Why Favoring Wet Nurses Disturbed Eastern Han Court Politics

Private relationships around the emperor entered public government, and honors for wet nurses made palace power harder to control.

While Ban Yong was rebuilding Han influence in the Western Regions, the Luoyang court was fighting on a different front.

Emperor Shun had regained the throne through a eunuch coup. Once his position was secure, he had to face the people closest to him: men who had saved him, men who could speak to him, and men who could also damage the state.

Nineteen Marquises Entered the Palace Gate

Emperor Shun was still young when he took the throne. His return from deposed prince to emperor depended on Sun Cheng and other eunuchs who had risked their lives in the palace coup.

The new emperor could not ignore them.

Nineteen eunuchs were made marquises. Sun Cheng and his allies became men of founding merit almost overnight.

Emperor Shun also knew the court could not be dressed up only with eunuch reward. He called respected scholar-officials back into service. One of the most important was Yu Xu.

Yu Xu could govern and fight. Emperor Shun appointed him Colonel Director of Retainers, an official responsible for supervising the capital region and investigating officials.

Within months, Yu Xu impeached idle high ministers such as the Grand Tutor and Grand Commandant. Then he turned toward several palace attendants.

These attendants were close to the emperor. Some had helped enthrone him.

Yu Xu had touched the emperor's own circle.

Yu Xu Was Imprisoned

The men Yu Xu accused did not wait quietly for investigation.

High officials also began attacking him. They claimed he used law too harshly, arrested innocent people, and harmed officials and commoners in the capital.

Yu Xu submitted a memorial defending himself. He said county, commandery, and province officials pushed responsibility upward and downward until ordinary people had nowhere to appeal. Officials called self-protection virtue and loyal duty foolishness.

The cases he investigated were tangled, he argued, and the Three Excellencies feared being implicated. That was why they struck first by accusing him.

Emperor Shun read the memorial and understood that Yu Xu was not inventing trouble. He did not punish him.

But the emperor's favorites still had ways to fight back.

The palace attendant Zhang Fang used his position to accept requests and bribes. Yu Xu repeatedly asked for an investigation, but the court gave no answer.

In anger, Yu Xu had himself bound and walked into the prison of the Chamberlain for Law Enforcement. He submitted another memorial, saying Zhang Fang manipulated authority and would become a future disaster for the state.

Zhang Fang cried before Emperor Shun and said Yu Xu had falsely accused him. Remembering eunuch merit, the emperor dismissed Yu Xu instead and sent him to penal labor.

Zhang Fang pressed further. Within two days, Yu Xu was repeatedly interrogated and beaten. The prison officials urged him to kill himself before he was humiliated further.

Yu Xu refused. He said he would rather die under the staff so that people near and far would know he had been murdered. If he silently killed himself, right and wrong would be impossible to separate.

Sun Cheng Turned Against Zhang Fang

The person who saved Yu Xu was also a eunuch.

Sun Cheng had been the leading figure in restoring Emperor Shun. He knew Yu Xu had been wronged and asked to see the emperor.

He told Emperor Shun that the emperor had once been deposed because slanderers misled the throne. Now that he had become emperor, if he again indulged wicked ministers, how could he blame the former ruler?

Sun Cheng said Yu Xu was loyal to the emperor. Zhang Fang was the one who took bribes and harmed good officials.

As he spoke, Zhang Fang was standing behind Emperor Shun.

Sun Cheng shouted at him in court, asking why a traitor like Zhang Fang still stood on the steps.

Zhang Fang was favored, but he could not easily confront Sun Cheng. He withdrew to the eastern side chamber.

Sun Cheng immediately warned the emperor to arrest Zhang Fang before he could run to the emperor's wet nurse for help.

Emperor Shun hesitated. The Secretariat official Jia Lang, a friend of Zhang Fang, said Yu Xu was guilty and Zhang Fang innocent. The emperor became confused and dismissed everyone.

Then more than one hundred of Yu Xu's sons and disciples blocked the carriage of the eunuch Gao Fan with banners of grievance. They knocked their heads until they bled and described Yu Xu's injustice.

Gao Fan entered the palace and reported it. Emperor Shun finally ordered Zhang Fang exiled, Jia Lang executed, and Yu Xu released that same day.

The affair made one thing clear. Eunuchs were not a single solid bloc. Some formed factions and harmed others. Some, to protect their own status, reputation, or past merit, fought rival eunuchs.

Meritorious Men Could Also Lose Favor

After Zhang Fang fell, Sun Cheng thought his own merit was secure.

In court, he began arguing about his contribution. Without him, he suggested, no one knew who would be sitting on the throne.

Emperor Shun disliked hearing that.

Merit could be rewarded. But when a eunuch publicly reminded the emperor how he got the throne, he crossed a boundary.

Officials saw the emperor's expression and submitted memorials impeaching Sun Cheng and the others.

Emperor Shun used the opportunity. He removed them from office, reassigned them to remote fiefs, and ordered the nineteen marquises to go to their states.

Someone warned Minister over the Masses Zhu Chang that without Sun Cheng's men under the western bell tower, Emperor Shun would never have become emperor. If the court now sent them away for small faults and some died on the road, the emperor would carry the reputation of killing meritorious men.

Zhu Chang submitted a remonstrance. Emperor Shun changed course. Sun Cheng was made Marquis of Yicheng, some benefits were restored, and he received carriage, horses, clothing, and goods before leaving for his fief.

Emperor Shun remained lenient toward eunuchs.

But another power was growing in the palace.

Empress Liang Entered the Palace

As Emperor Shun grew older, the court had to choose an empress.

Four favored consorts stood out. Among them, Consort Liang was the most favored. She came from the Liang family of Hexi and descended from the family of Consort Liang, Emperor Zhang's birth mother.

Whenever the emperor summoned her, Consort Liang often politely declined. She said all women in the harem were imperial consorts and should receive favor so that the imperial line might flourish.

Emperor Shun saw this as virtue. She did not monopolize favor. He made her empress.

Once the empress was established, the Liang relatives entered politics. Her father Liang Shang received the special rank of Tejin, below the Three Excellencies. Soon he became Bearer of the Gilded Mace. His son Liang Ji was made Marquis of Xiangyi.

The Liang family stepped onto the Eastern Han political stage.

At the same time, Emperor Shun wanted to reward his wet nurse Song E. Song E had once joined the secret plan to restore him and had already been made Lady of Shanyang.

Officials could not accept another round of private favor becoming public title.

Zuo Xiong Praised in a Dangerous Way

Zuo Xiong, head of the Secretariat, submitted a sealed memorial.

He said there was no proper institution by which the Secretariat granted fiefs to wet nurses. Emperor An had once made his wet nurse Wang Sheng Lady of Yewang, and Wang Sheng then used favor to interfere in the deposition of the crown prince. That almost placed Emperor Shun himself in disaster.

Zuo Xiong did not directly say Song E should not be honored. He used a sharper method.

He praised her.

Song E, he said, was modest, frugal, and admired by officials and common people. If the court now followed Wang Sheng's precedent and gave her title and fief, it might violate her own moral restraint and go against her own wishes.

That argument trapped the proposal.

If someone accused Song E of greed, she could defend herself. But if the court declared that her virtue meant she would not want the reward, it became harder for her to accept it.

Liang Shang was also affected. When the emperor favored his wet nurse, he had also given more rewards to the Liang family. Seeing the direction of criticism, Liang Shang submitted memorials more than ten times asking to refuse the grants to Liang Ji.

Emperor Shun finally withdrew Liang Ji's reward.

Straight Talk After an Earthquake

Not long afterward, Luoyang suffered an earthquake.

In the Eastern Han court, an earthquake was not just a natural event. It was read as Heaven's warning.

Emperor Shun ordered the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers to speak frankly about political faults and recommend plain, upright men.

Li Gu stepped forward.

He said Emperor An's earlier reward to the wet nurse Wang Sheng had allowed her to stir up trouble, alter the succession, and place Emperor Shun in danger. Now that the emperor had only just escaped that danger, the world expected good government. Instead, wet nurses were favored, Liang relatives were raised, and palace attendants interfered in appointments.

Li Gu's advice was direct. Liang relatives should return to their original offices, and authority should go back from private relatives to the state. Eunuchs should be sharply reduced, leaving only a few men of sound character and usable ability to serve inside the palace.

Ma Rong, Zhang Heng, and others also submitted opinions. They urged the emperor to draw near to worthy ministers, distance petty men, and take power back from wet nurses, eunuchs, and imperial relatives.

For a moment, Emperor Shun was moved. He ordered Song E out of the palace to her private residence. The palace attendants knocked their heads and admitted fault. Li Gu was appointed Consultant and allowed to participate in government.

Black Writings Rose Again

The serious mood did not last.

Song E and the eunuchs hated Li Gu. They forged anonymous letters, assembled accusations, and spread damaging material.

Emperor Shun, who had admired Li Gu only the day before, suddenly ordered an investigation. The edict did not pass through the Secretariat. It was issued directly.

Li Gu was arrested and imprisoned.

Liang Shang later mediated, and Li Gu was released, but he was sent away from the center to serve as a county magistrate. Disappointed with the court, he resigned and returned to his home in Hanzhong.

Ma Rong became a consultant. Zhang Heng, a man of extraordinary talent, still went many years without promotion.

The scholar-officials spoke of clarity, law, and returning authority to public offices. But the people who controlled access to the emperor were still eunuchs and imperial relatives.

When Sun Cheng was near death, he asked to pass his fief to his younger brother. Emperor Shun agreed and also made Sun Cheng's adopted son a marquis.

Eunuch titles could now be inherited through adopted sons. The court had added another precedent.

Upright ministers submitted memorials against it. Emperor Shun did not listen.

As eunuchs disturbed administration, scholar-officials gradually formed a self-conscious current of "pure" opinion. They lacked enough force on their own, so they turned their hopes toward Liang Shang.

Liang Shang was the emperor's father-in-law and would soon become General-in-Chief. Scholars hoped he could lead the effort to restrain eunuchs and repair government.

But could Liang Shang become the man they wanted? And once the Liang family reached the highest offices, would it prove even harder to control than the eunuchs?