his death in 177 BCE, and at their priests' urgings, the Red Eyebrows began to comb their own ranks,

searching for one of Liu Zhang's descendants to crown. They found some 70 descendants of the prince, but only three were from his main family line, the rest being from cadet branches. They were the brothers Liu Mao and Liu Penzi, as well as another named Liu Xiao, all three of whom had been conscripted into the Red Eyebrows as child soldiers and cowherds. The three were ordered to draw lots, and it was the 14-year-old Liu Penzi who pulled the winning ticket and was acclaimed the Emperor of Han by his fellow soldiers. So lucky him, right? Well, not so fast. Punza wanted nothing to do with any of this, and he even tried to swallow the winning ticket before it was seen by the rest of the Red Eyebrows,

but to no avail. And though the rebel generals and soldiery all bowed before him as emperor, nothing much would change for the boy in the short term. Emperor Punza still remained nothing more than a cattle herd in the Red Eyebrow Army, with no political or even ceremonial power. In summer of 25, the Red Eyebrows would at last arrive at the gates of Chang'an and begin their attack on the city. From within, the rebellious Han general Zhang Ang surrendered his forces to the attackers

and joined his strength with theirs. By autumn, the city had once again fallen to another rebel army, and Emperor Punza was installed on the throne, though again as a powerless figurehead. Seeing that the jig was up, the Gengsha emperor emerged from hiding and offered his surrender to the Red Eyebrows. They took him into custody, proclaimed him the Prince of Changsha, and placed him under the watchful protection of Minister Liu Gong, who was in fact Punza's eldest brother and had remained loyal to the Gengsha regime, as well as General Xielu. Thinking that surely this would be the end of the whole affair, the populace of central China offered tribute to the new Emperor of Han, and offered his regime their submission.

Imagine their surprise, then, when the now-imperial Red Eyebrow Army continued to act exactly as they had prior, essentially as highway robbers, brigands, and thieves. Soon enough, it became obvious to the populace that this was unlikely to stop anytime soon, and they resumed their practice of remaining within their own, relatively safer city walls, rather than risk open travel for trade. It wasn't long before whispers began swirling around, decrying this new emperor and longing for a return of Geng Shi. I mean, at least he hadn't had his troops running roughshod over his

own populace. As the sentiment against Pan Zi and his red eyebrows picked up steam, General Xialu, fearful that Geng Shi might somehow eventually return to power, strangled his charge. Liu Gong, who had sincerely wished to help and spare the former emperor, was deeply saddened at his death. He hid Geng Shi's body and prepared it for eventual official burial, which wouldn't occur until many years later. With the realm so unstable and would-be emperors dropping like flies, Liu Gong realized what a precarious position his little brother was in. Attempting to spare him the grisly fate of Geng Shi, Liu Gong decided to try to get his brother out of this entangling imperial mess. At the New Year's Day imperial celebration of the year 26, Liu Gong stood before the assembled Red Eyebrow leadership

and asked that Emperor Pan Zi be allowed to yield the throne to another. At this, Pan Zi himself reportedly leapt off the throne, tore off his imperial seal of office, and tearfully declared, Now there is an emperor, but everyone continues to act as robbers. The people hate us and do not trust us. This is because you chose the wrong son of heaven. Please, return my body to me. But if you want to kill me to divert blame, then I must die. End quote. Red Eyebrow leader Fan Chong and his generals, ashamed at the unenviable position they had placed Punza in,

to have to take the blame for their continued indiscretions, bowed before their emperor and apologized for their actions. But no, they weren't so sorry as to let him off the hook so easily. Punza was a nice little puppet, after all, and they aimed to keep him. And to that end, followed up their kowtowing and apologies by physically forcing the young emperor back onto his throne, and placing the imperial seal back on his person. No, you're going to be emperor, dammit, and you're going to enjoy it, whether you like it or not.

They did, at least, take Punza's complaints to heart. For a while. For several weeks after the outburst, the Red Eyebrow troops actually behaved themselves, and the generals punished those who infringed the law. But soon enough, the lawlessness that was native to a band of outlaws crept back in, and any goodwill Punza had generated by bringing his army in line evaporated along with the temporary restoration of civil order. Soon enough, the Red Eyebrows had devoured the capital's entire food stock, and in their search for more, looted, pillaged, and burned much of the rest of the capital, before finally abandoning the city altogether and heading back west to the eastern Gansu region. What strikes me is nothing so much as a plague of locusts moving on to the next crop field after devouring the last.

Over the course of the following year, the Red Eyebrow Army remained on the move. In autumn of 26, they attacked the holdings of the regional warlord Wei Xiao, but following a sudden cold spell that claimed many of the unprepared rebels through hypothermia and exposure, Wei managed to repulse the Red Eyebrow advance. Depleted, they then turned back around and once again marched east, re-entering Chang'an. There, they finally came into direct contact with the forces of Emperor Liu Xiu, commanded by his trusted general Deng Yu. But in spite of the Red Eyebrow's relative weakness, they nonetheless managed to repeatedly defeat Deng's armies in open combat, giving

credence to the notion that Deng Yu, though brilliant at recognizing and utilizing talented individuals, well, was never particularly gifted as a frontline battlefield commander. As winter set in, early frosts, combined with the repeated battles across the whole of the Guangzhou region surrounding the capital, led to a severe famine for everyone in the region, civilian, red eyebrow, and eastern Han alike. Faced with insufficient resources, the Red Eyebrows did what they did best, again picking up and marching off into the distance in search of better prospects back east.

By this point, though, Emperor Liu Xiu had moved into Luoyang and proclaimed it his capital city. From there, he dispatched both General Deng and Feng Yi to block the Red Eyebrows' progress. But in spring of 27, that plan would spectacularly backfire at the Battle of Hu, which is modern Sanmenxia, roughly halfway between Chang'an and Luoyang. I will be putting up a map this week to detail these locations because I certainly don't expect you to know all of these locations within China. Please feel free to go see it at thehistoryofchina.wordpress.com in episode 32's companion post. At Hu, the Red Eyebrow generals lured Deng and Feng's forces into a trap, feigning

retreat and appearing to leave behind their stores of food and supplies. The famished attackers broke ranks to get at the caches, only to discover that they had been filled with dirt with only a single layer of beans on top to complete the ruse. With Deng and Feng's forces having abandoned their formations, the Red Eyebrow Army turned around and collapsed on their enemy, soundly defeating them. But though casualties were heavy, both General Deng and General Feng would be able to pull off a retreat. And it would be the last time the Red Eyebrows would be able to claim a victory. Less than a month later, Feng Yi would again lead his division of troops against the Red Eyebrows. But this time, it was his turn to employ deception. The Red Eyebrows, as per their name, had long used

their distinctive battlefield makeup to differentiate themselves from their enemies in the chaos of close combat, and so the really surprising thing was that it took someone quite this long to figure out how to use that against them. Feng Yi was that man, however, and he ordered his own men to paint themselves with red eyebrows before battle. In the thick of combat, the red eyebrows saw nothing but red eyebrows, and the resulting confusion cost them the battle and steep casualties. The remnants of the Qiumei rebels loomed back east towards Yiyang City, but Liu Xiu, having discovered their base of operations,

had personally led his own contingent of troops to block the retreat and seize the city. Upon arriving at what they thought was their safe haven, the Red Eyebrow generals were shocked to find Liu Xiu awaiting them, backed by an overwhelming number of troops. Already defeated, wounded, and tired, the Red Eyebrows opened up negotiations with Liu Xiu for their terms of surrender. They asked that neither they nor Emperor Punze be executed, to which Liu Xiu agreed. And with that, the Red Eyebrows and their Emperor at last surrendered to Emperor Liu Xiu. The rebel leaders and their families were settled in Luoyang to better ensure that they behaved themselves

and encouraged their men to do the same. All were given lands and stipends, but no official position within the new regime. Eventually, Fan Chong and his lieutenant Pang started making preparations to rebel again, but were discovered, and Liu Xiu's patience, finally having run out, executed. General Xielu,

who had strangled the Gengshi Emperor, was assassinated by Liu Gong in revenge, and Liu Xiu, sympathetic to Gong and recognizing his unflinching devotion to his liege even after death, pardoned him. As for the former Emperor Liu Punze, Liu Shou made him a personal assistant to his uncle, the Prince of Zhao. When years later, an illness struck Punze blind, Liu Shou gifted him with large tracts of farmland from which Punze could make a living by collecting rent from its tenants. He'd assumed the title of emperor in the summer of 25, but only now in 27 did it hold much

meaning beyond being one of several claimants. So, now that his major rivals and pretenders have been taken care of, it's high time we start calling Liu Xiu by his regnal name, don't you think? From here on out, I'll be referring to him as Emperor Guangwu of Han. The Red Eyebrows had certainly been the largest, most organized, and most threatening of the enemy forces Guangwu had to contend with in his campaign position of disunified and warring feudal regions, much like the Warring States period of the 3rd century BCE. Between the years 27 and 36, his prime task was to force those autonomous regions to heal. In no particular order, those warlords were Liu Yong, who controlled northern Jiangsu and eastern Henan, which is to say, coastal east-central China, possibly including modern Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou.

Liu Yong claimed to be emperor in his own right, citing his imperial ancestry. Under him was Zhang Bu, who was nominally the Prince of Qi under Liu Yong, but in fact independently controlled the entire Shandong Peninsula. Next is Peng Chong, the Prince of Yan, who controlled and claimed the area surrounding Yan, modern Beijing. Next is Wei Xiao, who nominally paid allegiance to Emperor Guangwu, but controlled the region of Gansu east of the Yellow River as his autonomous holding, in effect cutting off the Hexi Corridor to the far west. Fifth is Lu Fang, also known as Liu Wenbo, who claimed to be a descendant of Emperor Wen and the true heir to the Han throne.

He was backed by the Xiongnu and controlled modern central Inner Mongolia. And finally, Gongsun Shu, who declared himself the emperor of the independent realm Chengjia, which is modern Sichuan and Chongqing. Gongsun would be known as Bai Di, the White Emperor. Emperor Guangwu, possibly weary of all the out-and-out warfare, opted to pursue strategies of persuasion and submission rather than campaigns of annihilation, and with mixed results. In the year 29, quite a few of these problematic states either solved themselves or were rendered solved by the imperial army.

Pengchang of Beijing was assassinated by his own slaves, leading to a collapse of his Yan state. Zhang Bu saw which way the wind was blowing and defected from Liaoyong to Guangwu and was declared a marquee for the trouble, as did Dou Rong. That same year, imperial forces attacked Liaoyong's capital and killed him, forcefully reintegrating the territory. And following a poor military outcome, Liu Fang fled his inner Mongolia territory for the relative safety of the Xiongnu. That left, by year 30, just Gongsun and Wei as holdouts. Guangwu would write to both of them repeatedly, promising lenient terms, titles, and honors

in return for their submission. Gongsun refused outright, but made no move to expand his Chengjia Empire, while Weixiao continued to offer vague, meaningless, nominal submissions, but continued to behave as an independent power. Realizing that neither was going to voluntarily submit to his authority, and with the eastern half of his empire at last reunified, Emperor Guangwu launched a series of campaigns against the two insurgent warlords in the summer of year 30. Operations against Wei would continue through the winter of 34,

when the regional capital Luomun at last fell, and Wei Xiao's son, having succeeded his father upon his death the year prior, at last fell, and Weixiao's son, having succeeded his father upon his death the year prior, at last surrendered, once again opening up the Hexi corridor trade route. Turning then to deal with Chengjia, Guangwu ordered a two-pronged assault south from Shanxi against the so-called White Emperor's Sichuan holdings. Rather than engage the eastern Han forces directly, Gongsun Xu attempted to throw the imperial armies into disarray by having their generals assassinated. The successful murder of two Han generals did buy him some time, but by the year 36, they had regrouped and surrounded the Chengzha capital, Chengdu. Without sufficient manpower

to outlast the city's provisions, though, the Han generals were forced to resort to trickery to achieve victory, namely feigning retreat due to fatigue, thereby drawing Gongsun Shu out of the city to administer what he thought would be the coup d'etat against the spent enemy force. In the resulting battle, the white emperor Gongsun Shu was mortally wounded, and the city surrendered upon his death in winter of 36. The Han Empire was united once again. Within his newly reunified empire, Guangwu's reign was marked by frugality and efficiency of government,

as well as relaxed legal codes for the populace. It would be his example and success in office that breathed another two centuries of life into the Han dynasty that had, not two decades before, been rightly thought dead on arrival. But while his eastern Han busied itself rebuilding its interior after decades of civil war, we aren't quite done, because Guangwu would have two further campaigns in him, both against those numerous peoples who once again lay beyond the borders of the much-produced empire. Nanyue, that is to say, Vietnam, had reclaimed its status as de facto independent kingdom in the previous decades,

while China had been too busy with its internal problems to challenge it. But in year 40, the sisters Cheng Chak and Cheng Ni sought to make their claim of independence official, launching a rebellion against the still legal claim the Han Empire held over them. The Cheng sisters would fight a three-year-long war of independence, before finally being overwhelmed by the Han army sent against them, led by Fubo Jiangjun, meaning the general who calms the waves, Ma Yuan. Seeing their cause defeated, and without any hope of pulling out a victory, the Cheng sisters committed suicide in 43 by drowning themselves in the Hat River. For his victory, General Ma Yuan was given the title Queller of the Deep. Though their uprising failed, the Trung sisters are still highly revered in Vietnam,

as they led the first resistance movement against the occupying Chinese after 247 years of domination. To the north, periodic minor battles did crop up with the Xiongnu Confederacy, but surprisingly this did not flare up into another major war between the two powers. However, the increased frequency of horse lord raids did take their toll on the northern border of the Han Empire, especially around Wuhan and Xianbei, which over time became almost entirely depopulated as its residents were either killed or got so fed up with the attacks that they pulled up stakes to head south. Still, by 48, Emperor Guangwu was able to play two claimants to the Xiongnu Chanyu ship off of each other, resulting in both once again swearing fealty to the Han Emperor. Finally, the far western Xiyu kingdoms. In what may have been a missed opportunity, Guangwu neglected to respond to calls from several of the region's governors and kings in 46,

who begged for his assistance against the kingdom of Yarkand, which had come to dominate the rest. They pleaded with the emperor to re-establish the position of the governor of Xiyu, but Guangwu decided that his empire did not have the strength to expend on such a far-flung territory. This made the Shiyu kingdoms turn to their second option, submitting themselves to the Xiongnu. Emperor Guangwu of Eastern Han would reign in relative peace and security for another decade. He had two empresses over the course of his reign the first empress kuo a political and unhappy marriage while the second was his lifelong love yin both bore him sons prince jiang and prince yang respectively though kuo's son was initially the crown prince, in 43 he asked to step down from the post following his mother's dethronement. Guangwu accepted the resignation and declared Liu Yang his designated heir that same year,

while also frustratingly changing his son's name from Yang to Zhuang. Guangwu, the man who had fought against the Xin of Wangmeng, overcome his brother's murder, and no less than six imperial pretenders, had not only resurrected the Han dynasty from its grave, but stitched it almost entirely back together again. His remarkable rise and reign ensured that China would not slip into yet another protracted era of warring states. At least for now. But in 57 CE, his time on earth was over. Next time, the reign of Guangwu's heir,

crowned prince Liu Zhuang, who will reign as Emperor Ming of Eastern Han, as well as a new philosophy that has begun percolating into China from the mysterious lands of the far west. A set of teachings known in China as Huo Jiao, or in English as Buddhism. Thank you for listening. Today's podcast is brought to you in part by Audible.com. By using the web address audibletrial.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

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