In the entire history of the Han Dynasty, from the Western Han Dynasty to the Eastern Han Dynasty, from Liu Bang to Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, there were about four emperors during this period.
These four faint monarchs are Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, Emperor An of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty. These four emperors are almost no faint monarchs who can wash the space. Especially Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, these two emperors in the entire ancient Chinese history are among the top ten 'famous faint monarchs'.
Because in a sense, the Western Han Dynasty died in the hands of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, and the Eastern Han Dynasty died in the hands of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty.
Of course, in addition to these four, there were also some Han Dynasty emperors, and there was also great controversy in later generations. Some people think that they are faint kings, but others think that they still have some things to do, which is not particularly mediocre. For example, Liu He, the abolished emperor of the Western Han Dynasty, was a very authentic faint monarch, who did more than a thousand bad things in less than a month of his reign.
But the problem is that this abolished emperor of the Han Dynasty was deposed by Huo Guang after only one month in power. In addition, there is also a lot of controversy about what Huo Guang did in later generations. Therefore, many people in modern times believe that Liu He may not be the kind of 'hopeless' faint king.
In contrast, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, Emperor An of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, these four emperors, their mediocrity, are almost without any controversy.
So, what did these four faint monarchs in the history of the Han Dynasty do wrong? Why are only the four of them recognized as faint monarchs by later generations?
In this regard, we can briefly take stock of what these four faint kings have done.
The first is Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty.
In the entire history of the Western Han Dynasty, the reign of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty is recognized as the key point for the Western Han Dynasty to turn from prosperity to decline. Before the era of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty successively experienced the rule of Wenjing, the expansion of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the rule of Zhaoxuan, and the national power gradually reached its peak.
But after the end of Zhaoxuan's rule, as the Han Dynasty passed into the hands of Emperor Yuan of Han, the Han Dynasty began to decline all of a sudden.
Of course, there are reasons for the historical trend, as the founding of the Western Han Dynasty became longer and longer, the problem of land annexation became more and more serious. The dynasty entered a stage of decline, and by this time, it was already inevitable. However, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, as the ruler at that time, accelerated the process of decline of the Western Han Dynasty.
Throughout the entire era of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty made big mistakes on at least three issues! The first mistake was to abolish the Lingyi system. Before Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, every once in a while, the Western Han Dynasty would transfer the rich people of the whole country to live in Guanzhong. This kind of transfer has greatly reduced the speed of local land annexation.
But when it came to Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty abolished this policy, which led to a rapid increase in the speed of land annexation in the Western Han Dynasty.
The second mistake is to fully adopt the Confucian management system. Several emperors of the Western Han Dynasty before Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty basically played the 'way of Huang Lao', or the idea of governing the country with external Confucianism and internal law. History has shown that these ideas are very useful, at least when it comes to running a country.
However, when it came to Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty began to comprehensively implement Confucianism, taking Confucianism as the only way to govern the country. This mistake directly led to the complete disconnection between the bureaucratic class and the common class in the late Western Han Dynasty. Many officials will only do things according to the books of the sages, without considering the actual situation at all. And this result also indirectly laid the groundwork for the later Wang Mang usurping the Han Dynasty.
The third mistake was that Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty used eunuchs to suppress the officials of the Shi clan. Throughout the Western Han Dynasty, the group of eunuchs has always had little influence. Only in the era of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty reused eunuchs, which led to the decline of his authority, and many upright ministers were disposed of by the eunuchs who were in power.
These three mistakes of Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty were tantamount to kicking the declining Western Han regime again, causing the decline of the Western Han Dynasty to be faster.
After Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, the next faint monarch was Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty.
If it is said that Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty was the fundamental culprit of the demise of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty was the direct culprit.
During the reign of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, the biggest mistake was to ignore government affairs all the year round and slack off work. This directly led to the fact that the family of Emperor Cheng of Han's mother, the family of Wang Zhengjun, began to rise to power quickly. Since then, throughout the era of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, the Wang family has become completely bigger, and it has gradually reached the stage of being a big tail.
So in the late reign of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, the Wang family produced such a representative as Wang Mang. And by this time, because the Wang family had risen completely, it was deeply entrenched and could no longer be eliminated. After the death of Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty, who ascended the throne later, realized the threat of the Wang family and began to suppress the Wang family. But by this time, the Wang family had reached a point where it could not be eliminated.
And Wang Mang himself also had the capital to usurp the throne later.
Therefore, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty was passive and slacked off work and reused his relatives Wang's family, which was the direct cause of the demise of the Western Han Dynasty. Of course, in addition to this mistake, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty also made a lot of standard faint deeds. For example, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty favored the demon queen Zhao Feiyan, lived a luxurious life, indulged in harem pleasures, and caused himself to have no heirs and so on.
In short, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty, a faint monarch, cannot be washed away no matter what. Although during his reign, he also did some good things. But for the demise of the Western Han Dynasty, he must bear the main responsibility.
After that, it was Emperor Han An of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the four emperors before the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, Emperor Ming of Han, Emperor Zhang of Han and Emperor He of Han, were all good emperors. And if you only consider the gains and losses, the four of them should be considered Mingjun.
After the death of Emperor Han He, because Emperor Han He had relatively few sons, and his young son died directly after just a few months on the throne. So less than a year after the death of Emperor Han He, everyone supported the enthronement of Emperor Han He's nephew, which is Emperor Han An.
Emperor An of the Han Dynasty reigned for a total of twenty years, and it was during his reign that the Eastern Han Dynasty began to enter a stage of decline. During the reign of Emperor He of the Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty was at its peak. However, after it reached the hands of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty, the Eastern Han Dynasty began to decline rapidly.
Of course, the rapid decline of this pot cannot be completely carried by Emperor Han An. Because during the reign of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty, most of the time, it was not he who had the final say. At that time, the power of the government was in the hands of the Empress Dowager Deng Sui. As for Emperor Han An, for the first sixteen years, he was only a puppet emperor. It was not until the last four years that he was considered a true emperor.
Therefore, if we are to be held responsible, we can only hold Emperor Han An accountable for the last four years of his reign.
And in these four years, Emperor Han An did not do anything good.
In the past few years when he had the final say, Emperor Han An was addicted to pleasure and passive slacking off. At the same time, Emperor An of the Han Dynasty also wantonly knighted his nurse, and listened to the slander of the nurse and abolished the prince. In addition, in order to eliminate the influence of Empress Dowager Deng, Emperor An of Han wantonly brutalized Zhongliang. He doesn't look at the quality of the minister, but only whether it is promoted by the Empress Dowager Deng.
Therefore, although the period of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty in power was not long, it had an extremely bad impact on the political ecology of the Eastern Han Dynasty!
But the above is actually not the biggest mistake of Emperor Han An.
The biggest historical mistake of Emperor An of Han is that he failed to curb land annexation in time.
This mistake is a bit complicated to say. To put it simply, during the reign of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty and the more than ten years when Deng Sui was in power, natural disasters occurred in the Eastern Han Dynasty all year round. During this period of natural disasters, Deng Sui tried his best to organize disaster relief, so that no large-scale peasant uprising broke out.
If Emperor An of the Han Dynasty had been allowed to take power directly, it is estimated that the Han Dynasty would have collapsed long ago during this period, and the Yellow Turban Rebellion would have been decades in advance.
In order to provide disaster relief, Deng Sui opened the treasury on the one hand to provide relief to the victims. This choice, directly the treasury of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was completely empty. On the other hand, in order to appease the affected people, Deng Sui distributed the public land that originally belonged to the state to those who had lost their land to cultivate.
But after Emperor An of Han came to power, the period of natural disasters had gradually ended. So at this time, what Emperor An of Han had to do was to take back the country's public land, at least the ownership of the public land. At the same time, it is necessary to continue to suppress land annexation and strictly prevent local tyrants from becoming bigger.
As a result, Emperor Han An did none of these things, and he did not assume his historical responsibility at all.
As a result of this, from the end of the era of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty, the trend of land annexation in the Eastern Han Dynasty could no longer be suppressed. Emperor Shun of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty in the back, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't block this opening.
Failing to shoulder his historical responsibility and curb land annexation in time was the biggest mistake of Emperor An of the Han Dynasty.
The last faint monarch is Emperor Ling of Han.
Emperor Han Ling's mediocrity, this is needless to say. During the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, although he also did some good things, he reused eunuchs and relatives to suppress the scholar group, resulting in an imbalance in the original power structure. At the same time, because Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was addicted to pleasure and slacked off work, the people at the bottom could not live at all.
Therefore, during the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, the Yellow Turban Rebellion finally broke out. This Yellow Turban Uprising, directly and fundamentally, dealt a heavy blow to the national strength of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and led to the complete expansion of local powers.
Although the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Rebellion is a historical trend, it is difficult to reverse it with other emperors. However, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty's response undoubtedly accelerated the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty. So in the end, not long after the death of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, the Dong Zhuo Rebellion broke out in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and then entered the plot of the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han Dynasty.
Of course, in addition to these four emperors, there were other emperors in the history of the Han Dynasty, who were also known as faint monarchs. For example, Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty in the Western Han Dynasty had a habit of breaking his sleeves and favored the Dong Xian family. Another example is Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty in the Eastern Han Dynasty, who was later called "sighing and hating Huan Lingye" in Zhuge Liang's "Teacher Table".
But these faint gentlemen, they have done a little good more or less, and it can even be said that they are mixed, and there is room for whitewashing. But the four recognized faint kings, they really don't even have a little room for whitewashing.
What does an emperor have to do in order to be called a faint emperor? If literally, a faint emperor is a mediocre emperor. However, the definition of mediocrity is often very controversial.
From a modern point of view, there is only one definition of mediocrity: that is, the failure to shoulder its historical responsibility. Or at a critical stage in history, the wrong choice was made!
As an emperor, marrying a few more concubines and building a few palaces is actually not the most deadly. For example, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, if he wants to build a few palaces, everyone actually supports it. The real killers are actually those emperors who made wrong choices at key junctures in history.
After all, in the ancient social system, the emperor had the supreme power. Once the emperor has made the wrong decision, and at some critical stage, the wrong decision has been made. Then, this wrong decision may lead to the destruction of countless families and the gradual collapse of the country.
In contrast, spending a little more money, or living a little more luxuriously, and pampering a few concubines are actually trivial. As long as it doesn't have a bad impact on the country, everyone actually doesn't bother to care. On the contrary, he made a stupid and wrong decision, which is the most fatal thing.
If you judge according to this standard, the four faint monarchs of the Han Dynasty must be unable to be whitewashed, and they belong to the faint monarchs of the certainty. At the same time, according to this standard, other dynasties also have their own faint monarchs.
Compared with the later Qing Dynasty, who of these two dynasties has more faint kings, it can only be 'the benevolent and the wise see the wise'. After all, almost all the emperors of the middle and late Qing Dynasty failed to shoulder their historical responsibilities well.
But at the same time, there is no shortage of 'thrifty emperors' like Emperor Daoguang. By traditional moral standards, they may not be too bad. But if we look at it in the context of history, their choice has pushed the country into a worse abyss.
Therefore, the Han Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, which dynasty produced more faint monarchs, we can't say. But one thing we know for sure.
That is, under the centralized system in ancient times, once the emperor made a wrong decision, the bad impact on the country would be absolutely fatal! This kind of emperor was actually the real faint king.