The History of China - #63 - S&N 7: Going Off The Rails

Episode Date: May 7, 2015

The fates have not been kind to the Liu Song Dynasty. It keeps rolling the monarchy dice, and they keep coming up crazy-eyes. Emperor Ming will start strong, but descend into cruelty and paranoia. His successor seems to have just been born bad, and the final monarch of the dynasty won’t have enough time fall one direction or the other before a rising star will unseat him, and Liu Song altogether, as the true power of Southern China.Period Covered: 465 – 479 CEMajor Figures:Emperor Ming of Liu Song (née Liu Yu, r. 465-472)Emperor Houfei (née Liu Yu, r. 472-477)Emperor Shun (née Liu Zhun, r. 477-479)General Xiao Daocheng General Shen YouzhiYang Yufu, Imperial Attendant Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Once again, that's audibletrial.com slash THOC for your free download. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 63, Going Off the Rails Last time, we chronicled the incestuous reign of Emperor Xiaowu of Liaosong, and the also incestuous, amazingly bloody, and not nearly brief enough, one-year debacle that was his successor, Liu Ziyue, commonly thought of as ranking among the top ten craziest monarchs in all of Chinese history. Notably, we'd finished out with Ziyue being offed at an exorcism of all things. Though curiously not by any of the major players of the imperial court or the imperial family,

but rather by a cabal of no-name courtiers, who apparently just didn't want to end up as the murder-happy monarch's next playthings. So, with the teenage psychopath dispatched, there came the question of who would succeed him to the throne. Since he was only 14 at the time of his death, and had spent his entire reign too busy either lopping off the heads of his enemies or watching his family members be raped, he had no progeny of his own. Well, you might remember that little side tale from last time about Emperor Zeyi caging four of his uncles, the four who were the most overweight,

in pig cages. Well, one of those pig uncles was in fact Liu Yu, the prince of Xiangdong. And in fact, since Liu Yu was the heaviest of the four brothers, Ziyue had given him the moniker Prince of Pigs, fed him from a trough like swine, and on a near daily basis had him bound for slaughter like an animal and taunted him, only to accede to the pleas of the other princes to keep him alive, at least for today. Well certainly through all this, you'd expect Liu Yu to develop a pretty severe case of

PTSD, and you'd be right. An aspect of this story that will rear its ugly head later on. In spite of the near-constant threat of being gutted, the then-26-year-old Liu Yu would somehow manage to survive his nephew's psychotic reign. There were some signs that he was in league with the conspirators who would actually carry out the assassination of Liu Zeyi, and indeed, who could blame him? But the evidence is so circumstantial that even ancient historians who felt comfortable writing in dream sequences and ghostly apparitions refrained from stating so conclusively. And if they're not comfortable doing so,

then certainly I'm not either. Regardless, with the adolescent psycho dead, Liu Yu was finally let out of his cage, and with the backing of both the majority of court officials and his younger brother Liu Xiu Ren, the eleventh son of Emperor Wen would take the throne of Liu Song in 465 as Emperor Ming, meaning the Brilliant. And at least at first, he seemed to earn the moniker. He had inherited an empire in chaos, and he did what he could to placate the tenuous situation. He ordered the suicides of both of Liu Ziyue's eldest younger brothers,

as well as the princess Shan Yin, whom you may recall had purportedly both slept with her brother the emperor and then demanded thirty-some male concubines of her own. As both had been active participants in their brother's disastrous reign, it was only natural, and in the minds of many at the time, just, that the pair should share Zeyu's fate. For many of the other imperial officials, especially those who had suffered in silence under Zeyu's cruelty, he offered promotions, even including several of Ziyue's brothers who had scorned his insanity. Unfortunately, such summary justice would instead blow up directly in the newly crowned Emperor Ming's face. One of the nephews,

to whom he'd offered both clemency and a promotion, due to him previously having declared against his brother, Ziyue, instead rebuffed Ming's offer and declared rebellion against him. The now twice-rebel prince, Liu Zixun, made no bones about his seemingly inexplicable face-heel turn. Yes, we're all glad to get rid of that despicable Ziyue, but your executing of Prince Zishang, Prince Ziyue's younger brother, is just as bad. Legally, he shouldiya's younger brother, is just as bad. Legally,

he should have inherited the throne, and so you, Ming, are both a usurper and a murderer. And that was, as it turned out, a startlingly convincing argument, because with Zishang also rose Jing province, Kuaiji prefecture, and the principalities of Linhai, Zifang, and Xunyang. In the spring of 466, the Empress Dowager Lu declared Prince Zishun the true emperor of Liu Song, and with that proclamation, virtually all of the rest of the empire rose against Ming, leaving him in control of only Nanjing itself and the surrounding countryside. So, definitely not an ideal situation for Emperor Ming, but one of his enemies would unwittingly help him out. The rebel generals, believing that the capital city would quickly run out of supplies and

capitulate without their direct intervention, dragged their collective feet in terms of mobilization. This allowed the imperial army to make a rapid advance against Kuaiji and its surrounding prefectural cities, with little opposition, and seized their food caches. But that was just the beginning. Time and again, the rebels allowed themselves to lose the initiative and be pushed onto their heels by the far more proactive imperial armies. At Chaohu, and then again at Qiansshi, the rebels lost the initiative due to their own commanders' inaction, and then suffered a string of defeats. Following the rebels' defeat at Qianshi,

the rival claimant for the throne, Niao Zixun, would at last be captured and executed, quite literally killing the rebellion's claim to the throne. Yet even in the midst of victory, Emperor Ming managed to summon forth the specter of defeat. When he changed his policy toward rebels who had surrendered from pardon, as he'd previously declared and under which many of his foes had laid down their arms, to a far harsher punishment. Of the still-living sons of his brother, Xiao Wu, he had the lot of them declared treasonous and put to death, of whom the oldest was only ten.

The Empress Dowager's nephews, who herself had died under mysterious circumstances during the war, which several historians posit was poisoning at the Emperor's hand, well, her nephews were likewise accused and found guilty of treason with similar outcomes. In the wake of his victory, that year, Ming declared his eldest son, which is confusingly also named Liu Yu, but again a different Yu, his crowned prince. And let me tell you now, that will not end well for anyone. If Ming had wanted to secure peace for his empire, he did so, at least for the time being. But if his goal had been tranquility and security,

he could have done little to undermine his own cause more. Though his initial policy regarding captured rebels was one of magnanimity, as victory became more and more assured, he revoked the promised forgiveness for those who had not already submitted to his will or surrendered, declaring that the remainder of the rebel commanders and lords were to receive the full measure of the law, which I certainly hope I don't need to remind you at this point was the edge of a sword at the very best. As such, when the governor of Shu province, Governor Xue Andu, who had indeed been among virtually all of those officials who had declared against Ming, learned of the harsh treatment his

fellow defeated officials had been treated, well, he panicked. No, panic isn't the right word. He assessed the situation correctly, that Ming had no intention of pardoning him should he surrender, and therefore that surrender was the last thing he should consider. And indeed, Ming had been intending to use this show of aggression to force Xue into resisting, and then using that as an excuse to wipe him out entirely and take the key fortress of Peng City for himself. Instead, in an effort to keep his head attached firmly to his shoulders, Governor Xue of Shu, knowing that direct resistance was less than futile, did what he must.

He surrendered, but just not to Ming. Instead, he turned the entire province, including Peng City, over to Northern Wei, becoming the first fragment of Liu Song to shatter off, but by no means its last. Xu province was joined in its defection by the respective governors of Yan, Qing, and Ji provinces, although in a case of the grass always being greener, the latter two would eventually flip back to Ming's control, only to later, ironically, find themselves hopelessly cut off from imperial support. The result was a massive blow to Liu Song, both in terms of territorial integrity, but even more to the empire's morale.

Emperor Ming, of course, wasn't going to accept this mass defection lying down, and launched his massed forces on an offensive to take back those deserting territories. Liu Song's army stormed northward in a massive offensive against Northern Wei, which by now had already reinforced Governor Xue's personal garrisons. And if you're at all familiar with this show so far, the outcome is pretty much written on the wall now, isn't it? Total failure for the South. A fall and winter siege of Peng City proved totally ineffective, forcing the Song generals to withdraw in the spring of 467.

A second offensive that next fall would prove equally doomed, ending once again any hope at all for reclaiming Shu and Yan provinces. In fact, this would spell the end of southern control for those territories for the remainder of China's period of disunity. And with Shu and Yan taken, so too were the provinces of Ji and Qing, you remember, the two with flip-flopping loyalties, cut off from resupply or reinforcement. Now totally encircled by territories loyal to Northern Wei, the two lonely provinces held out until the spring of 468, when they too would be annexed by Wei and leave the

Southern Dynasty's sphere of control forever. Things would not improve for Emperor Ming in the latter half of his reign, exacerbated in no small part by his own decline into cruelty and suspicion. His attitude shift toward the rebel generals had, it turned out, been only a taste of times to come. 469 saw him order one of his brothers, Liu Hui, to commit suicide. But to be fair, that was only after the brother had been found conspiring to supplant Ming as emperor, so I'd say we could just chalk that up to justifiable action. A rather less defendable suicide order would be penned in 470, following an imperial order to all territorial governors to offer Ming a tribute of gifts. When the governor

of Cixing province in the far south of the empire, part of modern Guangdong in fact, sent gifts of merely books and a kind of seven-stringed musical instrument called a guqin, instead of gifts of gold and treasures and the like like Ming had expected and hoped for. So, like a kid who didn't get the present he wanted for his birthday, Emperor Ming threw a fit, sending poison to the governor of Cixing with an order to drink it on down. But once his tantrum had subsided, Ming sent a second order on the tale of the first, rescinding it. Oh yeah, on second thought, don't actually drink that. Other accounts tell similar tales of Ming's rising tide of violence, suspicion, jealousy, and cruelty. He is said to have strictly

observed a number of taboos on language and actions, with anyone violating them executed, often in exceedingly vicious methods. This period would, however, prove short-lived, as would Ming himself. The following year, 471, Ming began to grow increasingly ill in body, as he'd clearly already done so in mind. His crown prince, Liu Yu, was still only eight, and as such raised fears in the ailing emperor that his remaining brothers would turn against the child in Ming's absence and overthrow him. He therefore resolved to destroy them all.

His first target was the obvious choice, his brash, arrogant, and frequently violent half-brother, who had frequently gone out of his way to offend the hyper-fastidious and superstitious Ming, Prince Liu Shouyou of Jinping. And so the emperor invited his sibling out on a hunt. And as you surely know, hunts are dangerous things, and many unexpected dangers can claim the lives of even the most seasoned lords. In this particular case, however, it was no boar nor a bear, but Ming's bodyguards taking advantage of the Prince of Jinping's

inattention to shove him off his mount. Once grounded, he was either trampled to death by their horses or simply beaten to death by Ming's men. Which is to say, of course, a tragic hunting accident. In spite of this cover, however, word of the murder leaked, because as always, of course it does. When said word reached the ear of the Prince of Baling, Ming's youngest brother, his advisors urged rebellion in light of this brazen assault on the imperial family line by one of their own. The Prince of Baling thought about it, but then decided that such a course of action would just be crazily suicidal. Instead, he did as ordered and reported to his new post as per imperial orders.

Unfortunately, for both him and another of the imperial brothers, rumor had begun to spread. Specifically, rumors that another of his brothers, the prince of Jianan, would become the regent of the throne should Ming die. When these rumors reached the paranoid ears of Emperor Ming, he once again employed his favored tactic and ordered both of them to commit suicide, sparing only the Prince of Guiyang, who though part of the alleged plot, he viewed as an incompetent fool and therefore no threat to his power. A score of other imperial princes and officials would be forced to take their own lives on the orders of Emperor Ming during the last year of his life.

Most facepalmingly, in the long run, would be the tale of Xiao Daocheng, then the governor of Southern Yan province. In a bid to test Governor Xiao's loyalty, Emperor Ming sent him a vat of wine and an order to drink it. Xiao, thinking that the wine was poisoned, prepared to flee to Northern Wei, when the imperial official, who had been tasked with delivering the questionable wine, revealed that the wine was not poisoned and that it was all just a test. Governor Xiao then drank the beverage and it all seemed well, until, at least, Emperor Ming received the news that Governor Xiao hadn't actually passed his insane loyalty test, but had, you know, known that the wine wasn't poisoned before actually drinking it. He therefore ordered the death of the official charged with delivering the non-poisoned wine,

but took no action against Xiao himself, a factor that we'll play into the story later. But even as it seemed he was just to be poisoning like everyone around him, Emperor Ming felt the cold grip of death for himself in the summer of 472, bringing his toxic reign to an end and ushering in Crown Prince Liu Yu, the nine-year-old heir to the throne. And Liu Yu II's reign is, let me tell you, so short that just like the former deposed emperor of last episode, he won't even get a real Aran name. Instead, poor Liu Yu will come to be known as Emperor Hou Fei, the later deposed emperor of Liu Song.

I should probably pause here to address a specific charge that has been levied against the bloodline of the now late Emperor Ming, specifically that his progeny was not actually his own. Several accounts assert that Emperor Ming was, in fact, impotent, and that in order to secure his own legacy, he was forced to take from his brothers their pregnant concubines for his own, and then declare the resultant children his. Some tales even tell of him ordering his own concubines to have sexual relations with others so as to get them pregnant. Napoleon Bonaparte rose from obscurity to become the most powerful and significant figure in modern history. Over 200 years after his death, people are still debating his legacy. He was a man of

contradictions, a tyrant and a reformer, a liberator and an oppressor, a revolutionary and a reactionary. His biography reads like a novel, and his influence is almost beyond measure. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast, and every month I delve into the turbulent life and times of one of the greatest characters in history, and explore the world that shaped him in all its glory and tragedy. It's a story of great battles and campaigns, political intrigue, and massive social and economic change, but it's also a story about people, populated with remarkable characters. I hope you'll join me as I examine this fascinating era of history. Find The Age of Napoleon wherever you get your

podcasts. But we ought to take such allegations with the proper dose of historical context. After all, like virtually all of the Chinese historical tomes, such licentious charges don't stem from his own time, but instead from historians writing from Liu Song's successor dynasty, Southern Qi. As such historians were individuals in the direct pay of their own imperial interests, interests with a real and present concern for making the dynasty they'd just supplanted look weak, corrupt, and as immoral as possible, it's consequentially rather hard to take them very seriously at all. Indeed, several of the concubines Ming had supposedly claimed to procure his legacy had given birth to nothing but girls. And given the thinking of the day, it's hard to envision

a monarch willing to risk such taboos in order to claim a couple of adoptive daughters. A further nail in that particular rumor's coffin is the charge that one of the emperor's consorts ordered to have sex with other men in order to procure offspring was the empress herself, known, if for no other reason, than as an exceedingly morally upright and proper noblewoman. Given the rest of the literature concerning Empress Wang and her life and beliefs, it is very difficult indeed to conclude that she'd have willingly become, in essence, a whore for the sake of giving the emperor an illegitimate son. So all this to say, in spite of the 1500-year-old rumor mill,

it seems far more likely that Ming's supposed impotence was a slam fabricated after the fact by his dynasty's posthumous enemies, rather than a realistic historical position. But whether truly Ming's son or not, young Emperor Hou Fei would take the throne in 472. And let me just get this out of the way now, it will be an absolute mess. First, the government was officially in the hands of a co-regency consisting of two high court officials, the Duke of Nankang and Wen Yuanzhan, both of whom were stalwart proponents of reforms to curb corruption within the imperial government.

But the pair soon found their efforts stymied by another force within the court, a shadow government composed of another pair of high-level imperial officials, who had effectively seized the levers of true power within the capital. Fascinating, yes, but before that whole cloak-and-dagger business could even really kick into gear, an out-and-out proper rebellion popped up yet again. Remember back when Emperor Ming had killed all of his brothers because he feared that they might rise against his son? And remember how he left one alive, the Prince of Guiyang specifically, because he considered him an incompetent moron? Well, guess who's at the head of this rebellion? That's right, the incompetent moron himself,

not looking nearly so inept at the head of an army. He declared himself against Hou Fei because he had not been granted the prime ministership, even though he was the emperor's last remaining uncle. The prince of Guiyang proved himself not nearly the slouch his older brother had thought him to be. He had learned through observation from the mistakes made by the previous set of failed rebellions against the throne of Liu Song that time was a critical factor. Moving too slow, slow enough that the emperor could respond with his own army, meant sure failure. And so the prince of Guiyang moved his army towards the capital at a rate that Emperor Houfei could not possibly match, a sort of blitzkrieg of the 5th century.

From his home province, he arrived at the capital city's outer gates in only five days' time. There, the rebel army clashed with the imperial guard, of which most of those conflicts tended to go in the rebel prince's favor, but not in any decisive way. Still, clearly caught flat-footed, the once governor of southern Yan, but turned commander of the imperial garrison,

General Xiao Daocheng, opted for an unorthodox tactic. He and a contingent of his troops would feign defection to the rebel army. And with the general such an eminent commander, the Prince of Guiyang would surely wish to use his talents to further his own war aims. Once his force had met with the prince, General Xiao would assassinate the rebel prince and disperse the renegade army. It certainly sounds like a risky plan, doesn't it? But it went off without a hitch, with just one catch. Once the prince of Guiyang's lifeless body hit the floor, it seemed that the faux defectors did a little too good of a job in covering up the assassination. Because for a strangely long period of a job in covering up the assassination.

Because for a strangely long period of time after the murder of the prince, his army kept right on fighting, none the wiser that their entire cause for doing so was now dead. They got as far as defeating the capital's defense force and laying siege to the imperial palace before they finally got the memo that, oh by the way, the Prince of Guiyang had been killed and it was time to pack up and go home. And just like that, what had been just the day before a mortal threat to the empire evaporated like a morning fog. For his valorous defense of the city and stunning victory over the rebels, General Xiao was promoted to one of the now four heads of imperial government, known as the Sigué, or Four Nobles. And for those of

you keeping track, keep that name in mind. He's come up before, and he will come up again. This will not be the last we hear of General Xiao Daocheng. But by 474, as the emperor approached his twelfth birthday, he began to display what seemed to be the dominant family trait of this line of the Liu clan. Dangerous, psychotic behavior. As of three years later, in 477, Houfei's reign had devolved into little more than him, surrounded by a band of murderous thugs, roving the streets of the capital and killing any man, woman, child, or animal they came across. Supposedly, if a day went by when he could not personally cut someone open, the 15-year-old serial killer-in-chief would slip into a deep brooding depression. This roving imperial murder brigade developed a habit for coming and going from the

palace at all hours of the day and night, and woe betide the hapless palace guard too slow to get the gate unlocked. In fact, it quickly became the unofficial policy to simply leave the gates unlocked at all times as a precaution, which I'm sure you'll agree rather defeats the purpose of having a gate in the first place. But Hou Fei's downfall would ultimately stem from the general, who would risk his own life to save his reign back in 474. That's right, General Xiao Daocheng. General Xiao, as a man of means and taste and approaching 50 years old,

had developed a rather portly figure, most notably his belly. When Emperor Houfei happened upon Xiao sleeping in the nude on one occasion, his psychopathic curiosity got the better of him. With a belly so big, could Houfei use his archery skills to hit the bullseye? In this case, the general's protruding belly button being the bullseye. So he had his band of attendants rouse the general, tie him up, and paint a target on his belly. As Xiao begged for his life and the emperor lined up his arrow, one attendant, perhaps feeling a note of pity for essentially the hero of the city, spoke up and suggested that, yeah, you could use the arrow and turn General Xiao into a pincushion, but then you could only do that once and then you'd lose such a wonderful target. Or you could use rounded shafts and then be able to use his

enormous belly as a target as often as the emperor pleased. And that sounded like a far better deal to Hou Fei, and presumably General Xiao as well, and so he swapped out his arrows to rounded shafts of bone. The young emperor was indeed able to hit the belly button bullseye, and was deeply pleased with himself. The imperial roving murder brigade then departed, leaving Xiao Daocheng tied up, badly bruised,

but critically, fatefully, alive. Alive and pissed off. General Xiao tried to get the other members of the Four Nobles' ruling council to support an overthrow of the psychopath-in-chief, Ho Fei, but they seemed to have been far too terrified of even sounding like they might oppose the emperor to agree to back him. And that left Xiao to his own devices, a position he had proved in 464 he was exceedingly comfortable

with. If the top was frozen in fear, perhaps someone from the bottom would prove bolder. Thus, in utmost secrecy, General Xiao found a willing participant close enough to the Emperor to make a serious attempt. One of He Fei's own personal attendants. You know, the people who prepared his meals, attended to him while he bathed, watched over him while he slept. The co-conspirator who Xiao was able to convince to join his plot was named Yang Yufu,

and had been previously threatened with summary execution by the temperamental monarch. Again, not something you really should be doing to someone who stands over you while you sleep. On the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, a festival called Qi Xi, or the Night of Sevens, though in the modern Chinese era has come to be called the Chinese Valentine's Day, on this day the pair of regicidal conspirators kicked their plan into action, and it was a simple plan indeed.

As the emperor slept, Yang took a sword and hacked his head off. Done and done. Yang then delivered the severed head to General Xiao, who himself took the imperial cranium and presented it to the imperial palace, and there was much rejoicing. Even the imperial guard itself, sworn to protect the imperial person and palace with their lives, joined in the celebration of the homicidal maniac finally getting what was coming to him. guard itself, sworn to protect the imperial person and palace with their lives, joined in the celebration of the homicidal maniac finally getting what was coming to him.

As the festivities died down, General Xiao, who had literally overnight become the unquestioned point man on imperial policy, issued an edict using the seal of the Empress Dowager, simultaneously okaying the imperial assassination, stripping Hou Fei of his status as emperor back to prince posthumously, and declaring that his younger brother, Prince Liu Jun, would now become the new emperor. But since this new monarch was a minor, like his predecessor, not quite 10 years old yet even. He would need a regent, someone to wield the effectively unlimited imperial powers while the boy grew into them. And who better than the man who had now thrice saved Liu Song? Who better than Xiao Daocheng?

Prince Jun would be enthroned as Emperor Xun, and it would turn out to be, spoiler alert, the last gasp of the Liu Song dynasty. He was enthroned as a puppet, and that would set the tenor for his entire, very brief, nominal reign. Rightly sensing the direction this whole regency thing was headed from the outset, one of Xiao's rival generals, Shen Youzhi, began a rebellion from Jing province, but that would rapidly be bogged down and lose momentum in an ill-advised siege of Ying city, part of modern Wuhan, and still some 550 kilometers west of the capital,

a safe enough distance to effectively ignore. In fact, the following year, with his siege proving ineffective and pointless, General Shen's entire army began to desert, resulting in the would-be restorer of the Liu Song dynasty taking his own life as his plans fell apart around him. The other members of the Four Nobles Council also tried to restore power to the Leo imperial line, but were discovered and executed by General Xiao. Their efforts to remove his Chou Kou-tung-ni throne, ironically, allowed him to rid himself of their meddling altogether and further consolidate his power. The arrival of the new year, 479, would see the beginning of Xiao Daocheng's endgame against the Leo Song dynasty. In traditional Chinese fashion, he began

forcing Emperor Shun to grant him the historic titles and honors that would herald his ascendancy. First, he was declared the Duke of Qi, and then granted the full measure of the Nine Bestowments, one inexorable step after the other. As summer reached its height, Xiao was declared the Prince of Qi, his formal entrance into the imperial tier of power and the penultimate step towards full usurpation. At last, Prince Xiao of Qi announced a grand ceremony. It was all planned out down to the last detail. Emperor Xun would ascend to a high platform and issue what would be his last imperial edict, announcing his secession of the throne and granting it to the appropriately humble and honored Prince of Qi. But when the day came,

the twelve-year-old emperor was nowhere to be found. An extensive search of the palace by both the prince's chief general and the palace eunuchs finally produced the twelve-year-old monarch cowering and weeping quietly under a statue of Buddha. General Wang calmed the terrified child, who asked him whether or not the commander was there to kill him. General Wang replied, quote, I am not here to kill you. I am here to take you elsewhere and allow you to live there. Do not despair. This is exactly what your Liu clan did to the Sima clan, end quote. That last bit was a reference to Shen's great-grandfather, Emperor Wu's seizure of power back in 420 from the last vestiges of the Jin dynasty. A cold comfort, indeed. At this, Emperor Shen resumed weeping and declared,

when I am reincarnated, would that I never be born into an imperial household again. Nevertheless, he then allowed himself to be led back to the waiting ceremony by Wang, and dutifully completed the transfer of power. Xiao Daocheng proclaimed Liu Zhen the Prince of Ruoyin, and had built for him a palatial residence near the capital. As with almost every other deposed monarch sent out to pasture, it was more a palatial prison than home, however. And indeed, General Wang's

reassurances of the former emperor's life to come would prove quite hollow. Less than a month after being transferred to his new home, someone rode their horses a bit too close to the royal manor. The guards on station mistook the hoofbeats for a force coming to take the former monarch and use him as their figurehead for a rebellion. So they did what they'd been ordered to do in such a situation. They slit the boy's throat. For that, they would be rewarded by the new power on the throne, though the late prince of Ruyin would at least be paid the respect of being buried with full imperial honors. That new power on the throne, Xiao Daocheng, who had gone from governor to general to duke to prince, and who had been the thrice-savior of

Liu Song, had now become the heel which finally crushed its sickly throat. His new dynasty, named as many were based on the principality from which it sprung, would be the Qi Dynasty, though it is better known to history as Southern Qi in order to avoid confusion with, yes, the other Qi that will pop up somewhere later in the story in the north, and I'll give you one guess as to what that one will be called. This founding emperor of the Qi Dynasty would be given the name Gao, meaning tall, or somewhat more regally, elevated. And the birthing pangs of this, the second southern dynasty, will be the focus of our episode next time. Thank you for listening.

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