Liu Xin, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, is not famous in history, but one of the idioms he left behind is well known, which is "the habit of breaking sleeves". This idiom comes from the Book of Han and the Biography of Dong Xian: "Often lie up with the upper bed." Taste the day and sleep, by the upper sleeve, the upper desire, the virtuous are not aware, do not want to move the sage, but break the sleeve and rise. ”
The Han Emperor has been criticized since ancient times, and his faint-hearted measures during his reign have also earned him a "nickname" of the Emperor of Sorrow.
Liu Xin was the grandson of Emperor Yuan of Han and the son of Liu Kang the Prince of Dingtao. Liu Xin died when he was young, and it was his grandmother Fu Zhaoyi who raised him, and this person would also become a key figure in Liu Xin's ascension to the throne.
Liu Xin's uncle, Emperor Cheng of Han, had no heirs, and his health was getting worse and worse, and it became imperative to select a prince from the clan. At that time, Liu Xingjian, the Prince of Zhongshan, was present, and he became a popular candidate for the crown prince, and the young Liu Xin had no advantage in competing with him. In the fourth year of Yuan Yan (9 BC), Liu Xin and Liu Xing entered the dynasty at the same time, and whoever became the crown prince of the two people depended on how the powerful ministers in the dynasty chose.
At the critical moment, Fu Zhaoyi took out his family foundation and bribed Zhao Zhaoyi and Emperor Hancheng's uncle Wang Gen with a large number of treasures, asking them to recommend Liu Xin to the emperor and make Liu Xin crown prince. Compared with the deep-rooted Zhongshan Filial King, Zhao Zhaoyi and Wang Gen favored the young Liu Xin, after all, it was better to add flowers than to send charcoal in the snow. Therefore, the two people praised Liu Xin in front of Emperor Hancheng, and when Emperor Hancheng heard about it, he summoned Liu Xin into the palace, and after meeting him a few times, he also felt that Liu Xin was very good, so in the first year of Suihe (8 years BC), Liu Xin was made crown prince.
The following year, Emperor Cheng of Han died of illness, and liu Xin, nineteen years old, succeeded to the throne. After Liu Xin took the throne, he began drastic reforms. Politically, Liu Xin replaced Wang Mang with the left general Shi Dan as the Grand Sima and assisted the imperial government. Shi Dan proposed to Liu Xin to limit the number of slaves in the fields, and Liu Xin approved it.
After deliberation, Liu Xin issued a strict edict restricting the fields and restricting slaves, and the fields of the princes, princes, princesses, and officials should not exceed thirty hectares, the slaves of the princes should be limited to two hundred, the princes and princesses should be limited to one hundred, and the merchants should not occupy land. Regardless of whether it is a prince or a princess, as long as the limit is exceeded, the field slaves will be confiscated.
The starting point of this decree was to crack down on the increasingly serious land annexation in the late Western Han Dynasty and alleviate social contradictions, which was consistent with the fundamental purpose of the later Wang Mang's reform system. However, this edict was not strictly observed from the beginning of its promulgation, and on the one hand, the landlord class represented by the foreign relatives of the Ding and Fu families resolutely opposed the edict, and on the other hand, the proposer of the edict, Liu Xin, himself blatantly violated the edict.
Liu Xin gave his favorite minister Dong Xian two thousand hectares of land at one time, which was seventy times the maximum amount of land. Even the emperor did not strictly obey it, and how could the landlords below obey it, so the order to limit the land and slaves became a blank piece of paper.
Speaking of Dong Xian, he is also the protagonist of the habit of breaking sleeves. Dong Xian has no strengths and comes from an ordinary background, but his appearance is white and beautiful, like a woman, and he is deeply loved by Liu Xin. To say that Liu Xin is an emperor, he can't find any woman in the harem, but he only loves Dong Xian deeply, and the two people are like glue, inseparable.
Liu Xin was also not afraid of other people gossiping, he slept with Dong Xian in the palace every day, in order to facilitate Dong Xian to live here, Liu Xin also took Dong Xian's wife to the palace, and named Dong Xian's sister Zhaoyi, second only to the empress. Later, Liu Xin even made Dong Xian the Grand Sima and ranked third duke, and all the hundred officials had to go through Dong Xian to play. This was not enough, Liu Xin once got drunk and said that he would emulate Yao Shun and cede the throne to Dong Xian.
An emperor who took the lead in destroying his own decrees, favored a male favorite, and even wanted to give up the throne to him, so naturally he could not be called a Ming Emperor. Moreover, Liu Xin died of a sudden illness after only seven years on the throne, and it is recorded that he died of excessive indulgence, and some said that he died of an overdose of aphrodisiacs. In any case, this short-lived emperor received extremely poor evaluation from his descendants, and he was given the title of "filial piety" and became one of the responsible persons for the fall of the Western Han Dynasty.
But is Liu Xin really just a pathless emperor?
It is not necessarily true that Liu Xin destroyed his own government decrees for the sake of male favor Dong Xian, and it is true that he favored Dong Xian, but this does not mean that Liu Xin is useless, in fact, during his reign, Wenzhi martial arts were not bad.
The Book of Han records the Han Dynasty under Liu Xin's rule: "The palace, the court, and the treasury of the Zang have been expropriated, and although the people are rich and wealthy than Wen and Jing, the hukou in the world is the most prosperous." ”
Although the national treasury is sufficient and the people are not as rich as the rule of Wenjing, the hukou in the world is the most prosperous in the Western Han Dynasty. The rule of Wenjing is a famous and prosperous era in ancient Chinese history, and even if the rule of Wenjing is a little worse during Liu Xin's reign, such an achievement is by no means something that a faint can achieve.
Moreover, Liu Xin's fiefdom was on the frontier, and wars often broke out, so after he took the throne, he ordered the general Huo Zhao to lead 100,000 troops to conquer the frontier, returned with great victories, and stabilized the border for several years.
An emperor who ruled in a time when the country was strong, the people were rich, the population was strong, and the army was strong, then the emperor was by no means a dimwitted monarch. The Zizhi Tongjian records: "When the Emperor of Mourning first established, he practiced frugality, saved all uses, and made political affairs come from himself, and the imperial court suddenly looked forward to ruling the country." ”
How can an emperor who abolished the Lefu, forbade the county to sacrifice famous beasts, abolished the Renzi Order, and slandered and slandered the law, be a useless emperor?
Liu Xin may not be a perfect Ming Emperor, and compared with the promising emperors in history, such as the Qin Emperor Han Wu and the Tang Emperor Song Zu, he may indeed be inferior, but with his seven years on the throne, he has achieved the achievement of "the most prosperous household registration in the world", which shows that he is not faint. After all, the first thing the Han Emperor did when he ascended to the throne was to depose Wang Mang, and if Wang Mang wanted to usurp Han, he would demean the previous emperor, or he would not appear to be in favor of him. Therefore, whether Liu Xin did anything or not, he must be a dimwitted monarch.
Resources:
Book of Han
Zizhi Tongjian