Liu Shao

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Liu Shao belonged to the imperial house of Liu Song. He was the great-grandson of Liu Yu, Emperor Wu of Liu Song, and the eldest son of Emperor Wen Liu Yilong. His mother, Yuan Qigui, came from the Yuan clan of Chen Commandery and was a daughter of Yuan Zhan, Grand Master for Splendid Happiness. Her maternal family was of relatively low status, and she was not formally raised in the Yuan household until she was five or six. After marrying Liu Yilong, she first became consort of the Prince of Yidu and was later made empress. She bore Liu Shao and Princess Dongyang, Liu Ying'e.

Liu Shao was born in 424, the first year of Yuanjia, the same year Liu Yilong became emperor. Because Emperor Wen was in deep mourning for his father, the birth was initially kept secret and was not formally announced until the intercalary first month of 426. According to the Book of Song, after examining the newborn, Yuan Qigui reportedly sent word to Liu Yilong that the child looked extraordinary and would ruin the state and family, and she wished to kill him. Liu Yilong hurried over and intervened, allowing the child to survive. The source itself presents the story with a legendary quality, but it reflects the later tradition that Liu Shao had been regarded as ominous from infancy.

In 429, at age six, Liu Shao was formally established as crown prince and lived in Yongfu Residence. Emperor Wen built lavish quarters for him and had Eastern Palace officials lead imperial guards in attendance. In 435 Liu Shao moved into the Eastern Palace and married a daughter of Huangmen Attendant Yin Chun as crown princess. The following year he underwent the capping ceremony and a general amnesty was proclaimed.

Liu Shao enjoyed reading histories and biographies and especially favored archery, horsemanship, and military affairs. He personally oversaw Eastern Palace matters and received guests. Liu Yilong favored him greatly and rarely denied his requests. The Eastern Palace guard was made comparable in strength to the imperial Yulin guard and was later expanded to ten thousand armored troops, far beyond the normal scale of a crown prince's household forces.

Career as Crown Prince and the Yuanjia Northern Campaign

In 440, the seventeenth year of Yuanjia, Liu Shao was ordered to leave the capital and travel north to Jingkou to sacrifice at Xingning Mausoleum, burial place of Liu Qiao, Emperor Xiaomu. Senior imperial relatives, including Liu Yikang, Prince of Pengcheng and General-in-Chief; Liu Yigong, Prince of Jiangxia and Minister over the Masses; and Liu Dan, Prince of Jingling, accompanied him, reflecting the high status of the crown prince.

In 450, Emperor Wen launched a large northern campaign against Northern Wei despite opposition from Liu Shao and other officials. The campaign failed, and Wei counterattacked as far as Guabu on the northern bank of the Yangtze, alarming Jiankang. Liu Shao was stationed at Shitou Fortress with overall command of the naval forces and was said to manage his men effectively. When Emperor Wen came to Shitou looking worried, Liu Shao urged him to execute Jiang Zhan and Xu Danzhi to answer for the disaster. Emperor Wen refused, stating that the campaign had been his own decision. Later Northern Wei sent envoys seeking a marriage alliance. Most officials favored peace, but Jiang Zhan objected that the northern peoples could not be trusted. Liu Shao harshly rebuked Jiang Zhan in court and, after the session, ordered attendants to shove him, nearly knocking him down.

Relations between Liu Shao and Jiang Zhan thereafter became extremely hostile. To reconcile them, Emperor Wen arranged for Liu Shao's eldest son Liu Weizhi to marry Jiang Zhan's third daughter, but Liu Shao continued to detest Jiang Zhan, excluded him from banquets, and often called him a sycophant before the emperor. Emperor Wen nevertheless continued to trust Jiang Zhan.

The Witchcraft Affair

Yuan Qigui died after becoming resentful and ill over Emperor Wen's favor toward Consort Pan. Liu Shao consequently hated Consort Pan and her son Liu Jun, Prince of Shixing. Liu Jun understood that conflict with the crown prince was dangerous and therefore sought to ingratiate himself with Liu Shao. The two eventually became close allies.

At the time there was a female shaman from Wuxing named Yan Daoyu, who claimed to communicate with spirits and command supernatural forces. Because of her husband's crime she had entered government servitude. Liu Shao and Liu Jun came to know her through Wang Yingwu, a maid in the household of Princess Dongyang, and believed strongly in her powers, calling her the "Heavenly Master." Fearing punishment for private misconduct, the two princes, at Yan Daoyu's urging, secretly buried a jade figure modeled on Liu Yilong in front of Hanzhang Hall and used witchcraft to curse the emperor. Participants included Wang Yingwu, the princess's household servant Chen Tianxing, and the eunuch Qingguo. Liu Shao transferred Chen Tianxing into the Eastern Palace guard and appointed him a unit commander.

After Princess Dongyang died, Wang Yingwu was expected to marry. To preserve the witchcraft secret, Liu Shao and Liu Jun arranged for her to become a concubine of Shen Huaiyuan, an official in Liu Jun's household, without informing Emperor Wen. When the emperor later learned of Chen Tianxing's appointment as a unit commander, he sent a eunuch to question Liu Shao. Liu Shao argued that Chen was physically strong and useful for service and falsely claimed that Wang Yingwu was still unmarried. The emperor did not investigate further, but Liu Shao, still uneasy, wrote to Liu Jun to coordinate their accounts. Liu Jun's reply openly referred to rebellious intentions, saying that if the emperor continued investigating, Yan Daoyu could use her arts to remove him.

Wang Yingwu and Chen Tianxing had earlier had an affair. After marrying Shen Huaiyuan, she feared discovery and encouraged Liu Shao to have Chen killed to silence him. Chen's death frightened the eunuch Qingguo, who then exposed the witchcraft plot to Emperor Wen. The emperor ordered Wang Yingwu arrested. Hundreds of letters exchanged by Liu Shao and Liu Jun were found in her residence, filled with references to curses and witchcraft, and the jade figure buried before Hanzhang Hall was dug up. This occurred in the seventh month of 452.

Emperor Wen was furious and ordered a thorough investigation, confronting both sons. Liu Shao and Liu Jun were terrified and could offer no defense beyond asking forgiveness. The emperor's anger gradually subsided and he did not pursue the case to its conclusion. Yan Daoyu, however, had already fled. Although the emperor ordered searches throughout the provinces and commanderies, she was not found. In fact, she disguised herself as a Buddhist nun, hid in the Eastern Palace, later followed Liu Jun to Jingkou, and stayed in the household of a commoner named Zhang Wu.

Patricide and Usurpation

In the second month of 453, the thirtieth year of Yuanjia, Liu Jun was transferred to be Inspector of Jingzhou and returned to court from Jingkou, bringing Yan Daoyu back to Jiankang with the intention of taking her onward to Jingzhou. Someone then reported to Emperor Wen that a nun at Zhang Wu's home in Jingkou closely resembled Yan Daoyu and frequently entered Liu Jun's residence. The emperor initially doubted the report, but investigators learned the truth from two maids. When Emperor Wen discovered that his two sons were still in contact with Yan Daoyu, he was both enraged and deeply distressed, and decided to depose Liu Shao and order Liu Jun to die.

Emperor Wen summoned trusted officials Wang Sengchuo and Xu Danzhi to discuss the succession, but disagreement arose over the new crown prince. Emperor Wen favored Liu Hong, Prince of Jianping; Xu Danzhi supported his son-in-law Liu Dan, Prince of Sui; Jiang Zhan supported his brother-in-law Liu Shuo, Prince of Nanping. Wang Sengchuo urged the emperor to decide quickly, but Emperor Wen hesitated for days.

Emperor Wen disclosed his intention to Consort Pan, who immediately told Liu Jun. Liu Jun sent urgent word to Liu Shao. Liu Shao resolved to strike first. With trusted men Zhang Chaozhi, Chen Shuer, Zhan Shuer, Ren Jianzhi, and others, he planned an uprising and held nightly banquets to win over soldiers.

On the night of the twentieth day of the second month, Liu Shao forged an imperial order claiming that Lu Xiu had rebelled and that troops should guard the palace gate at dawn. He instructed Zhang Chaozhi to assemble more than two thousand soldiers. He then summoned former Crown Prince Central Secretary Xiao Bin, Crown Prince Left Guard Commander Yuan Shu, Crown Prince Secretariat Attendant Yin Zhongsu, and Left Crossbow General Wang Zhengjian, tearfully telling them that the emperor believed slander and intended to depose and punish him, though he had done no wrong, and that he would carry out a great action the next morning. Xiao Bin and Yuan Shu opposed the plan. Liu Shao became angry; Xiao Bin, frightened, submitted, while Yuan Shu still refused and was killed on Liu Shao's orders.

Before dawn the next day, Liu Shao rode with Xiao Bin to Fenghua Gate and led his troops inside as though entering for a routine court audience. At Wanchun Gate, guards challenged him for violating regulations, but Liu Shao falsely claimed he had received orders to bring troops into the palace to suppress rebellion. Zhang Chaozhi and several dozen men then rushed through Yunlong Gate, Eastern Zhonghua Gate, and the imperial quarters with drawn swords toward Hanzhang Hall. Emperor Wen had spent the night discussing the planned deposition with Xu Danzhi; the guards on duty were still asleep. Zhang Chaozhi attacked and killed Emperor Wen and also killed Xu Danzhi. Liu Shao sent men to kill Jiang Zhan as well. Bu Tianyu, commander of the Left Fine Guard, attempted to attack Liu Shao with his men but was defeated and killed.

Brief Reign and Defeat

Liu Shao proclaimed himself emperor that same day. He issued an edict claiming that Xu Danzhi and Jiang Zhan had committed treason and that by the time he led soldiers into the palace it was already too late to save the emperor. He proclaimed a general amnesty and changed Yuanjia 30 to Taichu 1. The era name Taichu had been selected by Liu Shao and Yan Daoyu. After taking the throne, Liu Shao executed supporters of Xu Danzhi and Jiang Zhan, rewarded those who had participated in the seizure of power, and killed imperial relatives with whom he had longstanding enmity, including Liu Jin, Prince of Changsha. When he discovered Wang Sengchuo's role in the planned deposition, he killed him as well. At Emperor Wen's encoffining, Liu Shao claimed illness and did not dare attend in person; only afterward did he don mourning clothes and go to the spirit tablet, displaying grief. He made Lady Yin empress and his eldest son Liu Weizhi crown prince.

However, Liu Jun, Prince of Wuling and Inspector of Jiangzhou; Liu Yixuan, Prince of Nanqiao and Inspector of Jingzhou; Zang Zhi, Inspector of Yongzhou; Liu Dan, Prince of Sui and Administrator of Kuaiji; and others all rejected Liu Shao's authority and raised forces against him, with Liu Jun taking the lead. Liu Shao secretly ordered Shen Qingzhi to kill Liu Jun, but Shen instead assisted Liu Jun and commanded troops eastward. Liu Shao ordered martial law inside and outside the capital. Confident in his own martial ability, he told the civil officials that they need only handle documents and should not concern themselves with warfare, because if enemies came he would personally take the field. He placed Yin Chong, an uncle of the empress, in charge of documents and Xiao Bin in overall charge of affairs, while holding the children of Liu Jun and Liu Yixuan as hostages.

As the punitive army approached, Chu Danzhi, who guarded Shitou, surrendered to Liu Jun, undermining morale. On the twenty-first day of the fourth month, the coalition army reached Xinting, where Liu Yuanjing fortified a position against a hill. Liu Shao ordered Xiao Bin to attack the Xinting fortifications with ten thousand elite troops and personally climbed Zhuque Gate to supervise the battle. Rewarded generously, Liu Shao's soldiers fought desperately and at first gained the upper hand. Lu Xiu suddenly withdrew, however, allowing Liu Yuanjing to counterattack. Liu Shao's forces suffered a major defeat with heavy casualties. Liu Shao personally led trusted troops into another battle but was again defeated and retreated to the palace.

After this defeat, Chu Danzhi, Tan Hezhi, Lu Xiu, and Liu Yigong successively defected to Liu Jun. Liu Shao sought supernatural aid, honoring the deity Lord Jiang as General-in-Chief and Prince of Zhongshan Commandery, and ordered Liu Shuo, Prince of Nanping, to draft a sacrificial declaration listing Liu Jun's crimes. In the fifth month, the eastern army led by Liu Dan defeated forces sent by Liu Shao. Liu Shao burned shipbuilding materials, destroyed the dams at Baigang and Fangshan, and conscripted men to establish defenses along the Qinhuai River.

On the third day of the fifth month, Lu Xiu led five hundred men to capture the Dahang crossing. Defender Wang Luohan, drunk, dropped his weapon and surrendered, and the remaining troops collapsed. That night Liu Shao closed the six gates to resist, but disorder spread inside the capital. Yin Hong and others surrendered; Xiao Bin laid down his arms and was executed. On the fourth day of the fifth month, May 27, Liu Yigong climbed Zhuque Gate to command an assault on Xuanyang Gate. Liu Shao's troops threw away their weapons and fled. Cheng Tianzuo, Tan Jin, and others entered the palace, while Zang Zhi came through Guangmo Gate and joined them before Taiji Hall. Liu Shao escaped through a western wall and hid in a well in the arsenal, where unit commander Gao Qin seized him and brought him before the hall. Liu Yigong angrily demanded why such a guilty man had acted as he had. Liu Shao asked whether he might become Liu Yigong's slave. Liu Yigong did not answer and ordered him beheaded beneath the command standard. Liu Shao's wife and children were all killed and his associates were exterminated.

Liu Shao, styled Xiuyuan, was the eldest son of the Song emperor Wen, Liu Yilong, by the empress Yuan Qigui. The history of the imperial princes records that of the emperor's nineteen sons the empress Yuan bore Liu Shao and the consort Pan bore Liu Jun. The empress Yuan, a native of Yangxia in Chenjun and a concubine's daughter of the left grand master Yuan Zhan, was not acknowledged by her mother's family until she was five or six, and marrying the emperor she first became Princess of Yidu, bearing Liu Shao and the princess Ying'e. Liu Yilong took the throne in 424 and Liu Shao was born that year, but as the emperor was still in mourning the birth was kept secret until the intercalary first month of 426. It is told that when the child was born the empress examined him closely and sent a rider to tell the emperor that his form was strange, that he would ruin the state and destroy the family, and that he should not be reared, and wished to kill him, the emperor hurrying to her apartments and pushing aside the curtains to stop her. In 429, at six, Liu Shao was made crown prince and lodged in the Yongfu court, where the emperor built him a new palace of strict and splendid design and appointed tutors to attend him. He loved the histories and above all arms, managed the affairs of the Eastern Palace himself and gathered guests there; at twelve he moved into the palace proper and married the daughter of the yellow gate attendant Yin Chun, at thirteen he took the cap of manhood, and his wishes were granted by the emperor in all things, the guards of the Eastern Palace being made equal to the imperial guard. In 440 he sacrificed at the imperial tombs with a great train, and in 450, when the emperor proposed the northern campaign, he and Xiao Sihua remonstrated in vain; when the enemy came to Guabu and the capital was in terror he was posted to Shitou with command of the fleet, and when the emperor, looking over the wall, showed anxiety, Liu Shao said that nothing would clear the realm of blame but the heads of Jiang Zhan and Xu Zhanzhi, and the emperor answered that the campaign had been his own will and did not concern them. When the Wei asked for a marriage and the court was for granting it, Jiang Zhan alone opposed it as faithless barbarians, and Liu Shao in anger abused him before the throne and had his attendants jostle him as they left. In 451, when the Wei withdrew and Liu Shao returned to the Eastern Palace, his hatred of Jiang Zhan was such that the emperor, to reconcile them, betrothed Jiang Zhan's daughter to Liu Shao's son; but Liu Shao never invited Jiang Zhan to his feasts and called him before the emperor a flatterer unfit for intimacy, so that the emperor betrothed Jiang Zhan's third daughter to Liu Shao's eldest son in hope of peace. Liu Shao hated the consort Pan and her son Liu Jun, because the empress Yuan, being jealous of Pan's favour, had died of resentment; and Liu Jun, knowing that a quarrel with the heir would ruin him, courted him in every way until the two became sworn friends. At that time there was a witch of Wuxing, Yan Daoyu, who claimed to command spirits and who, her husband having been convicted of robbery, had been made a palace slave. Through the princess of Dongyang's maid Wang Yingwu she was brought in on the pretence of skill in sericulture, and Liu Shao and his sister believed in her arts. Liu Shao and Liu Jun, having many faults of their own and fearing the emperor's reproof, were persuaded by her to bury a jade image of the emperor beneath the Hanzhang hall and curse him, calling her their heavenly teacher. Wang Yingwu, the slave Chen Tianxing and the eunuch Qingguo were all privy to the sorcery; Liu Shao promoted Chen Tianxing to command a company, and when the princess died and Wang Yingwu was to be married off, Liu Shao, to keep the secret, married her secretly to the aide Shen Huaiyuan. When the emperor learned of Chen Tianxing's promotion and of the marriage, he sent a eunuch to question him, and Liu Shao answered that he had promoted him for his strength and that no husband had yet been found, and the emperor let it pass, though Liu Shao wrote to Liu Jun that they must agree on their story. Wang Yingwu, who had been Chen Tianxing's mistress, fearing exposure after her marriage, had Liu Shao kill him, and the eunuch Qingguo, terrified that he too would be silenced, informed the emperor of the sorcery. The emperor at once arrested Wang Yingwu and found in her house several hundred letters between Liu Shao and Liu Jun, all of cursing and sorcery, together with the buried image, and reproached his sons, who could only beg pardon. He told the Prince of Jiangxia that he had read of such things in books and had thought them empty words, and to the consort Pan he said that the prince's ambition for wealth and honour was one thing, but that Hu Tou, as Liu Jun was called, was beyond his imagining; and he wrote to Liu Jun in reproach. Yan Daoyu meanwhile fled and, taking the dress of a nun, hid in the Eastern Palace and then at Jingkou in the house of a commoner, being carried by Liu Jun in his comings and goings; and when Liu Jun was to go to Jiangling and again took her with him, an informer revealed that a nun resembling her frequented his house. The emperor at first disbelieved it, but on inquiry found two maidservants who confirmed that she had returned to the capital with Liu Jun; and grieving and indignant that his sons still consorted with her, he resolved to depose Liu Shao and put Liu Jun to death. Wang Sengchuo urged him to decide at once, but the emperor hesitated many days, unable to agree with Xu Zhanzhi and Jiang Zhan on which prince to raise; and while deliberating in secret he told the consort Pan, who told Liu Jun, who told Liu Shao. To save himself Liu Shao resolved to strike first, and with his confidants planned the rising, feasting the guards of the Eastern Palace every night and drinking to them himself to win their loyalty. On the night of the twenty-first day of the second month he forged an edict that Lu Xiu was in revolt and that the guard should enter the palace at dawn, had two thousand picked men armed, summoned the officers and drafted them for action, and called in at night the former tutor Xiao Bin and the guard commander Yuan Shu and others to tell them of his design, bowing to them with tears. Xiao Bin and Yuan Shu both objected and begged him to think again, at which he turned angry, and Xiao Bin, frightened, changed his ground and gave his support, while Yuan Shu held out but could not shake him. At the fifth watch he mounted the painted carriage with Xiao Bin, wearing armour under the red robes of a courtier, and calling for Yuan Shu, who lay still and would not rise; halting at the gate, he sent messenger after messenger, and when Yuan Shu at last rose and came to the back of the carriage he refused to mount, whereupon Liu Shao had him killed outside the gate at forty-six. With his escort in the usual order of a morning audience he entered the Wanchun gate, telling the guard that he had orders to make arrests and bidding the rear come on. Zhang Chaozhi and several dozen men galloped into the palace and up to the He hall, where the emperor, who had been speaking with Xu Zhanzhi by lamplight until dawn with his guards still asleep, was murdered, Xu Zhanzhi being killed with him; Liu Shao came up to the middle of the hall, and his father being dead, sat in the east hall with Xiao Bin holding a sword at his side, sent men to kill Jiang Zhan in the Chongli gate, and had the consort Pan killed from the eastern pavilion, while the emperor's halberd-bearer Bu Tianyu attacked him in the east hall and was killed. He then summoned Liu Jun, who galloped to the city despite the protests of his attendants. The Prince of Jiangxia, knowing that summons to princes were normally carried by a designated messenger and fearing a trick, demanded the usual one before entering. Liu Shao took the throne, declaring in a proclamation that Xu Zhanzhi and Jiang Zhan had murdered the emperor and that his own troops had come too late, that the criminals were now taken and the chief rebel destroyed, with a general amnesty and the era Tai Chu, though only a few dozen officials came to congratulate him. He then withdrew on the plea of illness to the Yongfu court, and when his father's body was laid in the Taiji hall and the time came to dress it he pleaded illness and dared not appear, only coming to the coffin at the end of mourning to weep without control. When the capital was quiet he destroyed the partisans of Xu Zhanzhi and Jiang Zhan, killing several of their followers, and loaded his own men with honours, making Xiao Bin a vice director and commander and giving money to Zhang Chaozhi and the rest; he visited the ministers to ask after the art of government, sent commissioners through the realm, lightened taxes and levies, cut the costs of travel, gave waste hills and marshes to the poor, and in the third month sent great envoys to the four quarters. He wished to change the era name at once, and though Xiao Bin told him that by old practice a new emperor kept his predecessor's era until the new year, Wang Sengchuo cited the case of the Jin emperor Hui and he did so gladly. He had the consort Pan killed and her heart cut out to see whether it was crooked, his servant answering that it was, and told Liu Jun that she had died at the hands of the mutinous soldiers, to which Liu Jun answered that this was what he had always wished. When he learned that the court astronomer had warned the late emperor of an impending disaster on the very eve of the murder, he lamented that it had nearly ruined his design, asked the astronomer how many years he would reign, and being told ten, and hearing that the man had said privately it would be ten ten-day periods, had him beaten to death. Liu Jun, meanwhile, sent his registrar to profess loyalty at court while recalling Shen Qingzhi to raise the armies; and Liu Shao's secret letter bidding Shen Qingzhi kill Liu Jun and take his troops turned him the more against him, so that he told his confidants that Xiao Bin was a woman and the rest of the generals easy, and that in aid of the rightful and against the rebel he could not fail. Coming to Liu Jun he showed him the letter, and when Liu Jun wept and asked leave to take farewell of his mother, Shen Qingzhi said that he had received the late emperor's great kindness, that in this business he would use all his strength, and that the prince need not doubt him; and Liu Jun bowed and told him that the safety of house and state lay in him. Liu Jun made Liu Yuanjing his adviser with ten thousand men as vanguard, and issued a proclamation to the realm recounting Liu Shao's parricide as a calamity unheard of since the beginning of men, while Liu Yixuan and Zang Zhi raised troops and the Prince of Jingling sent forces in support. Liu Shao told the court that they had only to help him with the documents and that if there were trouble he would go out himself; he set Yan Chong over the papers, Yin Hong over the troops and Xiao Bin over all, proclaimed martial law, rode out daily to encourage the soldiers and superintend the building of ships, burned the southern bank of the Qinhuai and drove the people to the north bank. He gathered the princes and ministers in the city as hostages, wrote to Liu Jun through Liu Jun's brother to persuade him to desist, sent forces eastward against the Prince of Jingling, which were beaten at Benniutang, and when he would have killed the families of the men of the three garrisons desisted at the remonstrance of the Prince of Jiangxia. His advisers urged him to lead the fleet up the river to fight, but the Prince of Jiangxia, arguing that the rebel fleet was unfit for battle, advised him to stay and wait at ease, and he therefore did nothing and lost the moment. Liu Yuanjing came up to Xinting and built a stockade on the hill; and when Liu Shao attacked with ten thousand men under Xiao Bin, expecting to find the works unfinished and having no siege engines, he could only send his men to fight hand to hand. Liu Yuanjing, though attacked by land and water, fought on and then flung open his gates and charged, breaking the imperial troops; and a second attack by Liu Shao was beaten with still greater loss, several generals being killed and Xiao Bin wounded by a stray arrow. Burning the military registers and freeing the garrison households to raise morale, Liu Shao set Xiao Bin to hold Shitou; but the Prince of Jiangxia fled to the rebels, and Liu Shao in fury had his twelve sons put to death. Liu Jun came to Xinting and was there urged to take the throne and did so. When the armies of Liu Yixuan and Zang Zhi pressed on the capital, Liu Shao blocked the waterways with palisades, broke the dikes and lined the Qinhuai with warships and crossbows, the men of the capital being all in the ranks so that women were called to the labour. In the fifth month the eastern army entered by the Zhuque gate, the defending general Wang Luohan surrendered and the garrisons scattered, the streets filled with abandoned weapons; and Liu Shao, shutting the six gates, dug ditches and built palisades within, while his officers and the governor of Danyang fled over the walls to the enemy. Powerless, he had his chariot and robes burned; Liu Jun urged him to take to the sea with his treasure, but the men were gone and it came to nothing. Xiao Bin, hearing that the great bridge was lost, disarmed his troops and came in a white banner to surrender and was beheaded at the camp gate. The next day the rebels stormed the city, the Prince of Jiangxia directing from the Zhuque gate, and the gates fell one after another until all met before the Taiji hall. Liu Jun fled by the Ximing gate and meeting the Prince of Jiangxia at Yuecheng dismounted and surrendered, asking what the commander had done and whether he might not be spared and given a post, and was beheaded on the road as they went. Liu Shao hid in a well in the armoury and was dragged out by a soldier named Gao Qin; asked where the sovereign was, he was told that he was at Xinting, and when the imperial seal was not found he said it was with Yan Daoyu, and it was fetched. Brought before the hall, Zang Zhi wept to see him and he said that one whom heaven and earth could not contain should not be wept over; and enumerating his crimes Zang Zhi heard him answer that his father had meant to depose him unjustly, that he would not be a prisoner in a cell, and that it was Xiao Bin who had advised him, and that he begged to be banished to the frontier, to which Zang Zhi answered that the sovereign was close at hand and would decide. Bound on a horse and brought to the camp gate he looked about him from the saddle, and the Prince of Jiangxia and the princes came to see him; asked how he could have killed his twelve sons, he answered that for the killing of his cousins he was sorry before his uncle, and when Jiang Zhan's wife and others reviled him he cried out that they need not trouble themselves. His four sons were killed before his eyes, and he said that it was nothing; and then he was beheaded at the camp gate, lamenting as he died that he had not thought the imperial house could come to this. He was thirty, and it was the fifth month of 453. Liu Shao, Liu Jun, four sons of Liu Shao and three of Liu Jun were beheaded and their bodies exposed in the market. The wife of Liu Shao was allowed to die in the prison of the court of justice, saying to the prison officer that they were destroying their own flesh and blood and asking why innocent persons should be killed, and being told that to be made empress was crime enough; and she answered that it had been a mere makeshift, for she had meant to make Wang Yingwu empress. The wife of Liu Jun, daughter of the governor of Danyang, was spared because her father had repudiated her when he fled to the rebels; the rest of the children and concubines were put to death in prison, the bodies of the two brothers thrown into the river, Zhang Chaozhi killed by the soldiers at the very spot of the imperial couch and his heart cut out and his flesh eaten by the generals and his skull burned, and Yan Daoyu and Wang Yingwu flogged to death in the street, their bodies burned below the Sishan at Shitou and the ashes scattered on the river; and the Eastern Palace where Liu Shao had lived was destroyed and the ground made into a pool. A song of the time ran that looking towards the city of Jiankang, where the little river runs back against its course, one saw first the son kill the father and then the younger brother kill the elder.

Major Activities

Patricide and Seizure of the Throne

The source describes Liu Shao as the first emperor in Chinese history to kill his father in order to seize the throne. Before dawn on the twenty-first day of the second month of 453, Liu Shao led more than two thousand Eastern Palace troops into the imperial compound under a false order and had Zhang Chaozhi and others enter Hanzhang Hall, where Emperor Wen Liu Yilong was killed. Xu Danzhi and Jiang Zhan were also killed. Such conduct was exceptionally shocking in a political culture that placed great weight on filial piety; Xie Zhuang described it as an extreme act of regicide and rebellion without precedent.

Witchcraft Against Emperor Wen

Liu Shao and Liu Jun, Prince of Shixing, worked with the shaman Yan Daoyu to bury a jade figure modeled on Emperor Wen before Hanzhang Hall and use witchcraft against him. Exposure of the affair led Emperor Wen to consider replacing Liu Shao as heir, directly precipitating the patricide. The source presents the witchcraft plot as evidence of the deep conflict between the crown prince and his father and as an immediate cause of the final crisis.

Position During the Yuanjia Northern Campaign

In 450, Liu Shao and Xiao Sihua strongly advised against the northern campaign, but Emperor Wen ignored them. When Northern Wei forces advanced as far as Guabu, Liu Shao commanded naval forces from Shitou Fortress and was said to manage the troops effectively, demonstrating some military competence. After the defeat he urged that Jiang Zhan be executed to answer to the realm, deepening his hostility toward the pro-war official.

Building an Eastern Palace Power Base

Liu Shao became crown prince at age six and moved into the Eastern Palace at twelve. He enjoyed histories and military pursuits, personally managed palace affairs, and cultivated guests. Emperor Wen favored him strongly. His guard forces were made equivalent to the Yulin troops and later increased to ten thousand armored soldiers. This long-term buildup of Eastern Palace power supplied the military basis for his later coup.

The parricide of Liu Shao and the killing of his brother by Liu Jun were the first great slaughter within the imperial clan of the Southern Dynasties. In his two months on the throne Liu Shao issued decrees lightening taxes and levies and cutting the costs of travel, gave waste hills and marshes to the poor, and sent great envoys through the four quarters to inquire into the art of government, and burned the military registers of the capital, setting up commanderies and counties subject to the metropolitan administration. His era name Tai Chu was the same as that of Emperor Wu of Han, the collected researches noting that the same name was used by Fu Deng, Qifu Qiangui, Tufa Wugu and the parricide of Song. He is not reckoned among the legitimate emperors of the Song: the histories style him the chief rebel and place him with Liu Jun in the chapter of the two rebels. His household perished with him, his wife being allowed to die in prison, that of Liu Jun spared only because her father had repudiated her, and the remaining children and concubines put to death, while four sons of Liu Shao and three of Liu Jun were beheaded and their bodies exposed in the market.

Personal Relations

• Father: Emperor Wen Liu Yilong of Liu Song, killed in Liu Shao's coup
• Mother: Empress Yuan Qigui of the Yuan clan of Chen Commandery
• Half-brothers: Emperor Xiaowu Liu Jun, who defeated Liu Shao; Liu Jun, Prince of Shixing, Liu Shao's ally who was killed after defeat
• Sister: Princess Dongyang Liu Ying'e
• Wife: Empress Yin, daughter of Yin Chun
• Eldest son: Crown Prince Liu Weizhi
• Xiao Bin: former Crown Prince Central Secretary; joined the patricide plot and was later killed after defeat
• Zhang Chaozhi: trusted follower who personally killed Emperor Wen
• Yan Daoyu: female shaman and one of the principal figures in the witchcraft affair
• Wang Yingwu: maid in Princess Dongyang's household and participant in the witchcraft affair
• Jiang Zhan: pro-war official whom Liu Shao deeply hated and killed after seizing power
• Xu Danzhi: trusted official of Emperor Wen who joined deliberations over replacing the crown prince and was killed in the coup
• Wang Sengchuo: trusted official of Emperor Wen who joined the succession discussions and was later killed
• Liu Yigong: Prince of Jiangxia; first submitted to Liu Shao, then defected to Liu Jun
• Lu Xiu: first served Liu Shao, then defected to Liu Jun
• Shen Qingzhi: received an order to kill Liu Jun but instead assisted Liu Jun's campaign against Liu Shao

Historical Assessment

Southern Dynasties and Contemporary Views

• The Book of Song placed Liu Shao together with Liu Jun in the "Biographies of the Two Villains," called him the "arch-criminal," and did not recognize his rule as legitimate, nor did it adopt the temple and posthumous names he assigned to Emperor Wen.
• Xie Zhuang described his act as an unprecedented extreme of patricide and rebellion.
• After Liu Shao was captured, Liu Yigong denounced him as a guilty man, rejected his plea to become a slave, and ordered his execution.

Tang and Song Periods

• The Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance gives a detailed account of Liu Shao's killing of his father and treats it as a major rupture of basic human and political order.
• Tang historians generally followed the Book of Song in treating Liu Shao as a rebel and usurper rather than a legitimate emperor.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Ming and Qing historians frequently used Liu Shao as a representative case of patricide and usurpation, condemning his conduct in strongly moral terms.
• Wang Fuzhi, in Du Tongjian Lun, cited Liu Shao while discussing fratricidal conflict within the Southern Dynasties and treated his conduct as an extreme form of rebellion.

Modern Period

• Modern historians often analyze Liu Shao's patricide within the context of internal Liu Song power struggles, emphasizing Emperor Wen's prolonged indecision over the succession and the unusually large military resources controlled by the Eastern Palace.
• Lü Simian, in History of the Two Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, treated Emperor Wen's hesitation over replacing the crown prince as an important factor in the tragedy.
• Scholars such as Tian Yuqing, in discussions of Southern Dynasties politics, have also treated Liu Shao's rebellion as a major manifestation of intensifying conflict within the imperial clan.