In the entire history of the Western Han Dynasty, more than half of the more than ten emperors of the old Liu family were Ming monarchs.
Whether it was Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty, or later Emperor Wen of Han and Emperor Jing of Han, or the magnificent Emperor Wudi of Han, they were all famous top Ming monarchs in history. And the remaining emperors who are not Ming Jun are actually not Ming Jun.
For example, Emperor Yuan of Han, although he is not a Ming Jun, he himself is at least a good person. Another example is the last emperors of the Western Han Dynasty, who may not have been in power long enough to solve the country's problems. But at least during their reign, they also tried.
However, among the more than ten emperors of the Western Han Dynasty, there was one person, but he was an exception.
This person is the Hancheng Emperor Liu Xiao.
Compared with the previous emperors of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Hancheng should be the only emperor who is a certainty! A few other slightly inferior emperors, perhaps there is room for whitewashing. Only Emperor Hancheng, without any room for whitewashing, is completely a standard template for a comatose monarch!
Moreover, for the demise of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Chengdi of Han had to bear the main responsibility. It can even be said that as long as we understand the history of the era of Emperor Chengdi of Han, we can understand how the Western Han Dynasty did not have it!
Regarding the story of the era of Emperor Hancheng, we have to start with Emperor Hancheng himself.
In fact, the birth of Emperor Liu Xiao of Hancheng was an accident. When his father was a prince, he used to like a girl surnamed Sima. Then one day, this Sima girl died, and his father was very sad. In order to keep his father from being sad, his grandfather, Emperor Xuan of Han, sent a few palace maids and let his father pick at will.
And at that time, Emperor Hancheng and his father, who had just lost his beloved, were not in the mood to think about these things, so he casually pointed to one in it. At that time, his father did not know who he was referring to, or the person below, guessing that the person he was referring to might be the girl closest to him, so he left this girl behind.
Then, because it was Emperor Xuan of Han's order, his father could only be lucky with this woman who was sent to the door. And after this night, the woman became pregnant. After that, Liu Xiao was born.
Therefore, Liu Xiao's birth was really an accident.
Even more coincidentally, just over two years after he was born, his grandfather Emperor Xuan of Han passed away, and then his father took over. Because he is the eldest son, and when his father took the throne, it seems that there was only one son like him. So then, according to the convention, he naturally became the crown prince.
In this way, when Liu Xiao was very young, the position of prince fell to his head out of thin air.
However, although the process of Liu Xiao getting the position of crown prince was very smooth, his position has not been stable. This is actually very understandable, after all, his origin was originally an accident, and his father didn't like his mother. So after his father sat on the throne, he already wanted to change him.
In this regard, Liu Xiao's mother was also afraid at that time, and he couldn't help much.
Liu Xiao's mother is the king who played an important role in the late history of the Western Han Dynasty. Although in the later history, the Wang family directly determined the historical trend of the Han Dynasty. But at this time, the Wang family was actually an ordinary foreign family. Moreover, because Emperor Han Yuan did not like Wang Zhengjun, the Wang family actually did not have much ability at that time, and they could not protect Liu Xiao at all.
At the critical moment, he still had a wit and found a heavyweight to help. This man's name is Stan.
In the late Han Dynasty, the Shijia family was a very special family. At that time, Emperor Xuan of Han's grandmother was born in a historian. But the problem is that because of the scourge of witchcraft during the period of Emperor Wudi of Han, Emperor Xuan of Han's grandmother did not become an empress. Therefore, it was not until Emperor Xuan of Han ascended the throne that historians were truly developed.
Moreover, because Emperor Xuan of Han's experience was relatively special, during his reign, he paid more attention to his grandmother's family, his mother's family, and the family of his original empress Xu Pingjun. Therefore, in the era of Emperor Xuan of Han, three foreign families were directly left, and the Shijia was one of them.
In addition, before Emperor Yuan of Han died, he also asked Shi Gao of the Shi family to assist his son Emperor Yuan of Han. After the era of Emperor Yuan of Han, historians also knew the way to advance and retreat. After assisting Emperor Yuan of Han to secure the throne, Shi Gao immediately applied for retirement. This undoubtedly made Emperor Han Yuan have a little more favorable impression of the historians.
Therefore, in the later period of the reign of Emperor Yuan of Han, historians became the most important power base of Emperor Yuan of Han. After Scott chose to retire, the representative of the Shi family became his son Stan. It can be said that at this time, what Shi Dan represented was not only the Shijia family, but also part of the power base of Emperor Yuan of Han.
Therefore, when Liu Wei received the support of Shi Stan, his position as crown prince was truly guaranteed. According to historical records, on one occasion, Emperor Yuan of Han's younger brother died, and Liu Xiao went to attend the funeral of his little uncle. As a result, at the funeral, Liu Wei did not show enough sadness, and Emperor Yuan of Han wanted to depose him.
At the critical moment, it was still Shi Dan who stood up and explained for Liu Xiao, saying that Liu Wei was to make Emperor Han Yuan not sad, so he pretended not to be sad, which dispelled Emperor Han Yuan's mind to depose the prince.
For example, later, before the death of Emperor Yuan of Han, Wang Zhengjun, who was the empress, was not qualified to serve next to him because he was not favored. On the contrary, it was another favorite concubine of Emperor Han Yuan, with her son, who served by Emperor Han Yuan every day. In this case, it is actually very easy to happen that Emperor Han Yuan suddenly died, and then the favored concubine tampered with the edict and installed the crown prince.
And this time, it was Shi Tan, as a favored courtier, who came to Emperor Han Yuan's side and cried to Emperor Han Yuan about the difficulty of the prince. In the end, it was at Shi Tan's request that Emperor Yuan of Han gave a clear explanation, confirming that he would never depose the prince.
In addition, Liu Xiao later married a woman from the Xu family as a full wife. This Xu family refers to the family of Xu Pingjun, the empress of Emperor Xuan of Han. In the era of Emperor Yuan of Han, the Xu family was also the most important foreign family. And after Liu Xiao married the woman of the Xu family, the Xu family naturally began to support Liu Xiao.
At the same time, under the arrangement of Wang Zhengjun, Liu Xiao also received the support of Emperor Xuandi's mother family, another royal family. At that time, Wang Shang, the leader of this Wang family, openly sided with Liu Xiao and died to protect the prince.
In this way, under the escort of the four major foreign families, Liu Xiao spent his career as a prince without risk. Because the four major foreign Qi families all supported Liu Xiao, Emperor Han Yuan could not move the prince. Then, in 33 BC, Emperor Yuan of Han died, and then Liu Xiao, who was only 19 years old, officially ascended the throne.
But what no one expected was that from this year, Liu Xiao would use 26 years to completely collapse the Han Dynasty!
Objectively speaking, Liu Xiao's ability is actually not weak. Although he was only nineteen years old when he ascended the throne, his political skills were very powerful.
At the beginning of his accession to the throne, the situation in the court was actually not too optimistic. Because of the perennial inaction of Emperor Yuan of Han before, at this time, in the court of the Han Dynasty, eunuchs united several foreign families and some officials of the Confucian school to control the imperial government. In this state, although Liu Xiao was an emperor, he did not have much power in his hands.
But after Liu Xiao ascended the throne, it only took a few rounds to easily put down all the forces.
The political struggle after Emperor Hancheng ascended the throne was actually a very exciting and complex struggle. To put it simply, the situation at that time was probably like this: when Emperor Hancheng first ascended the throne, the eunuch group united foreign Qi and Confucian officials to control the imperial government.
At the time of the first round, Emperor Hancheng showed his distrust of the eunuchs. He first took Shi Xian, the boss of the eunuchs, to rise and descend, depriving Shi Xian of his real power. Then instigated several other forces to besiege the eunuch group.
At the instigation of Emperor Hancheng, soon the eunuch group was besieged and beaten. In this process, the hardest work was precisely the team of Confucian officials who had the closest relationship with the eunuch group before. At that time, the one who took the initiative to impeach the eunuch was Kuang Heng, the prime minister of the dynasty.
After a round of siege, Shi Xian, the boss of the eunuch group, who had previously controlled the imperial government for more than ten years, could only choose to retire, and finally died inexplicably on the way back to his hometown.
After the fall of the eunuch clique, in the second round, Emperor Hancheng disposed of Kuang Heng on the grounds of corruption. After Kuang Heng stepped down, Emperor Hancheng threw a series of combined punches, degrading or transferring several middle figures from the original Confucian official group. In short, after this set of combined fists, the group of Confucian officials who originally controlled the foreign dynasty also stopped.
After the foreign qi and officials stopped, the next step, Emperor Hancheng began to solve the foreign qi problem again. Compared with eunuchs and Confucian officials, foreign relatives are obviously more difficult to deal with, because they are all their own relatives. When Emperor Hancheng first ascended the throne, the foreign families of the Han Dynasty could be roughly divided into four families.
These four major families are the grandmother's family of Emperor Han Xuan, the Wang family of Emperor Han Xuan's mother, the Xu family of Emperor Han Xuan's daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law family of Emperor Han Yuan, or the Wang family of Emperor Hancheng's mother.
These four major families are all foreign relatives left over from the previous dynasty, and there are two royal families in them. For these four major families, next, Emperor Hancheng played another set of combination punches.
He chose to support the Wang family behind his own mother and suppress the other three foreign families.
In the third round of suppression, Emperor Hancheng first attacked the historians. Although Shijia had previously supported his accession to the throne, by this time, he could not let Shijia take power. In the process of targeting historians, Emperor Hancheng transferred all the historians' people to unimportant posts, directly depriving historians of their real power.
And the historians' side are also more knowledgeable. After seeing that Emperor Hancheng wanted to suppress the historians, he directly gave up all resistance and began to enjoy prosperity. After Emperor Hancheng saw that the historian was so knowledgeable, he gradually stopped suppressing and began to gradually reward the historian in large quantities, using money to compensate for the historian's withdrawal.
After the Shi family withdrew, in the next fourth round, Emperor Hancheng began to target the Xu family again. In the fourth round, Emperor Hancheng reused his uncle Wang Feng, and then forced his father-in-law Xu Jia to retire. This history is also very complicated. In short, in the end, with the retirement of Emperor Hancheng's father-in-law, the Xu family also stopped.
After the Xu family stopped, after the final fifth round, Emperor Hancheng began to target the only remaining Wang family. However, this Wang family is not Emperor Hancheng's mother's family, but his grandmother's family.
In order for Liu Xiao to ascend to the throne before, this Wang family also made a lot of efforts. Especially Wang Shang, the head of the family, had openly sided with Liu Xiao before.
But now, when Emperor Hancheng wanted to take power alone, they were also an obstacle. After Kuang Heng was impeached and removed from power, Wang Shang once succeeded Kuang Heng and became the new Han Dynasty prime minister. However, a few years later, Wang Shang was framed by Emperor Hancheng's uncle, and finally directly removed from office on the spot, and then vomited blood to death.
After Wang Shang's death, all the children of the Wang family behind him were deposed, and this Wang family completely declined.
In this way, after a series of blows, in the end, Emperor Hancheng supported his mother's family, suppressed all other forces, and completely completed the power reshuffle.
This series of operations, just to explain, is very difficult. It can be imagined how powerful Emperor Hancheng was when he actually carried out the actual operation! At the beginning of his accession to the throne, several foreign families, united with eunuchs and officials, almost emptied him. But just a few years later, he wiped out all the forces.
The most important thing is that during the whole process, the Han Dynasty did not have any large-scale chaos.
Such a Hancheng Emperor is not inferior to his ancestors in the slightest, and even surpasses.
It stands to reason that Emperor Hancheng, who has such a strong ability, is fully capable of being a good emperor after taking power alone. Although the Han Dynasty had reached the late dynasty at that time, as long as Emperor Hancheng worked hard and extended the state for the Han Dynasty for several decades, it could actually be done.
But the problem is that after Emperor Hancheng took sole power, he did not pay much attention to the country. Instead, he began to gradually indulge in pleasure and let go of himself.
So next, the most absurd era in the history of the Han Dynasty gradually came.
Over the next twenty years, Emperor Hancheng mainly did the following.
The first thing is called indulging in the harem, indulging in pleasure.
As an emperor, it would have been a normal thing to have a few more women in the harem. Even those Ming monarchs in history, the vast majority have more than one daughter-in-law. Under the ancient system, if the emperor really had only one daughter-in-law, it was different.
And when it comes to Emperor Hancheng, it is not unusual for him to have a few concubines in his harem. But the problem is, he played too much!
Before Emperor Hancheng ascended the throne, he married a woman from the Xu family as his wife. For this right wife, Emperor Hancheng was once extremely favored, even to the extent of 'exclusive favor'. From this matter, Emperor Hancheng was actually a dedicated representative.
But at the same time, in addition to loving this Empress Xu, he also liked a eunuch named 'Zhang Fang'. According to historical records, Emperor Hancheng often got up with this eunuch. And this feeling, later, made Emperor Hancheng gradually lose his fertility, resulting in him dying without descendants.
For an emperor, without descendants, this is really a big deal! Because this really means that no one inherits his family's throne! Once this situation arises, the next thing around the ownership of the imperial throne will definitely be chaotic.
In the later years of Emperor Hancheng's reign, as that Empress Xu grew older, Emperor Hancheng later fell in love with Ban Jieyu and the sisters of the Zhao family. Especially among them, Zhao Feiyan has become a famous 'pot man' in history. When many people in later generations mention Zhao Feiyan, they will think that she is a figure like 'Daji'.
But in fact, this is actually the later ruling class throwing the pot. The demise of the Western Han Dynasty was certainly not Zhao Feiyan's fault. However, to say that Zhao Feiyan has no problems at all, it seems not very objective. At least, after the Zhao sisters were favored, they made a mess of Emperor Hancheng's harem. And because they love beauty, they use a 'polymuscle pill' medicine every day, which led to the complete extinction of Emperor Hancheng.
Of course, which concubine to favor, or pamper the eunuch, this can only be said to be a private matter of Emperor Hancheng. In history, the Ming Jun who has done these things is actually not for nothing. So these problems, in fact, are not really problems.
The real problem is actually economic.
Emperor Hancheng was a very strange emperor, and in the economic field, he liked to be 'stricter than the lawyer and lenient to himself'. Because of his greed for pleasure, Emperor Hancheng actually spent his own money quite ruthlessly, and all kinds of projects for enjoyment were not less. But at the same time, Emperor Hancheng also ordered that luxury be banned! Let the people below spend less!
It would be strange if it could be done! And the people below saw that the emperor could spend money so much, and naturally it was effective upward and downward, and corruption became the trend. This caused the state apparatus of the Western Han Dynasty to gradually collapse.
The second thing that Emperor Hancheng did was to let the Wang family take power.
Because after Emperor Hancheng came to the throne, most of his time was spent enjoying life. He is definitely unwilling to do those jobs in the DPRK, so naturally he has to hand over to others to act as an agent. And in this way, he definitely couldn't believe others, and finally chose relatives on his mother's side.
In this way, in the era of Emperor Chengdi of Han, the old royal family quickly took power. This laid the foundation for Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty later.
The third thing is to allow land acquisition.
Throughout the Western Han Dynasty, from the founding of the Han Dynasty to the era of Emperor Xuan of Han, the Han Dynasty actually did a better job in curbing land annexation. First, the founding time before the arrival of the country was relatively short, and the land annexation was not so serious. Several Han emperors before the second came also introduced various policies to restrict land acquisition.
But later, in the era of Emperor Yuan of Han, Emperor Yuan of Han directly abolished many policies restricting land annexation. For example, under the original mausoleum system, after the rich reached a certain level, they had to move to the Guanzhong region to give the emperor the leader. Then the vacated land was bought by the imperial court, and then given to the common people below.
For example, the Western Han government also controlled a lot of state-owned land, and when necessary, leased it to the common people below to cultivate. These means have greatly inhibited land annexation and allowed the people below to have a way to live.
But by the time of Emperor Yuan of Han, these policies were either gone out of shape or abolished.
In the era of Emperor Hancheng, Emperor Hancheng further relaxed various restrictions. Or rather, he doesn't care about these things at all! Anyway, whether the common people have land or not does not affect his enjoyment in the harem at all, so he basically does not care about these things.
In this way, the issue of land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty could not be contained at all. Therefore, in the late reign of Emperor Chengdi of Han, small-scale peasant uprisings began to appear in the Han Dynasty, and there were already signs of chaos in the world.
If Emperor Hancheng was not a dim monarch, but he was interested in the country, at this time, he should push for various land policies and restrict land annexation.
But unfortunately, Emperor Hancheng did not care about these things at all.
Of course, in addition to these bad things, the good things were actually done by Emperor Hancheng. For example, the Suihe reform was carried out, and the originally unbalanced three dukes were gradually promoted to equal status. Another example is the use of various means to strengthen imperial power, reduce taxes and conscription. Maintain the control of the Han Dynasty over the Western Regions, the Xiongnu and the Southwest Yi, collect and organize national books and documents...
But these things can only be said to be imperial means, not the foundation of governing the country.
Probably in the eyes of Emperor Hancheng, if an emperor wants to sit on the throne, it is enough to ensure the balance of power at the top, ensure his authority, and then try to reduce taxes below. He did not touch any of the fundamental issues related to people's livelihood, such as land annexation or corruption among officials, and allowed them to develop freely.
To sum up, Emperor Hancheng was actually an emperor who had a bit of imperial means, but did not think about the country. He likes to keep messing around with a mixed attitude. And as an emperor, when he wants to mess around and not take on the responsibilities of his generation, it is an original sin in itself.
Therefore, Emperor Chengdi of Han reigned for 26 years, during which time the Han Dynasty began to collapse completely. The state apparatus completely failed, peasant uprisings began to break out at the bottom, and the common people gradually reached the point where they could not survive. Although he had many imperial means, these means could not feed the common people.
At the same time, Emperor Hancheng also allowed the foreign Qi royal family to become bigger. Because I played too much, I was dead. Together, these two events directly led to the chaos of high-level politics at the end of the Western Han Dynasty.
If Emperor Chengdi of Han had been a Ming monarch, during his reign as emperor, he would have carried out timely reforms and curbed land annexation, and the Western Han might have extended his reign for another few decades. But after such a toss, the regime of the Western Han Dynasty has been completely helpless. The entire Western Han Dynasty has begun to rush all the way downhill.
At this time, even if Liu Bang is allowed to live again, he will not be able to save the Han Dynasty.