Once upon a time, the Han dynasty was in turmoil, and even the fate of the royal family fell into a fog. At that time, no one could have predicted that a woman from a humble background would be able to manipulate the government and become the core of power by virtue of her talent and strategy. She is the Empress Dowager Dou, a controversial yet highly praised female politician. At the end of her life, she left a puzzling last words, whether it was to maintain the imperial power or protect the interests of the family? This twisted and bizarre experience makes us re-examine the nature of power and savor the cruelty and greatness of history.
How did Empress Dowager Dou, who was born in a poor family, become the core power figure of the Han Dynasty with her own talents?
Speaking of the famous female politician of the Han Dynasty, Empress Dowager Dou, her legendary life experience is really breathtaking. A woman from a humble and poor family can climb to the highest ruling class and become a heavyweight in the court political arena with her extraordinary wisdom and courage, which can really be described as the darling of fate.
In her early years, Empress Dowager Dou was surnamed Yifang, her family was poor, and she made a living from fishing. But fate suddenly played a big joke, so that she accidentally entered the palace to serve. At that time, Empress Dowager Lu, who was already in power, in order to recruit new palace maids, selected women with good figures and postures everywhere. Yifang coincided with his meeting and was selected to enter the harem, and since then he has changed his name to Dou, which has opened a new chapter in his life.
In the harem, although the Dou family is not outstanding, he gradually flatters his superiors with his alert and well-behaved nature, and gradually accumulates prestige, and was finally assigned to a remote country, and was favored by the local prince Liu Heng as a concubine. This is undoubtedly an unexpected blessing for a poor woman.
However, the Dou family is not an idle person, she knows people and is good at scheming, carefully serves Liu Heng, and gives birth to his eldest daughter and eldest son. Then Empress Lu died violently, Zhou Boluo knitted power and money, and wanted to support a docile and obedient puppet emperor, Liu Heng became the best candidate. So Dou followed her husband into the imperial city and became the queen of Emperor Wen. Along the way, fate really favored her.
However, the Dou clan was not just lucky enough to sit on the throne of the queen. She came from a poor background, and since she was a child, she knew how to judge the situation and be cautious everywhere. Coupled with her intelligence, diligence and hard work, she obeyed the emperor's words, cared for her children in every way, and obeyed the orders of the Chinese military minister. After the death of Emperor Wen, she was even more ruthless, manipulating her son Emperor Jing to rule the world with her own will. These years were also the core period of the "rule of Wenjing" in the heyday of the Western Han Dynasty.
Many powerful ministers wanted to support their own people, but without exception, they were severely attacked by the Empress Dowager Dou, and the power was always firmly in her own hands. It was her hard work that led to the later situation of "the heroine of the foreign dynasty", which made the little girl from a poor family ascend to the sky in one step and become the first power figure in the world. It can be said that it was Empress Dowager Dou's extraordinary wisdom and skill that made a person who should have struggled at the bottom all his life become the de facto ruler of the Han Dynasty.
What major decisions did Empress Dowager Dou make during her time in power? How did her ruling philosophy and practices affect the fate of the Han Dynasty?
Empress Dowager Dou single-handedly controlled the power of the Han Dynasty for decades, during which she made many major decisions that shocked the government and the public, and her ruling philosophy and skills undoubtedly affected the future and destiny of the Han Dynasty.
The most well-known is that Empress Dowager Dou once wanted to depose her eldest son Emperor Jing and give the imperial throne to her beloved youngest son Liu Wu. Emperor Jing was originally the crown prince, and Emperor Wen personally made a testament before his death, but the Empress Dowager Dou loved Liu Wu partially, and insisted on passing on the authority to him. This matter caused a stir in the government and the opposition, and finally gave up due to the resolute opposition of Prime Minister Dou Ying and many powerful ministers. But after that, Emperor Jing and Liu Wu turned against each other, Liu Wu hated and died, and the Empress Dowager Dou blamed all the blame on Emperor Jing, forcing Emperor Jing to panic.
Another sensational incident was that in order to maintain her own power, Empress Dowager Dou rarely drove her nephew Dou Ying, a hard-nosed oppositionist, out of the Dou family. As the prime minister of the Han Dynasty, Dou Ying dared to speak outright and upright, but in the end he was treated so cruelly because of conflicts with those in power. This practice is tantamount to destroying the prestige of the entire Dou family, highlighting the determination of the Empress Dowager Dou to defend her rights.
In addition, the Empress Dowager Dou also has unique features in the way of governing the world. She adhered to the traditions of the Lü dynasty and insisted on pursuing the Huang Lao doctrine, which was at odds with the Confucianism advocated by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Her great power and stubborn conservatism made it difficult for her to block Emperor Wu's reform and new policies. For this reason, the two important ministers recommended by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Wang Zang and Zhao Juan, eventually had a bad fate and fell victim to the power struggle of the Queen Mother. Until the death of Empress Dowager Dou, the controversy over the reform of the New Deal has not stopped.
However, the reign of Empress Dowager Dou was not completely smoky. During the reign of Wenjing, the territory of the Han Dynasty was expanding day by day, and the national strength was unprecedentedly strong, which can be regarded as the heyday of imperial rule. In general, Empress Dowager Dou's approach had both a positive and a negative impact on the Han Dynasty. In order to maintain the centralized power of the rule, she covered the sky with one hand, and did not hesitate to eradicate dissidents and denigrate cronies, causing serious factional disputes in the DPRK and China. She insisted on conservative thinking, which hindered the implementation of the New Deal. But at the same time, she did govern well, so that the Han Dynasty basically maintained internal and external troubles and overcame many changes during her reign. As the so-called "mixed pros and cons", all these power struggles and work styles of the Empress Dowager Dou have shaped the fate of the Western Han Dynasty to a certain extent.
The evolution of the relationship between Empress Dowager Dou and members of the royal family:
Empress Dowager Dou's legendary life experience originally originated from an adventure of fate. At that time, she was an unknown poor woman, whose name was not recorded, and she made a living by fishing. But the life of the family did not destroy her hope of survival, and fate did not abandon her.
At that time, the first empress of the Han Dynasty, Lü Pheasant, was already in power. In order to recruit a new group of palace maids to serve left and right, she ordered her courtiers to search for beautiful women everywhere, and so inadvertently, the Empress Dowager Dou was discovered and selected to enter the palace. Even her real name is no longer available, and later generations only know that she is a poor woman called "Dou Yifang".
After entering the palace, Empress Dowager Dou naturally understood that she had to do her best to serve Empress Lu in order to gain her appreciation. Sure enough, with her diligent and well-behaved character, she finally won the favor of Empress Dowager Lu. It wasn't until later that Empress Lu wanted to dismiss a group of palace maids out of the palace, and Empress Dowager Dou was given priority in the list. At that time, Empress Lu arranged for her to go to Daiguo, originally wanting her to stay away from the core of power and live a stable life.
However, there are unforeseen circumstances, and the Empress Dowager Dou not only failed to stay away from the center of power, but approached step by step. In the days of Daiguo, she attracted the appreciation of the local prince Liu Heng, became his beautiful concubine, and gave birth to a son and a daughter for him. At this time, great changes occurred in the court, Empress Lu fell, and Chen Ping supported Liu Heng to become Emperor Wen of Han. Since then, the Empress Dowager Dou has embarked on another road of no return in her life.
After the death of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, Liu Qi, the eldest son of the Empress Dowager Dou, succeeded to the throne as Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty. At this time, Empress Dowager Dou's power had gradually grown, and she advocated deposing Emperor Jing and passing the throne to her beloved youngest son Liu Wu. The ministers of the government and the opposition objected, and in the end, Empress Dowager Dou's intention was thwarted, but the relationship between Emperor Jing and Liu Wu also turned against each other. After Emperor Jing died of illness, Liu Che, the first generation of British Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, succeeded to the throne at the age of 16. The old queen mother has been a "prince" for him for a long time, and she actually controls the power of the court.
However, in the early years, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was ambitious, and he advocated the implementation of the new policy, and accepted the suggestions of Wang Zang, Zhao Juan and others, who were insightful at that time, but was fiercely resisted by the old empress dowager. The old empress dowager was complacent and adhered to the doctrine of Huang Lao, which was incompatible with Emperor Wu's reform concept. For this reason, the reform front of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty fell into decline for a time, and the old empress dowager was almost supreme in power and fierce. It was not until the death of the old empress dowager that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty completely led the implementation of the new policy. It can be said that for a long period of time, there was a fundamental conflict of interest and power contradiction between Emperor Wu and the old empress dowager.
But what is puzzling is that at the moment of death, the old empress dowager suddenly turned to support Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and revealed a secret of Liu Rong's deposition. She told Emperor Wu that it turned out that Emperor Wu's biological mother, Empress Wang, had done things behind her back, and in order to stabilize Emperor Wu's status as the crown prince, she forced Liu Rong to death in a desperate situation. Empress Dowager Dou's words before her death were undoubtedly a warning to Emperor Wu that in the future, we must beware of the obstruction of Empress Wang and her uncle Tian Wei, and we must not let the imperial power repeat the mistakes of the past.
For the old empress dowager, the continuation of the Liu family and imperial power is always the most important, so she tried her best to maintain and preserve the heirs of the Han family. She has had ups and downs all her life, and for all this, she has to eradicate dissidents and have a wall with her parents. But in the end, he still did not forget to tell future generations to always be loyal to the Han dynasty and never fall into the hands of people with foreign surnames. From these last words, it is not difficult to see the unique views of Empress Dowager Dou, an old and strong politician, on power.
The deep consideration of the last words of the Empress Dowager Dou:
Thinking about it carefully, it was not a whim for Empress Dowager Dou to support Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and warn him against the likes of Empress Tian Wei when she was dying. There is a profound consideration of her lifelong power struggle. To protect the Han family from falling into the hands of others, she has spent her whole life's efforts.
Judging from her birth and growth experience, Empress Dowager Dou was originally from the grass people, and she once lived a poor life. But fate suddenly handed her an olive branch, and she was able to enter the court to serve the Lü dynasty. During her service, she was diligent and patient, and finally won the appreciation of Empress Lu, so she was reused and dismissed to Daiguo, and married the local prince Liu Heng as a concubine. Subsequently, due to the change of court, Liu Heng was proclaimed as the new emperor Emperor Wen, and she also obtained the honorific title and status of the queen.
It is not difficult to see from this journey that the Empress Dowager Dou relied on the favor and favor of the operation of power to turn over and get rid of the fate of being lowly. She knows from the bottom of her heart the taste of returning home, and hopes that future generations will not taste the bitterness of poverty again. Therefore, when she takes control of the government, she will naturally do everything possible to consolidate and maintain the rule of the Han family. She would rather personally drive out hard-core dissidents such as her nephew Dou Ying, and ensure absolute control of power.
On the other hand, although Empress Dowager Dou was originally from a poor family, she has long been closely related to the fate of the Han family. Many of her biological flesh and blood are systematized in the deep cauldron of the dynasty. Her husband Liu Heng was Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, and her son Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty and her eldest grandson Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were the rulers of the dynasty. Therefore, the future and fate of the Dou family have been closely linked to the Han Dynasty and cannot be separated at all. If the Han family is not protected, it will be equivalent to the destruction of the Dou family. Therefore, she is so persistent in maintaining imperial power, not all for the benefit of the Dou family, but for the long-term consideration of the entire family.
It can be seen that Empress Dowager Dou's practice of maintaining imperial power in her later years not only stems from her humble birth experience, but also because the fate of the family is closely linked to the government. When she was dying, she supported Emperor Wu and revealed the past conspiracy of Empress Wang, which was tantamount to mentioning Emperor Wu that imperial power should not easily fall into the hands of others. She hoped that Emperor Wu would learn a lesson, be vigilant against power struggles, and maintain her own foundation.
At the same time, her last words also implied care for the Dou family. She blamed Empress Wang and Tian Wei for the sin of Liu Rong's death, thus washing away the guard and suspicion in the hearts of Emperor Wu for her descendants. This is undoubtedly that she deliberately left a ray of life for the Dou family when she was dying, so that they would not completely turn against the new emperor because of this. It is not difficult to see that she weighed the long-term interests of the Han family and the Dou family, and finally skillfully reached a balance.
This is the epitome of Empress Dowager Dou's life's intrigues, she has always carefully weighed between imperial power and family interests, and spared no effort to seek the best interests for both. It may have been cruel, but it was nothing more than what she had asked for in her life. As the saying goes, "for the rich is not benevolent, for the benevolent is not rich", this is undoubtedly a portrayal of a kind of survival wisdom in that turbulent era.
Empress Dowager Dou's influence on the Han dynasty's ruling model
Empress Dowager Dou had long controlled the power of the Han Dynasty, and her ruling model and style would naturally have a profound impact on the entire Han Dynasty. This impact can be seen in a number of ways:
As the real power holder of the Han Wen Emperor, Emperor Jing Emperor, and Emperor Wu Emperor, Empress Dowager Dou's practice undoubtedly greatly strengthened the tradition of centralized imperial power. She imprisoned the actual power of the emperor in her hands and took a firm stand against any dissidents. For example, she once expelled the opposition Dou Ying from the family with her own hands; At the same time, he repeatedly had violent conflicts with Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who was in great power. All of this confirms her frenzied pursuit of power and her firm belief in maintaining the rule of imperial power.
It was precisely because of this concept and practice of power rule that the imperial rule of the Han Dynasty became increasingly highly centralized and autocratic. Later Han monarchs also emulated this ruling tradition of imperial supremacy and monopoly of government affairs. The imperial power then became the mainstay of the entire Han Dynasty, and the ministers of the government and the opposition tended to follow suit. Even after the fall of the Western Han Dynasty and the rise of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the genes of this imperial rule were deeply rooted in the centralized system of government. To this day, it remains one of the most important political ideas in Chinese history. Therefore, Empress Dowager Dou's ruling paradigm had a profound and lasting impact on the Han Dynasty regime.
On the other hand, Empress Dowager Dou strongly advocated the pursuit of the Huang Lao doctrine and confronted the reform ideas of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. This allowed conservative thought to gain the upper hand for a period of time, hindering the implementation of Emperor Wu's reform and new policies.
The concept of living a life of inaction and freedom advocated by Huang Lao's theory just caters to the ruling ideas of Empress Dowager Dou to maintain imperial power and support the status quo. Inspired by these ideas, she decided that reforms would bring turmoil and jeopardize the imperial legacy. Emperor Wu's reform measures, such as the annexation of agricultural land, the development of commercial trade, and the change of good and evil, were all mercilessly obstructed by her. As a result, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was unable to make the new political efforts possible, and the political and social reform process of the entire Han Dynasty was also hindered.
Fortunately, Emperor Wu's return to power in the later period, coupled with the concept of the New Deal rooted in the trend of the times, finally made a major breakthrough in his reform cause. However, Empress Dowager Dou's narrow and conservative ideology left an indelible shadow on the political and social changes of the Han Dynasty. The stubborn style of sticking to the old and rejecting change was a microcosm of the conservative trend of the ruling class at that time.
Due to the fierce contradictions between the Empress Dowager Dou and the ministers of the DPRK and China, the power struggle and factional disputes between the two sides have also intensified. For example, the feud between her and Prime Minister Dou Ying, Zhao Xuan, Wang Zang and others all highlight this point. These people are honest and good at admonishing, and they provoked the anger of the Empress Dowager Dou in many ways, and were finally eliminated by her as a dissident.
Empress Dowager Dou did not hesitate to get rid of even the relatives in the clan, which shows how cruel the factional power struggle was at that time. In addition, the Queen Mother herself is full of contradictions, contrary to the parent-child day and night, which has led to the whirlpool of factional struggles between the top and bottom of the court. This kind of internal friction has not only made the ruling class more and more corrupt, but also delayed the great cause of political reunification. As the price of the empress dowager's control of power, it made the entire Han Dynasty more and more dark, and internal strife and strife continued to be staged.
end
It was not until the death of Empress Dowager Dou that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was able to regain command of the government and the opposition, temporarily curbing the source of this trouble. But Pandora's box has been completely opened, and the aftermath of the struggle has continued until the decline of the Western Han Dynasty. Therefore, the ruling model of Empress Dowager Dou undoubtedly exacerbated and fueled the vicious circle of power struggle between the government and the opposition in the Han Dynasty. This had a considerable negative impact on the stability and development of the political ecology of the dynasty.