If we have watched "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", we will find a very interesting phenomenon.
In the melee at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the world rose together, and there were wars everywhere. And among those separatist heroes, there are many people who are under the banner of 'Kuang Fu Han Dynasty' to divide one side.
But the interesting thing is that among these people who plan to support the Han family, there are descendants of scholars like Cao Cao, and there are also distant clans of the old Liu family like Liu Bei. But those princes of the old Liu family, they have never appeared!
What's going on here?
Why did those old Liu family princes who enjoyed the greatest benefits during the stable period of the Eastern Han Dynasty collectively disappear in the last years? Where did those old Liu family princes who had money and people in their hands go later?
This question is actually very simple.
There are probably two main reasons: one is because of the existence of the Tui En Order, which led to the fact that the princes of the Eastern Han Dynasty were basically weakened and had no strength. The second is because the emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in the middle and late stages, fertility is generally not good!
This led to the fact that by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the vassal kings who were relatively close to the emperor by blood almost no longer existed!
To better understand this problem, we have to briefly take a look at the situation of the major branches of the Eastern Han Dynasty. After looking at their respective situations, we may understand: It's not that they don't want to save the country, but that those clan princes of the old Liu family really don't have this ability!
In the history of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the first three emperors, Liu Xiu, Liu Zhuang and Liu Wei, basically had no problems with fertility. Liu Xiu himself had eleven sons, Liu Zhuang himself had nine sons, and Liu Wei had eight sons.
But after these three emperors, starting with the fourth emperor Liu Zhao, and the later emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty, fertility began to decline rapidly.
Because the first two emperors, Liu Xiu and Liu Zhuang, reigned relatively early. The princes they sealed, when they were passed on to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, were far away from the emperor's blood relationship. So next, let's first look at the descendants of Emperor Liu Wei of the Han Dynasty.
After the death of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty, his fourth son Liu Zhao succeeded him, and the other seven sons were crowned kings. But the problem is that the second, seventh and eighth children all died relatively early, and there were no descendants before they died. So after their deaths, their fiefdoms were directly taken back and the throne was cancelled.
In this way, the descendants of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty still have five veins left.
Then, after the fourth Liu Zhao took over, he did a good job and created the famous 'Yongyuan Zhilong'. But as a result, the fourth child died when he was twenty-seven years old, leaving only two sons before he died.
The eldest son was sick all the year round, so he could not inherit the throne, but was crowned a king. Later, after this eldest son was crowned king, he also died early, and there were no descendants. So the throne of his lineage was also cancelled after his death.
As for the second son, he was put on the throne shortly after he was born. Then after only reigning for more than eight months, he died directly, so there are no descendants.
In this way, the fourth lineage will be directly extinct.
At this point, the descendants of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty still have four veins left.
After the fourth child was in the last line, next, everyone supported the son of the third child to succeed him. The third child has a total of three sons, the eldest of whom was taken to the capital and succeeded as the emperor. As for the remaining two sons, they were all crowned kings because of their elder brother.
But it is a pity that the second and third sons of the third lineage were all extinct later! The third son died directly before he reached the age of majority, so the throne was directly cancelled.
The second son was a little older, and after his death, he succeeded a child who came to inherit the throne. But after this throne was passed on for three generations, it was passed to the period of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, and Liu Lian, the heir to the throne of that generation, was reported to usurp the throne, and finally committed suicide directly!
As for the eldest son who was dragged to the capital to be the emperor, after he became the emperor, he was later called Emperor An of Han in the history books. Emperor An of Han had only one son, and that was Emperor Shun of Han. And Emperor Shun of Han also had only one son, that is, Emperor Chong of Han. After Emperor Han Chong ascended the throne at a young age, he died directly!
Therefore, calculated in this way, the third lineage also died later, and there was no throne left.
At this point, the descendants of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty still have three veins left. And these three veins are the boss, the fifth and the sixth.
After the third child was in the last line, everyone could only find someone else to come over and succeed as the emperor. And in the end, everyone chose one of the great-grandsons of the boss. As a result, after this kid took over, he said that Liang Ji was a general and was directly poisoned by Liang Ji!
This child who was poisoned was the Han Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
And in addition to this great-grandson who was poisoned, the other descendants of the boss are also in a miserable situation. The eldest had only one son back then, at least only one son in the history books. Then this son bore him three grandchildren.
Among them, the eldest grandson has only one son, the Han Emperor who was poisoned. The second grandson had no heirs, and the throne was cancelled. The third grandson also has only one son, that is, Liu Garlic, who was dragged to inherit the throne to others. Then Liu Garlic was reported to have committed suicide during the period of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty.
In this way, the boss's vein is over!
At this point, the descendants of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty are only left with the five and six veins.
After Emperor Han was poisoned, everyone selected the descendants of the sixth child from the only two remaining veins. The sixth vein is a rare person who is thriving. According to historical records, Lao Liuyi gave birth to a total of sixteen sons!
But the problem is that according to the relevant management system of the Han Dynasty, because the sixth child is only a prince, only one of his descendants can be the king, and the other dozen can only be the prince. Of course, later, because the descendants of the sixth child became the emperor, he tried every means to win a few more princes for the sixth line.
So in the end, the sixth lineage, the first three sons, all became kings.
Among them, the eldest son of Lao Liu, inherited the title of Lao Liu's King of Hejian, and this title was passed on until the fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The second son of the sixth child, and later had three descendants. Among the three descendants, the eldest one was later pulled to the capital to inherit the throne, which is Emperor Han Huan!
But the problem is that Emperor Huan of Han treated his two younger brothers more ordinarily and did not give them too many fiefs. So later, the throne of one of the younger brothers passed to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The other younger brother was involved in a rebellion during the era of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty and was directly removed from the throne.
As for the third son of the sixth child, it is rare to be more stable. Later, he not only became the king, but also smoothly achieved the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In addition, the sixth lineage, and the fourth son who has not been crowned king, is also more important. Because later, Emperor Han Huan himself died, and after Emperor Han Huan himself died, everyone selected a child from among the descendants of the four sons to take over, and this was Emperor Han Ling.
In short, the situation is not bad in the sixth vein. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were still several throne inheritances, which could be regarded as being carried forward.
As for the last fifth, when his throne passed to his grandson, he became extinct. However, after this, the Central Committee of the Eastern Han Dynasty did not take back his throne, but found someone to inherit his position. Therefore, the throne of the fifth child was later passed on to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
The above is the end of the descendants of Emperor Zhang of the Han Dynasty. From the endings of these people, we can see that there are actually few kings who really passed to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and only the descendants of the sixth child are still a little angry.
As for pushing it further, Liu Xiu and Liu Zhuang's other descendants, when they arrived in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, their kinship with the emperor was too far! Take Emperor Han Xian as an example, Emperor Liu Zhuang of the Han Ming Emperor was already the grandfather of Emperor Han Xian's grandfather! Then the other descendants of Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty had a very distant relationship with Emperor Han Xian, and it is naturally conceivable how far the relationship between Emperor Han Xian was.
But even so, everyone may still wonder: No matter how far the relatives are, aren't they still members of the old Liu family? In the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, seeing that their family was no longer good, why couldn't they come out to protect their family?
This brings us to the second reason, which is the so-called Tui En Order.
From the Western Han Dynasty onwards, the Han Dynasty has been implementing the Tui'en system. That is to say, after the death of a prince, his fief will be directly distributed to all his sons. Among them, there was a son who could take the lion's share and inherit the throne. But the other sons are also eligible for a part of the fief!
In the Eastern Han Dynasty, this kind of tuien system has also been implemented.
At that time, the Western Han Dynasty carried out the Tui'en Order, mainly to solve the situation that the local vassal kings were too powerful. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, this system also greatly weakened the vassal kings of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
For example, those sons of Liu Xiu and Liu Zhuang, their thrones may have passed to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. But at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, after several generations of inheritance, the fief that their king could manage was actually very limited! It may not even be the size of a township!
With this kind of strength, how can you raise troops to protect the old Liu family?
And the most important thing is the 'dual-track management system' implemented by the Eastern Han Dynasty. Although nominally, the prince of the Eastern Han Dynasty had an actual fief. But in reality, the power to appoint and dismiss personnel in the fiefdom, as well as the financial power, were all in the hands of the central government. Such a prince actually has no real power in his hands, and at most he only has a little money!
Therefore, by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, these princes of the old Liu family had no ability to rely on the throne to raise troops.
Of course, for this situation, the seniors of the old Liu family have not thought about it. When Liu Xiu was in power, he actually thought that after the clan was too declining, it would lead to the instability of state power. Therefore, in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, the first few Eastern Han emperors actually patched this vassal system to the system.
This patch is the probation system.
To put it simply, as long as your surname is Liu, no matter how far you are from the emperor, when you go to participate in the inspection system assessment, you will have a greater chance of passing. And once you pass the probation system assessment, you can then enter the official normally and grasp the power brought by the official position.
So at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, we saw a very interesting situation: those descendants of the old Liu family who had the throne basically did nothing, and they did not raise troops to support the Han family. On the contrary, it is the descendants of the old Liu family who have climbed up through the inspection system, and there are a few separatist heroes.
For example, Liu Biao in Jingzhou, Liu Yan in Yizhou, and Liu Yu in Youzhou, they all belong to this situation.
After the outbreak of the Yellow Turban Uprising, the central government of the Eastern Han Dynasty had gradually lost control of the localities. And Emperor Ling of Han, who was reigning at that time, had also realized that the clan was too declining, and it was difficult for the central Han Dynasty to maintain its rule. Therefore, later, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty abolished Shi Limu and appointed the descendants of the old Liu family who 'climbed up' to be the officials of the feudal territory.
In terms of strength, the strength of a state pastor is actually much stronger than that of a normal old prince of the Liu family! A prince can only take one or two counties as fiefs at most. However, a state pastor can directly govern the military and political power of a state.
But as a result, these old Liu family's feudal officials are all not angry!
Liu Yan of Yizhou, although he was the first to enter Shu, died early after entering Shu, leaving only Liu Zhang, a descendant with little ability. After the chaos in the world, Yuan Shao had already decided to use all his wealth to support him as emperor, but he rejected Yuan Shao's support, and was finally killed by Gongsun Zhan.
As for Liu Biao in Jingzhou, not to mention, that is the main plot in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Although he has been in charge of Jingzhou for nearly twenty years, in these twenty years, he has no idea of expansion at all, and he is just stuck in Jingzhou!
Therefore, in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, those princes of the old Liu family actually did not have the strength to raise troops at all. On the contrary, those feudal officials of the old Liu family are much stronger than ordinary princes. But as a result, they failed to grasp this opportunity and failed to make three big men.
Perhaps, this is the so-called 'exhaustion of gas'.