In May of the sixth year of the Middle Yuan, Liu Hong, the thirty-two-year-old Han Ling Emperor, died. Liu Hong's body was not yet cold, and a coup d'état was quietly unfolding in front of his spirit.
Xiao Huangmen's military academy lieutenant Jian Shuo, on the grounds that there was some discussion, tricked the general He Jin into the palace, attempted to assassinate He Jin in one fell swoop, and then supported Liu Xie, the king of Chenliu, as emperor. He had a Sima named Pan Yin by his side, who had an old friendship with He Jin. He Jin had just stepped into the palace gate, and Pan Yin warned He Jin with his eyes. Frightened, He Jin quickly turned and fled outside the palace, beating his horse and heading straight to the military camp under his control.
He Jin immediately realized that things were not good, and he immediately made two decisions, one was that he was sick and did not live in the army, and he did not even participate in the funeral of Emperor Hanling; then he immediately sent troops to monitor the official residences of the kings and princes of various counties in Beijing.
Assassination is such a thing, once the grass is startled, the snake will be bitten by the snake. After the failure of the operation, he was full of trepidation, and in order to grab time, he had to ask the Ten Constant Attendants for help:
"The brother of the great general Bingguo is now conspiring with the party members of the world to attack the former emperor and destroy me Cao." However, yi Shuodian forbade soldiers, so he was silent. Now it is advisable to close the cabinet and rush to arrest it. ”
He Jin's target is not only me Jian Shuo, but all of our eunuchs, the only thing he is afraid of now is that I have soldiers in my hands, and you must join me in trying to hunt down and kill He Jin!
As a result, Jian Shuo was very weak, and was betrayed by "his own people" for the second time, and Zhongchang served Guo Sheng and Zhao Zhong, telling He Jin the original version of Jian Shuo's plan. With ten permanent attendants as internal responses, He Jin easily passed the Yellow Gate Order and killed Jian Shuo on the spot.
Don't think it's over, this coup has only begun!
As soon as Jian Shuo died, He Jin immediately annexed the Eighth Lieutenant of Xiyuan controlled by Jian Shuo. One of the most important figures in the Three Kingdoms period, Yuan Shao, appeared on the scene, and he immediately instigated He Jin: Take advantage of your brothers and sisters to take charge of the troops, immediately cut the grass and roots, and kill all the eunuchs!
He Jin had already been moved by Yuan Shao, but unfortunately her sister Empress He did not agree with anything. As a result, on the one hand, Yuan Shao constantly urged He Jin to act quickly, and on the other hand, Empress He resolutely disagreed. At the suggestion of Yuan Shao, who was in a daze, He Jin made a decision to destroy the Eastern Han dynasty by luring Dong Zhuo into the capital and threatening Empress He to kill the eunuchs.
As a result of this incident, the eunuchs who were forced to Liangshan booby-trapped and killed He Jin, and Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, and others washed the palace in blood and slaughtered more than 2,000 eunuchs. Dong Zhuo took advantage of the chaos in the capital and forcibly entered the palace and kidnapped the emperor and the empress. Since then, the regime has fallen into the hands of Dong Zhuo, and the subsequent campaign to seek Dong throughout the country has in fact caused all localities to become warlords and divided forces, and the Eastern Han Empire has entered a state of inversion.
Jian Shuo's plot to kill He Jin was the cause of this earth-shattering change, so why did Jian Shuo murder He Jin? In fact, you really can't blame Jian Shuo, he is carrying out the last will of the Han Ling Emperor before his death: to help the second son Liu Xie ascend the throne!
Emperor Ling of Han had two sons, the eldest son, Liu Xie, was born to Empress He, and the second son, Liu Xie, was born to Wang Meiren. Emperor Hanling thought that the eldest son Liu Wei was frivolous and had no one to honor him, and he always wanted to establish Liu Xie. However, Liu Zhen's uncle He Jin had heavy troops in his hands, and the Han Ling Emperor had scruples in his heart, so he delayed making a decision.
As a result, this delay dragged until he was recruited by Yan Wangye, and he had to pin his wish on the military academy lieutenant Jian Shuo, but unfortunately Jian Shuo was not He Jin's opponent at all.
The Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty has been extinct for several generations, and like the Han Ling Emperor, he gave birth to two sons at once, and the situation of survival is still more than a hundred years ago. For the royal family, it was originally a gratifying and congratulatory thing, why did the Han Ling Emperor take such a big risk and have to abolish Li Shu? Is it really because Liu Wei is frivolous?
In history books, whenever there is a character evaluation that is detached from evidence and has a pure moral sense, in most cases it is unreliable. It is difficult to say whether Liu Wei is really so unbearable, but at least, the Han Ling Emperor's abolition of Concubine Lishu is by no means simple.
As an emperor, before his death, there is only one thing he is most concerned about - the stability of the country behind him! Will Liu Wei's ascension to the throne be unstable? Yes, the Han Ling Emperor had already seen through an essence from his ancestors and his own experience: without getting rid of the control of the rich clan, the emperor would always be a puppet, and the He clan, which had originally placed high hopes, made him completely disappointed!
Since the founding of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the model of dividing the power of the country equally with the emperor by several major meritorious and powerful families is also known as the model of imperial power and the noble family ruling the world together. The establishment of this model is related to the cooperation between the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu and the forces of the heroes, although the Eastern Han Empire was established as a result, but the power of the later emperors was always constrained by the rich warrior clan.
The foreign forces that prevailed in the Eastern Han Dynasty were actually the spokesmen of the noble clan group, and several major families took turns to stand at the peak of imperial power. Since the third emperor, Emperor Zhang of Han, every emperor has ascended the throne at an early age and has fallen into power.
Take emperor HanLing as an example, he ascended the throne at the age of eleven, but the power was completely in the hands of the empress dowager Dou Miao and the general Dou Wu. After dou was exterminated in the "September Xinhai Coup", the Han Ling Emperor was stuffed with an empress dowager, the Song clan. Obviously, this is a new round of control of the imperial power by the magnate group.
The history books say that the song empress was innocently deposed, although it is a fact, but the information revealed behind it is far beyond the scope of the moral trial. From Emperor Hanling's move to depose Empress Song and establish the He clan instead, we can clearly see his urgent mood of trying to get rid of the constraints of the magnate clan.
He Shi was made empress, creating the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and she was the only empress born in the Cold Gate. The profession of Ho's ancestors was that of a butcher, belonging to the category of craftsmen, a farmer, a businessman, and only a little higher than a merchant.
After the Establishment of the He Clan, the Han Ling Emperor immediately focused on promoting the He Jin and He Miao brothers, with the intention of nothing more than borrowing foreign forces to deal with the haomen shi clique.
Please note that although they are all foreign relatives, the foreign relatives of the He family are not the same as the foreign relatives such as the Dou family, the Liang family, the Song family, and the Ma family, and the He family and the haomen group are clearly distinguished, there is no intersection, and there is no interest. Therefore, the Ho clan can become a fan of imperial power.
Of course, this was only a personal political plot of the Han Ling Emperor, who seemed to be a delicate move, but it was easily cracked by the giant group - they quickly infiltrated and pulled He Jin into the sphere of influence of the giant group.
He Jin, although he came from a humble background, had a natural admiration for the shi clique, and during his tenure as a great general, he used a large number of socialites, and even revived the party members who were deposed in the disaster of the party.
Why did He Jin take the initiative to move closer to the Shi Clan Group? Scholars, farmers, industrialists, and merchants, the most respected and the most first-class class in society, who does not yearn? Is the He family a foreign relative today, and will it still be a foreign relative tomorrow? After getting rid of the identity of a foreign relative, do you want to kill pigs again?
Therefore, the peace between foreign relatives and the shi clique was almost the only way, and the Han Ling Emperor's expectations of He Jin were too wishful thinking.
He Jin's "betrayal" disappointed the Han Ling Emperor, and there is no doubt that in the future, when Liu Jie ascends the throne, the structure of imperial power will surely return to the old road of the rich warrior clan headed by foreign relatives and hindering the imperial power. Therefore, Liu Wei could not ascend the throne. Liu Xie's birth mother, Wang Meiren, had been killed by Empress He, and the Wang clan was more "cold" than the He clan, and Liu Xie could not be controlled by the Shi clique.
This was the purpose of the Han Ling Emperor's abolition of the concubines, full of political ideals.
For this ideal of his, the Han Ling Emperor made many efforts, such as the establishment of the Hongdu Gate School. HongduMenxue was founded in the first year of Guanghe, the tenth year of the Han Ling Emperor's ascension to the throne. Many people only see that Hongdu Menxue is a "junior college" with lexicography and calligraphy as the research direction, but they do not see that the objects recruited by Hongdu Menxue are all Hanmen Shizi, and the number is extremely large. Emperor Han Ling also could not wait to appoint these people as assassins, high-ranking officials, and even marquises.
Obviously, the Han Ling Emperor was trying to cut off the Rich Scholar Clan in an extreme way. Therefore, the students of Hongdu Gate School were also despised and resisted by the noble scholars.
If we extend our vision to the Sui and Tang Dynasty examination system more than four hundred years later, we will find that HongduMenxue is not another kind of "imperial examination"? All through the new selection mechanism, the life of the rich warrior group is eliminated! Isn't this political vision of the Han Ling Emperor worthy of praise?
The Eight Lieutenants of xiyuan set up by the Han Ling Emperor were actually a deconstructive action against He Jinjun's power. The Eighth Lieutenant of Xiyuan was founded in the fifth year of the Middle Yuan, that is, the year before the death of the Han Ling Emperor, and its existence was extremely short, and it took the eunuch Jian Shuo as the lieutenant of the military academy, concurrently served as a marshal, and commanded the whole army.
The establishment of the Eighth Lieutenant of the West Garden revealed the urgent mood of the Han Ling Emperor to restrain He Jin, and it was also a very unsuccessful attempt. He hoped that through the Eighth Lieutenant of West Park, he could counter He Jin, but in fact, when he died, the Eighth Lieutenant of West Park almost collectively rebelled against the water and sided with He Jin.
Emperor Han Ling forgot a basic fact, he himself could not control He Jin, why did he let a Jian Shuo who had lost the support of imperial power fight he Jin who relied on the rich warrior clan?
The third attempt of the Han Ling Emperor was to restrain the noble clan with eunuchs. The eunuch power of the Eastern Han Dynasty had a gradual process of strengthening, which was the inevitable result of the struggle between the imperial power and the noble clan group.
By the time of the Han Ling Emperor, eunuchs had almost equal political treatment to the scholar clique, and could hold important positions, could be crowned marquises, could marry wives and adopt children, and could sacrifice ancestors. Although the history books denounced the Han Ling Emperor for fainting in this way, from our perspective today, the Han Ling Emperor was not only not faint, but also very clever.
Unfortunately, after the Han Ling Emperor overly participated in politics in the eunuch clique, the new pattern formed by the differentiation of interests could not be analyzed in time. A large part of the eunuch forces, including Zhao Zhong and Guo Sheng, had already fallen to the shi clique headed by He Jin. This is the reason why Jian Shuo easily failed when he grasped the initiative.
Ironically, the eunuchs deliberately turned to the gentry clique, but the magnate clique did not accept them, but wanted to get rid of them quickly. That is why the situation has deteriorated rapidly, leading to dramatic changes.
It can be seen from this that the political pattern at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty was quite chaotic, and there was a struggle between the political interests of various factions and a fusion of each other. The Han Ling Emperor made various efforts in order to create an independent era of imperial power, and the Hao Nai Clan was in an unstoppable period of rise, dooming his efforts to fail.
History was written by the scholar class, who stood in the position of their own class and blackened the Han Ling Emperor. Objectively speaking, although the Han Ling Emperor was a loser, he was still a very ambitious and intelligent politician!