Lü Clan Disturbance: Encyclopedia II - Lü Clan Disturbance - Emperor Hui's death and total domination of the political scene by Grand Empress Dowager Lü

Lü Clan Disturbance - Emperor Hui's death and total domination of the political scene by Grand Empress Dowager Lü

When Emperor Hui died in autumn 188 BC, his son (but this parentage is disputed) Liu Gong ascended to the throne as Emperor Qianshao. However, there was not even any pretention that he was the one in charge; Emperor Hui's mother Empress Dowager Lü (now Grand Empress Dowager Lü) was the one who pubicly and actually controlled the political power.

In winter 188 BC, Grand Empress Dowager Lü wanted to make her brothers princes, against her husband Liu Bang (Emperor Gao)'s rule that only members of the imperial Liu clan may be made princes -- a rule that she herself had a hand in creating. This was opposed by the right prime minister Wang Ling (王陵) but accepted by the left prime minister Chen Ping (陳平) and the commander in chief of the armed forces Zhou Bo (周勃). When Wang rebuked Chen and Zhou in private for going agianst Emperor Gao's rule, they rationalized that their compliance with the grand empress dowager was necessary to protect the empire and the Lius. Grand Empress Dowager Lü then promoted Wang to the honorary position of the emperor's teacher (太傅, taifu); Wang declined and claimed illness. Lü then removed him from the position and had him (as the Marquess of Anguo) returned to his march (in modern Baoding, Hebei) and promoted Chen to right prime minister ("right" being the more honored direction) and her lover Shen Yiji (審食其), the Marquess of Piyang, to left prime minister.

Grand Empress Dowager Lü would then go ahead and carry out her plan to make members of her clan princes. In summer 187 BC, when her daughter Princess Luyuan died, she created the princess' son, Zhang Yan (張偃), the Prince of Lu. (Princess Luyuan's husband and Zhang Yan's father, Zhang Ao (張敖), had, during Emperor Gao's reign, been the Prince of Zhao, but was removed as part of the policy against non-Liu princes, so Grand Empress Dowager Lü might have felt that making Zhang Yan a prince would be considered to be more justified; when Zhang Ao died in 182 BC, he was posthumously honored as a prince.) A month later, she required the officials to formally petition her to make her nephew Lü Tai (呂台) the Prince of Lü -- carving the principality out from the Principality of Qi. She also, in 184 BC, in the unprecedented and subsequently rare action of creating a female with a march, created her younger sister Lü Xu (呂須) the Marchioness of Lingguang. In spring 181 BC, Lü Tai's son Lü Chan (呂產), who had become the Prince of Lü after his father's death, was given the larger Principality of Liang, but did not go to his principality but stayed in the capital Chang'an to serve as the emperor's teacher and assistant to Grand Empress Dowager Lü. Later that year, the grand empress dowager created her nephew Lü Lu (呂祿) as the Prince of Zhao and another son of Lü Tai's, Lü Tong (呂通) the Prince of Yan.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Emperor Hui's death and total domination of the political scene by Grand Empress Dowager Lü", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki