Why Eunuchs Began Intervening in Eastern Han Government

After the Deng clan fell, nurses, eunuchs, and imperial relatives crowded into the court, and Emperor An's reign began to lose control.

Emperor An finally ruled in his own name. But the space left by the Deng family did not become public authority again.

It was filled by people who stood close to the emperor: a wet nurse, eunuchs, in-laws, palace attendants, and the relatives of consorts.

Yang Zhen Blocked Private Requests

The most powerful people around Emperor An were not only formal ministers.

Wet nurse Wang Sheng, her daughter Bo Rong, eunuchs Fan Feng, Jiang Jing, Li Run, and the Geng and Yan imperial relatives all pressed toward the throne.

The minister who resisted most firmly was Yang Zhen.

Yang Zhen had already appeared as the upright scholar known for the Four Knows. After Emperor An took personal power, he was appointed Grand Commandant, one of the Three Excellencies.

The title was high, but by this point the Three Excellencies no longer held the practical power they once had. Many state secrets passed through the Secretariat, and when disasters or political failures occurred, the Three Excellencies were often the first to be blamed.

Yang Zhen did not treat the office as empty dignity. Since the Three Excellencies still had the power to recommend officials, he guarded that power carefully.

Emperor An's maternal uncle Geng Bao, then Minister Herald, personally asked Yang Zhen to recommend the elder brother of the eunuch Li Run.

Li Run served close to the emperor. Geng Bao was the emperor's uncle. The request carried pressure.

Yang Zhen refused.

Geng Bao came to Yang Zhen's residence and tried again, even hinting that this was the emperor's wish. Yang Zhen answered that if the court truly wanted his office to summon someone, the Secretariat should send a formal edict. It should not come through private words.

Geng Bao had no answer, but he left resentful.

Yan Xian, the empress's brother, also used his position to recommend relatives and friends to Yang Zhen. Yang Zhen again refused.

The Minister of Works, Liu Shou, heard of these requests and quickly recruited the men Yang Zhen had rejected. They rose fast.

Yang Zhen's integrity now made the palace faction uncomfortable.

A Wet Nurse's Residence and False Edicts

Yang Zhen did more than refuse private requests. He repeatedly submitted memorials against Wang Sheng's faction.

He told Emperor An that wars in the northwest and east had emptied the treasury, yet the court was said to be planning an enormous residence for the emperor's wet nurse at a cost of hundreds of millions.

Those who rose by imperial favor, he warned, were accepting bribes, confusing right and wrong, and turning clean and dirty upside down.

Emperor An did not listen. He became increasingly annoyed with Yang Zhen.

Later, Emperor An traveled east to Mount Tai. While the emperor was away from Luoyang, eunuchs and favorites used the opportunity to build residences for themselves, even drawing on state timber.

Yang Zhen summoned the official responsible for the timber and questioned him. The official said there was an edict.

Yang Zhen looked at it. It was forged.

He prepared to report the matter formally after Emperor An returned. But the palace faction heard of the investigation first and moved quickly.

At the same time, an astronomical omen appeared. Court astrologers interpreted it as a sign of rebellious ministers. The eunuchs connected the omen to Yang Zhen and slandered him to Emperor An, saying he had old ties to the Deng family and resented the present court.

Emperor An ordered Yang Zhen's Grand Commandant seal taken away.

Yang Zhen Drank Poison

After dismissal, Yang Zhen closed his gate and refused visitors.

His enemies still would not stop. They persuaded Geng Bao, now General-in-Chief, to accuse Yang Zhen of bitterness toward the court's decision.

Emperor An ordered Yang Zhen sent back to his home commandery.

Yang Zhen accepted the order and left immediately. West of Luoyang, he stopped and spoke to his sons and disciples.

Death, he said, was common for a gentleman. He had received imperial grace and reached one of the highest offices, yet he had hated treacherous ministers and could not remove them, hated wicked women disturbing government and could not stop them. How could he continue living with a clear face?

He gave instructions for a plain burial: rough wood for the coffin, coarse cloth for the shroud, no return to the ancestral tomb, and no shrine offerings.

Then he drank poison.

He was more than seventy years old.

Local officials, eager to please those in power, would not allow his coffin to return home. His funeral cart was left beside the road, exposed to wind and sun. His sons were sentenced to hard labor, running postal duties like low-ranking couriers.

Common people wept when they heard.

After Yang Zhen died, Wang Sheng, Jiang Jing, Fan Feng, and their circle became even bolder inside the palace.

The Crown Prince Was Watched Too

Another group stood around Crown Prince Liu Bao.

The crown prince was the future emperor. Those serving him only needed to wait for his accession; then they might become the next favorites.

That made Emperor An's current favorites uneasy.

Wang Sheng, Jiang Jing, and the others began slandering the crown prince's attendants. In the end, the prince's servants were killed and their families sent to the border.

Liu Bao mourned them. He often shook his head and sighed.

Even that sigh frightened the palace faction. If he became emperor, would he remember who had killed his people?

They decided to bring down the crown prince himself.

Empress Yan was willing to help. Liu Bao was not her son, and she had also harmed his birth mother. If Liu Bao became emperor, she had reason to fear revenge.

So Empress Yan and the palace favorites fabricated charges against the crown prince and his staff.

Emperor An gathered the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers to discuss deposing the heir. Many opposed it. Some cited the earlier tragedy of Emperor Wu and Crown Prince Liu Ju, warning that listening to slander against a son would delight enemies and grieve kin.

Emperor An did not listen.

He sent a eunuch to transmit an order threatening the ministers. Father and son were naturally close, the message said, but for the great justice of the realm, even family bonds could be cut. Anyone who kept arguing lacked a sense of the greater order.

The ministers withdrew.

Liu Bao was deposed and made Prince of Jiyin.

The Emperor Died on the Road

Emperor An had only this one son. Once Liu Bao was deposed, the succession became empty.

Soon afterward, Emperor An left the palace on an inspection tour. At Wan, he fell ill and died in the imperial carriage.

The emperor was dead, but his biological son had already been removed. Empress Yan, her brother Yan Xian, and the eunuchs Jiang Jing and Fan Feng immediately panicked.

Their fear was simple. If news reached Luoyang and the ministers assembled, they might enthrone Liu Bao at once. Then the old case of the deposed crown prince would turn back against them.

So they imitated the famous concealment of Qin Shi Huang's death. They hid the mourning announcement and told outsiders the emperor was seriously ill.

As the carriage passed through stations, food was still presented and officials still asked after the emperor's health. The procession hurried for four days, returned to the Luoyang palace, and only then announced the death.

Empress Yan became empress dowager and took charge of government. Yan Xian was appointed General of Chariots and Cavalry with honors equivalent to the Three Excellencies.

To keep power in their hands, Empress Dowager Yan and Yan Xian enthroned the young Marquis of Beixiang.

Liu Bao, though Emperor An's only son, was not even allowed to cry before his father's coffin. He grieved alone and refused food.

The Yan Family Removed Old Allies

Once Empress Dowager Yan ruled, the Yan family rose sharply.

During Emperor An's personal rule, the Yan were important but not supreme. The Geng relatives, wet nurse Wang Sheng, and eunuchs Fan Feng and Jiang Jing had all stood ahead of them.

Now the balance changed.

The Yan family began impeaching the Geng relatives. They also cleared away Wang Sheng, her daughter, and the eunuchs who had once helped them depose the crown prince and conceal Emperor An's death.

Yesterday's allies became today's obstacles.

Yan Xian and his brothers controlled the center and behaved arrogantly. But the power they seized did not last.

The Marquis of Beixiang became seriously ill soon after taking the throne. Everyone in the palace could see that the child emperor might not survive.

The eunuch Sun Cheng began to move.

He told Liu Bao's officers that the Prince of Jiyin was the late emperor's rightful son and had committed no real fault. If the Marquis of Beixiang could not recover, they could remove Yan Xian and restore Liu Bao.

Liu Bao's officers were ready. Other eunuchs inside the palace also supported Sun Cheng's plan.

Swearing by the Robe

After the Marquis of Beixiang died, Yan Xian again tried to conceal the mourning announcement. He closed the palace gates and planned to summon sons of princes to Luoyang, then choose another young emperor.

Sun Cheng and his allies could not wait.

On the fourth day after the child's death, they met secretly. Each man cut off a strip from his robe as an oath.

At that very moment, an earthquake struck Luoyang and sixteen commanderies and kingdoms. Taking the omen as urgency, they broke into the palace.

Jiang Jing, Li Run, and other eunuchs were under the western bell tower. Sun Cheng's men rushed them and killed Jiang Jing and his faction.

Li Run had long held influence inside the palace. Many people trusted him. Sun Cheng's group forced him at sword point to accept Liu Bao as emperor.

They brought the eleven-year-old Liu Bao into the palace, summoned officials from the Secretariat downward, and escorted the imperial carriage into the Southern Palace.

Sun Cheng held the palace gate and cut off communication between inside and outside.

Liu Bao ascended the Yuntai platform, received the high ministers, and sent palace guards to hold the northern and southern gates.

The Yan Family Fell

Yan Xian was inside the palace when the coup erupted. When he heard the news, he panicked.

Someone urged him to use the empress dowager's name to summon troops. Yan Xian called officers together and declared that the Prince of Jiyin had not been enthroned by the empress dowager's order. The imperial seal was still with the Yan family. Whoever captured Liu Bao would receive ten thousand households; whoever captured Li Run would receive five thousand.

The officers agreed on the surface. Then they said their forces were too few and that they needed to return to camp to gather men.

Yan Xian sent a young eunuch with them. As soon as one commander reached camp, he killed the eunuch, shut the gates, and refused Yan Xian's orders.

Yan Xian's younger brother Yan Jing tried to flee from the palace and was captured and killed on the road.

The next day, the coup leaders entered the palace and seized the imperial seal. Liu Bao sat in Jiade Hall and sent an imperial censor with the tally to arrest Yan Xian and his brothers.

They were imprisoned and executed. Their families were exiled to distant borderlands.

Empress Dowager Yan was moved to a detached palace. Sun Cheng and the eighteen other eunuchs who joined the coup were all made marquises overnight.

Liu Bao had recovered the throne. He became Emperor Shun.

The Entrance to Emperor Shun's Reign

After Emperor Shun took power, some officials argued that Empress Dowager Yan had no true mother-son bond with him and should be moved away from court entirely.

Others objected. Yan Xian and his brothers had just been executed. If the empress dowager died in fear under confinement, public opinion would blame the emperor.

The eleven-year-old emperor accepted the more cautious advice. Empress Dowager Yan kept her title for a time, though she died not long afterward.

This palace crisis removed the old forces of Emperor An's reign: the Yan relatives, wet-nurse power, and the old eunuch clique.

But Emperor Shun had reached the throne through Sun Cheng and his eunuch allies.

They had saved the emperor. They had also just been made marquises.

The palace gates opened again, and beyond them the frontier remained unsettled. The next turn of the story returns to the Western Regions, where Ban Yong tried to reconnect a line his father had once held.