Liu Bian

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Liu Bian was born on a bingyin day in the intercalary eighth lunar month of 173, the second year of Xiping, in Luoyang Palace. His father was Emperor Ling of Han, Liu Hong. His mother, Lady He, had originally been a palace woman from Wan County in Nanyang Commandery, present-day Nanyang, Henan. She was made a noble lady after giving birth to a son and later became empress. Several of Emperor Ling’s sons had died young before Liu Bian’s birth, so he was not raised inside the palace but was fostered in the household of the Daoist Shi Zimiao, from which he acquired the designation “Marquis Shi.” Emperor Ling disliked Liu Bian, considering him frivolous and lacking imperial bearing, and wanted to make Liu Xie, son of Beauty Wang, crown prince. Because Empress He remained favored and her brother He Jin held great power, however, the succession remained unresolved until Emperor Ling’s death.

Accession and the Court Situation

In the fourth lunar month of 189, the sixth year of Zhongping, Emperor Ling became gravely ill. He entrusted Liu Xie to the eunuch Jian Shuo and intended him to succeed. Jian Shuo secretly planned first to kill He Jin, but an acquaintance warned He Jin and he escaped in time. After Emperor Ling died, Liu Bian succeeded with He Jin’s support. He honored Empress He as empress dowager, who governed in his name, granted a general amnesty, and adopted the era name Guangxi. Liu Xie was made Prince of Bohai, and Yuan Wei became Grand Tutor and shared supervision of the Imperial Secretariat with He Jin. By this time the Eastern Han had been gravely weakened by the Yellow Turban Rebellion, while conflict between the consort clan and eunuchs had intensified. After He Jin killed Jian Shuo, he sought to eliminate the eunuchs completely and summoned Dong Zhuo to the capital to apply pressure, but Empress Dowager He refused to approve the plan.

Palace Coup and Flight

On the twenty-fifth day of the eighth lunar month of 189, the first year of Guangxi, He Jin entered the palace to press Empress Dowager He to approve the destruction of the eunuchs. Zhang Rang, Duan Gui, and others struck first and killed him in front of Jiade Hall. Yuan Shu and others then forced their way into the palace. The eunuchs seized Liu Bian, Liu Xie, and Empress Dowager He and fled toward the Northern Palace, although Lu Zhi rescued the empress dowager along the way. The next day Zhang Rang and the others took Liu Bian out through the Gu Gate and reached Xiaoping Ford at night. Min Gong caught up and denounced the eunuchs, after which Zhang Rang and the others drowned themselves in the river. Min Gong escorted Liu Bian and the others south on foot; after dawn they obtained horses, and senior officials gradually joined them.

Dong Zhuo’s Entry into the Capital and the Deposition

Dong Zhuo had been summoned to the capital by He Jin. Seeing flames in the palace from Xianyang Park, he hurried to Beimang Slope to meet the imperial party. Liu Bian burst into tears and could not answer coherently when he saw Dong Zhuo’s army, whereas Liu Xie responded clearly. Dong Zhuo therefore judged Liu Xie more capable and, regarding himself as a clansman of Empress Dowager Dong, began to consider changing the emperor. After returning to the palace, Dong Zhuo appointed himself Minister of Works and dominated the court. On the first day of the ninth lunar month of 189, the first year of Zhaoning, he assembled the officials in the Chongde Front Hall and forced Empress Dowager He to issue an edict deposing Liu Bian as Prince of Hongnong and enthroning Liu Xie. Grand Tutor Yuan Wei removed Liu Bian’s imperial seals and ribbons, helped him descend the hall, and made him face north as a subject. Empress Dowager He choked with tears while the assembled officials grieved but dared not speak.

Death and Aftermath

In the first lunar month of 190, the first year of Chuping, the eastern regional lords raised armies against Dong Zhuo. Fearing that they might use restoration of Liu Bian as a rallying cry, Dong Zhuo sent Palace Gentleman Prefect Li Ru with poisoned wine. Liu Bian recognized the poison and refused to drink it, but Li Ru forced him. Liu Bian held a farewell banquet with his wife Lady Tang and palace attendants, sang a lament beginning “The Way of Heaven changes—why is my hardship so great?”, asked Lady Tang to dance, urged her to take care of herself, and then drank the poison and died. In the second lunar month, Emperor Xian ordered him buried in the tomb of the Palace Attendant Zhao Zhong and gave him the posthumous title Prince Huai. Lady Tang was later seized by Li Jue but refused to submit. Jia Xu informed Emperor Xian, who received her and invested her as consort of the Prince of Hongnong.

Liu Bian was born about the yin day of the intercalary eighth month of 173 at the Luoyang palace; his mother was a palace woman of the He family from Wan county in Nanyang, which made him a son by a concubine. On his birth the lady He rose through her son and was made a favourite, afterward empress. Before his birth the emperor's other sons had all died young, so the child was not raised in the palace but was lodged in the house of the Daoist priest Shi Zimiao and not called by his own name but known as the Marquis Shi; because the priest was skilled in the arts of the Way, the lady He hoped to use them for the child's protection.

Emperor Ling disliked Liu Bian and preferred Liu Xie. When the ministers asked that an heir apparent be named, the emperor, thinking Liu Bian frivolous and without the bearing of a sovereign, wished to make Liu Xie heir; but as the empress was He's sister and He Jin was general-in-chief with great power at court, the question was long delayed and no heir was named before the emperor's death.

In 189, when Emperor Ling lay dying, he entrusted Liu Xie to the eunuch and colonel of the upper army Jian Shuo, in whom he had special confidence. Emperor Ling died on the eleventh day of the fourth month (13 May 189). Jian Shuo meant first to kill He Jin and then set up Liu Xie, and invited him into the inner palace; but as He Jin came in from the outer court, Jian Shuo's marshal Pan Yin, an old acquaintance, walked toward him and caught his eye, and He Jin, alarmed, withdrew, went back to his camp by a side road and then pleaded illness and would not enter the palace, so that Jian Shuo's plan failed and the prince Liu Bian came to the throne without hindrance.

Two days after the emperor's death, on the thirteenth day of the fourth month (15 May 189), Liu Bian succeeded him, honoured his mother the empress He as empress dowager, made his nine-year-old brother Liu Xie prince of Bohai, afterward of Chenliu. Liu Bian was then about fourteen, and the government lay with the empress dowager and her brother General-in-Chief He Jin; He Jin, meaning to destroy the eunuchs, took Yuan Shao's advice and called in provincial troops, among them the pastor of Bingzhou, Dong Zhuo.

In the eighth month He Jin was killed by the eunuchs, Yuan Shao and his fellows then slaughtered the eunuchs wholesale, and Luoyang fell into disorder; Dong Zhuo entered the capital with his troops and took the government into his hands. In the ninth month he deposed Liu Bian as prince of Hongnong on the ground that he was frivolous and unfit to rule, and set up Liu Xie as Emperor Xian. After his deposition Liu Bian was lodged in a side hall, his mother the empress dowager was moved out by Dong Zhuo and afterward poisoned. In 190 Dong Zhuo had Liu Bian poisoned as well, at about eighteen; his brother Emperor Xian afterward gave him the posthumous name prince Huai.

He reigned less than half a year, his brief sovereignty wholly caught up in the struggle of eunuchs, consort kin and provincial warlords at the end of the Eastern Han. In later discussion of the fall of the Han the emperor's failure to name an heir, the clash of He Jin and the eunuchs and Dong Zhuo's entry and depositions are commonly taken as the decisive links, and Liu Bian is the sovereign first caught up in that chain of events.

Once in Luoyang Dong Zhuo quickly took the government into his hands; in deposing one emperor for another he had both the wish to display his power and a tie to the empress dowager Dong who had raised Liu Xie, since he claimed a common clan with her and therefore leaned toward setting up Liu Xie, prince of Chenliu. It is recorded that he gathered the ministers in the Chongde front hall and, on the ground that the empress dowager He had driven the empress dowager Dong to her death in grief, declared Liu Bian deposed as prince of Hongnong and set up the prince of Chenliu, removing the empress dowager He to the Yongan palace. Few dared speak; only Lu Zhi and some others objected, and Dong Zhuo, angry though he was, took no vengeance, but the deposition stood.

After his deposition Liu Bian lived with his wife, the lady Tang, in a side palace in confinement. Dong Zhuo then poisoned the empress dowager He and in 190 sent the master of the palace Li Ru with poison to the prince of Hongnong. The History of the Later Han records that before drinking Liu Bian took leave of the lady Tang with a song — that the way of Heaven turns and his own plight is hard, that he lays down ten thousand chariots to keep a frontier, that the rebel subject presses him and his life will not last, and that he goes now to the dark leaving her. The lady Tang rose and danced, answering in song, and those about them wept. Liu Bian drank the poison and died at about eighteen.

After his death the lady Tang returned to her home district and would not marry again; Emperor Xian, learning of it, brought her into the palace with honour and honoured his brother with the posthumous name prince Huai. Of his burial the histories say only that he was buried in haste, with a tomb far from the scale of the Han emperors; later accounts mention his burial in the ready-made grave of the eunuch Zhao Zhong, which shows how poor his end was.

In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and later literature this passage of his life is told again and again: his deposition, his parting and his drinking of the poison have become a tragic episode in the upheaval of the late Han court. The histories say little of his half-year reign, and his figure comes chiefly from such dramatic scenes and later retellings; the way he was deposed and replaced is taken as the mark of the utter collapse of the imperial power at the end of the Eastern Han and of the warlords' mastery of the court.

The record of his reign is found chiefly in the annals of Emperor Ling and the life of the empress He in the History of the Later Han and in the relevant parts of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, and also in the Later Han Chronicle, the Comprehensive Mirror and later in the Romance. The sources agree on the course of the deposition but differ slightly on Dong Zhuo's motives and on Liu Bian's own character: the History stresses Dong Zhuo's high-handedness and the impropriety of the change, while the Romance brings out the tragedy of the two brothers. Modern study of late Han politics commonly treats his deposition as the necessary outcome after consort kin and eunuchs had destroyed each other: the mutual destruction of He Jin and the eunuchs left the Luoyang court without a check, Dong Zhuo slipped in, and the changing of emperors was his first step in establishing his power. Very few of the decrees of his reign are preserved, and he held no real authority — an extreme instance of the relation between a child sovereign and an overmighty minister at the end of the Eastern Han.

The place of his burial cannot now be traced.

The tombs of the Eastern Han emperors lie mostly about Luoyang, but no clear record of his burial place survives.

In 189, as Emperor Ling lay gravely ill, he entrusted his intended heir, the prince Liu Xie, to the colonel of the upper army, Jian Shuo. When the emperor died in the fourth month, Jian Shuo meant first to kill the general-in-chief He Jin and then set up Liu Xie, and so summoned He Jin into the palace; but as He Jin entered, Jian Shuo's marshal Pan Yin, an old acquaintance, met him and signaled with his eyes. Badly startled, He Jin withdrew, went back to camp by a side road and pleaded illness, and the plot failed, so that the prince Bian came to the throne without hindrance. He gave his mother, the empress He, the title of empress dowager and made his nine-year-old brother Liu Xie prince of Bohai, soon after transferring him to Chenliu. Jian Shuo still wanted to replace him, and fearing that He Jin in power would kill him, sought help from the other eunuchs; they, whether close to He Jin or merely protecting themselves, disclosed his plan, and He Jin had the yellow gate director seize and kill him and took over his troops.

In the eighth month He Jin entered the Changyue palace to demand the empress dowager's consent to the slaughter of all the regular attendants, and was refused. On the twenty-fifth the eunuchs Zhang Rang and Duan Gui learned that He Jin had been murdered, and the general of the tiger guards Yuan Shu burned the eastern and western palaces and attacked the eunuchs. At dawn the next day the eunuchs, unable to hold the inner palace, went into the Changyue palace, falsely announced that the general-in-chief's men had mutinied, and carried off the empress dowager, Liu Bian, the prince of Chenliu and the palace staff by the gallery road to the Deyang hall in the northern palace; the secretary Lu Zhi, spear in hand below the gallery window, recited Duan Gui's crimes aloud until he let the empress dowager go. On the twenty-seventh, Zhang Rang and his fellows, penned in the northern palace by their pursuers, took Liu Bian and some scores of others out on foot by the Gu gate and at nightfall reached Xiaoping ford. The six imperial seals were not with them, no ministers accompanied them, and only Lu Zhi and Min Gong, aide of the Henan commandery, came down to the Yellow River. Min Gong's horsemen caught them at daybreak; Liu Bian was hungry and thirsty, and Min Gong killed a sheep for him, then rebuked Zhang Rang fiercely for ruining the state and cut down several eunuchs with his sword. Zhang Rang and the rest, in terror, bowed twice with hands folded and knocked their heads before Liu Bian in farewell, then drowned themselves in the river. Min Gong, supporting Liu Bian and the prince of Chenliu, walked south through the night by the light of fireflies toward the palace, and after a few li found a peasant's cart that carried the three to Luoshe, where they got down to rest. Once the young emperor was back in the palace, power had passed to Dong Zhuo, who had brought troops into the capital; in the ninth month Liu Bian was deposed as prince of Hongnong, and killed in the first month of the following year.

Major Activities

Reign and Deposition

Liu Bian reigned for only a little more than four months and was the first Eastern Han emperor to be deposed by a powerful minister. His accession, forced flight, deposition, and murder were directly connected to Dong Zhuo’s seizure of power and the ensuing warfare among regional military leaders, making his fate a symbolic episode in the collapse of the Eastern Han.

Passive Role in the Palace Coup

Liu Bian was entirely passive during the palace upheaval. Eunuchs carried him away from the capital, and Dong Zhuo then controlled him after his return. Accounts contrasting Liu Bian’s incoherent speech with Liu Xie’s clear answers were used by Dong Zhuo as a pretext for replacing him.

Final Lament and Farewell to Lady Tang

Before his death, Liu Bian bade farewell to Lady Tang and sang a lament beginning “The Way of Heaven changes—why is my hardship so great?” Lady Tang danced in response. Lu Xun later described the scene as “the Chu sound of the Han palace.” Lady Tang remained faithful after his death and was later recognized by Emperor Xian as consort of the Prince of Hongnong.

Personal Relations

• Family: Emperor Ling of Han, Liu Hong (father); Empress He (mother); Emperor Xian of Han, Liu Xie (younger half-brother); Lady Tang (wife)
• Teachers and associates: Shi Zimiao (foster guardian); Min Gong (rescuer); Lu Zhi (official who rescued his mother)
• Ruler-minister relationships: He Jin (maternal uncle and chief supporter); Yuan Wei (Grand Tutor); Dong Zhuo (powerful minister); Li Ru (the man sent to poison him)
• Conflicts: Jian Shuo (plotted against the succession); Zhang Rang and Duan Gui (eunuchs)

Historical Assessment

Eastern Han / Contemporary

• Emperor Ling of Han: “Bian is frivolous and lacks dignified bearing; he cannot be ruler of men.” — Book of the Later Han, “Biography of He Jin”
• Dong Zhuo: “The emperor is young and benighted, not a ruler for the imperial carriage,” and “the present emperor is dark and weak and cannot serve the ancestral temples as ruler of All Under Heaven.” — Book of the Later Han, “Biography of Dong Zhuo”
• Yuan Shao argued that the emperor was still young and that no misconduct had yet become known throughout the realm. — Annals of the Later Han
• Lu Zhi likewise argued that the emperor was young and had committed no fault, so the situation could not be compared with earlier depositions. — Book of the Later Han, “Biography of Lu Zhi”

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance gives a detailed account of Liu Bian’s deposition and uses the image of the empress dowager choking with tears while the officials silently grieved, conveying sympathy for his fate.
• Hu Sanxing, annotating the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, criticized Dong Zhuo’s deposition as a private political calculation rather than an act undertaken for the state, indirectly highlighting Liu Bian’s helplessness.
• Zheng Qiao’s Comprehensive Treatises classified Liu Bian among “deposed emperors” while recognizing the exceptional circumstance of a reign lasting less than a year.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Mao Zonggang, commenting on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, noted that Liu Bian composed both a lament and final words before death, mourning his literary sensibility and tragic fate.
• Wang Fuzhi, in Du Tongjian Lun, treated Dong Zhuo’s deposition of Liu Bian as the beginning of the Han dynasty’s final destruction.
• Ming and Qing writers often regarded Liu Bian as a young and weak ruler but nevertheless expressed sympathy for his murder.

Modern Period

• Lü Simian, in Informal History of the Three Kingdoms, argued that Liu Bian had committed no fault and that his deposition was entirely a product of Dong Zhuo’s seizure of power.
• Lu Xun called Liu Bian’s final farewell “the Chu sound of the Han palace,” praising its literary emotional force.
• Modern scholarship differs on whether Liu Bian should be counted formally among the emperors, but generally recognizes the legitimacy of his accession.