Speaking of the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty, many people will be very dismissive, thinking that they are all a group of small emperors, and the power is either controlled by foreign relatives or controlled by eunuchs. The influence of a "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is too great, and many people think that the Han Xiandi is the epitome of all the emperors except the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu.
In fact, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiuying was the founding emperor. His son Emperor Ming of Han and grandson Emperor Zhang of Han were also very powerful, and together they created the rule of Ming Zhang, not a generalist. In addition, Emperor Han Zhang's son Han and Emperor Liu Zhao, were even more wise lords, and his achievements were amazing.
When Liu Zhao succeeded to the throne, he was only a 10-year-old naughty boy, and the power was in the hands of his adoptive mother Empress Dou and his maternal cousin Dou Xian. He was obviously a puppet,And if he was cowardly, he might be the later Emperor Xian of Han, who lived a life of humiliation. However, Liu Zhao's brilliance is unimaginable.
At the age of 14, relying only on eunuchs and a pitiful number of troops, Dou Xian, who held a lot of power, handed over the Great General Seal. Moreover, Liu Zhao forcefully ordered Empress Dou to return to the harem and no longer interfere in the affairs of the dynasty, and dou xian and Dou Du, Dou Jing, and Dou Zhen all died in the feudal state, and all the sons of Dou were deposed as officials.
Such an example of using thunderous means to kill a powerful minister has been extremely rare in history, and Liu Zhao has proved that he is not a flesh and blood Fang Gang, and he also has an extraordinary ability to govern the country. He was a corporal, lenient with others, settled the hearts of the people, fought against Rong Di, and finally ushered in a prosperous situation. He created the "Yongxing Long", both in terms of fields and population, which was the greatest prosperity of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and was not inferior to his father, grandfather, and even the Guangwu Emperor Liu Xiu.
However, such a genius Ming Jun, who did not take a year off, died at the age of only 27. He reigned for only 13 years, not to mention asking cang tian to borrow five hundred years, more than fifty years or even twenty years of life, perhaps the merit is better than the Qin Emperor Han Wu, Tang Zong Song Zu. Moreover, when Liu Zhao died, what he left behind was a mess, and even his heir to the throne was a baby who had just turned a hundred days old.
This is also the mystery of history. Liu Zhao was not infertile, he gave birth to a large number of crown princesses. But the problem is that the imperial daughters have grown up healthy, and more than a dozen of his princes have died one after another. Later, he also had the only seedling of his eldest son, Liu Sheng, but Liu Sheng suffered from a serious illness.
Although the history books record "chronic diseases", although they do not clearly say where there are problems and where there are problems, the situation is certainly not optimistic. Otherwise, after the death of Emperor Han he, Liu Sheng, as the eldest son, had no right to inherit at all, preferring to let Liu Long, who had just been born for a hundred days and was raised in the folk, become emperor. Even after Liu Long's death, Empress Dowager Deng did not consider Liu Sheng, but instead welcomed Emperor Han's nephew Liu LiuHu as emperor.
In ancient times, because of the backward medical conditions, the mortality rate of babies born was indeed relatively high. However, you must know that before that, Liu Bang gave birth to a large number of sons, liu Xiu also had many heirs, all of whom were alive and jumping, why was it difficult to continue once he arrived at Liu Zhao? Liu Zhao himself had pondered this question, and he thought it was because the harem was too thrilling and there were too many fights, and the eunuch palace ladies could not be trusted, and they all wanted to murder his son.
Although there was no empirical evidence, and no empirical evidence, Liu Zhao came up with a method that was not a solution, he sent the newborn princes to the people to raise them, and evaded the right and wrong in the palace. As a result, when he died, those dragons scattered among the people, Liu Long, who was born a hundred days ago, were still alive. Liu Long became the smallest emperor in history, and was carried to the dragon chair in only one hundred days. However, he also reigned for only more than two hundred days, and became the shortest-lived emperor in history.
In the current view, Xiao Jue believes that Liu Zhao's tragedy does not lie in the eunuchs, no one dares to murder the prince again and again, and no one can do this. The han dynasty royal family's concept of marriage and matching is the culprit.
There was a Han Dynasty, paying attention to the door to the door, and paying more attention to the intermarriage between the royal family and the ministers. Liu Zhao was the great-grandson of Empress Yin Lihua, and he was related by blood to both empresses. The first empress dowager, Yin, was herself the great-granddaughter of Yin Lihua's brother Jinwu Yinzhi. The second empress Dowager Deng Sui's mother was also a member of the Yin family, the daughter of Yin Lihua's cousin.
Although none of them bore children for Liu Zhao, it can be seen that the atmosphere of the harem at that time was that the close ministers and the royal family repeatedly intermarried, causing fertility obstacles, and even the children born were extremely prone to congenital deficiencies. This happened not only in Liu Zhao,but also in the Han Dynasty emperors before and after him.
It can be seen that the more difficult it is for any royal family that is married by a close relative, the more difficult it is. Liu Zhao's heirs were reluctant, and later Emperor An of Han was also very difficult, with only one biological son. The same was true of the Qing Dynasty, Xianfeng only had tongzhi as a single seedling, Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Xuantong simply could not give birth to sons, and the Forbidden City did not hear the cries of babies for decades. In contrast, in the Ming Dynasty, although individual emperors also had fertility problems, in general, they were still very prosperous. This has a lot to do with the fact that in order to prevent foreign relatives from sitting on the throne, harem concubines were basically only selected from the people.
The Han Dynasty reached Liu Zhao's generation, which was the peak period, that is, because there was no successor, it had to go into decline helplessly.