GBP Chapter 112 The Life of Emperor Wu of Han
Chapter 112 The Life of Emperor Wu of Han
[What kind of person is Emperor Wu of Han among the Qin Emperor, Emperor Han Wu, Emperor Tang and Emperor Song? Liu Che is the greatest emperor in the history of the Han Dynasty]
【Why was Emperor Wu of Han named after Qin Shi Huang? He was made crown prince at the age of seven, and inherited the throne at the age of sixteen. He strengthened the imperial power, conquered the barbarians, and spread his teachings throughout the world. 】
【Thanks to his efforts, all the lands that the sun and moon shine on and the rivers flow to are now Han territory. The territory has doubled compared to the Qin Dynasty.】
【Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Li Guang and other famous generals were all his younger brothers.】
[But at the same time, some people also say that he was warlike and aggressive, and that the witchcraft incident almost destroyed the Han Dynasty. However, they do not know that he refused to marry the Xiongnu, let the Xiongnu flee far away to the north of the desert, conquered Dayuan, pacified Nanyue, conquered the east, and opened up the Southwest Yi, laying the foundation for the future territory of China. ]
[The first conspiracy in history, the Enfeoffment Order, was won without bloodshed and without fighting.]
[In this video, let us take a look at the life of Liu Che, who is known as the greatest emperor of all time. 】
——"The Enfeoffment Order is really awesome. There is no solution."
——"Marry a wife and get two SSRs."
——"To be precise, there are three. Huo Guang should be counted as one of them."
[From his birth in 156 BC to his death in Wuzha Palace in 87 BC and his burial in Maoling, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, was seventy years old, but he was the emperor for a full fifty-four years.]
[Because he was so rich when he took over, Emperor Wu of Han spent his entire life either fighting wars or on the way to war.]
[Before his death, he made a self-examination in front of the whole world. If you want to understand the merits and demerits of Emperor Wu of Han's life, you have to start from the beginning.]
[Liu Che's father was Emperor Jing of Han during the reign of Emperor Wen and Emperor Jing. His mother was Wang Zhi. Liu Che was born in 156 BC, shortly after Emperor Jing of Han ascended the throne.]
[As the tenth son of Emperor Jing of Han, the throne seemed so far away for him.]
[Perhaps in order to let his son grow up safely, when Liu Che was young, his name was Liu Zhi, which means little pig.]
【But fate played a joke on Liu Che. In 153 BC, Emperor Jing of Han made his eldest son Liu Rong the crown prince. The four-year-old Liu Che was also named the King of Jiaodong because of his status as a prince.】
【Liu Che had an aunt named Princess Guantao Liu Piao, who was the elder sister of Emperor Jing of Han. 】
[After Liu Rong was made the crown prince, Princess Guantao wanted to marry her daughter, Chen Ajiao, to the crown prince in order to expand her power. However, she was rejected by the crown prince's biological mother, Li Ji.]
[The reason was that Princess Guantao always looked for beauties for Emperor Jing of Han, and the angry Princess Guantao asked Liu Che's mother for marriage.]
Unexpectedly, the young Liu Che showed a very high emotional intelligence and immediately stated that if he could marry Chen Ajiao in the future, he would definitely build a golden house for her and hide her. This is also the origin of the idiom "a golden house to hide a beauty". 】
[So how will the fate of Chen Ajiao and Liu Che develop in the future? We will talk about this later.]
——"He must be not that good, otherwise he wouldn't have married Wei Zifu."
——"It seems that there is a golden house, but what's the point of living there alone?"
——"That's just because Chen Ajiao is too much of a show-off."
[After the unremitting efforts of Princess Guantao and Liu Che's mother, the balance of victory began to tilt towards Liu Che. Emperor Jing of Han, who was unable to resist the wind, gradually distanced himself from Li Ji because of the time of abolishing the queen.]
[A year later, Emperor Jing of Han deposed Crown Prince Liu Rong as King of Linjiang and made Emperor Wu of Han's mother the empress. The seven-year-old Liu Che was also made Crown Prince, achieving a gorgeous counterattack.]
[In 141 BC, Liu Che, who was sixteen years old, had already come of age. Ten days after he had just completed his coming-of-age ceremony, Emperor Jing of Han died, and Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, officially ascended the throne, beginning his 54-year reign.]
[Chen Ajiao also became the queen naturally, but when Liu Che first ascended the throne, the foreign relatives represented by the Grand Empress Dowager Dou Yifang and the Empress Dowager Wang Zhi had great power in the court.]
【Liu Che had to report everything to the Eastern Palace, which made him very depressed. A year later, Liu Che wanted to promote Confucianism reform, but was nipped in the bud by Empress Dowager Dou Yifang, who advocated Huang-Lao philosophy.】
[At the same time, Princess Guantao took credit for her role in supporting the emperor. She often made various requests to Liu Che. In addition, Chen Ajiao became more and more jealous, which gradually alienated Liu Che from her initial favor.]
[But in the end, Liu Che was no match for his superiors, so he started to do nothing and just gave up, biding his time every day, indulging in traveling and hunting.]
[At that time, the Han Dynasty was harassed by the nomadic Xiongnu in the north for many years, so destroying the Xiongnu became the most important strategic goal of the hot-blooded Emperor Wu of Han.]
[When he was 19 years old, Emperor Liu Che ordered Zhang Qian to go on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions, attempting to form a military alliance with the Xiongnu's ancient enemies, the Great Yuezhi, who had migrated to the Western Regions. However, Zhang Qian was detained by the Xiongnu on the way. Not only did the plan to form an alliance to destroy the Huns fail, but a talented person was also lost.]
——"Zhang Qian is really miserable."
——"It wasn't going well in the early days, and it wasn't going well after he returned to the Han Dynasty. He was sent out to fight, and he got lost after living in the Xiongnu for so many years. If it weren't for the two great war gods Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the Han Dynasty would have been suppressed by the Xiongnu."
[In 135 BC, Empress Dowager Dou died and the -year-old Emperor Wu of Han had just come to power. The Xiongnu sent envoys to the Han Dynasty and confidently demanded a marriage alliance.]
[It is not the Huns' fault for this attitude. This was a system that had existed since the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang. It can be said that it maintained stability for a long time at the lowest cost.]
[The happiness of the Xiongnu people is so simple. As long as the Han Dynasty arranges a marriage according to the legal program, the Xiongnu people will take their brides back to where they came from.]
[Although Liu Che wanted to go to war with the Xiongnu, he finally adopted the proposal of the peace faction and prepared to bide his time against the Xiongnu.]
[In 134 BC, Emperor Wu of Han first ordered each county to select filial and honest officials and select virtuous people. Later, Dong Zhongshu presented the Three Strategies of Heaven and Man, proposing to "abolish all schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone." ]
【Afterwards, Liu Che appointed his uncle Tian Fen as prime minister to check and balance the Dou family, and began to gradually prepare for the crisis to completely control the court.】
[A year later, a man named Wang Hui proposed the Mayi plot to Liu Che, trying to set up an ambush in the Mayi Valley in advance, and then lure the Xiongnu Junchen Chanyu into the country and set up an ambush to destroy him.]
[However, the plan was discovered by the Xiongnu before it even began. The 300,000 Han soldiers set up an ambush, but ended up waiting in vain. Wang Hui was imprisoned and committed suicide shortly afterwards.]
——"Suicide? Still a decent person."
——"If you are not decent, someone will help you be decent. It is not difficult to fake suicide."
[Even under such unfavorable circumstances, Liu Che did not give in to the Xiongnu. He decided to speed up his plan to completely control the court.]
[In 131 BC, Emperor Wu of Han took advantage of Guan Fu's scolding and executed Dou Ying, the representative of the Dou family. It seemed that he was venting his anger on behalf of his mother's family, but in fact he was punishing Tian Fen.]
[Soon after, Tian Fen died, and Emperor Liu Che began to employ officials other than meritorious officials and relatives, even people of humble origins, breaking the convention that only marquises could be prime ministers, and opening the precedent of first being appointed prime minister and then being conferred a title of marquis.]
——"It's outrageous. All my ancestors were peasants, but later on, each one became more sophisticated than the other."
——"Indeed, if you were a family that had been passed down for thousands of years like the Five Surnames and Seven Families during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, or the Tang Dynasty, it would be fine if you were a bit particular about it, but you have only been rich for a few years, why are you pretending?"
【Lords such as Lord Father Yan and Gongsun Hong were appointed during this period.】
[A year later, because Emperor Wu of Han favored a singer named Wei Zifu from Princess Pingyang's family, Chen Ajiao was jealous of Wei Zifu and persecuted her many times. Eventually, she got into trouble and was deposed by Emperor Wu of Han.]
[Emperor Wu of Han was really good at choosing a wife. Wei Zifu was not only beautiful, but also had a younger brother and a nephew as a dowry. They were Wei Qing and Huo Qubing.]
[In 129 BC, the 28-year-old Emperor Wu of Han ignored the advice of the peace faction to restore the stability after the marriage, and decisively used the dangerous situation, Huo Qubing to attack the Huns in the north, starting Wei Qing's seven wars. ]
[As a result, this man named Wei Qing shocked everyone with his skills, conquered Longcheng, and took over the Hetao area. He beat the Xiongnu so hard that they ran away when they saw him.]
[Since then, the Han Dynasty gradually took the initiative in the battle against the Xiongnu. The Han Wudi, who had won the foreign war, also made gratifying gains in strengthening the centralization of power. In 127 BC, the -year-old Han Wudi adopted the political strategy of Lord Father Yan's great unification.]
[He promulgated the Enfeoffment Order, the first conspiracy in the world, and formulated the "Law of Zuoguan" and "Supplementary Law", strictly prohibiting the princes from participating in political affairs, reducing the power of the prime minister, and relying on confidants and close ministers to participate in decision-making, thus forming a political system of inner court and outer court.]
[In 124 BC, the -year-old Emperor Wu of Han sent Wei Qing to lead Han troops to defeat the Right Xian King of the Xiongnu. Two years later, Emperor Wu of Han appointed Liu Ju as the crown prince and appointed his nephew Huo Qubing. Huo Qubing lived up to expectations and was awarded a title of nobility after one battle.]
[Western expedition to the Xiongnu, opened up the Hexi Corridor, and made more than 40,000 people from the Hunxie King's tribe surrender to the Han Dynasty. After that, four counties were successively established to cut off the communication between the Qiang people and the Xiongnu and control the road to the Western Regions. ]
[The most important thing is Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, who knew that Emperor Wu of Han hated the use of relatives to control government affairs and recruit guests, so they acted low-key to avoid offending the imperial power, and were therefore loved by Emperor Wu of Han. ]
[In 119 BC, the -year-old Emperor Wu of Han mobilized the country's military forces and sent Wei Qing and Huo Qubing to fight together, launching an unprecedented large-scale war, penetrating deep into the northern desert and defeating the Xiongnu.]
[Since then, the Xiongnu fled far away, and there was no royal court in the south of the desert. After the large-scale war between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu came to an end, Emperor Wu of Han pointed his sword in other directions. ]
[He dug Kunming and contacted the navy, and made conquering the four barbarians and educating the four seas his new goal in life, preparing to continue expanding the territory. However, only two years later, the great war god Huo Qubing died of illness.]
[In 113 BC, Nanyue Prime Minister Lü Jia was unwilling to return to the Han Dynasty and killed the envoys sent by the Han Dynasty to persuade him to surrender. Emperor Wu of Han was furious and sent troops to destroy Nanyue and set up nine counties including Nanhai.]
[Today's Guangdong and Guangxi, as well as Hainan and the central and northern regions of Yue were incorporated into the territory of the Han Dynasty. 】
[In the following years, Emperor Wu of Han conquered Dayuan in the west and annexed Korea in the east, making the territory of the Han Dynasty reach Xiaori in the east, Yinshan in the north, Yazhong in the west, and Yue in the south, doubling the territory of the Qin Shihuang period.]
[However, the continuous wars against foreign enemies also gave the Xiongnu a chance to catch their breath. After more than ten years of recuperation, the Xiongnu recovered somewhat. In addition, Wei Qing and Huo Qubing died one after another at this time. The Xiongnu once again became a scourge on the borders of the Han Dynasty.]
[In 101 BC, the -year-old Emperor Wu of Han once again issued an edict to conquer the Xiongnu in an attempt to completely solve the Xiongnu problem, but he was unsuccessful in several campaigns, and generals such as Li Ling and Li Guangli surrendered to the Xiongnu.]
——"Taishigong was also castrated for this reason."
——"Alas, after the death of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the military strength of the Han Dynasty was indeed a little worse."
[Decades of continuous foreign military operations exhausted the people and led to widespread resentment, which eventually led to a peasant uprising. Emperor Wu of Han was therefore saddened by the reputation of being a warmongerer.]
[Just when Emperor Wu of Han was about to reach his peak in both civil and military affairs, he fell into a state of stupidity in his old age.]
[Sixty-sixth Emperor Wu of the Sui Dynasty began to become suspicious, feeling that there were always villains trying to harm him. In 91 BC, an embroidered messenger named Jiang Chong took advantage of Emperor Wu's suspicion, framed Crown Prince Liu Ju, and cursed Emperor Wu with witchcraft.]
[This embroidered robe envoy was a secret inspection unit that appeared during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. If they found any illegal issues, they could act on behalf of the emperor. In the end, because of the witchcraft disaster, the crown prince and Wei Zifu committed suicide. Emperor Wu of Han also lost his wife and children because of his own fault, and he was completely reduced to a lonely man.]
Han Dynasty.
Liu Che's face has been unhappy ever since he heard that Wei Qing and Huo Qubing passed away one after another.
At this moment, his face became even gloomier.
How could I be so foolish in my later years?
Even Juer was forced to death by himself?
No wonder later generations said that the Emperors of Qin, Han, Tang and Song could not find a normal crown prince to succeed to the throne. It turns out to be true!
hateful!
This bastard Jiang Chong must be cut into pieces for daring to slander the prince!
As to whether Jiang Chong was instructed by him in his later years, Liu Che was unwilling to delve into it further.
[In 89 BC, after enshrining Mount Tai and meditating at Shilu, the -year-old Emperor Wu of Han summoned his ministers and issued the Luntai Edict, regretting his past mistakes and declaring that he would rest with the people and would never go to war again.]
[A year later, Emperor Wu of Han, who was only 70 years old, knew that his time was running out, so he entrusted Huo Guang with the care of his young son Liu Fuling, asking him to assist him in becoming emperor. In order to prevent the harem from interfering in politics, Emperor Wu of Han executed Liu Fuling's mother on the grounds that a son is stronger than his mother.]
[In 87 BC, Emperor Wu of Han died in Wuzha Palace at the age of and was buried in Maoling. Liu Fuling succeeded him and became Emperor Zhao of Han.]
[Although Emperor Wu of Han spent his entire life in war, he established unprecedented dignity for the country, gave the nation the confidence to stand tall for thousands of years, and defeated the greatest threat to the Han Dynasty. ]
——"If Wei Zifu and Liu Ju had not died, it would have become history again."
——"After Wei Qing and Huo Qubing died, they were left without support. Their political skills were not that great either. If they met Emperor Wu of Han in his later years, they were doomed."
——"If Liu Ju had not died, he would not have done better than Huo Guang. Huo Guang patched up the mess left by Emperor Wu of Han bit by bit. If Liu Ju had not died, he would not have had such great power, so he certainly would not have done as well."
——"If the enemy can go, I can go too!"