How Emperor Ling Pushed Eastern Han Toward Breakdown

By Emperor Ling's reign, office-selling, eunuch power, and local unrest together pushed Eastern Han toward the edge.

Scholar-officials had struck at eunuchs again and again, but they could not retake palace power. The problem was not only the eunuchs.

The man on the throne was now pulling Eastern Han deeper into the mud.

A Young Son of Heaven Entered Luoyang

When Liu Hong became Emperor Ling, Eastern Han was already badly ill.

He was a cousin's son of Emperor Huan and was brought from Hejian into Luoyang. In late Eastern Han, emperors often died young and without sons, so adopting a prince's son into the main line was no longer unusual.

Liu Hong was very young. Officials and common people did not know much about him at first. They soon learned about his mother, Empress Dowager Dong.

She loved wealth.

Once Emperor Ling entered the capital and secured the throne, he brought his mother into the palace. Later, many of his own methods of gathering money looked like an inheritance from that habit, developed more thoroughly and more shamelessly.

After the Partisan Prohibitions, many scholars had been dismissed or barred. Numerous offices were empty, while appointment power had fallen into eunuch hands.

Government posts increasingly looked like things that could be exchanged.

Meng Tuo Entered Through a Servant's Door

The palace attendant Zhang Rang was extremely powerful. Even the slaves managing his household carried frightening prestige.

A wealthy man in the capital named Meng Tuo wanted office through connections. He did not first approach Zhang Rang himself. Instead, he used money to befriend Zhang Rang's household slaves and treated the servants above and below with exaggerated respect.

After receiving enough benefits, the slaves asked what he wanted.

Meng Tuo said he wanted nothing except that they bow to him once.

It sounded absurd, but it struck the heart of the system.

Later, when Zhang Rang's gate was crowded with carriages and visitors waiting for access, Meng Tuo deliberately arrived late. The household slaves saw him, immediately came forward, bowed, and guided his carriage into the gate.

The other visitors were shocked. They assumed Meng Tuo had an unusually deep relationship with Zhang Rang and began bribing him instead.

Meng Tuo took those treasures and gave them to Zhang Rang.

Zhang Rang was pleased, and Meng Tuo became inspector of Liangzhou.

A wealthy man bought the servants of a eunuch, used public misunderstanding to gather more gifts, passed them upward, and obtained authority over an entire province.

Eastern Han officialdom was showing deep rot.

Xuanling Filial Sons and Hongdu Gate

Emperor Ling also surrounded himself with people who catered to his tastes.

In 177, dozens of idlers in Luoyang gathered at Emperor Huan's Xuanling tomb and claimed they wished to guard the late emperor's grave. They called themselves the filial sons of Xuanling.

Emperor Ling was delighted. He thought they showed filial feeling and appointed them as attendants to the heir apparent.

The absurd promotion caused criticism. Cai Yong objected, and Emperor Ling changed their posts to county assistants and commandants. But even those offices could harm a county.

Emperor Ling liked literature and rhapsodies. He selected students who could write and gathered them under Hongdu Gate to await imperial orders. Later, men skilled at drafting edicts or writing decorative scripts were also summoned.

At first, these were literary attendants. Gradually, many low-character flatterers entered.

When summoned, they told market gossip and even crude jokes. Emperor Ling laughed and promoted them beyond normal rank.

He also ordered portraits and praise texts for thirty-two men of Hongdu Gate, presenting them as models for later students.

The message was impossible to miss. Upright scholars were barred by prohibition. Petty flatterers could rise by amusing the emperor.

The Western Office Sold Rank

Emperor Ling's private appointments were already absurd. Then he openly sold office.

He established the Western Office and listed prices for official posts.

Local offices cost twice as much as central offices, because local officials could squeeze more from the people. Rich regions cost more. Poor regions cost less.

Promotion also required payment. Anyone seeking transfer, advancement, or a new post first had to negotiate the amount in the Western Garden.

Even refusal was difficult. If a man had no money and tried to decline office, the court could accuse him of disobeying command.

Some clean officials had to borrow money just to take office. Once seated, if they did not extract from the people, they could not repay the debt. If they did extract from the people, the locality suffered more.

In 185, Cui Lie, from a distinguished family, wanted to become Minister over the Masses. Through connections, he paid five million cash and obtained the post.

On the day of appointment, Emperor Ling attended court, saw Cui Lie pleased with himself, and suddenly felt he had sold too cheaply. He told those beside him that this office should have fetched ten million.

An attendant defended Cui Lie, saying he was a famous man from Jizhou and that five million was already not easy.

Afterward, Cui Lie's son warned him that people outside said the office smelled of copper.

That story gave later history the phrase "copper stink."

When even the Three Excellencies could be priced, the emperor had torn down the dignity of office with his own hands.

Imperial Gardens and a Palace Market

The money flowed toward pleasure.

In 180, Emperor Ling ordered new imperial gardens built. Ministers warned that the capital already had many gardens and that building more was waste.

The emperor wavered.

Then the attendants from Hongdu Gate flattered him, saying that gardens allowed the ruler and people to share joy. Only when the people were prosperous, they said, would they play. The emperor's own pleasure would display the state's strength.

The construction continued. In reality, the gardens were for the emperor, eunuchs, and favorites.

The next year, Emperor Ling built a market inside the rear palace.

Palace women played merchants and customers. Some called out prices; others bargained. Emperor Ling dressed as a merchant, walked through the fake market, drank, argued, and made noise.

Many goods were rare treasures collected from the empire. Palace women secretly stole from them and fought over shares. Emperor Ling did not understand.

He kept the real suffering of markets outside the palace and built a toy market inside for amusement.

Donkey Carts and Dog Officials

Emperor Ling soon found other games.

A junior eunuch selected four donkeys from outside and presented them. Emperor Ling loved them. Each day, he had donkeys pull small carts through the palace, and later he drove them himself.

When Luoyang heard the emperor loved donkey carts, officials and scholars rushed to imitate him. Donkey prices rose.

Soon the emperor lost interest. Eunuchs then dressed a dog in an official cap, robe, and seal cord and had it swagger into court.

Emperor Ling laughed and called it a dog official.

It mocked the ministers. The emperor found it amusing and allowed eunuchs to use officials as jokes.

The official histories already record many absurdities. Later unofficial stories added even more obscene tales, such as a naked amusement hall in the rear palace. Such details cannot all be confirmed with equal weight, but their survival shows how deeply later generations remembered Emperor Ling as dissolute.

The Private Treasury Filled

Emperor Ling also loved private wealth.

When commanderies and kingdoms sent tribute, he took a portion into the inner treasury that managed the emperor's personal property. The realm was already his in name, yet he still built a private hoard.

The palace attendant Lu Qiang repeatedly remonstrated. It did not work.

Outside the palace, disasters continued, frontiers were unstable, bandits rose, and local officials, eunuch relatives, and office buyers extracted layer after layer from the people.

At last, Zhang Jue's Yellow Turban uprising erupted and shook the empire.

Huangfu Song, governor of Beidi, argued that the court should lift the partisan prohibitions and use money from the emperor's private treasury, along with grain and horses from the Western Garden, to reward soldiers.

Emperor Ling asked Lu Qiang.

Lu Qiang said the prohibitions had lasted too long and created deep resentment. If the partisans joined Zhang Jue, the rebellion would become harder to handle. The court should punish corrupt favorites, pardon the partisans, and examine provincial inspectors and governors.

Afraid of the Yellow Turban strength, Emperor Ling accepted the advice.

The partisan prohibitions were finally lifted. Partisans and their families exiled to the frontier could return home.

The Yellow Turban crisis forced the court to loosen what moral argument had failed to loosen.

Eunuchs Stepped Back, Then Returned

At the beginning of the uprising, eunuchs briefly became cautious.

The palace attendant Xu Feng was found to have connections with Zhang Jue. Emperor Ling scolded the eunuchs, saying they had always claimed the partisans plotted rebellion and had killed or barred them. Now the partisans were serving the state, while one of their own had connected with Zhang Jue.

The eunuchs knocked their heads, shifted blame to the dead Wang Fu and Hou Lan, and summoned their relatives serving in the provinces back to Luoyang.

An official then submitted that Zhang Jue could rise because the Ten Attendants had allowed their fathers, brothers, sons, relatives, and guests to become provincial and commandery officials, squeeze the people, and leave them with nowhere to appeal.

He requested that the Ten Attendants be executed, their heads hung south of the capital, and an apology issued to the empire.

Emperor Ling became angry. Were there truly no good men among the Ten Attendants? he asked.

An imperial censor then followed the emperor's mood, falsely accused the memorialist of believing in the Yellow Turban Way, and had him arrested and tortured to death.

After the Yellow Turban uprising was temporarily suppressed, the court returned to old habits.

In 185, Emperor Ling imposed an additional field tax per mu to fund palace building and bronze statues. Provinces and commanderies sent timber and stone, but officials responsible for inspection nitpicked, cut prices, delayed acceptance, and let materials rot near the capital. The palaces still took years to build.

That same year, Emperor Ling made Zhang Rang and eleven other eunuchs full marquises on the grounds of merit in suppressing the Yellow Turbans.

Lu Qiang, who had repeatedly given honest advice, was falsely accused by eunuchs and forced to kill himself.

The Yellow Turban uprising badly damaged Eastern Han. But for Emperor Ling, once the immediate wind passed, office-selling, money extraction, pleasure, and trust in eunuchs returned.

From here, Eastern Han was no longer only a dark palace. The provinces, armies, people, and court were all being pulled into great disorder.

The next storm would come from Zhang Jue's Yellow Turban armies.