Everyone must have heard the story of "holding the Son of Heaven hostage to order the princes", this story has two protagonists, one is Cao Cao, and the other is the protagonist we are going to talk about today- Liu Xie, the emperor of Han Xian.
Han Xiandi (Liu Xie) film and television image
Liu Xie, the last emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was promoted to the throne by Dong Zhuo at the age of 9 and began his long career as a puppet emperor.
After Liu Xie ascended the throne, Dong Zhuo proclaimed himself a chancellor and later a Taishi, completely controlling the central government. Dong Zhuo's army looted property in Luoyang, raped women, did all kinds of evil, and finally burned the city of Luoyang to ruins. Later, many local heroes responded to the "Kwantung Alliance" led by Yuan Shao, and took their own private soldiers to fight against Dong Zhuo. Dong Zhuo, threatened by the Kwantung Army, held Liu Xie hostage and moved the capital from Luoyang to Chang'an. After arriving in Chang'an, Dong Zhuo was killed by Wang Yun and Lü Bu, and Liu Xie thought that he could get rid of his puppet career from now on, but after Wang Yun succeeded, he was proud and complacent, and his strength was small, and he did not maintain the situation in Guanzhong. Within a month, Dong Zhuo's former subordinates Li Dai (李傕), Guo Feng (郭汜), and others defeated Lü Bu, captured Chang'an, killed Wang Yun, and took control of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Liu Xie became a puppet of Li and Guo.
Although Liu Xie was a last emperor without real power, he always had a heart that loved the people.
In the first year of Xingping (194), the three auxiliary droughts, the price of grain was expensive, the value of yihu valley was 500,000, and there was even an incident of cannibalism in Chang'an City. Liu Xie ordered the attendant HouWen to cook porridge from Taicang to relieve the people, but because of insufficient food, many people still starved to death. Liu Xie suspected that Hou Wen did not use all the grain to help the victims, but took the opportunity to encroach on the public grain, so he sent people to take five liters of rice and beans and boiled them into porridge in front of him, and finally he could cook two pots, confirming that Hou Wen was cheating, so he scolded Hou Wen for fifty court staffs. After that, the starving people in Chang'an City were finally relieved.
Later, Li Dai and Guo Feng attacked each other in Chang'an City. Liu Xie took the opportunity, escorted by Dong Cheng and other loyal ministers, to get rid of the control of Li and Guo, fled to Hongnong, stationed in Anyi, and then traveled east. He did not expect that at this time, Cao Cao had already remembered his "fragrant food". After Cao Cao welcomed Liu Xie and his entourage into Luoyang, he began the era of "holding the Son of Heaven hostage to order the princes". Liu Xie had no choice but to let Cao Cao control it. Later, Cao Cao coerced Liu Xie to move the capital to Xuchang and renamed it Xu Du. At this time, Liu Xie was still an emperor without real power, but he was dissatisfied with Cao Cao's monopoly of power, and was not willing to act as a puppet, so he secretly ordered Dong Cheng to try to kill Cao Cao, and finally failed.
Although Cao Cao used Liu Xie to try to achieve his goal of unifying China, he did not dare to directly replace him and establish himself as emperor. After Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi succeeded to the throne, and at this time the general situation in the Central Plains was determined, and Cao Pi forced Liu Xiechan to give him the throne. In December 220, Liu Xie told the ancestral temple to make Zhang Yin play the Seal Silk Edict, and Zen was located in Cao Pi. Cao Pi ascended to the altar of Zen at the Fanyang Pavilion and accepted the jade seal, the emperor's throne. Liu Xie also ended his half life as a puppet emperor and took his family to Shanyang City to become the Duke of Shanyang.
Liu Xie has experienced the ups and downs of life, great enlightenment, and is willing to worry with the people and enjoy with the people. He cultivated the vegetable garden, integrated his body and mind into the pastoral landscape, dabbled in nongsang, visited the poor and the poor, and was deeply loved by the people. He also relied on the medical skills he had studied in the palace, hanging pots to save the world, such as moxibustion, cupping, gua sha these treatments do not charge a penny from the people, only for those who come to buy drugs will charge some cost fees as appropriate. In Shanyang City, he really did himself once.
In 234 AD, Liu Xie died at the age of fifty-four, and was buried in Chanling with the title of Emperor Xiaoxian.
Emperor Xian of Han (Liu Xie) Zen Mausoleum
Throughout Liu Xie's life, he was miserable and lucky. Fortunately, after the fall of the country, he did not sink in the sadness and indignation of the country, and in the last ten years of his life, he could live for himself, live from the heart, and live for the people who cared about half his life. The tragic thing is that as an emperor, he has always been a puppet of the powerful courtiers, but he has been trying to take off the hat of the puppet; he has no real power, but when he sees the people starving and suffering, he wants to take out his own little private money to add some rice grain to the people; he knows that he is sitting on a needle and felt every day, controlled by others, but he also wants to revitalize the Han Room and save something for the decline of the Han Room... But the building was about to fall, and no matter how much effort he made, it wouldn't help.