Empress Zhang Yan of the Han Hui Emperor received a lot of praise in later generations. Zhang Yan received so much praise, not because she did anything, but because she did nothing. Doing nothing and actually gaining praise from later generations is indeed very rare in Chinese history.
Zhang Yan became a flower god in the later life, and was the most beautiful flower god. All over the country have set up "flower temples" for her. The flower god, that is the most beautiful flower god. In ancient times, after the death of many women, they all had the experience of being "canonized gods". But there are not many people who can get such a beautiful title as the god of flowers.
Moreover, according to the records of the Eastern Jin Dynasty's notebook "Spring Colors of the Han Palace", in fact, Zhang Yan was originally a heavenly god. We know that all gods and immortals have to go through repeated tribulations to succeed. This kind of ordeal is called robbery, and Zhang Yan did not complete the disaster because it was not completed, so she went down to the people to cross the robbery. When she was finished, she returned to heaven.
When a person dies, his flesh rots. If this man will be remembered by future generations, it is that his soul is immortal. In the ancient Chinese cognitive system, where did a person go after death? There is an important connection with his soul before he was born. If he does good things, he may ascend to heaven, and if he does bad things, he may fall into hell to suffer, or reincarnate into animals. Of course, the vast majority are reincarnated into human beings. In short, there are very few people who can become gods and be remembered by future generations, and they must be people with extremely noble souls.
And Zhang Yan did not do anything before she died, it seems that there is no such thing as a noble soul, why will she be commemorated after her death, and it is considered that not only the previous life is a heavenly immortal, but also the next life is also a heavenly immortal?
Let's take a look at what Zhang Yan did before she died?
Zhang Yan was the daughter of Princess Lu Yuan and Zhang Ao. Her birth made Liu Bang very happy, because of her beautiful looks, Liu Bang often hugged her and said to the pet concubine Lady Qi, don't look at how good you look now, but it only takes a while, you will not be as good looking as my granddaughter. It can be seen that Zhang Yan at that time was indeed very beautiful.
Although Liu Bang liked his granddaughter very much, his granddaughter's father, Zhang Ao, showed no mercy at all. Liu Bang was worried that the princes with different surnames would rebel, so he first took his son-in-law to the knife. It's not that his son-in-law, Zhang Ao, did anything bad and didn't do anything at all. Liu Bang is deliberately looking for stubble.
Liu Bang went to Zhang Ao's house as a guest, and Zhang Ao personally cooked for Liu Bang, and also put on a costume and respectfully added dishes to Liu Bang to serve him, but Liu Bang constantly insulted Zhang Ao and humiliated Zhang Ao. This made Zhang Ao's subordinates very angry and decided to take revenge on Liu Bang for their master Zhang Ao. At that time, Liu Bang wanted to put Zhang Ao and his subordinates in the middle of his heart, and what Liu Bang thought at that time was to put Zhang Ao and his subordinates in a pot, so as to eradicate this prince with a different surname, and take this as an opportunity to eliminate other princes with different surnames.
Liu Bang loves his granddaughter, and it cannot be said that Liu Bang is fake, but he really did not think about the future of his granddaughter, but brought such a big disaster to her family.
After Liu Bang's death, Zhang Yan's grandmother Lü Hou continued to harm Zhang Yan. In order to strengthen the family's power, Lü Hou actually thought of the absurd move of marrying Zhang Yan to Liu Ying. On the one hand, Zhang Yan was only 11 years old at the time, and she was still a little girl. On the other hand, Zhang Yan is Liu Ying's niece, and it is very absurd to marry her niece to her uncle. But Lü Hou did not feel absurd, she must facilitate this.
After Zhang Yan married Liu Ying, Liu Ying has always maintained a relationship with Zhang Yan. After all, it was her own niece, and Liu Ying couldn't do the behavior of an animal. Besides, Liu Ying had always been more resistant to his mother, Lü Hou, who had killed Lady Qi, which had given him great stimulation. Coupled with Lü Hou's repeated meddling in the affairs of the imperial court, Liu Ying's rights were cut, so Liu Ying was very angry and depressed.
It can be seen that Zhang Yan did not get any love from Liu Ying.
Zhang Yan is not loved by Liu Ying, and naturally will not have children. But if Zhang Yan does not have children, Lü Hou's dream will be shattered. Therefore, she simply took Liu Ying and Liu Gong, the son of another concubine, as Zhang Yansheng's son, and killed Liu Gong's mother. On this issue, Zhang Yan was once again in a passive position, and there was no way to make her own decisions.
Although this matter was not done by Zhang Yan and had nothing to do with Zhang Yan, after Liu Gong was a little older and heard that his mother had been killed, Liu Gong counted the hatred on Zhang Yan's head, believing that Zhang Yan had killed her mother, so he threatened to take revenge when he grew up and kill Zhang Yan. Zhang Yan was threatened by her own righteous son.
After Lü Hou's death, Liu Bang's grandsons united with the chancellors to eliminate Zhu Lü. Almost everyone in the Lu family was killed, and the only one who did not kill was Zhang Yan.
However, although Zhang Yan was not killed, Zhang Yan's fate was very bad. After all, after Liu Heng became emperor, Zhang Yan's situation became very delicate. She had no parents, no children, and her whole family was gone. At the same time, she was moved to a remote and lonely room. Since then, Zhang Yan has been staying in that room, not saying anything, not doing anything, and in that room, it is like disappearing. Until he died silently at the age of 40.
Zhang Yan's life can be said to be very tragic. First she was killed by her grandfather, then by her grandmother, then by her uncle and her husband, who did not like her and did not favor her, and then Yoshiko blamed all the sins on her head and vowed to kill her when she grew up. Later, she was put into the cold palace until the end of her life.
Some people may think that Zhang Yan was not killed because of the preferential treatment given to her. Not really. All her family members were killed, and all the grief was left to bear alone. In a sense, although she was not killed, she was sentenced to a sentence that required permanent mental torture, which was the suffering of Zhang Yan's life, extremely tragic suffering!
As we said earlier, only when a person's soul has a great place, she will be canonized in the next life, so what is the greatness of Zhang Yan's soul?
I think the great thing about Zhang Yan is that she comes out of the mud without staining. Although she had been an empress, and after Liu Ying's death, she became empress dowager again. However, she did not participate in Lü Hou's seizure of Liu's power, nor did she participate in the persecution of Liu Bang's sons. It was not she who killed Liu Gong's mother. In short, throughout the operation, she has been clean and self-sufficient, maintaining moral purity and nobility. In addition, she was still a virgin until her death, so it reflected her purity and nobility. It can be said that it is precisely this purity and nobility that has been remembered and praised by future generations.