Fu Sheng

Biography

Family background and fighting

Fu Sheng was the son of Fu Jian (Fu Jian) and Lady Qiang, and a grandson of Fu Hong. Historical writings say that he had sight in only one eye from birth, was rough in youth, and became noted for strength, horsemanship, and archery. Stories that he wounded his own face as a child or fought wild beasts barehanded come mainly from later historical narratives; their details have not all been independently verified. After his father founded Former Qin, Fu Sheng became Duke and then Prince of Huainan. In 354 (Huangshi year 4, Former Qin), he fought in the defense against Huan Wen. Histories describe repeated charges into Jin formations. Crown Prince Fu Chang was wounded during that campaign and later died, after which Fu Sheng was named heir.

Accession and conflict at court

Fu Jian (Fu Jian) died in 355 (Huangshi year 5, Former Qin), and Fu Sheng took the throne and promptly changed the era name to Shouguang. His father had appointed officials including Yu Zun, Lei Ruo'er, Mao Gui, Liang Leng, Liang An, and Duan Chun to assist the new ruler. According to the histories, Duan Chun was killed after objecting to an immediate era change. Fu Sheng subsequently killed Empress Liang and several regents; Lei Ruo'er, Wang Duo, and Xin Lao also died during his reign. Lei Ruo'er was a leader of the Qiang of Nan'an, and historical sources connect his death with the estrangement of Qiang groups. Repeated executions weakened the confidence of imperial kin and court officials. other accounts recounts many individual episodes; this article uses the main events that are also supported by the Book of Jin and the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms.

Military successes and deposition

Despite turmoil at court, Former Qin won several campaigns. In 356 (Shouguang year 2, Former Qin), Murong Yu Changqing of Former Yan attacked its borderlands. Fu Sheng sent Deng Qiang against him; the Yan army was defeated and Murong Yu Changqing was captured. Fu Sheng also sent Yan Fu and Liang Shu to Former Liang as its political situation changed, applying military pressure, and Former Liang sent envoys to acknowledge his state. In 357 (Shouguang year 3, Former Qin), the Qiang leader Yao Xiang sought to take Guanzhong. Fu Sheng dispatched Fu Huangmei, Fu Jian (Fu Jian), Deng Qiang, and other commanders. Yao Xiang was defeated and killed, and part of his following submitted to Qin.

These victories did not resolve the conflict in the court. Historical writings say that Fu Huangmei, denied rewards and publicly humiliated, plotted a revolt and was killed. Fu Sheng's maternal uncle Qiang Ping was also executed after remonstrating. In the sixth month of 357 (Shouguang year 3, Former Qin), Fu Jian (Fu Jian), Fu Fa, and Liang Pinglao brought troops into the palace, and the guards joined them. Fu Sheng was first reduced to Prince of Yue and then killed; Fu Jian (Fu Jian) took control of Former Qin. Stories about Fu Sheng's drunken remarks, omens, and dreams belong to the narratives preserved by historians and do not replace evidence for the course of the coup.

His Single Eye, His Strength, and the Reason for His Being Made Heir

Fu Sheng was the son of Fu Jian the founder and Lady Qiang, grandson of Fu Hong, and was born with one eye. As a boy, when Fu Hong joked to an attendant that he had heard a blind man's one eye wept, and the attendant said it was so, Fu Sheng in anger stabbed his own face with a dagger until it bled, saying that this surely was tears; and when Fu Hong, greatly shocked, had him whipped, he said that if he did not fear the blade he could hardly not bear the whip. Fu Hong said that if he went on so he would make him a slave, and Fu Sheng answered that he would then be like Shi Le; whereupon Fu Hong told Fu Jian that the boy was cruel and had better be destroyed early, or grown up he would surely become a scourge; and Fu Jian would have killed him but was dissuaded. Grown up he "could lift a thousand jun, was fierce and brave and fond of killing, could wrestle wild beasts by hand, ran faster than a horse, and in thrusting, riding and shooting was first of his age." In 351, when Fu Jian took the title of heavenly king, Fu Sheng was enfeoffed duke of Huainan; in 352, when Fu Jian took the imperial title, he was advanced prince of Huainan; and in 354, when the heir apparent Fu Chang died, he was set up as heir — the histories explaining that Fu Jian, finding in a prophecy the words "three sheep, five eyes," suspected Fu Sheng of answering to it and so made him heir. Soon afterwards Fu Jian fell gravely ill and could not attend to business, and the prince of Pingchang, Fu Jing, meaning to set himself up, led troops into the Eastern Palace to kill the heir; but as Fu Sheng happened to be in the palace nursing the emperor Fu Jing could not find him and turned to attack the eastern flanking gate, thinking Fu Jian dead and the heir too cruel to be ruler; whereupon Fu Jian, with an effort, had himself carried out and ordered the soldiers to kill Fu Jing and pardon the rest, and Fu Jing's men, seeing that Fu Jian lived, threw down their arms and fled.

His Accession, the Dispute over the Era Name, and the Killing of the Guardians

In 355 Fu Jian died, and Fu Sheng took the throne and at once changed the era to Shouguang. Fu Jian had made Lei Ruo'er, Mao Gui, Liang Leng, Liang An, Duan Chun, Yu Zun and others eight guardians to assist him; but he also, knowing Fu Sheng violent and fond of drink and fearing he could not keep the family inheritance and would be taken advantage of by his ministers, told him that if the chiefs of the six barbarians and the ministers in power should disobey him he should gradually remove them. When the ministers remonstrated that the late emperor was but newly dead and the era should not be changed the same day, Fu Sheng flew into a rage, drove them out, and had his favourites trace the proposal to the president of the right Duan Chun, who died for it; and he afterwards killed the empress Liang and several of the guardians. Lei Ruo'er, being an upright and outspoken man, was killed by him with nine sons and twenty-two grandsons, and since Lei Ruo'er was also chief of the Qiang of Nan'an his death is bound up with the alienation of the Qiang. Fu Sheng had meant to make Zhao Ju president of the Secretariat, but Zhao Ju pleaded illness and firmly declined, telling Zhao Shao and Zhao Hui that they had no regard for their ancestors in doing such a house-destroying thing, that Mao and Liang had done nothing to deserve death, that he himself had no merit to be raised to the chancellorship, and that he would sooner die quickly than see them exterminated; and Zhao Ju presently died of grief and anger. Once, when travelling, Fu Sheng saw a woman in mourning kneeling by the road who called herself Fan, widow of Qiang Huai, and asked a fief for her son; and when he asked what merit her son had to claim such a favour and she said her husband had died fighting the Jin army without any compensation, Fu Sheng railed that such favours were his to grant at his pleasure and not for her to beg, and when she went on weeping over her husband's loyalty he took up his bow and shot her dead. Again, when Hu Wen and Wang Yu memorialized about a comet and the planet of punishment entering the well constellation, saying that within three years there would be a great mourning in the state and great ministers put to death, and that he should follow King Wen of Zhou and cultivate virtue to avert it, Fu Sheng said that the empress and he reigned together and could answer any great mourning, and that the grand tutor Mao and the chariot and cavalry general Liang and the president Liang were the great ministers intended; and the two took it for raving, but some days later he went with a sharp blade into the palace of the empress.

His Punishments, His Feasts, and What the Histories Record

The histories record that Fu Sheng often appeared before his ministers with bow strung and blade bared, keeping hammers, pincers, saws and chisels at his side; and that before long, from empresses and consorts and ministers down to servants, more than five hundred had been killed. He once feasted his ministers in the Taiji hall and made the president Xin Lao the master of the wine, ordering them to drink to utter drunkenness; and when Xin Lao, fearing they would be too drunk to keep order, did not press them hard, Fu Sheng in anger asked why he did not press them to drink and whether he did not see some still sitting, and taking up his bow shot him through the neck. The ministers in terror dared not but drink their cups to the full, until all lay drunk on the ground with caps off and hair loose and vomit over themselves and the floor, which Fu Sheng took for sport. He called out the people of the three metropolitan districts to repair the Wei bridge, and when the grand master of light reproved him, saying that the season for farming would be harmed and the people should not be pressed, he had him dragged out and beheaded. When a great wind tore up trees and blew men down on the roads, and a rumour of bandits caused the palace gates to be shut by day, he found out several who had spread the tale five days later and had them cut open and their hearts and stomachs torn out. When his mother's brother Qiang Ping came into the hall to advise him to love the people and serve the gods, he had him pierced through the crown of the head with a chisel before he had finished speaking; and when the prince of Guangping of the guard advised a lighter punishment he would not hear it but urged his men on, so that Qiang Ping died with his skull broken and his brains out, and the empress dowager Qiang, grieving at her brother's death, fell ill and starved herself to death, while Fu Sheng showed no grief at all but wrote out a proclamation with his own hand saying that he had received heaven's mandate and inherited his ancestors' work, that he had done nothing wrong in his reign, and yet there was so much slander, that he had killed no more than a few thousand men and was called cruel, and what sense was there in that. At that time wild beasts and tigers and wolves came out of the wilderness and ate people, lying on the roads by day so that travellers could not pass, and entering houses by night and eating no beasts but only men; and after one year of his reign the beasts had eaten more than seven hundred, the people fleeing into the towns, and when the officials memorialized about it Fu Sheng said that a hungry beast eats men and stops when full, and there was nothing to fear in it, that heaven punished the people for their crimes and sent the tigers and wolves to add to his own majesty, and that if they committed no crimes they had no cause to complain. There is also the story of his outing to Epang, where, seeing a comely man and woman walking together, he had them seized and asked whether they were married, and when they answered that they were brother and sister he said with a laugh that he granted them marriage and they should lie together there and not refuse; and when they would not, he drew his sword and cut them both down. And the story of his climbing a tower with his beloved wife, who pointed to a man below and asked who he was: it was Jia Xuanshi of handsome face and famous beauty, at which he was seized with jealousy, asked his wife whether she fancied the man, and taking off his sword gave it to a guard and had him bring Jia Xuanshi's head, which he put into his wife's hands with the words that since she liked it she might keep it. Again, as he loved jujubes and had toothache, the imperial physician Cheng Yan said that the emperor had no illness but had eaten too many, at which Fu Sheng roared that he was no sage and how could he know, and before Cheng Yan could kneel the blade had come and his head fallen. Another physician compounding a soothing medicine for a pregnancy was reproved because the ginseng he put in was too small, and when he said that a very little would suffice Fu Sheng shouted that he was mocking him and had his eyes gouged out and then his head cut off — the man never knowing his offence, which was that Fu Sheng took the words for a mockery of his one eye. The histories further record that he drank day and night and would go months without attending to government, and that when drunk he always killed at random; that he was offended by such words as insufficient, incomplete, few, none, lacking, wounded, maimed, broken and partial, and that if a wife or concubine or servant happened to use a word of that sort he took it for a mockery of his eye and put them to death, so that those about him were countless who died with their shins cut, their futures torn out, their ribs pulled or their necks sawn; and that when the ministers waited for him to hold court they would wait until sunset without seeing him, so that on days when he did not hold court the ministers congratulated one another on having lived a day longer. In his idleness he asked those about him what the world said of him, and when one answered that the emperor ruled wisely and the world sang only of peace he railed that the man was flattering him and had him killed at once; and when he asked again the next day and they dared not flatter but said he was a little harsh in punishment, he called them slanderers and had them beheaded on the spot. The details above come mainly from the narratives of later histories, and their elaboration need not correspond point for point with fact; but the substance of excessive punishment and the killing of remonstrating ministers is supported in the Jin History and the Spring and Autumn of the Sixteen States.

His Campaigns, His Fall, and His Death

During the disorders at court the Former Qin armies still won several victories. In 356, when the Former Yan general Muyu Changqing attacked the frontier, Fu Sheng sent Deng Qiang against him, and Deng Qiang fought Muyu Changqing south of the Pei family fortress, broke the Yan army heavily, took Muyu Changqing prisoner and killed two thousand seven hundred of their armoured men; and in the same year, taking advantage of the change in the government of Former Liang, Fu Sheng sent Yan Fu and Liang Shu on a mission and pressed them with military force, so that Former Liang sent envoys and acknowledged itself a vassal. In 357, when the Qiang chief Yao Xiang aimed at Guanzhong, he gathered the Qiang and Hu tribes and the Chinese people who came over to him to more than fifty thousand households; and Fu Sheng sent Fu Huangmei with fifteen thousand horse and foot against him. Yao Xiang held his walls and would not fight, and Deng Qiang told Fu Huangmei that a bird that has been hit starts at the twang of an empty bow, that Yao Xiang's keenness had been lost after his defeats, that his holding his walls was the act of a cornered enemy, and that being fierce by nature he could be provoked, so that if they advanced in force straight to his camp he would come out in anger and could be taken in one battle; and Fu Huangmei took his plan, provoked the enemy, feigned withdrawal and drew him deep, killing Yao Xiang at Sanyuan, part of his force coming over to Qin. Yet military merit did not soften the court: Fu Huangmei, given no reward and often insulted in public, resolved to kill Fu Sheng and set himself up, and was discovered and killed; and Fu Sheng's uncle Qiang Ping was pierced to death for remonstrating. Fu Sheng dreamed that a great fish ate a gourd and thought it inauspicious, and hearing a song in Chang'an about a fish in the eastern sea turning into a dragon, a man becoming king and a woman a duchess, and asking where it was, east of the Luo gate, he took it for a reference to the prince of the eastern sea and killed him with seven sons and ten grandsons; and when the people of Chang'an made another song about gazing at an empty city and about the blind boy who does not know the law and cannot look up to see the stars, Fu Sheng had all the empty cities in his territory destroyed. When someone reported that Venus had invaded the well constellation and that a violent army must arise in the capital, he laughed wildly and said that Venus entering the well must be thirsty and would drink, and what had that to do with human affairs, and laughed so much that he fell over; and when Kang Quan reported that three moons had risen together and a comet entered the great subtlety, and that there might be a plot of subjects against the ruler, Fu Sheng struck the table and called him a beast inventing monstrous talk, and had him killed. In the sixth month of 357 Fu Jian with Fu Fa and Liang Pinglao led troops into the palace: the histories say that Fu Sheng had told a serving maid by night that the brothers A Fa were not to be trusted and would be removed the next day, and that the prince of Qinghe, Fu Fa, dreamed that night that a spirit told him calamity would come upon the house and only the forewarned could escape; and the maid told Fu Jian of Fu Sheng's words, who passed them to his elder brother Fu Fa, who at once with Liang Pinglao and Qiang Wang led more than three hundred men with shouts. The palace guards, admiring Fu Jian and hating Fu Sheng, offered no resistance and went with Fu Jian into the palace. Fu Sheng lay drunk in bed, and when Fu Jian came in with his men he rose and asked those about him why these people had come in without leave, and they said they were bandits, at which he said drunkenly that if they were bandits why did they not bow; and those about him laughed secretly, and even Fu Jian's men could not help it, while Fu Sheng urged the soldiers to bow and said that any who did not should be beheaded. Fu Jian had him dragged from the bed, pulled out and confined, and presently reduced him to prince of Yue; and Fu Sheng, waking to find himself a prisoner, took his pleasure in wine. When Fu Jian took the throne and styled himself heavenly king of Great Qin, he sent an envoy to compel Fu Sheng to kill himself; and Fu Sheng, having drunk several measures of wine before he died, fell senseless on the ground and was strangled by the envoy at the age of twenty-three, having reigned two years, Fu Jian giving him the posthumous name prince Li.

Major Activities

Fu Sheng's clearest recorded personal military action was the defense against Huan Wen in 354 (Huangshi year 4, Former Qin). Later victories under his rule, including Deng Qiang's defeat of Murong Yu Changqing and Fu Huangmei's defeat of Yao Xiang, were actions of Former Qin's armies; they should not all be presented as battles he commanded personally. Former Liang's submission shows the political and military pressure Former Qin exerted toward the Hexi region, but it did not amount to an immediate annexation.

At court, Fu Sheng changed the era name soon after accession, displaced and executed members of the regency, and favored associates including Zhao Shao and Dong Rong. Historical accounts link harsh punishments, drinking, and the killing of critics to his fall. More securely established than the details of every gruesome tale are the deaths of several regents, Empress Liang, Qiang Ping, and Fu Huangmei, followed by the coup of Fu Jian (Fu Jian).

Distinguishing His Military Merit, the Literary Setting, and the Bias of the Sources

In military matters, what is clearly recorded of Fu Sheng himself is his resistance to Huan Wen's northern expedition in 354, when the histories say he several times broke into the Jin ranks; whereas Deng Qiang's defeat of Muyu Changqing and Fu Huangmei's killing of Yao Xiang were national operations of Former Qin, and in the Yao Xiang campaign the winning plan was Deng Qiang's, so that they should not all be written up as merits personally commanded by Fu Sheng. The submission of Former Liang shows that Former Qin applied diplomatic and military pressure in the Hexi region, but it did not thereby annex Former Liang. These distinctions do not belittle his military record; they merely separate the results of state action from the personal command of a ruler. In internal government what can be confirmed is the deaths of the guardians, of the empress Liang, of Qiang Ping and of Fu Huangmei, and the seizure of power by Fu Jian's group against a background of estrangement at court; as to the cruel punishments, the drinking and the killing of remonstrating officials, the histories tie them to his fall, and the particular scenes are more or less elaborated by later narrative.

It is worth noting the stance of the sources themselves. In the Sixteen States period the national histories were mostly compiled by the succeeding regime or the victors, whose narratives tend to "lay the fault on others and draw the good to themselves"; hence Zhao Yi's remark that Fu Sheng, though fond of bravery and drink, "was also benevolent and not a killer, and judging by his statutes was not cruel, yet when one examines his history all the evil in the empire is laid on him, while Fu Jian, a worthy ruler indeed, usurped his lord and seized the throne and wrote evil of him falsely, as all such historians do." On the other hand, the literary setting of Former Qin in Fu Sheng's reign was comparatively good: the Jin History's record of Fu Sheng notes that the envoys of Former Qin, Liang Dang and others, were "rich in letters and history, and eminent as masters of letters," which shows that literary development did not cease with the disorders of the court; and Fu Sheng himself left such pieces as his "Proclamation on the Use of Severe Punishments," plain in language, in which the sense of inferiority and resentment caused by his physical defect is plainly visible. He should therefore be judged both by the well-attested substance of harsh punishment and the killing of those who remonstrated, and with an awareness that the surviving record was compiled by the opposing side, so that no single lurid anecdote should be taken as a fact of equal weight.

Personal Relations

• Fu Hong was his grandfather. Fu Jian (Fu Jian) was his father and predecessor, and Lady Qiang was his mother.
• Fu Chang was his elder brother and the former crown prince; Fu Liu was among his brothers. Fu Jian (Fu Jian) and Fu Fa were cousins and took part in the deposition of 357 (Shouguang year 3, Former Qin).
• Empress Liang was his wife, and Liang An belonged to her family. Historical accounts say that Fu Sheng had them both killed.
• Fu Kui was his son. After Fu Sheng's death, Fu Jian (Fu Jian) arranged for him to inherit the title Duke of Yue.
• Deng Qiang and Fu Huangmei were commanders under his rule. Qiang Ping was his maternal uncle and was killed after remonstrating.

Historical Assessment

The Book of Jin and the Spring and Autumn Annals of the Sixteen Kingdoms explain Fu Sheng's rapid fall through severe punishments, the killing of senior officials, and the loss of political support. Xue Zan and Quan Yi are recorded as accusing him of violent suspicion that alienated both court and wider society. Yet Zhao Yi, quoted in the Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang, argued that victors often assigned the faults of a fallen regime to its defeated ruler. Liu Zhiji and Lü Simian likewise questioned hostile embellishment. These assessments should be held together: court killings and the coup have support in several histories, while the number and exact details of extreme anecdotes cannot all be treated as settled fact.