Season 1 · Episode 31 · 4 min read
How Liu Bingyi Rose from Prison to the Throne
The imperial great-grandson left alive by the witchcraft disaster had grown up in prison. Now he became Huo Guang's choice for a new emperor.
In the last episode, Liu He lasted only twenty-seven days before Huo Guang removed him from the throne.
After that failure, the court could no longer afford another careless choice. Its attention shifted toward a much stranger candidate: an imperial great-grandson who had once grown up in prison.
The Witchcraft Disaster Had Nearly Uprooted His Entire Line
After crown prince Liu Ju died in the witchcraft disaster, his line was almost annihilated.
His son Liu Jin and most of that household were killed. Only one tiny child survived: the infant Liu Bingyi, the emperor's great-grandson. Because of the political case, even this baby was confined in prison.
An official named Bing Ji understood that the child himself was innocent. He arranged for trustworthy women prisoners to care for him and watched over him in secret.
That act of protection became the beginning of a new dynasty's future.
He Nearly Died There Too
Later, during one of Emperor Wu's bouts of fear and instability, a warning about "the aura of a Son of Heaven" arising from the prisons led to an order to kill the prisoners in the capital.
When the execution order reached the prison holding Liu Bingyi, Bing Ji physically blocked the gate and refused to yield the child.
The matter was reported upward, and the mood at court shifted before the massacre could be completed. A general amnesty followed.
The child lived.
He Was Slowly Moved Back Toward the Human World
Bing Ji later arranged for the boy to be taken out and placed under the care of relatives connected to the household of the late crown prince's consort. Eventually the palace service offices and then the clan registry gradually absorbed him again.
He was no longer entirely abandoned outside the imperial structure, yet he did not grow up in the pampered seclusion of a normal prince.
That difference mattered.
He Grew Up Close to Ordinary Life
As he matured, Liu Bingyi read texts, but he also moved through common society. He married Xu Pingjun, a woman of non-aristocratic background, and knew people far below the level at which most imperial princes lived.
Because he had not been raised behind a thick wall of court insulation, he understood more directly what ordinary life, local pressure, and practical hardship looked like.
This would later make him unlike many others of the Liu house.
After Liu He Was Removed, Bing Ji Put His Name Back Before the Court
When Huo Guang and the ministers had to begin the succession discussion again, Bing Ji memorialized in Liu Bingyi's favor.
He argued that many prominent princes had poor reputations, while this imperial great-grandson, now grown, was serious, educated, restrained, and of good conduct. Huo Guang found the argument persuasive.
Liu Bingyi possessed both the right blood and, at least in appearance, the right temperament.
The Court and Empress Dowager Accepted the Choice
The ministers jointly proposed him. The empress dowager approved.
Liu Bingyi was summoned, bathed, dressed in clothing sent by the empress dowager, and brought first into proper noble status before the imperial seal was presented to him. This step mattered because he had not even been holding princely rank at the time.
Then he entered Weiyang Palace and became emperor.
He is remembered as Emperor Xuan.
His Accession Also Pulled Earlier Loyal Men Back into View
As with any accession, those who helped secure the throne were rewarded. Among the notable men standing again in the foreground was Su Wu, the former Han envoy who had endured nineteen years in Xiongnu captivity without surrendering.
His reappearance beside the new emperor symbolized a court that still connected the present to older fidelities and older ordeals.
Emperor Xuan Began Under the Shadow of Huo Guang
Even though Liu Bingyi now held the throne, Huo Guang remained the central political force of the court.
That meant the new emperor's reign would begin with a difficult balance. He had survived prison, obscurity, and contingency. Now he would have to survive being emperor under the authority of the man who had raised him up.
In the next part of the story, that relationship between Emperor Xuan and Huo Guang becomes the key to understanding how the Western Han moved forward after the long age of Emperor Wu.