The History of China - #60 - S&N 4: The More Things Change...

Episode Date: April 7, 2015

The decade long détente between the South and North will be shattered in 449 by a series of tit-for-tat campaigns by both sides, resulting in the destruction of much of the lands south of the Yellow River. But it will be assassins, not soldiers, who will most drastically shape the fates of both Northern Wei and Liu Song, one right after the other.[WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?]Dates: 446-453Cast - Northern Wei: Emperor Taiwu (Tuoba Tao) Crowned Prince Tuoba Huang Prince Tuoba Han Prince Tuoba Yu (briefly emperor) Tuoba Jun (Emperor Wenzheng)Zang Ai (Eunuch, Duke of Qing) Liu Song: Emperor Wen (Liu Yilong)Crowned Prince Liu Shao (briefly Emperor Yuanxiong)Prince Liu Jun of ShixingPrince Liu Jun of Wuling (Emperor Xiaowu)General Wang XuanboGeneral Zang ZhiGeneral Lu XiuYan Daoyu (witch) Locations: Shengle, Jiankang (Nanjing), Pengcheng, Xuanhu, Xiancheng, Qian’ao, Liu’an, Huatai, Xunyang, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The Civil War and Reconstruction was a pivotal era in American history. When a war was fought to save the Union and to free the slaves. And when the work to rebuild the nation after that war was over turned into a struggle to guarantee liberty and justice for all Americans. I'm Tracy. And I'm Rich. And we want to invite you to join us as we take an in-depth look at this pivotal era in American history.

Look for The Civil War and Reconstruction wherever you find your podcasts. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 60, Southern and Northern Four, The More Things Change We left off last time with the rapid-fire deaths in Northern Wei of the Taoist Pope Kou Qianzhi and the Prime Minister Cui Hao, both of whom had been instrumental components of Emperor Taiwu's campaign against Buddhism in the North. Finally, the unexpected death of the Crown Prince Huang of Northern Wei, who had taken ill from worry in 451 and died in the midst of a flurry of accusations against him and his supporters.

Those ultimately fatal charges had been levied by the eunuch duke of Qing, Zong Ai. This time, Zong Ai will sow further mayhem across Northern Wei and ultimately claim the life of the great Emperor Tai Wu himself. And in the south, Emperor Wan of Liaosong will also meet his grisly end, at the hands of none other than his own impatient crowned prince. This would effectively end the so-called reign of Yuanjia, a period of relative peace and prosperity amid the clashes of the southern and northern dynasties, and herald a new chapter in the ongoing age of disunity.

But first, war. Over the first half of the 440s, things had been relatively, and again I must stress relatively, stable between Liaosong and Northern Wei. Sure, skirmishes had broken out from time to time, but on the whole, the two regional powers had enjoyed a relatively hostility-free period. But all that would be thrown into disarray with Gaiwu's rebellion. We discussed the Xiongnu tribesmen, Gaiwu, and his uprising against Northern Wei last time. But, as it relates to the story today, was the fact that Emperor Wen had tacitly endorsed the rebellion, and even gone so far as to declare the Xiongnu noble one of his generals, as well as naming him a Song Dynasty duke.

Clearly, this was not going to fly terribly far with Tai Wu once he crushed the rebellion and, again as detailed further last episode, initiated a genocidal purge of Buddhism within Wei. This all shouldn't have been too surprising, of course. After all, the so-called peace between the two powers had been little more than both being overly preoccupied with their internal respective problems than any kind of lasting peace accord. What's more, one of the major rub spots in the relationship between Liu Song and Northern Wei, which was control over the provinces along the Middle Yellow River, had never exactly been settled. As of yet, they remained under Wei occupation, but Emperor Wen had never forgotten that they had been stolen from him and aimed to get them back at any cost. Between 446 and 448,

one had bided his time in a master force capable of plunging deep into the heart of Northern Wei, and he hoped, at a minimum, wrestling back the central provinces south of the Yellow River. And, you know, if it all went better than expected, well, who knows what might come out of it. Over the course of 449, both the officials and the generals of Liaosong began submitting prospective battle plans to the imperial government, hoping to be given the honor of leading the Liaosong armies to conquest. Emperor Wen would choose a particular favorite of his, the plan submitted by General Wang Xuanzhi, and began preparations and troop movements to see it enacted. But the problem with taking almost three years to plan and launch an attack of any significant magnitude was that spies for the north and Emperor Tai Wu would have had ample time to

gather information, stitch it all together, to at least a broad outline of what was going on, and then get word back to Shengle with time to spare. And unlike Emperor Wen, Tai Wu wasn't nearly so plodding in his actions. Before Wen's pet plan could be launched, Northern Wei's armies struck first, using Wen's complicity in the Gai Wu rebellion as their pretext. The Northern force invaded Liaosong in the early spring of 450 and laid siege to the city of Xuanyu, forcing the Liaosong armies to drop everything and rush to the city's aid. After all, their developing campaign was supposed to be about regaining territories, not losing yet another city to northern invasion. The two armies would clash outside Xu Shanhu's walls over the course of

42 days while its residents awaited within. Both armies suffered large numbers of casualties in the bloody combat, but it would be northern Wei, now far away from friendly territory and resupplies, that would break off first. They lifted their siege and returned home to await Emperor Wen's response. And respond, Wen would. Believing that the Northern Wei army's withdrawal meant that their power was somehow fading, he ordered his commanders to attack as per General Wang's plan. His decision was final and immediate, not to be dissuaded by his concerned generals, court officials, nor even that of his own crown prince, Liu Shao. They each argued in vain that at the very least,

the armies of Liu Song needed to resupply and recover their numbers over the course of the winter, and that any offensive should wait until the following spring. Nevertheless, the armies of Liu Song would mobilize in late autumn of 450, set on retaking their lost cities and re-establishing true Chinese control over the lands south of the Yellow River, under the command of its field marshal, General Wang Shuangbo. General Wang's initial strike proved a quick success. The Song army split into two columns to rapidly overrun the cities of Qiao Ao and Liao An, both minor outlying villages of the campaign's first major target, Huatai City.

The northern Wei garrisons retired from the two towns and withdrew back to the walled fortifications along the Yellow River, before the Liu Song armies constructed their siege works. Initially, the ethnically Han populations of Qiao'ao and Liaoyuan welcomed the army of incoming liberators. But the revelry died down in a hurry once General Wang began demanding huge amounts of provisions from the townspeople. And not just any provisions, mind you, but specifically, of all things, pears. Yes, the fleshy fruit that is infinitely better than apples, a sentiment with which General Wang clearly agreed,

because he ordered each household within both towns to provide a minimum of 800 pears to his army. The populace's enthusiasm rapidly flipped to outright hostility at that. What amounted to yet another occupying force, and this one demanding far more of them than the so-called barbarians they'd previously been living under. After all, winter was coming, and these people would need every extra calorie they could get just to make it through to spring. They couldn't be giving it all away so that armies could fight their little battles in the dead of winter. With local support for his army having curiously dried up,

General Wang found himself unable to take Hua Tai as the days grew shorter and the nights ever colder. Well, this certainly wasn't great news. Oh, and I should probably mention, or rather remind us all, that one of the favorite tactics of the Northern Wei armies was to wait until the winter set in and the waterways froze over and then use them as superhighways to attack unsuspecting forces. I don't blame you if you forgot about that little trick. After all, even if you had, you'd be no worse than General Wong or Emperor One, because they'd clearly forgotten why they'd lost the southern reaches of the Yellow River in the first place. You just plain don't launch a winter campaign against the people of the Asian steppes,

no matter how sinicized they've become. It's like starting a snowball fight with a yeti. You're not going to win. Once the Yellow River did freeze over, on cue, Emperor Taiwu himself charged down from Shangle at the head of, supposedly, more than 100,000 soldiers to sweep the unprepared Liaosong forces off the battlefield entirely. General Wang's army was forced to retreat back to Chao Ao, and from there, try to decide what to do next. The frozen fury of Northern Wei was bearing down upon them.

Did they stand and fight, or cut their losses and flee before Tai Wu could destroy them utterly? Well, Emperor Wan certainly had his opinion on the matter. Fight! Destroy the Emperor of Northern Wei and complete the campaign, dammit! But despite the imperial orders, Wang and his co-commanders opted to withdraw further south to Licheng, which likely saved his own force from destruction but forced Emperor Wen to withdraw a different Western campaign to shore up his unexpectedly retreating lines. Liu Song, ever so briefly on the offensive, was once again on its heels. But it was about to end up quite thoroughly on its backside, because Tai Wu wasn't about to let this little attack go unanswered.

And payback, as they say, is a father. The army of northern Wei's response was swift and brutal, an all-out assault on Liu Song's northernmost provinces, resulting in the swift capture of Xuanhu and Xian cities, and the Wei force rapidly advanced as far as Peng City, only 200 miles away from the southern capital itself. Ma Taiwu wasn't about to waste his time and soldiers' lives on the heavily defended

and walled, but strategically irrelevant, Peng. No. So close to Nanjing as he was, his aim was far greater. To destroy the seat of Liu Song once and for all, and take control of the south. His armies began advancing further southward, laying waste to everything in their path as they steadily crept toward the shores of the Yangtze River with the stated intent to cross. Cities insufficiently defended were put to the torch and incinerated, and their entire populations either burned within or were brutally slaughtered regardless of age or gender.

By the time the new year of 451 came around, virtually the entire region between the Huai River and the Yangtze had been leveled and utterly depopulated. Emperor Tai Wu had arrived at the shore of the Yangtze. In the Zizhi Tongjian, Sima Guang writes of the slaughter, The Wei forces laid South Yan, Shu, North Yan, Yu, Qing, and Ji provinces to waste. The Song deaths and injuries were innumerable.

When Wei forces encountered Song young men, the forces quickly beheaded them or cut them in half. The infants were pierced through with spears, and the spears were then shaken so that the infants would scream as they were spun, for entertainment. The prefectures and counties that Wei forces went through were burned and slaughtered, and not even grass was left.

When sparrows returned in the spring, they could not find houses to build nests on, so they had to do so in forests. Wei soldiers and horses also suffered casualties of more than half, and the Xianbei people were all complaining. But here, along the banks, Tai Wu paused, and with good reason. The dangers of crossing the Yangtze under fire, after all, had laid low many commanders at least as successful, if not more so, than Tai Wu of Northern Wei. I should by this point hardly need to elaborate on the challenges of making such a crossing, and will only reiterate that it had managed to stop no less than the warlord Cao Cao, dead in his tracks, and against a much less unified south two centuries prior.

To call the Yangtze River a formidable barrier was putting it mildly, at least. Enough so that even the frozen fury of Northern Wei was given pause at the banks of the river that never froze. Rather off-put by the prospect of actually having to brave the as-yet-unconquerable Yangtze, Tai Wu changed tacts. Rather than all that former bluster about taking Nanjing and stamping out Liu Song once and for all, the long-forgotten marriage alliance proposal, yeah, remember that,

between the two states was dusted off. Now, the original would-be participants had both subsequently died from one thing or another since the last time either monarch had really been considering the arrangement, and so a new set of blushing brides and dashing grooms would be required for this to have even a shot of working. Luckily, Kaiwu had just the people in mind. Himself, and Emperor One, of course. Tai Wu proposed that he would marry one of One's granddaughters, and that One would marry one of his own, thereby procuring a lasting peace between the two powers. But just like the last time this

marriage alliance had been offered, Emperor I was rather less enthusiastic about this proposed granddaughter-giveaway extravaganza than Tai Wu had hoped. Due to internal court politics within Liu Song that we'll touch upon a little bit more fully later, the deal ultimately fell through. This left Tai Wu, once again, with only two real options, either attempt to cross the Yangtze or turn around and go home. This was all exacerbated when it became clear that maybe leaving Peng City to its own devices in favor of a swift advance to the riverbank hadn't been the best decision, since it

was now serving as a massive staging point for the buildup of Liu Song troops in preparation for what could only be a counteroffensive. The army of Northern Wei, having put much of Northern Liu Song to the torch, chose to withdraw. Out of all this, one of the most interesting things about this campaign is that, while the Tuoba Emperor certainly put on display his and his people's capacity for cruelty – I mean, it takes a special kind of awful to spear infants and then spin them so they scream – at a broader level, the campaigns in some way reflect the opposite as well. War is awful and gruesome and deadly, and there's no way around that.

But through it all, Emperor Tai Wu actually took pains to maintain formal relationships with the very lords and imperial clansmen he was fighting. When outside Peng City, for instance, he initiated a formal exchange of his camels, mules, and coats in exchange for wine and sugar cane from the city. Later, he would engage in similar exchanges with Emperor Wen himself, all while ostensibly threatening the entirety of Liu Song. Rather hilariously, when he tried this formal gift exchange with the Liu Song general, Zhang Zhi, as the wave forces began to withdraw. He requested the enemy commander send him wine as part of this

ongoing frenemy gift exchange tour. General Zang obliged by sending him vats of drink, but instead of wine, the contents were urine, an insult for which Taibu laid the general's garrison at Shuyi, briefly to siege.

You have to imagine that he probably took a sip if you were that angry. Ultimately, though, Tai Wu would be forced to break it off and join the rest of his army in their withdrawal back to Northern Wei proper. And that, really, would be just about the end of the line for Tai Wu. As we ended off last episode, Crown Prince Huang had gotten into a bloody tussle with the eunuch duke Zong Ai, who had used his extensive connections within the capital to construct a great frame-up job on many of the Crown Prince's close friends, associates, and even

himself. And as was customary for the time, the accused, quite arbitrarily, became the convicted, became the condemned, became the dead, all before you could say four is four, ten is ten. Convinced that he was next, despite his innocence, Prince Huang ended up worrying himself literally to death in the summer of 451. And only then did it really come to light that Prince Huang and his cohorts had really had nothing to do with these actions leveled against them by Zong Ai. So as you can imagine, Emperor Tai Wu felt pretty bad about that whole thing, indeed.

But what was done was done, and with the prince's death came the need for a new heir to the throne. A need that Tai Wu would never, ultimately, fight get around a filling. The late-crowned Prince Huang's own eldest son, the now twelve-year-old Tuoba Jun, had long been the favorite of his grandfather. Though prior to his father's death, he held no official title, he had been known as Di Huang Sun, or the Prime Imperial Grandson. As such, he was frequently at his grandfather's side at events,

ceremonies, and even during military campaigns, and again all before the age of twelve. Following his father's untimely demise, Huang would be briefly promoted to Prince of Gaoyang, but then his grandfather revoked the title. Not out of spite, mind you, but because he had decided that giving the prime imperial grandson the mere title of Imperial Prince would be inappropriate, a signal widely interpreted as his intent to proclaim Tuoba Jun as his new crowned prince. But oh, it would get all so much messier and bloodier than that. The emperor, it would turn out, would never get the chance to make his definitive choice, because the eunuch Zong Ai had been hard at work himself. Now, for the record, it's not clear why Zong had been castrated and sent to work as a palace

slave, nor exactly how he'd managed to gain enough power therein to secure that prestigious title of duke for himself. Palace eunuchs, especially once they start accumulating power it seems, rarely cause anything but trouble. I've said it before, and I'll likely say it again, the policy of demanning your enemies and then turning them into your trusted personal advisors is one that really could have used a rethink at some point in time.

Anyway, Zonghai had, of course, been the one behind the fabricated claim against Prince Huang and his friends, and as winter gave way to the spring of 452, he became more and more convinced that his part in the death of Taiwu's heir was just about to come to light, and he punished accordingly. So he did what must have seemed to be the best course of action at the time, which was assassinate the emperor, of course. It sounds very exciting, I agree, but I have not been able to get anything out of the text more than that. No how, no where, just that he was killed. The end. Lights out. Emperor Taiwu exits stage left at 44 years old, and after almost 29 highly successful, capable years on the throne of Wei. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's

oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms, or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast. With Taiwugon, the question of who his successor would be became rather significantly more important. As we're all well aware, succession could be a tricky issue, and without a clear and strong candidate to ascend the throne, it could quickly devolve into levels of violence capable

of destroying entire kingdoms. And to be sure, a 12-year-old with no formal claim to the throne, who would be leapfrogging several older uncles to get the job was not exactly the most stable of choices. As such, a triad of court officials kept news of Tai Wu's death from the public while they tried to figure out who they should support to accede the throne of Northern Wei. One strong choice was Tai Wu's third son, his eldest surviving, Prince Tuoba Han. However, they ran into the roadblock of formal Confucian etiquette, which stipulated that as the eldest son of Tai Wu's eldest son, Tuoba Jun, under age or not was the rightful heir. And this was a situation that could not

be simply brushed aside, however dangerous that might be for the empire as a whole. In the midst of all this hemming and hawing, however, Songhai was once again about three steps ahead. He had decided that neither candidate would suffice. Boba Han, as a fully grown man, would have been too difficult to control. And as for Tuoba Jun, as he the murderer of both his father and then-grandfather, well, that was kind of a working relationship from hell. His preferred candidate, then, was Tai Wu's youngest surviving son, Prince Tuoba Yu. We don't have a recorded birth date for Prince Yu, and so don't know exactly how old he was, but we can at least get an idea.

His mother had become an imperial consort in 434, and his first mention is when he'd been granted the title of Prince of Wu in 442, so that puts him somewhere between 10 and 18 years old, which sounds just about perfect to be a puppet for Zonghai. And better yet, he'd already engendered a close, friendly relationship with the young prince. Zong summoned Prince Yu to the imperial palace, while forging an imperial edict in the empress's name, and while her name was attached to the order, there's very little other evidence to suggest that she was actually involved in the plot and was likely just a dupe.

The edict itself seemed innocuous enough. It merely summoned a number of court officials, most notably those who had been debating who to seat next on the throne, to the imperial palace. Well, a summons from the empress was surely nothing to worry about, and the officials complied without any noticeable concern or precaution. But once within, Zonghai dispatched some 30 armed palace eunuchs to secure, arrest, and finally execute the entire group, along with Prince Han. Following the slaughter, Zonghai seated Prince Yu on the throne as the nominal successor, and was subsequently proclaimed the Prince of Fengyi, the commander of the Liaosong armed forces, and the true power behind the still-adolescent Emperor Yu.

But while Yu was still a young pup, he wasn't nearly the pushover Zong Ai had hoped for. And by the fall of 452, he had just about finalized plans to strip the manipulative eunuch of his power and positions and retake imperial authority for himself. And for Zong, that, quite simply, wasn't going to fly. As the young emperor performed the sacrifices at the temple of his great-grandfather, Daowu, Zong sent an assistant of his to sneak in and kill the unruly puppet. Once again, therefore, a new emperor would be needed. But once again, Dong dismissed

the suggestion of Prince Jun, the rightful heir, from consideration entirely, for fear that when he came of age, he would surely make the eunuch pay for the crimes against his family. But by this point entirely fed up with Dong's incessant royal bloodletting and flagrant dismissal of the legal precedents centuries of dynastic tradition had set forth, a large Jun would be the new Emperor of Northern Wei. And as for Zong, well… The execution of Zong Ai and his assistant-slash-assassin Jia Zhou is notable for its particularly cruel and drawn-out nature. Like the dynasties of old, it would be a five-step process meant to inflict as much suffering and punishment as possible before death occurred.

The Zhezhe Tongjian tells of their fate. Their faces were first tattooed or branded, with marks bearing their crimes, and then their noses cut off. Next to go was either one or both of either their big toes or possibly entire feet. Then they were chained down and literally whipped to death. But the punishment wasn't over there. Once they had breathed their last, their by now mostly flayed corpses were then decapitated, the heads put on display, and their bodies either dismembered or ground up and then disposed of. With the threat to the imperial clan taken care of,

Prince Tuoba Jun would at last take his place as the rightful emperor of Northern Wei. But that will be a reign for next time, because we have yet another royal assassination to attend. This time, down south, in Liu Song's capital. And here, the assassins in question will not be anything so removed as a trusted family eunuch. Instead, the murderers will be members of Emperor Wen's own close family. In fact, his two eldest sons, Crown Prince Liu Shao and Prince Liu Jun, whom I'll be referring to by his title, the Prince of Shixin, since a little later on we're actually going to have another Prince Jun come into play, and I want to minimize confusion. So take heed, you've been warned.

The Crown Prince's age is a little bit difficult to gauge accurately, because although there's an official birthday listed, it's widely regarded as falsified. Official records give his birth year as 426, but later histories typically assert that it was falsified in order to hide the fact that he had actually been born during the three-year mourning period following the death of Emperor Wu. During that mourning period, sexual relations, among other luxuries, were supposed to have been forbidden. And so, regardless of whether or not anyone actually observed three years of sexual abstinence, hence clearly not, a child declared as born during that period was a big fat no-no. All that to say, Prince Xiao was somewhere between 26 and

29 in 452. With his birth also comes the story of his own mother taking one look at the infant and declaring, quote, this child's appearance is unusual, and he will surely destroy his state and his home. I will not raise him. End quote. She then opted to kill the infant Xiao outright rather than allow such a fate to pass, and was only stayed by Emperor Wen's personal intercession on the child's behalf. It's a nice story, to be sure, but rather too prophetic to be taken very seriously, and modern historians, notably Boyang, have dismissed it as outright fabrication spun after the fact to make his later deeds seem all the more faded. Liu Xiao was by all accounts a rather ill-tempered hothead. At one point, after a council meeting

during Northern Wei's most recent invasion of the south, he became so angry at an official who had opposed a plan he'd supported, namely the marriage alliance Emperor Taiwu had been holding out as an olive branch to the southern state, that he ordered one of his guards to push the official down a flight of stairs, nearly killing the poor fellow. And as if that weren't enough, he then tried to have the official executed by Emperor Wen's hand for having supported the disastrous plan to invade Northern Wei in the first place, only to have this backfire wonderfully when the Emperor told him in no uncertain terms, no, you lout, I'm the one who

supported the invasion plan. He did nothing but simply not oppose it. I suppose you'd like to execute me in that case, huh? And indeed, though he wasn't quite so foolish as to say it at the time, more and more, Crown Prince Xiao was beginning to think exactly that. At some point prior to 452, both Prince Xiao and the Prince of Sixing had become acquainted with a witch named Yan Daoyu through their mutual sister.

The two eldest sons of Emperor Wen, it seemed, were tired of listening to their dad complain at them all the time about every little thing they'd done wrong, so they contracted Yan to beseech the gods that they might render Wen immune from hearing their faults. But as time went by, and Wen continued to berate them incessantly, the brothers' enmity toward their father only deepened, to the point that in personal correspondences, they would often refer to dear old dad merely as that person, like he was Voldemort or something.

When that didn't work, and the gods still didn't get father to shut up already, it was obviously time for them to step up their magical game. The next logical step was obviously to have the witch yen begin casting curses against Emperor Wen, aimed at hastening his death, so that Xiao could take over already. But witches casting curses against the emperor will tend to draw attention, no matter how well someone attempts to conceal it. Word of the princes dabbling in the occult leaked to the Imperial Palace when a love triangle began

to turn deadly and one of the members figured that narking was the only way to save his own skin. The whole coven was blown wide open when Emperor One ordered several members of the spellcasting circle arrested and investigation uncovered correspondences affirming the witchcraft and even turning up several voodoo dolls used in the rituals. Though the majority of the coven were arrested, the witch Yan Daoyu herself managed to escape from the capital under the protection of the Prince of Shixing. As for the two princes who had, you know, started the whole thing and been praying for their father to die, well, one just didn't quite have it in him to order their arrest, and merely rebuked them. Again.

Dad. In early 453, though, word once again reached the emperor's ears that his sons were still harboring the witch and still dabbling in the arcane. Enough was enough, and he began discussing with his top officials the increasingly likely possibility of needing to depose Prince Xiao and force the Prince of Seixing to suicide. Though he was apparently ready and willing to go forward with it, the plan got hung up

on which of his other sons would actually replace Xiao once he was deposed as the crowned prince. In the middle of it all, Emperor Wen let slip his super secret plans to his favorite consort, Pan. Eh, you know, top secret's top secret, but pillow talk is gonna happen. What can you do, right? Unfortunately for him, Consort Pan just so happened to be Prince Shixing's mother, who was in no state of mind to stand by while her husband ordered their son to kill himself.

So she tipped off Shixing, who in turn tipped off the crown prince. Now it was kill or be killed for the heir to Liu Song. And if magic wasn't going to do the job, well, good old-fashioned steel would have to suffice. Prince Xiao managed to forge an edict with his father's seal, surreptitiously replacing the normal imperial palace guard with his own personal troops. That night, Xiao dispatched his trusted personal bodyguard to the emperor's bedchamber with instructions to finish the job.

In the aftermath of the patricide-slash-regicide, many members of one's inner circle, including Consort Pan, the very woman who had indirectly tipped Xiao off to the coup plot against him, were put to death. Prince Jun soon joined Xiao at the palace, and jointly announced that Emperor Wen had been slain. Not by them, of course. No, no, no.

By two of the officials who had been caught up in the prior night's purge. Yeah, yeah, those two treacherous regicides had already met imperial justice. The emperor was dead. Long live the emperor. Or not. Because though Xiao would claim the throne, his vicious nature ensured that he wouldn't sit on it for long. Appropriately enough, it would be his propensity to off members of his own family that would be his ultimate undoing. He ordered the assassination of several of his cousins, before turning his murderous eye on one of his younger brothers.

And here's where the second Prince Liu Jun enters the picture. They're not the same in Chinese, but they are homonyms, so again for clarity's sake, I'll be referring to both Prince Juns by their respective titles. Xiao's partner in crime is the Prince of Shixing, and the little brother now targeted for death will be called the Prince of Wuling. Savvy? Alright. So in the capital, in spite of their propaganda campaign to blame murdered officials for the murdered emperor, soon enough word word got out that, no, it had actually been Liu Xiao behind the whole thing. Not long thereafter, the prince of Wuling's chief information officer

arrived at his forward position on the island of Wuzhou as he was conducting a campaign against aboriginal renegades there. He informed Wuling of his father's murder and the true culprit behind it, his eldest brother. At almost the same time, though, a letter had arrived from the capital addressed to one of Wuling's generals, Shen Qingshe. General Shen was relayed top-secret orders to quietly assassinate the Prince of Wuling and, you know, make it look like an accident or something. But General Shen deeply respected his commanding officer, and didn't even think twice about this top-secret imperial missive. He turned it over at once to Wu Ling, exposing the depths of his

brother's treachery. Together, Prince Wu Ling and General Shen ordered their army into a state of emergency combat readiness, and prepared to launch a massive rebellion against their so-called emperor, Liu Shao. The first step was to secure his base of operations. Conveniently enough, his own fortress city and Jiang provincial capital, Shunyang. Safely ensconced within, he issued messages to the other imperial princes and military commanders, asking them to join him in opposition to Liu Shao's illegal seizure of power. The support he received was tremendous. His uncle, the prince of Nanqiao, his brother, the prince of Sui,

as well as the governors of Jing and Yong provinces and the commander of Kuaiji prefecture, all threw their support behind the rebel claim. Once the combined forces were assembled at Xunyang, it advanced towards Nanjing, bearing the banners of the Prince of Wuling. Within a month, the massive force had arrived at the gates of Nanjing. But there was a hitch. Over the course of the journey,

Wuling had taken rather ill and couldn't muster the strength to so much as get up and walk about, much less direct combat. The soldiers of his rebel cause needed to see who and what they were fighting for, and the enemy couldn't know that their rebellious prince was showing any weakness. Thus, his assistant donned the imperial armor and regalia and appeared publicly, reassuring everyone that he was fine, just fine, no problem. Soon enough, the prince would be able to recover and actually lead his troops personally. But without this deception, it's difficult to predict how things may have fared, especially given the critical nature of troop morale, both friendly and enemy, for the outcome of battle.

The two forces clashed in the fields outside Nanjing, with the imperial army at first achieving minor victories, but nothing strategically critical. That turned, however, when a disgruntled imperial general, Lu Xiao, turned his coat and defected, along with his contingent of troops, to the rebel cause. As the tide of combat continued to favor his side over the following week, Prince Liu Jun of Wuling felt confident enough to declare that he had received the Mandate of Heaven

and crowned himself the new Emperor of Liu Song, a direct challenge to Liu Xiao's supposed primacy. The rebel Emperor's army breached the city walls and commenced in street-to-street fighting before arriving at the Imperial palace with Liu Xiao within. Overcoming the imperial bodyguard, the palace was taken in short order, along with Xiao and the prince of Xuesheng. For their crimes against the imperial family, the late emperor and the new emperor, the pair of treacherous princes were executed without delay. After his death, Liu Xiao, like almost all Chinese emperors, would be given a posthumous name, which is typically what we call each emperor.

As I've mentioned before, names like Wu, Taiwu, and Wen were not the remaining monarchs' names in life, and such names had only been issued, much less them referred to by them, post-mortem. But given the nature and severity of his crimes, Liu Xiao's posthumous name wouldn't be a testament to his martial prowess like Wu, nor his intelligence like Ming, nor his understanding nature like Wen. Instead, it would be the name Yuan Xiong, the Prime Murderer, ensuring that his infamy would be remembered for all time. It has been an incredibly dangerous period to be a member of either imperial family in China,

and yet here we sit. Both the northern and southern empires have managed to retain their overall stability in spite of the violence at the upper echelons. A rare feat in this age, I'm sure you'd agree. And both have managed to replace their highly capable leaders with a new pair of equally competent monarchs committed to the enduring stability of their respective realms. The reign of Yuanjia may be over, but at least for now, the regional stability it produced for Northern Wei and Liu Song during the year. Next time, the mirrored reigns of Emperor Wencheng in the north, and Emperor Xiaowu in the south. Thank you for listening. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such.

Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast dedicated to exploring the ambiguities and nuances of the past. From a revolution of hope and liberty to the infamous Reign of Terror, you can't understand the modern world without understanding the French Revolution. So search for the French Revolution today.