Chapter 13 Chapter Twelve Ai Emperor Liu Xin

Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty Liu Xin, the grandson of Emperor Yuan, was born in the fourth year of Heping (25 BC).At the time of birth, his uncle Chengdi was in power, his father Liu Kang was King Gong of Dingtao (now Dingtao, Shandong), and his mother Ding Ji was Princess Gong.After he was born, he was raised by his grandmother, Empress Dowager Dingtao Fu (that is, Yuan Emperor Fu Zhaoyi). When he was 3 years old, his father died and he became king.He has received a good education since he was a child, "good diction and law", and has relatively rich knowledge.According to the regulations, he was not destined to be the emperor, but by chance, he was able to enter, and thus ascended to the nine-fold high position and became a generation of kings.

As a vassal king, Liu Xin generally can no longer be an emperor.But since Emperor Cheng has been childless, he has a chance.In the fourth year of Yuanyan (9 BC), Emperor Cheng decided to choose the vassal king as the prince because he had no children. One of the proposed candidates was his young brother Liu Xing, the king of Zhongshan, and the other was Liu Xin.Just at this time, King Zhongshan and Liu Xin both came to the court, and Emperor Cheng took the opportunity to assess them.Liu Xin was accompanied by the Taifu, Guoxiang, and Lieutenant when he entered the court, but the King of Zhongshan had only the Taifu to accompany him.Emperor Cheng first asked Liu Xin: "Why did you bring Taifu, Guoxiang, and Lieutenant into the court?" Liu Xin replied that according to regulations, princes and kings can be accompanied by two thousand stone officials in the country, and Fu, Xiang, and lieutenant are all two thousand stone officials. , so let them accompany into court.Emperor Cheng asked him to recite "Poetry" again. He not only recited it very fluently, but also explained its meaning.Emperor Cheng asked King Zhongshan why he only brought the Taifu into the court, but King Zhongshan could not answer.Ask him to recite "Shangshu", but he can't recite it.After giving the banquet, King Zhongshan was very greedy again, so full that he had to untie his belt.Emperor Cheng deeply felt that Liu Xin was talented.In addition, Liu Xin's grandmother, Empress Dowager Fu, secretly sent a lot of property to Emperor Cheng's beloved Empress Zhao and her relative Hussar General Quyang Hou Wanggen. In the second year, Emperor Cheng ordered Liu Xin to be the crown prince.

After Liu Xin was established as the crown prince, he did not get carried away with complacency. Instead, he humbly said to Emperor Cheng, "My talent is not enough to be the crown prince. Your Majesty, you are holy and tolerant, and you will definitely have a son. Now I just want to be by your side day and night. By the way, once you have a holy heir, I will return to the country to guard the vassal." After hearing this, Emperor Cheng was even happier.So an edict was issued to make Liu Jing, the grandson of King Xiao of Chu, the king of Dingtao, and he was worshiped by King Gong to reward Prince Liu Xin.Soon, Emperor Cheng died suddenly, and Liu Xin succeeded to the throne as Emperor Ai at the age of 19.

After Emperor Ai entered the Datong as a vassal king, he was quite clear-headed.He knew well that the Western Han Dynasty was lurking with a huge ruling crisis: on the one hand, the Wang family, the foreign relative, controlled the power in the court, kept buying people's hearts, snatched up dead party members, and coveted the Han family's world; Corruption, people's complaints and anger.Emperor Ai reigned for 7 years and almost tried his best to save the crisis and bring the dead back to life. At the beginning of his accession to the throne, Emperor Ai aimed at Wang's monopoly and tried his best to deprive him of his power. However, his policy was to pull and fight.At the beginning of his ascension to the throne, he used Quyang Hou Wanggen to make a plan for the great Sima and established himself as the prince. households, Wang Mang three hundred and fifty households.But soon, Sili Xiaowei Xie Guang impeached Wang Gen and Wang Kuang (Wang Gen's nephew), and then issued an edict to send Wang Gen to the country, exempting Wang Kuang from being a commoner.Two years later, Emperor Ai ordered Yousi to play Wang Mang's former grand Sima's depreciation of his title, which violated filial piety, and Ping'a Hou Wangren (the son of Wang Tan) hid Zhao Zhaoyi's relatives, all envoys to the country.But Emperor Ai did not do anything wrong. After weakening the power of the Wang family, he still reserved certain treatment for them.Soon, he reappointed Wang Yi, Wang Shang's middle son (the eldest son is Wang Kuang), as the Marquis of Chengdu.In the first year of Yuanshou (2 BC), due to a solar eclipse, Wang Mang and Wang Ren returned to the capital to serve the Queen Mother.After these efforts, although the Wang family still has a lot of wings, the power in the court has basically been taken back to the hands of Emperor Ai, and the Wang family's arrogance has also been hit hard.

At the same time that Emperor Ai seized the power of the Wang family, he named Ding and Fu as subordinates, and appointed Ding Ming as the General of the Great Sima Hussars, Ding Wang as the General of the Left, Fu Xi as the General of the Right, and Fu Yan as the General of the Great Sima.However, the purpose of Emperor Ai's appointment of Baiding and Fu was to deprive the Wang family of power, and he did not give them real power, but only made them noble. While depriving the Wang family of power and grasping the imperial power, Emperor Ai also tried his best to ease class conflicts.As soon as he came to the throne, he issued an edict to dismiss the Yuefu officials in order to make the people frugal.Then, in view of the prevalence of land mergers and the sharp increase in the number of slaves, an edict was issued to limit the number of civilian farms and slaves.At the same time, it was also ordered to stop Qi State's three service officials (officials who manage the production of silk clothing).However, it is hard to get back. In order to safeguard vested interests, noble relatives and big bureaucrats have expressed their opposition to this.Emperor AI had no choice but to issue an edict to suspend the implementation.

The improvement failed, and Aidi tried to cheat mentally again, and staged a farce of "re-ordered".The so-called "re-ordering" means that the Han Dynasty received the Mandate of Heaven again after Han Gaozu received the Mandate of Heaven to replace the Qin Dynasty, so as to continue to rule.So in the second year of Jianping (5 BC), Emperor Ai issued an edict and announced that he would change the second year of Jianping to "the first year of Taichu Yuanjiang" and himself "Emperor Chen Sheng and Liu Taiping", thus showing that he had "re-emerged". ordered".But this trick not only can't deceive many people, but also gives people a feeling that the Han family is really exhausted, even Emperor Ai himself finds it absurd.Therefore, only two months later, Emperor Ai issued an edict announcing that this kind of "re-entrustment" violated scriptures and ancient times, was out of date, and should be abolished.So far, Emperor Ai has no way to recover, and the weakening of the Han Dynasty's rule has officially begun.

Emperor Ai lived a relatively simple life and was not sensual.Not long after he came to the throne, he issued an edict to dismiss the officials of the Yuefu in response to the prevalence of obscene music at that time, and opposed the extravagant life of noble relatives.Moreover, he did not have concubines in the palace.In addition to the empress, Emperor Ai had only one Zhaoyi.The queen is Empress Fu, the daughter of Fu Yan, the younger brother of Empress Dowager Fu, the grandmother of Emperor Ai.When Emperor Ai was the king of Dingtao, Empress Dowager Fu made a marriage for his relatives.After Emperor Ai was established as the prince, Fu was established as the concubine; when Emperor Ai succeeded to the throne, he became the queen.Zhaoyi is Dong Zhaoyi, the younger sister of Emperor Ai's favorite male Dong Xian.

Dong Xian served as the crown prince Sheren in the last years of Emperor Cheng. After Emperor Ai succeeded to the throne, he was promoted to Lang Guan with the prince's officials. At first, Emperor Ai did not pay attention to him. Later, when Dong Xian was delivering a report to His Royal Highness, Emperor Ai found that he was very beautiful. So he worshiped as Huang Menlang, and he loved him very much ever since. Dong Xian was soon appointed as the son-in-law's captain and servant.When he went out, he was in the same chariot with Emperor Ai, and when he entered, he served on Emperor Ai's side, and often even lay down and stood up with Emperor Ai.Once during a nap, Dong Xian shared the bed with Emperor Ai. Emperor Ai woke up and found that his sleeves were pressed by Dong Xian's body. He wanted to get up but Dong Xian hadn't woken up yet.In contrast, Dong Xian also tried his best to be soft and charming to Emperor Ai.Every time he is on vacation, he refuses to be an official, and stays with Emperor Ai to take care of the medicine.This won Emperor Ai's favor even more.Therefore, he ordered Dong Xian's wife to live with Dong Xian in the palace. At the same time, Dong Xian's sister was named Zhaoyi, Dong Xian's father was moved to the Shaofu, his father-in-law was the master craftsman, and his brother-in-law was the Zhijinwu.Then the general ordered the master to build a villa for Dong Xian under the Beique, and set up a tomb next to the Yiling Mausoleum, and bestowed gold thread jade clothes and treasures from the arsenal forbidden soldiers and monks.Later, Emperor Ai issued an edict to make Dong Xian the Marquis of Gao'an on the pretext that Queen Dongping practiced witchcraft and Dong Xian had reported it.Soon, another 2,000 households were sealed off, but Prime Minister Wang Jia objected and ordered suicide.In September of the first year of Yuanshou, in order to respect Dong Xian, the chief minister Martin Ming was dismissed and Dong Xian was replaced.

Emperor Ai favored Dong Xian because of unspeakable difficulties.At that time, the Western Han Dynasty had fallen into a serious ruling crisis. Although he tried his best to save it, he failed in the end, which made him afraid of the future; in addition, he was sick and could not get close to women, so he had to learn from Dong Xian, a male favorite. Seek comfort.On the other hand, there are many factions in the DPRK and China. Given the dictatorship of the Wang family, he is not at ease with any faction, and only Dong Xian, who has no gangs and is soft and considerate to him, makes him most at ease; at the same time, he respects Dong Xian, Not only can the forces of various factions in the court be suppressed, but also the emperor's power of life and death can be emphasized more.Therefore, his favor for Dong Xian intensified.

However, it is too sad to rely on a male favorite to maintain his rule.It was in such internal and external difficulties that Emperor Ai died of illness in June of the second year of Yuanshou (1 BC).Emperor Ai reigned for 7 years and died at the age of 26.Posthumously named "Emperor Xiaoai", he was buried in Yiling Mausoleum (now northwest of Xianyang, Shaanxi).