After the death of Liu Bang, the emperor of Han Gaozu, the crown prince Liu Ying succeeded to the throne as Emperor Hui of Han. However, Emperor Hui of Han was weak, and empress dowager Lü Yan began a fifteen-year reign of dynastic rule. During this time, she made her foreign relative Zhu Lü the Marquis or even a king, creating a precedent for foreign relatives in the Han Dynasty to interfere in politics, which violated Gao Zu's "White Horse Alliance Oath" of "not the King of the Liu Clan, the Whole World Strikes Together", thus plunging the Han Dynasty into turmoil for a time. Although the Han Dynasty regime eventually returned to the hands of the Liu clan, the Zhulu Rebellion made the emperors of the early Han Dynasty jealous, and the Guoshi Jun (Guoshi General Theory) believed that they had taken at least the following three protective measures to avoid the supreme power from falling into the hands of foreign relatives again:
The first protection: from the root cause to prevent concubines from gaining "power" because of "potential", the result is that the mother is more expensive than the son instead of the mother
In feudal society, the royal family mostly married with important civil and military ministers in the imperial court, this phenomenon was especially common in the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui and Tang Dynasties that focused on the door valve system, and the marriage between the royal family and the magnates allowed the uppermost layer of the ruling class to form a relationship network of "one glory and one loss", so the chance of the daughter of the magnate becoming an empress (or empress) would be greater, which is "the son is noble to the mother". In the early Han Dynasty, there was also a phenomenon of marriage between the royal family and the magnates, such as Fan Huan marrying Lü Yan's sister Lü Yan, Emperor Hui of Han taking The daughter of Princess Lu Yuan as empress, Princess Lu Yuan marrying Zhang Er the King of Zhao, and there were also lü daughters who married the princes of the Liu clan (such as Liu Hui the King of Zhao and Liu You the King of Zhao) and so on. However, in the early Han Dynasty, there was a widespread phenomenon of "mother is precious to son", and there were many empresses or empresses from the people, who only had a significant status improvement after their sons became emperors, such as:
1. Empress Bo, the biological mother of Emperor Wen of Han, was once the concubine of The Wei King Leopard during the Chu-Han War, and after the Wei King Leopard was conquered by Liu Bang, Bo Ji was immediately filled into the "weaving room" of the King of Han, responsible for weaving, embroidery and other work, and her identity was a slave.
2. Empress Dou, the biological mother of emperor Jing of Han, became empress dowager Lü's maid as a "good son", and judging from the experience of her two biological brothers being trafficked, Empress Dou's family situation in her early years was very poor (Empress Dou's brother Dou Changjun, brother Dou Guangguo, zi Shaojun. When the young man was four or five years old, his family was poor, and he was slightly sold by others, and his home was unknown).)
3. Empress Wang, the biological mother of Emperor Wu of Han, was first married to the commoner King Sun of Jin, and later divorced The Prince of Jin under the forced interference of her mother and entered the imperial palace, this prince was the later Emperor Jing of Han, and the son born to Lady Wang and Emperor Jing of Han was the later Emperor Wu of Han.
4. Wei Zifu, the second empress of Emperor Wu of Han, also had no prominent background, and she was once the elder sister of Emperor Wu of Han's elder sister Princess Pingyang. Another lady of Emperor Wu of Han, Lady Hook Yi, was also a daughter of a people, and her son Liu Fuling was eventually selected by Emperor Wu of Han as the heir to the throne, which was the later Emperor Zhao of Han.
From the above examples, we can see that the birth mothers of Emperor Wen of Han, Emperor Jing of Han, Emperor Wu of Han, and Emperor Zhao of Han all came from ordinary families, and the only reasonable explanation for this amazing coincidence is that after the dictatorship of Lü Hou, the emperors (or ministers) of the Han Dynasty deliberately chose their mothers to be noble in order to prevent the foreign relatives from being too strong, rather than the sons of later generations to be noble to their mothers. Avoiding marriage to the powerful is an effective means to this end.
In addition to the birth of the crown prince's birth mother, personal character is also one of the criteria for judging whether she can become the empress dowager, for example, there is such a passage in the "History of Empress Lü Benji":
Now the Qi Queen Mother's house is a donkey, a donkey, and a wicked person. That is, the King of Liqi, he was restored to the Lü clan. If you want to establish the king of Huainan, you think that there are few, and your mother's family is evil... Acting King Fang is now Emperor Gao's son, the longest, and the benevolent and generous. Empress Dowager Bo's family is meticulous. And standing long and obedient, with benevolence and filial piety in the world, poop.
After the pacification of Zhu Lü, the ministers excluded Liu Xiang the Prince of Qi and Liu Chang the Prince of Huainan because of their personality as empress dowager, and Liu Heng, the acting king, became the emperor supported by the ministers because of his mother Empress Bo's "Jingliang", and its main purpose (at least the public purpose) was to avoid the recurrence of the phenomenon of "evil outside the Lü family and several dangerous temples" in the Han Dynasty.
The second protection: to prevent foreign relatives from getting too much power
In order to increase his family power, Lü Yan first made his nephew Lü Tai the Marquis of Li the Prince of Lü, and then "made Lü Yan the Marquis of Linguang, Lü He the Marquis of Yu, Lü Qihou the Marquis of Yu, Lü Qihou the Marquis of Lücheng, and the Five Princes of Qi", and then made Lü Lu the Prince of Zhao, Lü Chan the King of Liang, etc. In addition to being crowned king and marquis, the main reason why Zhu Lü was able to call the wind and rain was because they controlled the military power of the capital (Lü Lu and Lü Chan were in charge of the southern and northern armies of the forbidden army).
After Lü Hou, her relatives were at most given the title of marquis, and even if most concubines were favored, her relatives might not be used. For example, empress Dou only "gave money to the field house" after finding her two brothers, while Zhou Bo, Dou Bao, and others believed that "the two of them had to choose a master and guest, and then repeat the lü clan's major events", so "Dou Changjun, shaojun was thus a gentleman who gave in and did not dare to be proud of his honor", which shows the sensitivity of the ministers during the Han Wen Emperor's period to obtaining power from foreign relatives.
After Lü Hou, no foreign relatives were crowned kings again, and the title before Wang Mang usurped the throne was only "Duke of An Han". However, in the early years of the Han Dynasty, some foreign relatives were also given the title of Marquis, such as Empress Dou's nephew who was named the Marquis of Wei for his meritorious efforts in quelling the "Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms", Empress Wang's half-brother Tian Yu was made the Marquis of Wu'an, and Tian Sheng was made the Marquis of Zhouyang, so that "(Emperor Jing of Han) made Lady Wang empress, her male son was crown prince, and empress brother Xin was made Gaihou." It seems that in the early years of the Han Dynasty, the threshold for foreign relatives to be knighted was getting lower and lower--just because they were related to the empress by blood, but we should pay attention to the following two points:
(1) The marquis of the Han Dynasty had only the right to collect fief taxation, but was not allowed to interfere in politics;
2. Individual foreign relatives with outstanding abilities, such as Marquis Tian Of Wu'an and Dou Bao, Marquis of Wei, although they were given the posts of Tai wei (太尉) and Minister of Wei (丞相) and had great power, their fate was always in the hands of the emperor—in the end, they themselves or their descendants were killed or expelled for their crimes.
The third level of protection: take extreme measures
As Cao Pi said: "The family of the uncle, but when the parenting is benevolent and not the right to borrow power, both violates the law and has to harm", although some foreign relatives are appointed as high-ranking officials, their fate is in the hands of the emperor, if the emperor finds that they have arrogant situations or tendencies, they will inflict a ruthless blow on them, such as the following two typical examples:
1. Emperor Wen of Han forced his uncle Bo Zhao to commit suicide to affirm the edict and at the same time beat up foreign forces.
Bo Zhao made meritorious contributions while assisting Emperor Wen in his ascension to the throne, and because of his status as a foreign relative, he was appointed as a cheqi general and given the title of Marquis of Xuan. However, he was pampered and proud, and the Zizhi Tongjian records that "in the tenth year of Emperor Taizong (170 BC)... General Bo Zhao killed the Han emissaries". Emperor Wen of Han was certainly very angry at Bo Zhao's contempt for wang fa, but Bo Zhao was his only uncle, and Empress Bo was still alive, so it was really inconvenient to publicly imprison him and execute him. So Emperor Wen of Han ordered his ministers to invite Bo Zhao to a banquet, and let them reveal at the wine table that the emperor wanted Bo Zhao to commit suicide. Bo Zhao was so angry when he found out that he refused to go to the banquet in protest. Seeing that his uncle refused to commit suicide, Emperor Wen of Han "made the group of courtiers mourn and weep", in which case Bo Zhao had to cut himself off.
2. Emperor Wu of han gave the death of Lady Hook Yi in order to avoid the "lord and young mother".
When Emperor Wu of Han chose to pass the throne to the young Liu Fuling on his deathbed, he killed his mother Lady Hook Ge in order to avoid foreign relatives interfering in politics, explaining to his ministers: "In the ancient country, it was chaotic, and the lord and the young mother Zhuang ye. The female protagonist lives alone and arrogant, sexually promiscuous, and cannot be forbidden. Don't women hear about Lü Hou evil? This is what the hereafter called the son who kills the mother. This practice is very cruel, but it also simply and effectively eliminates the hidden danger of foreign relatives interfering in politics, and there is even a record in the "History of foreign relatives' families": "Those who give birth to children for Emperor Wu, no man or woman, and their mothers are all condemned to death. Clear foresight, for the sake of future generations, is not beyond the reach of ignorance and ignorance."
The above three protections were indeed quite effective in preventing the dictatorship of foreign relatives, but the Han Emperor's defense against foreign relatives did not last long - Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty designated foreign relative Huo Guang as one of the auxiliary ministers on his deathbed, which caused another tragedy (for details, please continue to pay attention to the next article - the contest between the Western Han imperial family and the Wei Huo forces lasted for half a century), and the later emperors' sensitivity to preventing the monopoly of foreign relatives was reduced again, which eventually led to the usurpation of the Great Han Dynasty by the foreign relative Wang Mang.