The Complex About Emperor Xuan Of Han Dynasty And Politics Of The Eastern Han Dynasty

In the first year of Jianwu(25),Liu Xiu,one of the collateral relatives of the Western Han Dynasty imperial clan,built the Eastern Han Dynasty.There emerged a trend of learning from the previous prosperous times in terms of political development due to the feature of rejuvenation.Liu Xun,Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty became one of the most known and studied monarchs because he had contributed to resurging the Han Dynasty.As a consequence,a special political culture called The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty by the author had been developed,which refers to the scholars of Eastern Han Dynasty showing a high level of recognition and belonging to the political system made up by Liu Xun and his officials.As this culture laid a profound influence on the Eastern Han Dynasty,the author would like to investigate The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty,aiming to analyze its development and key changes,thereby to outline the nearly two-century political development of the Eastern Han Dynasty.At the middle phase of Western Han Dynasty,Emperor Xuan re-flourished the decaying Han with his mature political ideology and practice.Therefore,a great traditional combination of the political thought of the doctrine of law and Confucianism,and Emperor Xuan's unique political practice of official construction,constituted the classic politics of Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty.In addition,Emperor Xuan's image had been constructed by the scholars living in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty,this also jointly facilitated the origin of The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty among the scholars of that era.The priority task was to determine the concepts of governing the dynasty since the establishment of Eastern Han Dynasty.The popularity of The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty turned out to be much admirable among the scholars and simultaneously curious about the story of Emperor Xuan rejuvenating the Han Dynasty.Hence,returning to the politics of Emperor Xuan became the common goal of the court.Driven by The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty,the emperors of the Eastern Han Dynasty devoted to re-constructed the political system and highlighted the reputed and sacred image of Emperor Xuan.For instance,Emperor Guangwu re-emphasized the importance of Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty to underline his contribution,and appointed talented and capable son to be the inherit the throne.And Literati such as Bangu further fixed the high position of Emperor Xuan by integrating the previous historical stories and writing up new version.Consequently the politics of Emperor Xuan gradually became the role model of administration of early Eastern Han Dynasty.For example,the Emperors Guangwu and Mingdi integrated its core into their political practices,and successfully created the prosperous development of early Eastern Han Dynasty.After the death of Emperor Ming,although Emperors Zhang and He continued to lead the Eastern Han Dynasty to prosperous times,Emperor Zhang's adjustments on the direction of imperial politics gradually got deviated from Emperor Xuan's rational politics,which laid a threat for the dynasty's future.And people began to hold different faith in The Complex about Emperor Xuan.The upper class represented by the emperors had almost gave up this political culture,and the culture started being led the middle and lower classes.In the middle and later stage of the Eastern Han Dynasty,the central authority controlled by those distant relatives and eunuchs,whose periodical success disastrously ruined the heritage of both central and local politics.Facing the dynasty collapsing,scholars devoted to design revolutionary politics,using Emperor Xuan's politics as template,in order to revive the imperial power and re-manage the officials.The politicswas frequently practiced by them in real life as well.However,those efforts seemed to be in vain due to the disappointing political environment.Thus,many scholars got to be frustrated and had to enforce themselves to pursue other goals.At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty,a trend of desensitizing The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty,which was only spread among the middle and lower class of scholars occurred because of the contradiction between the illusion of Emperor Xuan's rejuvenation and the reality of the Han Dynasty's decay.The Complex about Emperor Xuan of Han Dynasty used to be a critical guidance for reviving the dynasty and correct the management mistakes.However,it became a normal political solution in scholar's judgement and was applied to govern local places instead of the whole dynasty.The entrepreneurial emperors and officials at the Three Kingdoms Period such as Cao Cao,Liu Bei,Zhuge Liang etc.distinguished themselves from all the heroes and managed to divide the Eastern Han Dynasty into three parts by combining both law and Confucianism,and reshaping the official management system.However,the concepts of ChenWei and anomaly,which was originally used to construct the image of Emperor Xuan in the Han Dynasty,has also been alienated,which became an important factor for the local separatism and even the final power transformation between different authorities.