Liu Da

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Liu Da was born in 56, the first year of Jianwu Zhongyuan, as the fifth son of Emperor Ming of Han, Liu Zhuang, and Noble Lady Jia. Emperor Ming’s favored Noble Lady Ma had no son, so Liu Da was given to her to raise. Noble Lady Ma was the daughter of Noble Lady Jia’s paternal half-sister and cared for Liu Da with even greater effort than his birth mother. Liu Da was likewise described as deeply filial and naturally affectionate, and the relationship between foster mother and son remained close without lasting estrangement.

On the nineteenth day of the second lunar month of 60, the third year of Yongping, Noble Lady Ma was made empress and Liu Da was made crown prince on the same day at the age of five. He was described as tolerant from youth, fond of Confucian learning, and highly valued by his father Emperor Ming. The Book of the Later Han states that he was “lenient from youth, fond of Confucian learning, and highly regarded by Xianzong.”

Accession and Early Government

On the sixth day of the eighth lunar month of 75, the eighteenth year of Yongping, Emperor Ming died in the front hall of the Eastern Palace. The nineteen-year-old Liu Da succeeded and honored his principal mother Empress Ma as empress dowager. A general amnesty was proclaimed in the tenth lunar month.

At the beginning of his reign, the Western Regions were unstable as the Northern Xiongnu and the Han contested control. Geng Gong, Colonel of the Wu and Ji, was besieged at Shule. In the eleventh lunar month, Liu Da ordered General Who Conquers the West Geng Bing to station at Jiuquan and sent Administrator of Jiuquan Duan Peng to rescue Geng Gong, giving rise to the celebrated story of “thirteen soldiers returning through Yumen Pass.” In the same year Luoyang and three provinces suffered severe drought and epidemic disease. Liu Da remitted land tax and fodder levies in Yanzhou, Yuzhou, and Xuzhou and opened granaries for relief.

In 76, the first year of Jianchu, Duan Peng attacked Cheshi and defeated it. In the second lunar month, groups in Lichong of Wuling rebelled; in the third, earthquakes struck Shanyang and Dongping. Liu Da issued an edict criticizing himself, acknowledging that he had inherited the great enterprise despite lacking virtue and calling for recommendations of worthy and upright men capable of direct remonstrance. In the ninth lunar month, the Ailao of Yongchang rebelled and were suppressed the following year by troops from three commanderies. In the eleventh lunar month, his uncle Liu Yan, Prince of Fuling, rebelled and was demoted to Marquis of Fuling.

Government and Military Affairs

In the sixth lunar month of 77, the second year of Jianchu, the Shaodang Qiang rebelled. Administrator of Jincheng Hao Chong failed to defeat them, and Qiang forces advanced to Hanyang. In the eighth lunar month, Liu Da sent acting General of Chariots and Cavalry Ma Fang against them, and in the fourth lunar month of the following year Ma Fang decisively defeated the Shaodang Qiang at Lintao.

In the third lunar month of 78, the third year of Jianchu, Liu Da made Noble Lady Dou empress and granted titles and grain on a large scale. In the fourth lunar month of 79, the fourth year of Jianchu, he made his son Liu Qing crown prince. In the fifth lunar month he removed Ma Fang from the office of General of Chariots and Cavalry and adjusted appointments among the Three Excellencies. Empress Dowager Ma died in the sixth lunar month and was buried as Empress Mingde in the seventh.

In the eleventh lunar month of 79, Liu Da convened the White Tiger Hall Conference, personally presiding over decisions on differing interpretations of the Five Classics. After the conference he ordered the court historian Ban Gu to compile the discussions as the Baihu tong, described by the source as the only complete Han work of its type on the Five Classics to survive.

In 80, the fifth year of Jianchu, Liu Da received Ban Chao’s memorial asking for military reinforcements in the Western Regions and sent Xu Gan with one thousand penal troops and volunteer auxiliaries. Xu Gan joined Ban Chao in defeating Fan Chen, commandant of Shule, killing more than one thousand. In 83, the eighth year of Jianchu, Liu Da appointed Ban Chao Chief Clerk Commanding Troops and promoted Xu Gan to Major. The following year He Gong was sent with eight hundred men to reinforce Ban Chao.

In 81, the sixth year of Jianchu, Liu Da restored the state monopoly on salt and iron to address fiscal shortages caused by warfare against the Xiongnu and in the Western Regions, strengthening the economic foundation of central government.

Lenient Government and Livelihood Policies

In 84, the first year of Yuanhe, grain prices were high and government finances insufficient. Liu Da adopted Secretary Zhang Lin’s advice, suspended the issuance of currency to counter inflation, collected commercial returns from Jiaozhi and Yizhou, and again implemented the equalization and transportation policies associated with Emperor Wu of Han. The same year he ordered that people without land who wished to move to more fertile regions should be allowed to do so. On arrival they were to receive public land, hired labor, seed grain, and agricultural tools, with exemptions from rent for five years and from the poll tax for three years.

In the first lunar month of 85, the second year of Yuanhe, Liu Da issued a maternity-support order granting each pregnant woman three hu of grain and exempting her husband from one year of tax in order to encourage childbirth. The edict also criticized officials who cultivated outward appearances and praised quiet administrators such as Liu Fang, magistrate of Xiangcheng.

In the second lunar month of 85, Liu Da made an eastern tour and traveled to Mount Tai for the feng and shan sacrifices. On a xinwei day he made burnt offerings to Heaven, Earth, and the spirits following the precedent of Emperor Wu of Han. On the renshen day he sacrificed to the Five Emperors at the Bright Hall on the Wen River, with Emperor Guangwu as co-recipient. On the guiyou day he sacrificed to the Former and Later Han emperors who possessed temple names. Large numbers of civil and military officials, imperial relatives, and envoys from distant lands north of the desert and west of the Congling Mountains accompanied the rites. Liu Da was the first Eastern Han emperor after Emperor Guangwu to perform the Mount Tai sacrifices. He returned to Luoyang in the fourth lunar month.

Later Years and Death

During the Yuanhe era, 84–87, the Palace Attendant Guo Ju had illicit relations within the inner palace and once drew his sword and frightened Emperor Zhang, an episode presented as evidence of growing disorder inside the court. On the thirtieth day of the second lunar month of 88, the second year of Zhanghe, Liu Da died in the Zhangde Front Hall at the age of thirty-three. In the third lunar month he was buried at Jingling, southeast of present-day Luoyang, Henan.

The Court Debate on Relieving Geng Gong and "Thirteen Soldiers Return to Yumen"

When Emperor Ming died in 75 and Liu Da had just taken the throne, the situation in the Western Regions was urgent: Yanqi and Qiuci had destroyed the protector Chen Mu, and the Xiongnu with the Cheshi had besieged the colonels of the Wu-chi and Chi-chi offices, while Guan Chong sent up a memorial begging for help. The court assembled the ministers, and the minister of works Diwu Lun held that they should not be relieved, but the minister of education Bao Yu said: "To send men into a place of danger and then abandon them in their extremity is abroad to let the barbarians work their violence and at home to wound the hearts of men who faced death for us. If indeed it could be arranged that there be no trouble on the frontier hereafter it might pass, but if the Xiongnu again break through the passes and raid, with what will your majesty command generals?" He added that the two besieged garrisons had only a few dozen men each, and that the Xiongnu had besieged them for ten days without taking them, which showed how the few and weak could exert themselves to the full; he advised sending the governors of Dunhuang and Jiuquan with two thousand picked cavalry each, with many banners, marching double stages to relieve them, since a Xiongnu army worn to exhaustion would not dare face them, and within forty days they could be back inside the passes. Liu Da took his advice, sending the general of the western expedition Geng Bing to station at Jiuquan as acting governor, and Qin Peng with the usher Wang Meng and Huangfu Yuan to call out the troops of Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang with those of Shanshan, more than seven thousand in all; in the first month of 76 they joined at Liuzhong and attacked the Cheshi, stormed the town of Jiaohe, took three thousand eight hundred heads and more than three thousand prisoners with thirty-seven thousand camels, donkeys, horses, cattle and sheep, and the northern caitiffs fled in alarm and the Cheshi submitted again. The besieged Geng Gong's men had boiled their armour and bows and eaten the sinews and leather, refusing the Xiongnu's offers to surrender; when the relief came only twenty-six men were left in the town, and when they reached the Yumen pass only thirteen remained, their clothes torn and ragged and their faces wasted — the story later told as "thirteen soldiers return to Yumen." In that same year, however, with the situation in the west reversed after Emperor Ming's death, Liu Da, "not wishing to exhaust China in the service of the barbarians," recalled the colonels and sent no new protector, and the next year abolished the military farms at Yiwu, so that the Xiongnu sent troops to hold that country.

The Mild Justice of the First Jianchu Year

In 76, with drought in the capital region and three provinces, Liu Da asked Bao Yu how the calamity might be answered, and Bao Yu said that the emperor had but lately come to the throne and that whatever his small faults they could not have brought such a portent; he recounted how as governor of Runan he had handled the Chu case with more than a thousand men imprisoned who could not all have deserved it, that "once a great trial begins, more than half are wronged," that the deported were torn from their families and the lonely spirits unsacrificed, and that all the deported families should be brought home and the prohibitions lifted, so that the dead and living alike might have their place and harmony be attained. Liu Da accepted it and decreed that the two-thousand-picul officials should encourage farming and sericulture, that no case except those deserving death be examined before autumn, and that the officers should be careful and plain in choosing men, advancing the gentle and good and dismissing the greedy and cunning, following the seasons and clearing the prisons. The government then followed the practices of the Yongping era and was harsh, the Secretariat deciding matters mostly on the heavy side; and the president of the Secretariat, Chen Chong of Pei, thinking that a new emperor should change the harsh customs of the past, memorialized that "in the government of the ancient kings reward was not excessive and punishment not indiscriminate; if one must err, better too much reward than too much punishment," and that "to govern is like stringing a lute: if the great string is too tight the small strings break," urging the emperor to exalt the way of the ancient kings, wash away the vexatious and cruel laws and lighten the rod for the sake of the people. Liu Da took his words deeply to heart and in all matters aimed at mildness, and afterwards decreed that the officers abolish the cruel forms of punishment, lift the prohibition of evil sayings and strike out more than fifty items of fabricated charges, fixing them in the statutes, "after which the customs of the people were peaceful and auspicious signs came repeatedly." In the matter of recruitment he further provided that all men recommended must first be tried in office and only the competent confirmed, that those of outstanding virtue unfit for trial be reported separately, and that those who recommended unfit men, together with those who recommended none, be punished.

The Adjustment in the West and the Retention of Ban Chao

After Emperor Ming's death Yanqi and Qiuci destroyed the protector Chen Mu and the Xiongnu with Cheshi besieged the colonels, and in 76 the governor of Jiuquan, Duan Peng, heavily defeated the Cheshi at Jiaohe; but Liu Da, unwilling to exhaust the central states in the service of the barbarians, recalled the colonels and sent no protector, and in the next year abolished the farms at Yiwu. The army marshal Ban Chao, who had stayed at Yutian to bring the states together, also received the order to withdraw and prepared to set out; and hearing that he would return, the whole of Shule was alarmed, and its commandant, drawing his long sword and weeping, sighed that the Han envoy was abandoning them and their state would surely be destroyed by the Xiongnu, and cut his own throat. When Ban Chao went east and reached Yutian, the people blocked the road to welcome him, and on hearing he would go home they wept aloud and those nearest clung to the legs of his horse so that he could not leave; and Ban Chao, unable to do otherwise, stayed and memorialized asking to remain in the Western Regions, and Liu Da agreed. In 78 Ban Chao with the troops of Shule, Kangju, Yutian and Jumi, ten thousand men, broke the stone city of Gumo and memorialized for troops, and Liu Da debated giving him men, while Xu Gan of Pingling also memorialized asking to serve with him; in 80 Xu Gan was made acting marshal and sent with a thousand pardoned convicts and volunteers, and joining Ban Chao he heavily defeated the Shule commandant Fan Chen, taking more than a thousand heads. In 83 Liu Da made Ban Chao chief of staff of the marching army with drums and banners, made Xu Gan army marshal, and sent the guard marquis Li Yi to escort the envoys of Wusun with brocade and silk for the greater and lesser kunmi. Li Yi, reaching Yutian when Qiuci was attacking Shule, was afraid to go further, and to cover his cowardice memorialized that the work in the west could not succeed and slandered Ban Chao as embracing a beloved wife and holding a young son, taking his ease in a foreign land with no thought for home. Ban Chao, hearing it, sighed that he was no Zeng Shen yet had to face the slander of a third report and feared he would be doubted in his own day, and sent his wife away; but Liu Da, knowing Ban Chao's loyalty, reproved Li Yi instead, saying that if Ban Chao truly embraced a beloved wife and a young son, how could more than a thousand men who longed for home all be of one mind with him, and ordered Li Yi to go and receive Ban Chao's orders, decreeing to Ban Chao that if Li Yi's service lay outside he might keep him as an assistant. Ban Chao at once sent Li Yi back to the capital with the Wusun hostage prince. In the twelfth month of that year, after his eastern tour, Liu Da further decreed that the scholars be chosen to study the Zuo Commentary, the Guliang Commentary, the Old Text Book of Documents and the Mao Odes, to support the lesser learning and broaden the different interpretations.

The Eastern Tour and Sacrifice of 85 and the Reproof at Qinyuan

In the first month of 85 Liu Da decreed that the many sacrifices be examined and increased, and in the second month went on his eastern tour; as he neared Mount Tai he first sent an envoy with a single great sacrifice to sacrifice to the ancient emperor Yao at the Lingtai of Chengyang in Jiyin. Reaching Tai, he repaired the southern altar of Guangwu, and on the xin-wei day burnt sacrifice to heaven and earth and the host of spirits as of old; on the ren-shen day he sacrificed to the five emperors in the Bright Hall on the Wen river built by Emperor Wu, with Guangwu as the associate; and on the gui-you day he further announced the sacrifices to Gaozu, Taizong, Shizong, Zhongzong, Shizu and Xianzong in the Bright Hall, each with a great sacrifice. This done he received the eastern lords and feasted and rewarded the princes and ministers, then went through the commanderies, visited Lu, and sacrificed to the prince Gong of Donghai and to Confucius and his seventy-two disciples; in the fourth month he returned to the capital, announced his arrival and sacrificed to the high temple and to Shizu each with a single ox, and made poems for the twelve gates of the Lingtai to be sacrificed and sung in their several months. Those who accompanied him included not only the civil and military officials and the imperial kin but envoys from beyond the desert to the north and west of the Congling, who "all came to assist at the sacrifice," and the scene was exceedingly grand. In this period he dealt with one case of a consort's kin seizing another's property: Dou Xian, relying on the power of the palace, asked to take over the garden and fields of the princess Qinshui at a low price, and the princess, overawed, did not dare to reckon with him; and afterwards, when Liu Da's carriage passed the garden and he pointed it out and questioned Dou Xian, Dou Xian was silenced and could not answer. Liu Da, having found the truth, was furious and reproved him to his face: "Think deeply on your former fault — in seizing the princess's garden, how are you better than Zhao Gao who called a deer a horse? To dwell on it makes one shudder... Now a princess of high rank is wrongfully despoiled; how much more the common man! The state would cast you off like a lone suckling or a rotten rat." Dou Xian was greatly frightened, and the empress, having stripped off her ornaments and apologized deeply, obtained his release after a long while, and the land was returned to the princess; and though Liu Da did not prosecute him, he never again gave him weighty office.

Major Activities

Political Measures

After taking the throne, Liu Da changed the severe style associated with Emperor Ming and emphasized correcting wrongful cases and limiting abusive punishments by officials. He accepted Chen Chong’s proposals to reduce harsh statutory provisions. During famine and disaster, the government remitted taxes and distributed grain. Landless people willing to move to fertile regions received public fields, seed grain, and farming implements and were granted time-limited exemptions from rent and taxation.

Liu Da repeatedly issued edicts of self-criticism during his reign. After the earthquake in 76, he blamed himself and criticized distorted recommendations and harmful local officials, calling for worthy and upright men. Zhao Yi later praised such disaster-related self-criticism in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories alongside similar edicts by Emperors Wen, Xuan, Guangwu, and Ming.

Economic Policy

In 81, the sixth year of Jianchu, Liu Da restored the state monopoly on salt and iron. Minister of Agriculture Zheng Zhong remonstrated against the policy. Liu Da repeatedly rebuked him, Zheng Zhong persisted, and the emperor ultimately implemented the monopoly. The source presents the measure as strengthening the economic base of central government and reducing the ability of powerful families to use salt revenues against the state.

In 84, the first year of Yuanhe, with grain expensive and government resources inadequate, Liu Da adopted Secretary Zhang Lin’s proposal for equalization and transportation policies. Zhu Hui opposed the measures, but after reconsideration they were still implemented.

Cultural Contributions

In the eleventh lunar month of 79, the fourth year of Jianchu, Liu Da convened the White Tiger Hall Conference and personally presided over decisions on differing interpretations of the Five Classics. Generals, grand masters, erudites, court gentlemen, palace gentlemen, students, and Confucian scholars participated. Wei Ying, General of the Gentlemen of the Five Offices, asked questions under imperial authorization, while Palace Attendant Chunyu Gong reported the proceedings. The conference aimed to standardize classical interpretation and provide a theoretical basis for governing and institution-building through Confucian learning. Ban Gu was ordered to compile its results as the Baihu tong, an important surviving Han text for the study of classical scholarship, intellectual history, and political institutions.

Administration of the Frontiers

Liu Da continued to support Ban Chao’s activities in the Western Regions. In 80 he sent Xu Gan with troops and defeated Fan Chen, commandant of Shule. In 83 he appointed Ban Chao Chief Clerk Commanding Troops and promoted Xu Gan to Major; the following year He Gong was sent with eight hundred men. With this support, the source states that Western Regions states again acknowledged Han authority and the Silk Road remained open.

In 75, Liu Da sent Administrator of Jiuquan Duan Peng to rescue the besieged Colonel Geng Gong, giving rise to the story of “thirteen soldiers returning through Yumen Pass.” In 76, Duan Peng also attacked and defeated Cheshi.

Livelihood Policy

In 85, the second year of Yuanhe, Liu Da issued a maternity-support order granting pregnant women three hu of grain and exempting their husbands from one year of poll tax in order to encourage childbirth. The source presents this as one of the earlier specialized measures in Chinese history designed to encourage population growth.

Salt and Iron, the Equable Transport, and Migration to Better Land

In economic matters Liu Da took several important steps. In 81, to meet the shortfall in state funds caused by the campaigns against the Xiongnu and in the Western Regions, he decreed the restoration of the state monopoly of salt and iron; the grand minister of agriculture Zheng Zhong objected that it should not be done, and Liu Da reproved him sharply by repeated edicts and even had him impeached, yet Zheng Zhong held to his view, and the emperor carried the measure through all the same, strengthening the economic basis of central power so that the great families could no longer set themselves against the court through the profits of salt. In 84, when grain was dear and the funds of the government insufficient, the president of the Secretariat Zhang Lin advised that grain was dear because coin was cheap, and that coin should be sealed up and cloth and silk taken as the tax instead, to circulate through the realm; that salt, being a necessity of life, would be bought however dear, so that the state might sell it; and that advantage should be taken of the comings and goings of the accounting officers of Jiaozhi and Yizhou to buy precious goods and take the profit, which was the equable transport of Emperor Wu. Liu Da referred it to all the presidents for discussion, and Zhu Hui memorialized that it could not be done, so that the matter dropped; afterwards others again set out Zhang Lin's proposal as truly convenient for the state, and Liu Da agreed and decreed its execution. In the same year he further decreed, noting that "since the cattle plague grain has repeatedly fallen short," that the commanderies should recruit those without land who wished to move to rich country, granting them public fields where they settled, hiring ploughmen for them, leasing them seed grain and lending them tools, with no land tax for five years and no poll tax for three, and forbidding no man who afterwards wished to return home.

The Decree on Childbearing and the Growth of Population

In the first month of 85 Liu Da issued one of the earlier laws in Chinese history to encourage childbearing: noting that the statutes already provided that a man's household be exempt from the poll tax for three years when a child was born, he now decreed that every pregnant woman be given three bushels of "nurturing grain" and that her husband be exempt from one year's poll tax, and that this be made a standing ordinance. In the same edict he ordered the officers, in the season when all things bring forth, not to examine any case that did not deserve death and not to receive the denunciations brought by clerks, so as to let matters rest and honour the weather of spring, resuming the ordinary practice after the beginning of autumn; he sharply criticized "vulgar clerks who dress up their appearance and are plausible but false," saying that of such men he had had his fill and found them bitter, while praising "the quiet clerk, simple and unadorned, whose daily account falls short but whose monthly account has a surplus," and citing the magistrate of Xiangcheng, Liu Fang, of whom clerks and people alike said that he gave no trouble. In his household economy and his treatment of kin he also acted, "splitting off famous commanderies to exalt his near kin," and repeatedly lightened labour service and taxes. In actual result the population of the Eastern Han grew markedly in this period: in the eighteenth year of Yongping (75) there were 5,860,573 households and 34,125,021 persons, and by the second year of Zhanghe (88) there were 7,456,784 households and 43,356,367 persons, a rise in some thirteen years of about one and a half million households and nine million persons, a direct reflection of his mild government and policy of rest.

Personal Relations

• Birth father: Emperor Ming of Han, Liu Zhuang
• Foster mother: Empress Mingde, Lady Ma
• Birth mother: Noble Lady Jia
• Empress: Empress Dou
• Brothers: Liu Jian, Prince Ai of Qiancheng; Liu Xian, Prince Jing of Chen; Liu Gong, Prince Jing of Pengcheng; Liu Dang, Prince Jing of Lecheng; Liu Yan, Prince Hui of Xiapi; Liu Chang, Prince Jie of Liang; Liu Bing, Prince Qing of Huaiyang; Liu Chang, Prince Dao of Jiyin
• Sisters: Princess Chang of Huojia Liu Ji, Princess of Pingyang Liu Nu, Princess of Longlü Liu Ying, Princess of Pingshi Liu Ci, Princess of Qinshui Liu Zhi, Princess of Pinggao Liu Xiaoji, Princess of Junyi Liu Zhong, Princess of Wu'an Liu Hui
• Sons: Crown Prince Liu Qing, later demoted to Prince of Qinghe; Liu Zhao, later Emperor He of Han
• Ban Gu: historian ordered to compile the discussions of the White Tiger Hall Conference as the Baihu tong
• Ban Chao: Protector-General of the Western Regions whose activities Liu Da strongly supported
• Diwu Lun: Administrator of Shu Commandery and later Minister of Works, known for forthright remonstrance
• Bao Yu: Minister over the Masses, later Defender-in-chief
• Huan Yu: Administrator of Nanyang, later Minister over the Masses
• Chen Chong: proposed reducing harsh criminal provisions
• Ma Fang: acting General of Chariots and Cavalry who suppressed the Shaodang Qiang
• Xu Gan: acting Major who led reinforcements to Ban Chao
• Empress Dou: empress of Emperor Zhang, through whom the Dou family rose in power
• Dou Xian: elder brother of Empress Dou, favored in Emperor Zhang’s later years and later a major figure in Eastern Han consort-clan power

Historical Assessment

Eastern Han / Contemporary and Near-Contemporary

Cao Pi: “Emperor Ming was discerning and exacting; Emperor Zhang was a generous elder.” — Eight Histories of the Later Han

Xue Ying praised Emperor Zhang for inheriting a peaceful realm, honoring the spirits, showing fraternal affection, reducing labor and taxes, calming the people, removing harsh laws, and displaying the qualities of a humane and worthy ruler. — Chronicle of the Later Han

Yuan Song judged that Emperor Xiaozhang possessed abundant generosity but insufficient decisiveness and criticized palace slander and excessive favor to the consort clan. — discussion in the Book of the Later Han

Cai Yong praised Emperor Xiaozhang’s deep filial piety and broad benevolence and considered the temple name Suzong ritually appropriate. — Collected Works of Cai Yong

Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties Period

Fan Ye wrote that Emperor Zhang knew people resented Emperor Ming’s harshness and therefore governed more leniently. He praised Liu Da for reducing cruel punishments, issuing maternity-support measures, serving Empress Dowager Ma with filial devotion, favoring relatives, reducing labor and taxation, and combining loyalty and forbearance with ritual and music, concluding that the label “generous elder” was appropriate. — Book of the Later Han, vol. 3

Liu Yuan praised Emperors Ming and Zhang as successive generations that renewed the brilliance of the Han. — Book of Jin, biographical records

Tang and Song Periods

Chu Suiliang praised Emperors Ming, Zhang, and He of Han for showing affection toward brothers and treating them as models for later rulers. — Old Book of Tang, “Biography of Chu Suiliang”

Li Ao argued that, apart from Emperor Gaozu and the stronger Western Han rulers, not all Western Han emperors surpassed Emperors Ming and Zhang of the Eastern Han. — “Reply to Huangfu Shi,” Complete Prose of the Tang

Sima Guang praised Emperor Zhang’s deep filial nature and the unbroken affection between him and Empress Dowager Ma, while elsewhere warning that knowing good but failing to use it and knowing evil but failing to remove it was a serious danger for rulers. — Collected Works Transmitted by the Family and Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance

Su Zhe included Emperor Zhang among the clear and capable rulers of more recent antiquity. — Collected Works of Luancheng

Hu Yin regarded the government of Emperors Guangwu, Ming, and Zhang as coming close to restoring the moral transformations associated with the ancient Three Dynasties. — Feiran Collection

Qian Shi criticized Emperor Zhang’s excessive softness and argued that his principal fault was insufficient firmness. — Notes on the Two Han

Hong Mai similarly criticized Emperor Zhang as benevolent but indecisive and connected his reign to later Eastern Han decline. — Rongzhai Essays

Ming and Qing Periods

Chen Li praised Emperor Zhang for responding to Emperor Ming’s severity with leniency, honoring Empress Dowager Ma, loving his brothers, supporting agriculture, employing worthy men, correcting wrongful cases, restraining cruelty, and promoting learning, while also criticizing the growth of Dou Xian’s arrogance as a consequence of excessive leniency. — Concise Survey of Successive Dynasties

Gu Yanwu argued that social customs under the Eastern Han after the Spring and Autumn period recovered something of ancient standards and credited Emperors Guangwu, Ming, and Zhang with major civilizing achievements. — Record of Daily Knowledge

Wang Fuzhi argued that Eastern Han decline began under Emperor Zhang because the emperor’s indulgence of the inner palace enabled consort families to gain enduring control, ultimately helping bring down the dynasty. — Du Tongjian Lun

Zhao Yi praised the ruler’s fear and self-examination in response to disasters even in a prosperous age. — Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories

Wang Shiyun called Suzong generous but insufficiently firm and criticized his favor toward Dou Xian as opening the way for consort-clan power. — Four-Character Brief Mirror

The Qianlong Emperor praised Emperor Zhang as a generous ruler who valued the people and basic agriculture, allowed recuperation, honored the Prince of Dongping, and employed Diwu Lun, under whom the realm was well governed. — Definitive Edition of the Imperial Leshantang Collection, “General Discussion of the Eastern Han”

Modern Period

Modern scholarship generally regards Emperor Zhang, Liu Da, as one of the more capable rulers of the middle Eastern Han. His reign continued and developed the prosperity associated with the Rule of Ming and Zhang, while his lenient administration, support for Confucian learning, and management of the Western Regions are viewed positively. At the same time, the source notes broad agreement that his indulgence of the Dou consort clan helped prepare the later pattern of consort-clan and eunuch domination that troubled the middle and later Eastern Han.