In 25 AD, Liu Xiu was proclaimed emperor in Luoyang, and another great unified empire in Chinese history, the Eastern Han Dynasty, was born after the Qin Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty.
Liu Xiu ascended the throne as empress, learned the lessons of the demise of the Western Han Dynasty, and worked hard to govern, and the Eastern Han Dynasty soon entered a prosperous period. Liu Xiu learned many lessons from the fall of the Western Han Empire, but one of the most important lessons was the monopoly of foreign relatives. Because the important reason for the demise of the Western Han Empire was that the emperor did not restrict the monopoly of foreign relatives, resulting in the Western Han Dynasty being usurped by foreign relatives Wang Mang. In order to prevent the Eastern Han regime from repeating the mistakes of "Wang Mang's usurpation of the throne" in the late Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu, and Liu Zhuang, the Emperor of Hanming, severely suppressed the monopoly of foreign relatives.
However, the efforts of Emperor Guangwu of Han and Emperor Ming of Han were in vain in the late Eastern Han Dynasty—the dictatorship of eunuchs and the dictatorship of foreign relatives became the "scourge of the country" in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
Above_ Han Gaozu Liu Bang (256 BC – 195 BC)
First, the difference in the "foundation for the founding of the country" between the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty determined that the Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty could not fundamentally curb the dictatorship of foreign relatives.
Speaking of the monopoly of foreign relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty, we have to mention the difference in the "founding foundation" of the two dynasties of the Western Han And Eastern Han Dynasties.
In 202 BC, Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao, established the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Bang himself was a commoner, and became the founding emperor of the Western Han Dynasty through his own "fighting in The Jiangshan", and Liu Bang's own staff and assistants, such as Han Xin and Zhang Liang, were mostly from the people. After the establishment of the Western Han Empire, although Han Xin, Zhang Liang and others became the founding heroes, and their own status and wealth were very different from those of the commoners, the founding heroes of the Western Han Dynasty themselves were not generations of hereditary aristocrats and powerful, naturally unable to embezzle the national wealth, nor could they pose a fatal threat to the imperial power of Liu Bang, the ancestor of Han Gao.
After Liu Bang, other emperors of the Han Dynasty—Emperor Wen of Han, Emperor Jing of Han, Emperor Wu of Han, Emperor Xuan of Han, and other emperors—were able to take different approaches to maintaining imperial power and curbing the monopoly of foreign relations. For example, although Huo Guang's foreign forces had single-handedly covered the sky in the early days of Emperor Han Zhao and Emperor Xuan of Han, and Huo Guang himself held great power in the country, Emperor Xuan of Han was still able to regain imperial power through his own efforts and eliminate the case of rebellion by huo Guang's clique after Huo Guang's death.
Above: Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty (15 January 5 BC – 29 March 57 BC), courtesy name Wenshu
The founding foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty was completely different from that of the Western Han Dynasty, which was a brand new dynasty established on the "ruins" of the Qin Dynasty by the commoner class. The Eastern Han Dynasty was a dynasty established by Liu Xiu on the Central Plains landlord Haoqiang, and Liu Xiu himself was born in the Central Plains. Due to the excessive power of the powerful landlords, the control of the manor economy and the economy of the country, and the formation of restrictions on imperial power, Liu Xiu was never able to pose a threat to haoqiang. In order to win over Haoqiang to support Liu Xiu's Eastern Han imperial family, the eastern Han imperial family also formed a political marriage with haoqiang landlord gate valves, such as Yin Lihua, the empress of Emperor Guangwu of Han, who was a proud empress.
The restriction of local tyrants on the imperial family and the marriage with the imperial family had a direct impact on the emperor's suppression of the monopoly of foreign relatives: although emperors of Han Guangwu and Emperor Hanming severely cracked down on and curbed the monopoly of foreign relatives out of the need to consolidate imperial power and maintain their own rule, due to the special relationship between local powerful and powerful people and the imperial family, Emperor Han Guangwu and Emperor Hanming were unable to solve the problem of foreign relations' monopoly from a deeper level. However, Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty successfully suppressed the impact of the WeiQing-Huo-Wei Zifu family on the imperial power of Emperor Wu of Han, and Emperor Xuan of Han also swept away the Huo Guang clique's rebellion.
Above_ Emperor Xuan of Han (91 BC – January 10, 48 BC), formerly known as Liu Yiji (劉病已), was a Chinese poet
Second, the Dou family, a foreign relative of the Eastern Han Dynasty, made meritorious contributions to the country and laid the groundwork for the Eastern Han Dynasty foreign forces to interfere in politics.
Emperor Ming of Han was the second great monarch of the Eastern Han Empire after Emperor Guangwu of Han, and during his reign he advocated Confucianism to govern the country, curbed foreign interference in government, alleviated servitude and rectified corruption, and governed the country in a remarkable way. In order to protect the security of the territory of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Emperor Ming of Han sent the general Dou Gu to lead the army to take the initiative to attack, defeated the Northern Xiongnu Huyan King in the Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang, pursued and killed the Xiongnu army to Barikun Lake, seized the area around Hami, and left the general Tun reclamation.
In 74 AD, Emperor Ming of Han sent Dou Gu, as well as Geng Bing, Liu Zhang, and others to lead more than 14,000 Han troops to wage fierce battles with the Xiongnu in the western region. After fierce fighting, the Han army severely damaged the Xiongnu, and the Cheshi state surrendered to the Eastern Han government.
Above_ Dou Gu (?) ~88 years), the character Mengsun
Dou Gu made meritorious contributions to the construction of the country, and the crown prince of Emperor Ming of Han, later the empress dou of Han Zhangdi, and Dou's inherent kinship, Dou Gu was reused during the Han Zhangdi period, and Dou Gu's reuse also objectively consolidated the stability of Empress Dou's position. Emperor Zhangdi of Han always favored Empress Dou. After Emperor Han and Emperor ascended the throne, Empress Dou interfered with Emperor Han and Emperor as empress dowager.
In addition to Dou Gu's contribution to the Han Empire, there was another person in the Dou family who also made meritorious contributions to the Han Empire, and this person was Dou Xian. Due to Empress Dowager Dou's reign, Dou Xian's position was rapidly promoted.
In 89 AD, Dou Xian led the Han army to take the initiative to attack the Xiongnu and achieved the brilliant results of Yanran Leshi. In 91 AD, Dou Xian led a large army to defeat the Northern Xiongnu army in the Altai Mountains, and won a complete victory. Because Dou Xiangui was a foreign relative, coupled with his repeated military achievements and high authority, Dou Xian actually had the idea of plotting rebellion. Fortunately, Han and the emperor saw through Dou Xian's plot and eventually forced Dou Xian to commit suicide.
Liu Zhao (79 – February 3, 105), also known as Emperor He of Han, was the fourth emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty
Dou Xian committed suicide, and some members of his family were severely punished by Emperor Han and Emperor He, but the dictatorship of the Dou family in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, especially the dictatorship of Empress Dou, had opened the Pandora's box of foreign relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Coupled with the fact that most of the foreign relatives come from powerful landlord families, the marriage between the imperial family and the powerful is extremely frequent, the imperial power of the Eastern Han Emperor is restricted by the powerful to a certain extent, with the decline in the ruling ability of the Eastern Han Emperor since the Han and the emperor, coupled with the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, some emperors are "baby emperors", the judgment of things lacks basic adaptability, and they have not reigned for long before they died, the Eastern Han imperial family's ability to restrain foreign relatives is getting weaker and weaker, and the monopoly of foreign relatives has become the "scourge of the country" of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Above_ General Liang Ji
How strong were the foreign forces of the Eastern Han Dynasty?
We can find the answer from Liang Ji. His sister was the empress of the Han Shun Emperor. After the death of Emperor Shun of Han, emperor Han Chong, who was only one year old, ascended the throne as emperor. However, Emperor Chong of Han died less than a year after reigning, and Liang Ji supported the 8-year-old Liu Yi to ascend the throne as emperor, as emperor of Han.
Liang Ji flew up and down the court, and Emperor Han was very dissatisfied, accusing Liang Ji of "this is the general of The Emperor of Han Dynasty." Liang Ji was very angry when he heard emperor Han's words, and was afraid that emperor Han would grow up to be like Emperor Xuan of Han to the Huo Guang family, so Liang Ji sent people to poison the food that Emperor Han ate and poisoned Emperor Han to death. The murder of the emperor by foreign relatives - the disaster of foreign relatives in the Eastern Han Dynasty is completely comparable to the disaster of eunuchs in the middle and late Tang Dynasty.
The Han Emperor Liu Wei (138 – 26 July 146), a Liu Continuor
Emperor Han died, and Liang Ji supported Liu Zhi's ascension to the throne as Emperor Huan of Han. During the reign of Emperor Huan of Han, Liang Ji was even more flamboyant, and those who were slightly dissatisfied with Liang Ji would be directly murdered by Liang Ji. The arrogance of Liang Ji as a foreign relative was beyond the reach of Huo Guang, who held great power during the Western Han Dynasty, and Liang Ji's act of openly poisoning the emperor was unprecedented among foreign relatives in the Han Dynasty.
Through Liang Ji's flying and tumbling, we can see that although Emperor Guangwu of Han and Emperor Ming of Han severely cracked down on the dictatorship of foreign forces to a certain extent, due to the huge difference between the founding and ruling foundation of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty, coupled with the fact that the foreign forces of the Eastern Han Dynasty continued to consolidate their own power with military merit, the foreign forces of the Eastern Han Dynasty gradually grew into a scourge that endangered the country.
Author: Zhenguan Correction/Editor: Lilith
Reference: Book of the Later Han Dynasty
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author