Liu Bao

Biography

Family Background and Early Years Liu Bao was born in 115, the second year of Yuanchu, to Emperor An of Han, Liu Hu, and the palace woman Lady Li. His birth was accompanied by a palace tragedy: shortly after giving birth to him, Lady Li was poisoned to death by Empress Yan Ji. Yan Ji, Emperor An’s empress and a member of a prominent Nanyang family, feared that Lady Li might rise in status because of her son and threaten her position, and therefore had her killed. Liu Bao lost his birth mother while still an infant and was raised by his wet nurse Wang Nan. Despite the early death of his mother, Liu Bao’s childhood was not entirely bleak. He was intelligent from a young age, studied passages from the Classic of Filial Piety diligently, and was much favored by Empress Dowager Deng. Deng had been the empress of Emperor He of Han and was at this time governing as grand empress dowager. She valued Liu Bao’s learning and regarded him as a suitable successor to the throne. In 120, the first year of Yongning, Liu Bao, as Emperor An’s only son, was formally made crown prince at the age of six, becoming the designated heir to the Eastern Han throne. ### Years as Crown Prince and Deposition After becoming crown prince, Liu Bao grew up in the palace, but his position was far from secure. Emperor An’s wet nurse Wang Sheng, the Chief of the Palace Attendants Jiang Jing, the Palace Attendant Fan Feng, and others allied themselves with Empress Yan and dominated court affairs. They feared that Liu Bao would punish them after succeeding to the throne and therefore sought to frame him. In 124, the third year of Yan'guang, Liu Bao fell ill and stayed at the residence of Emperor An’s wet nurse Wang Sheng to recuperate. During this time, Liu Bao’s wet nurse Wang Nan and the kitchen supervisor Bing Ji had a serious quarrel with Wang Sheng and her associates. Wang Sheng and the others bore a grudge and, together with Jiang Jing and Fan Feng, falsely accused Wang Nan and Bing Ji, leading to their execution. Liu Bao repeatedly sighed over their deaths and showed grief and resentment. Fearing retaliation once the crown prince became emperor, Wang Sheng and the others joined Jiang Jing, Fan Feng, and Empress Yan in framing Liu Bao himself. Emperor An summoned his ministers to discuss deposing the crown prince. Huan Yan, the Chamberlain for Ceremonials, Lai Li, the Grand Coachman, and Zhang Hao, the Commandant of Justice, firmly opposed the proposal. Emperor An threatened officials who resisted. Most yielded under pressure, but Lai Li continued to object. Enraged, Emperor An dismissed him and immediately issued an edict demoting Liu Bao to Prince of Jiyin. Lai Li remained unconvinced and organized eleven officials and commoners to submit a petition of protest, but Emperor An did not reverse his decision. ### Coup and Accession In 125, the fourth year of Yan'guang, Emperor An died at Ye County while on an imperial progress. Empress Yan had no son. She and her brother Yan Xian decided not to enthrone Liu Bao and instead brought the young Marquis of Beixiang, Liu Yi, to the throne, making him the preceding young emperor of the Eastern Han. Empress Dowager Yan ruled in the emperor’s name and controlled the government. During Emperor An’s funeral, Empress Dowager Yan and her allies barred Liu Bao from approaching the coffin in the main hall. The eleven-year-old Liu Bao grieved so deeply that he vomited blood and could not eat, and could only weep outside the palace gate. Liu Yi died after reigning for seven months. Yan Xian and the others believed that because they had already passed over Liu Bao, enthroning him now would expose them to his resentment. They therefore petitioned the empress dowager to choose another successor from among the sons of the imperial princes. At this point the eunuchs Wang Kang, Sun Cheng, and seventeen others decided to act. They secretly assembled and suddenly launched a palace coup, killed Yan Xian and his supporters, removed Empress Dowager Yan from power, and enthroned the eleven-year-old Liu Bao, adopting the era name Yongjian. All nineteen eunuchs who had supported his accession were enfeoffed as marquises and became known as the “Nineteen Marquises.” Empress Dowager Yan was confined in a detached palace, but Emperor Shun rejected Chen Chan’s proposal that she be stripped of her title on the ground that there was no true mother-son bond between them. He continued to honor her as empress dowager until her death. ### Government During His Reign After taking the throne, Emperor Shun faced a complicated balance of political forces. Although he owed his accession to eunuchs, he did not become completely controlled by them. In 126, the first year of Yongjian, Yu Xu was dismissed after unsuccessfully impeaching the Palace Attendant Zhang Fang. Sun Cheng, Zhang Xian, and other members of the Nineteen Marquises submitted a memorial defending Yu Xu and denouncing Zhang Fang, but this angered Emperor Shun. He used the occasion to dismiss the nineteen marquises from office, remove them from the central government, and send them to their fiefs, demonstrating his caution toward and suppression of eunuch power. In 132, the first year of Yangjia, Emperor Shun adopted a proposal by Director of the Imperial Secretariat Zuo Xiong to reform the recommendation system. Candidates recommended for filial piety and incorruptibility were required to be at least forty years old and to pass examinations before appointment. These changes are described in the Chinese source as the reforms of the Yangjia era. The changes were intended to improve the quality of official recruitment and select genuinely capable men, and represented an important institutional adjustment in Eastern Han political history. At the same time, however, the Liang consort clan was quietly becoming more powerful. In 135, the fourth year of Yangjia, Emperor Shun made Liang Na, daughter of Liang Shang, his empress, and Liang Shang was appointed General-in-Chief. The Liang family gradually came to dominate government, laying the groundwork for Liang Ji’s later monopoly of power. Emperor Shun tried to balance eunuchs, consort clans, and court officials and thereby maintain political stability, but he was ultimately unable to resolve the underlying problems. ### Death and Final Edict In the eighth lunar month of 144, the first year of Jiankang, Emperor Shun died in the Yutang Front Hall at the age of twenty-nine by Western reckoning, or thirty by traditional East Asian reckoning, after a reign of nineteen years. In his final edict he ordered that no ancestral temple be constructed for him and that no pearls, jade, or luxury objects be placed in his tomb. In the tenth lunar month of the same year, he was buried at Xianling. Yet the tomb was robbed in the very year of his burial. He received the posthumous title Emperor Xiaoshun and the temple name Jingzong, which was later abolished in 190, the first year of Chuping under Emperor Xian of Han. His young son Liu Bing then succeeded as Emperor Chong of Han, with Empress Dowager Liang governing in his name, ushering in another peak of consort-clan power in the Eastern Han.

His Birth, the Murder of His Mother, and His Making as Heir

In 115 a palace woman of Emperor An of Han, lady Li, gave birth to Liu Bao; and the empress Yan Ji, "jealous of her monopoly of the emperor's bed," learning of it poisoned Liu Bao's mother lady Li with drugged wine. Liu Bao was from childhood simple and honest, kindly and of gentle warmth; at six he entered the primary school, chanting the chapters of the Classic of Filial Piety, at which Emperor An commended him greatly and judged that he could inherit the great line, so that in 120 he made him heir apparent. Emperor An had a palace built for Liu Bao to live in, and so at six, before he was capped, he took up his own palace; and in choosing his attendants, a youthful, mild and reverent person being sought to serve him in his reading, Cao Teng was at last chosen, and being young yet careful and generous was "specially cherished" by Liu Bao. When the empress dowager Deng fell ill, Emperor An came by carriage to the front hall, received the several palace attendants and presidents of the boards, and then went north to the newly built palace of the heir apparent to see Liu Bao; and in the third month of that year the empress dowager Deng died.

His Deposition as Prince of Jiyin

In 124 Liu Bao, then ten, fell ill in the palace from excessive fright, and was all day in terror, his spirit not at rest; and Emperor An moved him from the heir's palace to the house of his nurse Wang Sheng outside the palace, where Wang Sheng looked after him. Some hold that although Liu Bao was made heir apparent his position in the inner palace was very dangerous and he might well have been murdered by the empress Yan and her party, so that the dowager's moving him into the newly built heir's palace and the emperor's moving him to Wang Sheng's house outside were meant as special protection. At that time the emperor's nurse Wang Sheng, the grand chief of the long autumn Jiang Jing and the palace attendant Fan Feng slandered and killed the heir's nurse Wang Nan and the kitchen overseer Bing Ji, at which "the heir sighed again and again"; and Wang Sheng and the rest, fearing trouble to come, joined Fan Feng and Jiang Jing in accusing the heir, fabricating out of nothing that Liu Bao and the officers of the eastern palace had plotted to kill his father and set himself up. Emperor An, hearing the "charge," was furious and summoned the ministers and the hundred officials to discuss deposing the heir, and the general-in-chief Geng Bao and others, pandering to his will, all held that the heir should be deposed; but the grand coachman Lai Li and the commandant of justice Zhang Hao said that by principle one under fifteen years old had no guilt in himself and that the heir might well have known nothing of Wang Nan's and Bing Ji's plans, so that loyal and good men should be chosen to instruct him in rites and righteousness, and that the deposition of an heir was a great matter on which the emperor should think three times. The emperor would not listen; and coming out from court Zhang Hao memorialized again that in former days the wicked minister Jiang Chong had fabricated calumnies and overthrown the heir Li Ju, and that Emperor Wu of Han had come to see it only long after and could never repent it enough, and asked how an heir of ten, not yet taught by his guardians, could be deposed in such haste. The memorial was presented and the emperor still would not hear. Afterwards Lai Li with the imperial clansman Liu Wei, the master of works Xue Hao and the palace attendants Lüqiu Hong, Chen Guang, Zhao Dai and Shi Yan and the grand master of the great palace Zhu Chang, more than ten in all, went to the Hongdu gate to testify that the heir was guiltless; and Emperor An and those about him, taking alarm, sent a palace attendant with an edict to threaten the ministers, saying that father and son are one body by nature, that to cut private affection by the great principle is for the sake of the realm, that Lai Li and Zhi Feng and the rest did not understand the great code but made trouble with the petty, which was no way to serve a lord, and that the court was opening the roads of business and therefore lenient, but that if they persisted they would suffer punishment. The remonstrants all changed colour; Xue Hao knocked his head and accepted the order, and Lai Li in anger reproached him, and the ministers who had come to remonstrate departed one after another, leaving Lai Li alone to keep the palace gate for days and refuse to go. The president of the secretariat Chen Zhong and the several presidents jointly impeached him, and so Lai Li and his brothers were stripped of office, their fief revenue cut, and his mother's title of grand princess revoked and her attendance at court forbidden. In 124 Liu Bao was deposed as prince of Jiyin.

The Death of Emperor An and the Domination of the Yan Family

On the tenth day of the third month of 125 Emperor An, going to sacrifice at the Zhangling, fell suddenly ill at Ye county and died; and the empress Yan Ji with her brothers Yan Xian and Yan Jing and with Jiang Jing and Fan Feng devised the plan that with the emperor dead on the road and the prince of Jiyin within the court, if the ministers came to know and set him up it would be the greatest of harms. They therefore gave out that the emperor was gravely ill and moved the body into a travelling carriage, offerings being made and inquiries after his health put as usual wherever they passed. On the thirteenth the imperial carriage returned to the palace, and only on the evening of the fourteenth did Yan Ji and the rest announce the death, whereupon she was raised to be empress dowager, took the court and made the grand master of ceremonies Yan Xian general of chariots and cavalry with the rank of the three offices. Wishing to hold the government long in her own hands, the empress dowager Yan had the prince of Beixiang, Liu Yi, brought in as emperor. Liu Bao, being deposed, might not go up to the hall to attend the coffin of Emperor An, "and wailed and would not eat, so that all the officers within and without grieved for him." In the tenth month of 125 Liu Yi fell suddenly and gravely ill of an unknown cause that no physician could explain, and Yan Xian and his brothers with Jiang Jing and the rest were all about him; and Jiang Jing, drawing Yan Xian aside, told him that the prince of Beixiang's illness was not understood and the succession should be settled in time, that they had not set up the prince of Jiyin, and that if he were now set up he would surely bear a grudge, so that they should early summon other princes and choose one to put in his place; and Yan Xian agreed. Yan Xian with the eunuchs Jiang Jing, Liu An and Chen Da memorialized the empress dowager Yan to keep the death secret and summon the sons of the princes of Jibei and Hejian, closing the palace gates and keeping troops in readiness.

His Setting Up by the Nineteen, the Punishment of the Yan, and Their Expulsion

Before the sons of the princes of Jibei and Hejian reached Luoyang, Sun Cheng and others agreed together to set up Liu Bao as emperor; and on the evening of the fourth day of the eleventh month nineteen eunuchs joined in killing the eunuchs of the empress dowager, Jiang Jing, Liu An and Chen Da, and brought the prince of Jiyin to the west bell of the Deyang hall and set him on the throne at the age of eleven. The imperial seal being still in the hands of the empress dowager, she refused to acknowledge him and sent the colonel of the mounted scouts Feng Shi and the commandant of the guards Yan Jing with troops to seize and kill him; but Feng Shi halted his troops on the way, while Yan Jing went on. Liu Bao with his close ministers and the presidents of the boards went to the Yuntai of the southern palace, assembled the ministers and the hundred officials and set the guards of the tiger and the feathered forest at the several gates of the two palaces; and by then Yan Jing had forced his way into the northern palace. Afterwards Liu Bao sent envoys to the northern palace where the empress dowager lived to take the imperial seal, and then came to the Jiade hall and sent a attendant censor with the tally to arrest Yan Xian and his brothers, the gate commandant Yan Yao and the bearer of the golden mace Yan Yan, and all were thrown into prison and put to death; and the empress dowager Yan was moved to a detached palace and her household banished to the frontier. Only when the whole of the Yan consort kin had been destroyed did Liu Bao order the gates opened and the troops withdrawn, and then decreed to the colonel of the capital province that only the close kin of Yan Xian and Jiang Jing were to be executed and that all others should be pardoned as far as possible. He then visited in turn the shrines of the founder of Han and of the founder of the Later Han, and buried the young emperor Liu Yi with the honours of a prince. Because Song E had helped to set him up he enfeoffed her as lady of Shanyang with five thousand households, and enfeoffed the nineteen eunuchs who had assisted her as marquises, known to history as the "nineteen marquises"; yet within a year he drove them all out. At that time the palace attendant Zhang Fang abused his power and took bribes, and the colonel of the capital province Yu Xu investigated him by law, but his memorials were always held back and never sent up; and Yu Xu in his indignation bound himself and went to the commandant of justice, while Zhang Fang wept before Liu Bao and pleaded for himself, so that Yu Xu was sent to hard labour in the left workshop. When Sun Cheng and the other eighteen marquises learned that Yu Xu had been punished for loyalty they went up to the hall with their memorials in their bosoms to clear him and loudly reproached Zhang Fang; and Liu Bao, seeing it, flew into a rage and at once stripped Sun Cheng and the rest of their offices, and on the charge of "bringing memorials to the hall and contending for merit" drove all nineteen out of Luoyang, the capital. Afterwards Yu Xu's son Yu Kai with more than a hundred students of the grand college raised banners and went to another palace attendant, Gao Fan, knocking their heads until they bled and setting out Yu Xu's wrongs; and Gao Fan told Liu Bao of it, at which he came to himself, had the eunuch Zhang Fang and five others put to death or dismissed, and released Yu Xu that same day.

The New System of Yangjia and His Restraint of the Eunuchs and Consort Kin

In the Eastern Han the great families had manipulated the selection of the worthy and the powerful houses had solicited for one another and bribery had been open, and against these abuses of the selection system the president of the secretariat Zuo Xiong boldly proposed in 132 that henceforth no man under forty might be selected as filial and incorrupt, that all should first present themselves at the chancellor's office, that the scholars should be examined in their masters' traditions and the clerks in the drafting of memorials, that copies should be lodged at the Duanmen to verify the truth of them, so as to bring out unusual ability and improve the customs, and that those who did not follow the rules should be punished by law. Liu Bao adopted Zuo Xiong's proposal and carried out the reform of the selection system, known as the "new system of Yangjia": first, an age limit was set, candidates generally having to be forty, though men of outstanding talent and conduct might be selected out of course; second, an examination was established, the scholars being examined in their masters' traditions and the clerks in the drafting of memorials, that is, the Confucian candidates were examined in the classics and the clerks in the skills of memorials and statutes. The examination was a landmark advance in the selection system: Zuo Xiong fixed it as a standing law, greatly increasing the certainty and regularity of the procedure, so that all could compete by relatively clear rules, and this provision guarded against the great families conspiring and soliciting for one another. After the new system took effect Zuo Xiong himself checked how the commanderies carried it out, and because Jiyin commandery rashly recommended a filial and incorrupt not yet forty, he launched an investigation and had the governor of Jiyin, Hu Guang, and more than ten other officers dismissed, after which for a decade and more all places stood in awe of him and the temper of the selection in Han was set right. Afterwards the president of the secretariat Huang Qiong, holding that Zuo Xiong's subjects had been confined to the Confucian learning and the clerks and had left something out of the meaning of selecting men, memorialized to add filial and fraternal conduct and fitness to govern as two further subjects, which Liu Bao adopted. In restraining the eunuchs and consort kin, in 133 Liu Bao asked the ministers what were the ills of the age and what should be done in government, and Li Gu memorialized that he should send his nurse the lady of Shanyang, Song E, out of the palace to her house, take power from the consort kin, dismiss the eunuchs and reduce their weight, keeping only two palace attendants and choosing upright and virtuous eunuchs to be about the emperor; and Liu Bao adopted the greater part of his proposals, at once sending Song E out of the palace to her house. Li Gu further advised preventing the sons of these palace officers from becoming officials or being selected as filial and incorrupt, so as to keep them from wielding the power of kin and forming factions; and on his advice Liu Bao decreed that "the sons of such men shall not hold the office of pastor," a rule that became a standing institution of the Han and later gave the scholars a basis in principle for attacking the eunuchs. In 137 his nurse, the lady of Shanyang, Song E, was convicted of "framing false accusations," and Liu Bao took back her seal and ribbon and banished her to a farm; and the eunuch Li Gang and the other "nine marquises," having taken bribes together with Song E, were all driven from Luoyang to their fiefs with a quarter of their revenue cut. When the eunuch Zhang Kui with Shi Guang, Fu Fu and Du Yong and others conspired to accuse Liang Shang and his friends of treason, Liu Bao would not believe it at all and reproached the eunuchs for their jealousy; whereupon Zhang Kui and the rest forged an edict, arrested and imprisoned Cao Teng and Meng Ben, and Liu Bao in a rage ordered their release and the arrest of Zhang Kui, Qu Zheng, Shi Guang, Fu Fu, Du Yong and the other eunuchs, all of whom were put to death.

The Eight Commissioners, Liang Shang, and Liang Ji

In 135 Liang Shang, father of the empress Liang, was made general-in-chief. Liang Shang, thinking that he held the office only because he was a consort kinsman, was always modest and mild and open in recommending the worthy, and he recommended Ju Lan of Hanyang and Chen Gui of Shangdang as his officers and Li Gu and Zhou Ju as adjutants of the central secretariat, so that all within Luoyang praised him as a "worthy assistant," and Liu Bao had him take part in the weighty business of state; and whenever a year of famine came Liang Shang would carry the grain his own house had collected to the city gates to relieve those without food, not saying that it was the general-in-chief's kindness but only that it was the state's relief, and he strictly restrained his own household and kinsmen so that they never did wrong by their power. In the eighth month of 141 the general-in-chief Liang Shang died, and Liu Bao made his son, the governor of Henan, Liang Ji, general-in-chief; and Liang Ji, once in the office, monopolized power and gave it rein, to the discontent of the time. In 142, seeing the need to punish corruption in the localities and set the discipline in order, Liu Bao himself chose eight men "long of awe-inspiring name" and sent them through the realm, known to history as the "eight commissioners," all invested at the same time and "called by the realm the eight worthies," so that court and country craned their necks with very high hopes. He provided that if a commissioner found an official guilty of corruption and of the rank of a provincial inspector or a two-thousand-bushel officer he should report him to the court by post-horse, that if the man were a county officer of a thousand bushels or less he might arrest and try him on the spot, and that upright and diligent officials should be commended. So Zhou Ju and the other envoys impeached the corrupt and commended the clean, and were praised by the court. In the meantime the attendant censor Zhang Gang, thinking of Liang Ji's factions and his plundering by bribery, angrily buried his carriage wheels at the Luoyang post station and returned to court to impeach Liang Ji for corruption. Liu Bao, though he knew Zhang Gang's words to be just, did not adopt his proposal directly, since the empress Liang Na was then in high favour and the Liang kinsmen filled the court; but when the eight commissioners reached the several provinces and commanderies they impeached many of Liang Ji's and the eunuchs' partisans, who cried to one another for help without success; and Liu Bao resolutely adopted the advice of Wu Xiong and Li Gu that "those impeached by the eight commissioners should be promptly punished," dismissed and prosecuted all the unfit officials they had impeached, so that "the court was well spoken of." Li Gu further observed that the pastors and governors chosen by the localities were often unfit, lawless and oppressive of the people, and advised Liu Bao not to go out on excursions but to give his mind to government; and Liu Bao adopted his advice and decreed that every province should report the unfit local officials, all those who "governed perversely and showed the people no kindness" being stripped of their posts and those guilty of crimes thrown at once into prison.

The Frontiers, the Grand College, and His Death

In the northwest Liu Bao opened garrison farms at Yiwu "as in the Yongyuan era," whereupon Kucha, Shule, Khotan, Yarkand and thirteen other states came to submit, and contact with Wusun and the country west of the Congling ceased. In 130 the king of Shule sent a hostage son into the Eastern Han. In the north the Xianbei raided several times in 127 and 128 and were beaten, and in the winter of 132 Geng Ye again sent the Wuhuan pro-Han commandants out beyond the passes to fall on the Xianbei from the flank, returning with great slaughter; and in the spring of the next year they went out again and broke the Xianbei with heavy losses, Liu Bao rewarding them in varying degrees. In the summer of the fourth month of 134 the Eastern Han attacked the Northern Xiongnu in the Western Regions at the Chuanwulu valley, broke them utterly and took the mother of the Northern Xiongnu shanyu. In the summer of 140 the Left Division of the Southern Xiongnu, under the Juwang Wusi and Cheniu, rebelled with more than three thousand horse, raiding Xihe and drawing in the Right Wise King so that seven or eight thousand horse besieged Meiji and killed the officers of Shuofang and Dai; and Liu Bao called out the frontier troops with the Wuhuan, Xianbei and Qianghu forces, more than twenty thousand in all, and broke the rebels of the Left Division. Afterwards Wusi and the rest gathered again and took cities, and Liu Bao sent to reproach the Southern Xiongnu shanyu and had him call in the Juwang of the Left Division, the shanyu having had no part in it and taking off his cap in acknowledgement. When Chen Gui took over as commissioner to the Xiongnu he held that the shanyu could not control his subordinates and forced him and his younger brother the Left Wise King to kill themselves, and wished besides to move the shanyu's close kin into the interior commanderies, so that those who had submitted rebelled again; and Liu Bao threw Chen Gui into prison and adopted the general-in-chief Liang Shang's policy of calling them in, so that the Right Wise King of the Southern Xiongnu, Yidi, and thirteen thousand others submitted. Afterwards Liu Bao sent Ma Xu and others against the rebel Cheniu at Mayi, taking three thousand heads; in 143 he set up the son of the Southern Xiongnu then in Luoyang as the new shanyu, sending the commissioner to the Xiongnu with the tally to escort him home, and had his head sent to Luoyang; and in 144 he attacked the remnant of Wusi's party, taking twelve hundred heads, whereupon seven hundred thousand Wuhuan submitted. Among the Qiang, Ma Xian took more than a thousand heads and the Zhong Qiang brought their people in, and Liu Bao enfeoffed Ma Xian as marquis of Duxiang, after which Liangzhou had no fighting. For learning, in the ninth month of 131 he ordered the grand college repaired and enlarged, building two hundred and forty houses with a thousand eight hundred and fifty rooms; and in the seventh month of 132, the new college being finished, he ordered more students to be taken, admitting those selected but not yet passed as students of the college, increasing the places in the two examinations of the first and second classes by ten each and calling in ninety great scholars of the commanderies to serve as supplementary gentlemen. On the sixth day of the eighth month of 144 Liu Bao died in the Yutang front hall at thirty, his testament ordering that no tomb temple be raised, that he be dressed in his old clothes and that no pearls or trinkets be buried with him; on the twelfth day of the ninth month he was buried at the Xianling with the temple name Jingzong and the posthumous name of the filial and compliant emperor. In 190, on the memorial of the responsible officers, Emperor Xian of Han abolished the temple names of Liu Bao and three other emperors.

Major Activities

Palace Coup and Accession Emperor Shun’s accession was a classic example of an Eastern Han palace coup. In 125, after the Marquis of Beixiang Liu Yi died and the Yan clan had not yet selected a successor, Sun Cheng, Wang Kang, and seventeen other eunuchs launched a coup, killed Yan Xian, forced Empress Dowager Yan from power, and enthroned the deposed Prince of Jiyin, Liu Bao, as emperor. The coup transformed Liu Bao’s personal fate and ended the Yan clan’s brief domination of government. All nineteen supporters were enfeoffed as marquises, but the following year Emperor Shun dismissed them and sent them to their fiefs for intervening in government, illustrating both his use of and his wariness toward eunuch power. ### Reforms of the Yangjia Era In 132, the first year of Yangjia, Emperor Shun adopted Director of the Imperial Secretariat Zuo Xiong’s proposal to reform the recommendation system. Under the new rules, candidates for filial piety and incorruptibility had to be at least forty years old and pass examinations in Confucian learning and administration before receiving office. The reform sought to correct abuses in which candidates could be recommended without the learning or conduct their designation implied, and to raise the quality of official recruitment. The reforms of the Yangjia era were an important experiment in Eastern Han institutions and had some influence on the later formation of the imperial examination system. ### Balancing Political Forces During his nineteen-year reign, Emperor Shun’s central political strategy was to seek a balance among eunuchs, consort clans, and court officials. He came to the throne through eunuch support but soon suppressed the Nineteen Marquises; he employed officials such as Zuo Xiong and Yu Xu and promoted reform; and he also made Liang Shang’s daughter empress and relied on the Liang consort clan. This balancing strategy maintained basic stability during his lifetime, but it collapsed quickly after his death. Liang Ji then monopolized power for more than twenty years, and Eastern Han politics entered a period of rapid decline. ### Frugal Burial Edict Before his death, Emperor Shun issued an edict requesting that no ancestral temple be constructed for him and that pearls, jade, and luxury goods not be buried with him. This was an unusually frugal order for an Eastern Han emperor and contrasted with the prevailing custom of elaborate burial. Ironically, Xianling was robbed in the same year he was interred there, so his intention of a restrained burial did not protect the tomb from plunder.

The Judgements of Later Ages, His Influence on the Examination System, and the Origin of the Word "Shimao"

Later judgements of Liu Bao differ widely. Some praise his government, as that "the filial and compliant emperor at first was diligent in the king's business, set the discipline in order through the four quarters, and the realm was glad, and he came near to achieving order"; and the eulogy in the History of the Later Han says that "the emperor, taking back the government while still a boy, issued his own commands, and knowing how to employ men, so that scholars gave their hearts, the realm looked up with longing to his bearing," and counts the abundance of talent in his time, "such as Li Gu and Zhou Ju of profound counsel, Zuo Xiong and Huang Qiong firm in administration… the scholars of the eastern capital were at their height then." Others severely blame his later years, as that "Emperor Cheng could not choose and employ the worthy and handed the government to his mother's kin, which may be called blindness; yet he knew Wang Li's want of capacity and cast him off… the emperor Shun took up the great handle and gave it to the family of his consort, and Liang Ji, foolish and violent and savage as he had always been, was made to succeed his father in the office, and in the end came to treason and overturned the Han house. Compared with Emperor Cheng he was the more blind." Wang Fuzhi held that "a ruler of more than middling capacity may be made good, but base and shallow ministers cannot perfect his excellence nor check his evil, and such a one was Emperor Shun," and, counting up his several actions — that he "was not without wisdom," "not without humanity," "not without decision," "not without understanding" and "not without knowledge of what to do" — concluded that if he had cleared the source and roused the discipline, "would the Han not have revived?" More recent writers have said that "Emperor Shun too was a ruler of middling intelligence… yet a moment's clear sight cannot in the end withstand the deceit of petty men, and though he had upright ministers little could be retrieved." As to his institutional influence, later ages have held that "the method of the examinations began with Zuo Xiong under Emperor Shun of Han," since in antiquity there was selection but no examination, "and examination upon selection begins with the Later Han emperor Shun's adoption of Zuo Xiong's proposal"; and Wang Anshi thought very highly of the standards fixed by the new system of Yangjia, writing in his On the Selection of Talent that "to have men equal to their posts, neither losing scholars nor selecting wrongly, one should do as Zuo Xiong of Han proposed, the clerks examined in the drafting of memorials and the scholars in their masters' traditions — that is the right way." Further, the word "shimao" in the sense of the fashionable has its origin in Liu Bao: the eulogy in Fan Ye's History of the Later Han has the phrase that "when the filial and compliant emperor first came to the throne, the shimao gathered," describing how at Liu Bao's accession the outstanding men of the day came in numbers to the ceremony of enthronement; and "mao" is the short hair hanging over a child's forehead, that is, the fringe, which a boy no longer wears when grown, though a lock of the hair he was born with, never cut, is also called mao, and later men called the longest hair mao and extended it to mean the outstanding among men, and later still to mean the novel and in fashion — which is the true origin of the word.

Personal Relations

• Father: Emperor An of Han, Liu Hu
• Birth mother: Lady Li, a palace woman, killed by Empress Yan and later posthumously honored as Empress Gongmin
• Foster mother: Yan Ji, empress of Emperor An, who had Lady Li killed and was later confined
• Empress: Liang Na, daughter of Liang Shang and later Empress Dowager Liang
• Consorts: Noble Lady Liang (a paternal aunt of Liang Na), Noble Lady Fu (granddaughter of Fu Chen), Noble Lady Dou (daughter of Dou Zhang), Beauty Yu (mother of Emperor Chong), and You Tongqi (a beauty presented by Liang Shang)
• Children: Liu Bing (Emperor Chong of Han), Liu Sheng (Princess Chang of Wuyang), Liu Chengnan (Princess Chang of Guanjun), and Liu Guang (Princess Chang of Ruyang)
• Adopted successors: Liu Zuan (Emperor Zhi of Han) and Liu Zhi (Emperor Huan of Han) - Zuo Xiong: Director of the Imperial Secretariat and principal advocate of the reforms of the Yangjia era
• Yu Xu: Colonel Director of Retainers, known for his forthright remonstrance
• Huan Yan: Chamberlain for Ceremonials and one of the officials who opposed deposing the crown prince
• Lai Li: Grand Coachman who firmly opposed the crown prince’s deposition and was dismissed
• Zhang Hao: Commandant of Justice and one of the officials who opposed deposing the crown prince - Sun Cheng: leader of the Nineteen Marquises who enthroned Emperor Shun
• Wang Kang: eunuch who participated in the coup
• Zhang Fang: Palace Attendant involved in conflict with court officials and later exiled
• Gao Fan: Palace Attendant punished together with Zhang Fang - Yan Ji (Empress Dowager Yan): had Emperor Shun’s birth mother killed and later caused his removal as crown prince
• Yan Xian: brother of Empress Dowager Yan who dominated government and was killed in the coup
• Wang Sheng: wet nurse of Emperor An and one of the principal figures who framed the crown prince
• Jiang Jing: Chief of the Palace Attendants who participated in framing the crown prince
• Fan Feng: Palace Attendant who participated in framing the crown prince

Historical Assessment

Eastern Han / Contemporary and Near-Contemporary - Fan Ye wrote in the Book of the Later Han that Emperor Shun committed no great errors after taking the throne, but entrusted eunuchs with power and allowed the Liang clan to rise, from which the Han enterprise declined. Fan Ye thus regarded his use of eunuchs and tolerance of consort-clan power as a turning point in Eastern Han decline.

• Li Gu, who served under Emperor Shun, submitted memorials criticizing government. His statement that the emperor’s Secretariat was like the Northern Dipper in heaven, serving as the sovereign’s “throat and tongue,” reflected court officials’ dissatisfaction with governance during the reign.
• Chen Chan proposed deposing Empress Dowager Yan, but Emperor Shun refused. Contemporaries could regard this as an act of benevolence, while it was also seen as evidence that ritual obligations constrained him from carrying out a complete political reckoning against the Yan clan. ### Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties Period - Yuan Hong’s Annals of the Later Han records political affairs of Emperor Shun’s reign and treats the reforms of the Yangjia era positively, regarding Zuo Xiong’s proposal as appropriate for selecting officials, while regretting that Emperor Shun did not sustain the reforms.
• The Eastern Jin historian Gan Bao, in the general discussion of his Chronicle of Jin, traced the roots of Eastern Han collapse to the period after Emperor Shun, when authority came from multiple centers and eunuchs and consort clans fought one another, regarding the later disasters of Emperors Huan and Ling as originating in this period. ### Tang and Song Periods - Emperor Taizong of Tang discussed the merits and faults of earlier rulers with Wei Zheng and others. Surviving discussions of Han rulers focus mainly on Emperors Guangwu, Ming, and Zhang, with relatively little direct discussion of Emperor Shun.
• Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance records political affairs under Emperor Shun in detail, particularly the reforms of the Yangjia era, but does not offer an explicit overall judgment. It also records the process of his earlier deposition as crown prince and presents the circumstances as open to criticism. ### Modern Period - Lü Simian, discussing the middle and later Eastern Han in History of Qin and Han, argued that Emperor Shun gained the throne through eunuch support and, although he was able to restrain the eunuchs to some degree, had little room to accomplish major reforms.
• Qian Mu, in Outline of National History, regarded the reforms of the Yangjia era as an important change to the Eastern Han recommendation system, but argued that accumulated institutional problems had already become too deep to be cured by a single reform.
• Tian Yuqing, though focusing primarily on the Eastern Jin in Aristocratic Politics of the Eastern Jin, also discussed Eastern Han consort-clan politics and treated the Liang monopoly of power, beginning in Emperor Shun’s reign, as a typical form of that political pattern.