Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han Xian, was one of the most well-rated monarchs of all dynasties: Liu Xie was not a faint and incompetent monarch. The demise of the Han Dynasty actually had little to do with Liu Xie himself—Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, when discussing the decline and fall of the Eastern Han Dynasty, believed that the world disputes began with the Second Emperor Hengling, and that Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han Xian, had always been just a marionette in the hands of others since the day he ascended the throne. Liu Xie has never really grasped real power and exerted his ambitions in his lifetime, and can only say that the foundation of the Han Dynasty had fallen when he ascended the throne, so the pot of the han dynasty's demise really could not be carried by Liu Xie.
Liu Xie, the last emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was born on April 2, 181. Liu Xie was the second son of Liu Hong, the Emperor of Han, and his mother was Wang Rong, the granddaughter of the General of the Five Senses Zhonglang. Wang Rong, who comes from a famous family, is gentle and virtuous, has a plump posture, a beautiful appearance, is intelligent and witty, and can write and calculate. Wang Rong was selected as a beauty in the court because of his youthful beauty, intelligence and agility as a good family son. After Wang Rong entered the palace, he was deeply favored by Liu Hong, the Emperor of Han Ling, so he became pregnant as soon as he came and went. Empress He of Liu Hong, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, was a jealous person.
Empress He was afraid that the sons born to the concubines would threaten the status of her sons, so the concubines gave birth to their sons and died mysteriously. When Wang Meiren found out that she was pregnant, she did not dare to tell Liu Hong, the Emperor of Hanling, but quietly took medicine to try to kill the fetus in a state where people were unaware. Liu Xie was still in the womb and ushered in the first test of life and death in his life, but no matter how Wang Meiren took the medicine, he could not beat Liu Xie, who had a big life. Later, Wang Meiren dreamed many times that she was walking with the sun on her back. This dream was regarded by Wang Meiren as an auspicious omen of divine blessing.
Since then, Wang Meiren has dispelled the idea of abortion. After being pregnant for ten months, Liu Xie was able to be born smoothly. Liu Xie's birth brought ruin to his mother: Empress He instructed people to secretly put the poison in the soup medicine that Wang Meiren took after giving birth, and as a result, Wang Meiren died immediately after taking the soup medicine. After the death of his mother Wang Meiren, Liu Xie was personally raised by his grandmother (the biological mother of Emperor Liu Hong of Han) Empress Dong, thus being able to escape further persecution by Empress He. After the death of Emperor Liu Hong of Han, Empress He's son Liu Wei succeeded to the throne. In the case that Liu Xie had already succeeded to the throne, Liu Xie should have lost touch with the throne.
After Liu Wei succeeded to the throne, the real power of the imperial court was in the hands of Liu Wei's uncle, the general He Jin. When Emperor Hanling was seriously ill, he entrusted Liu Xie to the eunuch Jian Shuo. After Emperor Ling's death, Jian Shuo planned to kill He Jin first and then establish Liu Xie as the son of heaven. After He Jin seized power, he sent someone to kill Jian Shuo to avoid any trouble. After He Jin killed Jian Shuo, he also wanted to take the opportunity to wipe out the eunuch group in the palace. He Jin, who was bent on fighting the eunuch clique, came up with a bad idea: he planned to summon Dong Zhuo's Western Liang army to Beijing to help kill the eunuch. Who knew that the eunuch group first attacked to kill He Jin.
After the eunuch killed He Jin, he kidnapped the young emperor Liu Jie and Liu Xie the Prince of Chenliu and escaped from the palace. When the party fled for their lives in a hurry, they encountered the three thousand Longxi Iron Horsemen led by Dong Zhuo. The little emperor Liu Xie was so frightened that his legs trembled and he could not speak when he saw this situation, but Liu Xie dared to come forward to rebuke Dong Zhuo's rude behavior. Liu Xie's move also left a saying that Han independence was forced to die in later generations. After Dong Zhuo entered the capital, he deposed the Han Shao Emperor Liu Jie and created Liu Xie, the 8-year-old Prince of Chen, as emperor. This is another miracle in Liu Xie's life after the crisis at birth.
If you want to follow the minds of normal people, you will feel that the cowardly Liu Zheng is not better controlled? So what about Dong Zhuo who instead dared to rebel against his own Liu Xie? Dong Zhuo, as a border warlord, was able to come to Luoyang only because he picked up the big gift sent by He Jin's brainless butcher. But how could Dong Zhuo, as an outsider, make all the civil and military officials obey him? Deposing the Emperor was dong Zhuo's best means of liwei. Therefore, deposing the Han Shao Emperor Liu Wei was an inevitable choice for Dong Zhuo. Dong Zhuo's support for Liu Xie was not sincere, but for political reasons that made his dictatorship convenient.
Therefore, from the first day of his ascension to the throne, Liu Xie was always just a rubber stamp and a marionette. Liu Xie's ascension to the throne was itself the result of Dong Zhuo's violent coercion. As a puppet, Liu Xie should not say that he is the master of major state affairs, in fact, even his own life cannot be the master. Liu Xie's life was always in a state of manipulation by others: in 192 AD, Wang Yun designed for Lü Bu to stab Dong Zhuo to death, and after Dong Zhuo defeated Lü Bu, Li Dai and Guo Feng, and others, occupied Chang'an, killed Wang Yun, and took control of the Eastern Han Dynasty.
Since then, Liu Xie has changed from a marionette in Dong Zhuo's hand to a marionette in the hands of Li Dai and Guo Feng. After Li Dai and Guo Feng took control of the imperial court, they began to kill each other, and Liu Xie, the puppet emperor, became the object of contention between the two. In the first year of Jian'an (196), Liu Xie, under the escort of Yang Feng, Han Xian, Dong Cheng, and others, was finally able to escape the control of Li Dai and Guo Feng and return to Luoyang, but soon after was welcomed into Xu County (徐县, in modern Xuchang, Henan) by Cao Cao of Yanzhou, and Liu Xie became a marionette in Cao Cao's hands.
Although Liu Xie has always been a puppet emperor from the day he ascended the throne, Liu Xie is not completely willing to the status of puppet emperor. Originally, if Cao Cao could restrain his edge, then Liu Xie, who was accustomed to being a puppet, might still reluctantly accept it. In the first month of the fifth year of Jian'an (200), the so-called Yidaizhao Incident occurred: Dong Cheng, a cheri general who announced that Liu Xie, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, had a secret edict, contacted Zhongji, Wu Shuo, Wang Zifu, Liu Bei, Wu Zilan, and others to plot to assassinate Cao Cao. After the matter was revealed, Cao Cao killed Dong Cheng and others, and only Liu Bei fled to Hebei to join Yuan Shao.
Dong Cheng's daughter was a nobleman in Liu Xie's palace. At that time, Dong Guiren was pregnant, and Liu Xie interceded with Cao Cao many times on this grounds, but Cao Cao killed Dong Guiren regardless of the emperor's face. Afterwards, when Cao Cao met Liu Xie, his words were full of questioning tones. Dissatisfied with this, Liu Xie said indignantly: "If the jun can complement each other, it is thick; no, fortunately, the grace is given away!" Cao Cao's "three dukes" led troops to see the emperor according to the Han Dynasty system, there were tigers with swords, so Cao Cao was shocked when he heard Liu Xie's words that may contain a killing chance, and immediately found a reason to leave in a hurry.
For a long time thereafter, Cao Cao did not visit Liu Xie again. In the nineteenth year of Jian'an (214 AD), Empress Fu asked her father Fu to complete the plot to kill Cao Cao. Cao Cao then led his troops into the palace to blackmail Liu Xie into deposing Empress Fu. Cao Cao did not wait for Liu Xie to nod his head and agreed to write an edict on Liu Xie's behalf to depose the empress. Subsequently, Cao Cao sent The Imperial Counselor Xi Xi to take the edict and lead his troops to surround the palace and hunt down the empress. Empress Fu, who was hiding in the palace wall, was dragged out by Hua Xin. Empress Fu walked out barefoot to Liu Xie crying for help.
Liu Xie could only helplessly say in the face of this situation: "I don't know when my life will end!" Turning back to Xi Wei, he said, "Xi Gong! Is there a truth in the world? In the end, Empress Fu was imprisoned and died, and the two princes born to Liu Xie and Empress Fu were also poisoned with poisoned wine, and more than a hundred members of the Fu clan were executed. This palace coup made Cao Cao very afraid. Afterwards, Cao Cao thought about it and felt that the time for usurping Han was not yet ripe. At this time, Cao Cao also needed to use the han xiandi's signboard to control the princes. Therefore, Cao Cao could not harm Liu Xie, but could only strengthen control over Liu Xie.
Cao Cao forcibly gave his three daughters Cao Xian, Cao Jie, and Cao Hua to Liu Xie in order to achieve all-weather surveillance of Liu Xie. Cao Cao killed Liu Xie's wife, children, and gave his three daughters to Liu Xie as wives. I really don't know how Liu Xie feels in the face of this kind of operation. In the 20th year of Jian'an (215 AD), Liu Xie was made empress under the pressure of Cao Cao, and Cao Xian and Cao Hua were made nobles. In the twenty-first year of Jian'an (216), Cao Cao, the Duke of Wei, was promoted to King of Wei. Cao Cao, the King of Wei, enjoyed the privilege of not being a subject and not worshipping.
At the same time, the Crown, Carriage Costume, Flag, and Ritual Music of the King of Wei were all modeled on the specifications of the Heavenly Son, and the ancestral temple of the King of Wei also referred to the regulations of the Imperial Taimiao Temple, and the sons of the King of Wei were all crowned as marquises. At this time, although Cao Cao did not have the name of the Son of Heaven, he actually had the reality of the Son of Heaven. Once the rulers of ancient times reached this point, they were not far from usurping the throne. Cao Cao did not want to become emperor, but felt that the time was not yet ripe. Therefore, Cao Cao would say things like this in his twilight years: "If the Destiny of Heaven is in me, I am the King of Zhou Wen."
Although King Wen of Zhou laid the foundation of Xiqi in that year, he still regarded himself as a subordinate of King Shang. King Wen of Zhou himself did not replace him, but his son King Wu of Zhou eventually completed the destruction of shang. Cao Cao's statement that he was willing to be King Wen of Zhou was actually implying that his son Cao Pi had usurped Han to stand on his own. Twenty-five years after Cao Cao's death in Jian'an (220), Cao Pi attacked the title of Prince of Wei. On October 13 of the same year (November 25 of the Gregorian calendar) of the year of Cao Pi's attack on the throne, Cao Pi officially accepted Liu Xiechan's throne. Cao Pi's usurpation of Han at this time was actually ripe for a long time.
The military generals of the imperial court had long been accustomed to obeying the cao family. In his later years, Cao Cao actually had full control of the military and political power in the DPRK. Cao Pi's ascension to the throne did not receive any substantial opposition, and the only thing Cao Pi feared was to leave a usurper in the hereafter. What Cao Pi needed to solve to ascend to the throne was actually the problem of political legitimacy. The ancient Chinese people have always emphasized that the name is right and the words are smooth - the so-called "if the name is not correct, the words are not smooth, and if the words are not smooth, things will not be accomplished." Even if it's just an excuse, make your ascension seem more reasonable.
The reason Cao Pi found for himself was Zen Rang: he instructed Liu Xie to take the initiative to give the throne to himself, and then he wrote three times in a row to resign. Cao Pi took pains to perform such a play in order to show the people of the world that Liu Xie took the initiative to zen himself. The political legitimacy of the Qin Dynasty came from the aristocratic bloodline of the Yinqin royal family, the political legitimacy of the Han Dynasty came from the concept of divine authority manifested by the rebellion of Gaozu Liu Bang in beheading the White Snake, and the political legitimacy of the Cao Wei regime came from the Chan Concession of Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han.
Although Zen is nothing more than a play to us today, it was crucial in emphasizing the just old days. Since the political legitimacy of the Cao Wei regime came from the Zen concessions of Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han Xian, Cao Pi had to be kind to Liu Xie after his abdication. Otherwise, it will not only be laughed at by the people of the world, but also become a pretext for others to attack themselves. At that time, the world was undecided: Shu Han and Eastern Wu were still looking at the tiger, so Cao Pi urgently needed to maintain stability and calm people's minds. Treating Liu Xie well for Cao Pi is precisely the embodiment of his magnanimity.
Liu Xie, who has been a puppet all his life, has long been accustomed to the fate of being manipulated. After abdicating, Liu Xie completely gave up the throne, but instead had some autonomy over his own life. Therefore, Liu Xie not only did not have the slightest attachment to the throne, but also longed for a little freedom from the difficulty. Subjectively, Liu Xie did not have the motivation to want to reset, and at the same time, he did not objectively have the strength to pose a threat to Cao Pi. Letting him go will not pose any threat to Cao Pi, but will enable Cao Pi to establish a good image in the eyes of the world.
Besides, Cao Pi's three sisters were all Liu Xie's women. Liu Xie is said to be Cao Pi's brother-in-law, and the children born to Liu Xie and his sister Cao Jie are Cao Pi's nephews. How to say that it is also a family with broken bones and tendons, so Cao Pi really does not need to kill his sister and brother-in-law. Less than a month after Cao Pi accepted the Zen concession, he made Liu Xie the Duke of Shanyang with the title of Duke of Shanyang. The economic treatment of enjoying 10,000 household fiefs surpassed that of all other princes, and the political treatment enjoyed by Liu Xie, the Duke of Shanyang, was also above all other princes.
Liu Xie, the Duke of Shanyang, enjoyed the privilege of not having to be a vassal to the emperor, and accepting the emperor's edict without worship. Liu Xie, the Duke of Shanyang, in his fiefdom, could continue to honor the Han Dynasty Zhengshuo kimono, use the Han Dynasty chronicles, and establish ancestral temples dedicated to his ancestors. Cao Pi's treatment of Liu Xie was somewhat similar to the preferential treatment policy given by the Republic of China government to Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, after his abdication: it was true that the outside world had changed dynasties, and he could still enjoy the treatment of emperors behind closed doors in his own fiefdom. Cao Pi also said to Liu Xie: "The good things in the world are all things that we can share."
Liu Xie, who was accustomed to puppetry, had no desire for power, so after abdicating, he always kept to himself and never asked about politics. After Liu Xie and Cao Jie came to the fiefdom of Shanyang, they saw that the local people were displaced, poor, sick, hungry, desolate, and in ruins. Here Liu Xie changed into the official clothes of the Duke of Shanyang and changed into cloth clothes to go deep into the people and mingle with the people. It may be because Liu Xie's mother took fetal pills during pregnancy, which caused Liu Xie to be in poor health since childhood. As the saying goes, "a long illness becomes a good doctor": When Liu Xie was a child, he liked to ask the imperial doctors who treated him for medical treatment.
After Liu Xie came to Shanyang, he became a village doctor in Hu Jishi. Liu Xie and Cao Jie often went to the Yuntai Mountain area to collect medicine, so they left a stone stele engraved with "Han Xiandi's Practice Map" in the local area. Local people call Liu Xie and Cao Jie the "Dragon and Phoenix Doctors". As the Duke of Shanyang, Liu Xie could enjoy the taxation of the fief shanyang: the 10,000 households of the Duke of Shanyang meant that the taxes of this 10,000 households did not have to be handed over to the imperial court, but were directly handed over to the Duke of Shanyang as the private income of the old and young family of the Duke of Shanyang.
Liu Xie and Cao Jie and his wife ordered tax reductions and exemptions as soon as they encountered the famine years: they personally practiced with the people of Shanyang to cut down food and clothing to tide over the difficulties. A few years later, the people of Shanyang recuperated and rebuilt their homes, which greatly changed the poor mountains and rivers of the past. In the fifth year of the Huang Dynasty (224), when Cao Jie sent his grandson Liu Kang to attend school in Shanyang Jingshe (the predecessor of Shanyang Academy), he saw that the school building was full of dangerous houses, so he donated all his money to Jingshe. Later, Liu Xie and Cao Jie and their spouses paid for the children of poor local families to go to school out of their own pockets.
Cao Jie heard that one of Confucius's four great disciples, Bu Shang, had a descendant named Bu Shang who was famous for running a private school in Wen County, so he personally came to the door with Liu Xie and invited him to serve as the chief professor of the Shanyang Jingshe. Cao Jie's daughter Liu Man in Shanyang, Liu Kang's son Liu Jin, Liu Jin's son Liu Qiu, and other Liu families all studied in Shanyang Jingshe, and in addition, Shanyang Jingshe also sent a large number of children of local people to study. In order to prove the legitimacy of his regime, Cao Pi also named Liu Xie's eldest daughter Princess Changle, and took Liu Xie's two daughters as concubines to show his inheritance of the Han Dynasty bloodline.
According to the "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms" (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) of the Book of Wei and The Tale of the Later Concubines, the Duke of Shanyang served the second daughter as a concubine to Wei, and Guo Hou, Li, and Yin Guiren and loved Yuki. In this way, Liu Xie changed from Cao Pi's brother-in-law to an old man. Of course, it is estimated that the two daughters who married Cao Pi should not be Born of Cao Jiesheng, otherwise they would not have become nieces and uncles. On June 29, 226, the Wei Emperor Cao Pi died, and Liu Xie, the Duke of Shanyang, died in his fiefdom eight years later. When The Wei Ming Emperor Cao Rui learned of Liu Xie's death, he ordered a funeral for him to be held in the standard of the Son of Heaven and led his courtiers to weep and sacrifice.
Liu Xie gave birth to 7 sons and 3 daughters in his lifetime. Among them, the two sons born to Empress Fu had already been killed by Cao Cao, and the remaining five sons, except for Liu Feng, whose deaths in Jian'an were explicitly recorded (200 AD) are not explicitly recorded. Therefore, it is not known what year or when Liu Xie's sons were born or when they died, but in the end it was Liu Feng's son Liu Kang (Liu Xie's grandson) who inherited the title of Duke of Shanyang. After Liu Kang's death, his son Liu Jin attacked the Duke of Shanyang for 4 years, and after Liu Jin's death, his son Liu Qiu attacked the Duke of Shanyang for 20 years.
In fact, the Duchy of Shanyang lived longer than the Cao Wei regime: Liu Xie's grandson Liu Kang served as the Duke of Shanyang for 51 years. During this period, Liu Kang witnessed the Western Jin Dynasty accept Cao Wei's "Zen Concession" in the same way that Cao Pi had done. The Western Jin Dynasty, like Cao Wei, accepted the existence of the Principality of Shanyang by default, so after Liu Kang, Liu Jin and Liu Qiu were able to continue to inherit the title. However, the Western Jin Dynasty, like Cao Wei, was a short-lived regime: the Western Jin Dynasty was destroyed just half a century later. Before the western Jin Dynasty was officially destroyed, it was already caught up in the rebellion of the Eight Kings and the war of the Five Hu Chaos.
In 309 AD, the army of the Xiongnu Liu Yuan entered the Principality of Shanyang: Liu Xie's grandson Liu Qiu was killed by the Hu people. The Principality of Shanyang, which had existed for more than 90 years, vanished. Ironically, Liu Yuan came from a Southern Xiongnu tribe that was friendly with the Han Dynasty. Liu Yuan's army was under the banner of the Xingfu Han Dynasty: when Liu Yuan raised his army, he posthumously honored Liu Chan, the last emperor of the Shu Han Dynasty, as the Emperor of Xiaohuai, and built the three ancestors and five sects below Han Gaozu to sacrifice. Liu Yuan established the name of the country as "Han", but this Xiongnu under the banner of "Han" eventually killed the orthodox descendants of the Han Dynasty.
Although the Xiongnu killed Liu Qiu, the last Duke of Shanyang, some of the descendants of Liu Xie, the Emperor of Han, survived. Nowadays, the descendants of Liu Xie, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, are mainly distributed in the Henan area, and some people have moved to the Korean Peninsula, Japan and other places. According to the Japanese history books "Japanese Secretaries", "Ancient Sayings", and "Continuation of the Japanese Chronicle", a person named Liu Azhi of Liu Qiu's brothers led a total of more than 2,000 people from the clan to move to Japan. These descendants of the Han Dynasty, who had crossed the sea from Chinese mainland, became the new nobles of high status in Japanese society.
According to the "Japanese Secretary", Liu Azhi was given the title of Eastern Han Dynasty envoy by the Uighur King after arriving in the Uighur Kingdom, and since then he has led his people to settle in Hinomae Village, Takashi County, Yamato Province. Today, the three families of Sakagami, Daizo, and Harada in Japan are said to be descendants of Liu Xie, the emperor of the Han Dynasty. In recent years, many descendants of the three surnames of Sakagami, Dazang and Harada have made special trips to Xiuwu County, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, to find their roots and ancestors. Xiuwu County, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, is the former place of the Principality of Shanyang, which was enfeoffed after Liu Xie's abdication. It was here that Liu Xie's descendants multiplied and spread outward.