In April 74 BC, The Han Zhao Emperor Liu Fuling died at Weiyang Palace, leaving no heirs. The country could not be without a monarch for a day, and the great general Huo Guang had no choice but to negotiate with his subjects to establish a new monarch.
Why did Liu Fuling, who had reached adulthood, leave no heirs? There are many speculations in the world about this, and the most widely circulated statement is that Liu Fuling's health is not good, and that aspect is not good.
At first glance, this statement sounds somewhat reasonable, after all, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the examples of the three consecutive emperors of Tongzhi, Guangxu and Puyi without descendants were placed there.
However, in the absence of modern medical testing, this argument is actually not convincing. Because Emperor Wudi of Han just felt that Liu Fuling's health was doubled, he chose him as his successor.
Some people say that liu Fuling did not leave heirs because Empress Shangguan was too young, and indeed, Shangguan was made empress at the age of 6, the youngest empress in Chinese history.
However, at the time of Liu Fuling's death, Empress Shangguan was already 15 years old, and according to the development of ancient people, she had reached a normal reproductive age.
Taking a step back, even if Empress Shangguan was too young to have children, wouldn't Liu Fuling find other women in the harem to give birth to monkeys? Don't you say, this idea really doesn't work.
It turned out that in order to keep Emperor Han Zhao's children with huo family blood (Huo Guang was Empress Shangguan's maternal grandfather), Huo Guang secretly intervened in the affairs of Emperor Han Zhao's harem.
He ordered that all the palace ladies in the harem must wear a kind of panties called "Poor Quilt", which had many ties and were very inconvenient to undo, which effectively prevented Emperor Han Zhao from leaving seeds everywhere.
In this way, if Empress Shangguan had no fertility, Emperor Zhao of Han would certainly not have children born. Wait a minute, there's actually one person missing here.
It turned out that in addition to Empress Shangguan, Emperor Zhao of Han also had a concubine, Zhou Yangshi. As an imperial concubine with legal mating rights, it is theoretically possible to give birth to a son and a half daughter.
Moreover, this Zhou Yang was older than Empress Shangguan and entered the palace earlier than Empress Shangguan. So why didn't she have children?
According to Dapeng's speculation, probably intimidated by Huo Guang's obscenity, Emperor Han Zhao did not dare to perform the Ritual of Zhou Gong with this Zhou Yang clan and do the things of Dun Lun.
In that era when there was no environmental pollution, no plasticizers, and no gutter oil, the possibility of Emperor Han Zhao or Empress Shangguan not being fertile was extremely small.
In that era, as long as it was a normal person, the health level of their bodies was much higher than that of modern people, because the medical conditions at that time were very poor, and all people in poor health died.
Therefore, Dapeng finally came to the conclusion that the reason why Emperor Han Zhao did not leave heirs was either that Empress Shangguan did not want to give birth, or that Emperor Han Zhao did not want to give birth, or that Huo Guang did not want them to be born.
References 《Zizhi Tongjian》