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Emperors
From the First Emperor to the last Qing sovereign — how China was governed, and by whom.
The First Empires
秦汉221 BC – 220 AD3 dynastiesQin's conquests in 221 BC created a single empire for the first time; Han then held it together for four centuries and gave the Chinese their own name for themselves. The Silk Road opened, Confucianism became state doctrine, and the template of imperial rule was set.
- Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng, 259 – 210 BC · First Emperor Qin Shi Huang was the king of the western state of Qin who conquered the six rival warring states and in 221 BC declared himself the First Emperor of a unified China. In eleven years of rule he standardised the script, the coinage, the weights and measures, and the roads, replaced hereditary lords with appointed officials, and built a frontier wall in the north. He also burned books, killed his political opponents, and consumed the last years of his life in a failed search for immortality.
- Qin Er Shi Huhai, c. 230 – 207 BC · Second Emperor of the Qin dynasty Huhai, the eighteenth son of Qin Shi Huang, reigned as the Second Emperor of Qin from 210 to 207 BC — the second and last emperor of a dynasty his father had designed to last ten thousand generations. Raised to the throne by a succession that even the ancient sources dispute, he destroyed his own family, refused to be told that his empire was in revolt, and was finally forced to kill himself by the chancellor who had made him.
- Ziying Ziying, d. 206 BC · The last ruler of the Qin dynasty, 207 – 206 BC — a king, not an emperor Ziying (d. 206 BC) held the throne of Qin for forty-six days and is counted as its last ruler, though he was never an emperor: Zhao Gao abolished the imperial title before installing him and crowned him King of Qin, on the ground that a state reduced to its old territory had no business keeping an empty name. He is remembered for one decisive act, the killing of Zhao Gao, and for the surrender that ended the dynasty — a plain carriage, a white cord around his neck, and the seals of office handed to Liu Bang.
- Emperor Wen of Han Liu Heng, c. 203 – 157 BC · Fifth emperor of the Han dynasty Emperor Wen of Han (Liu Heng, c. 203–157 BC) was the fifth ruler of the Han dynasty — a frontier prince whom nobody had watched, raised to the throne in 180 BC by the ministers who had just destroyed the family of the empress dowager Lü. His twenty-three years of subtraction — taxes halved and then abolished altogether, the mutilating punishments repealed, the court kept in coarse silk and the army kept inside its own walls — are remembered as the gentlest reign of the Han, and they left his son a rebellion to fight and his grandson an empire to spend.
- Emperor Jing of Han Liu Qi, c. 188 – 141 BC · Sixth emperor of the Han dynasty Emperor Jing of Han (Liu Qi, c. 188–141 BC) was the sixth ruler of the Han dynasty — the son of the emperor Wen, who in sixteen years did what his father never would and broke the power of the kings, crushing the Rebellion of the Seven States in three months and leaving his son an empire no prince could challenge.
- Emperor Wu of Han Liu Che, 156 – 87 BC · Seventh emperor of the Han dynasty Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Che, 156–87 BC) was the seventh emperor of the Han dynasty and one of the most powerful rulers in Chinese history, who made Confucianism the state creed, broke the Xiongnu, and opened the road to the West. A brilliant but costly sovereign, he doubled the empire’s reach as no Han emperor before him, and ended his reign with an edict admitting the suffering his ambitions had cost.
- Emperor Zhao of Han Liu Fuling, 94 – 74 BC · Eighth emperor of the Han dynasty Liu Fuling was eight when he became emperor in 87 BC and twenty-one when he died thirteen years later, never having ruled in his own name. His father, Emperor Wu, had his mother killed before naming him heir, and the regent Huo Guang did the governing: the salt and iron debate of 81 BC, a princes' conspiracy crushed in 80 BC, the envoy Su Wu recovered after nineteen years among the Xiongnu.
Division and Reunion
魏晋南北朝220 – 5893 dynastiesAfter the Han collapsed the north was ruled by steppe peoples and short-lived kingdoms, while a refugee court held the south. It was one of the most violent periods in Chinese history and also one of the most creative: Buddhism took root and calligraphy found its voice.
- Emperor Wen of Wei Cao Pi, 187 – 226 · founding emperor of Wei Cao Pi was the second son of Cao Cao who took the step his father never dared take, accepting the abdication of the last Han emperor in 220 and founding the state of Wei. In seven years he codified the law, created the nine rank system for selecting officials, and bound the imperial clan so tightly that no prince could defend the throne when a regent's family took it; his three campaigns against Wu all failed, and on his deathbed he left the regency to three men of whom the ablest was a Sima.
- Emperor Ming of Wei Cao Rui, 205 – 239 · emperor of Wei Cao Rui, emperor of Wei from 226 to 239, was the last ruler of his house to hold power in his own hands: he held the passes against every northern campaign of Zhuge Liang, annexed Liaodong, rebuilt the law and reformed the rites, and spent as freely on palaces as his father had tried to save. Dying at thirty-six with his sons dead before him, he entrusted the regency to Cao Shuang and Sima Yi, and the armies he had spent his reign holding became the inheritance of the house of Sima.
- The Prince of Qi Cao Fang, 232 – 274 · third emperor of Wei Cao Fang was the adopted son of Emperor Ming of Wei, set on the throne at the age of eight, and for fifteen years he watched two regents fight over the government of the north until one of them shut the gates of the capital in 249 and took it. His reign ended in 254 when that man's son deposed him, and he lived twenty more years as a prince and then as a duke.
- The Duke of Gaogui Cao Mao, 241 – 260 · fourth emperor of Wei Cao Mao was a grandson of the founding emperor of Wei whom the regent Sima Shi put on the throne at the age of thirteen, and who spent his six years as a scholar-emperor in a court that no longer belonged to his family. In 260 he took a few hundred palace servants and went out with his own sword against the troops of the regent Sima Zhao, was killed in the street by an officer named Cheng Ji, and had his imperial title taken from him; the histories remember him, without any posthumous name, as the Duke of Gaogui.
- Emperor Wu of Jin Sima Yan, 236 – 290 · founding emperor of the Western Jin Sima Yan, the founder of the Western Jin, inherited the government of Wei from three generations of his family and took the throne by abdication in 265, then spent fifteen years preparing the conquest that ended the division of China in 280. His reign produced the Taikang peace, a land and tax settlement, and a register of two and a half million households, but it also produced armed princes, disarmed provinces, and a crown prince who could not govern, so that the state he had unified began to break apart within a year of his death.
- Emperor Hui of Jin Sima Zhong, 259 – 307 · second emperor of the Western Jin Sima Zhong was the second emperor of the Western Jin, a man of limited mind at the centre of a state whose edicts were written by others, who reigned for seventeen years while his empress, his ministers and eight princes used his name to destroy one another. He was carried from Luoyang to Ye, to Chang'an and back, was deposed in 301 and restored in the same spring, and is remembered for asking why the starving did not eat meat gruel and for refusing to let the blood of a courtier who died shielding him be washed from his robe.
- Emperor Huai of Jin Sima Chi, 284 – 313 · third emperor of the Western Jin Sima Chi was the twenty-fifth son of Emperor Wu of Jin, a bookish prince who stayed out of the clan wars and was made heir in 304 because he had no party of his own. He took the throne in 307 at twenty-three, spent four years trying to govern through a regent who had taken the army and the administration to the frontier, and was captured when Luoyang fell in 311; he was killed at Pingyang two years later, after being made to pour wine at the conqueror's feast.
- Emperor Min of Jin Sima Ye, 300 – 318 · last emperor of the Western Jin Sima Ye was a grandson of the Jin founder who was adopted into a collateral line, made prince of Qin as a child, and set on the throne at fourteen in a Chang'an reduced to fewer than a hundred households. He surrendered to Liu Yao in 316 after a siege that reduced the imperial granary to a few cakes of brewer's yeast, was made marquis of Huai'an, and was killed in Pingyang fifteen months later, while the era name Jianxing that he had proclaimed went on being used in Liangzhou until 361.
- Duke Wu of Former Liang Zhang Gui, ? – 314 · founder of Former Liang Zhang Gui was a Confucian official of the Western Jin, appointed inspector of Liang province in 301 and governing the Hexi corridor from Guzang until his death in 314, taking over a frontier ruined by revolt and leaving it the one stable government in the north-west. He gave it a school for the sons of its leading families, a currency ordinance, and land for refugees from the central plains, and he refused the promotions and noble titles the court offered, never taking a reign title or the title of king, so that the state which grew from his appointment rested on a loyalty he never renounced.
- Duke Zhao of Former Liang Zhang Shi, ? – 320 · ruler of Former Liang Zhang Shi, the eldest son of Zhang Gui, governed Former Liang from 314 to 320 as a Jin provincial officer rather than as a king, keeping his father's school, coinage and provincial establishment intact. When Chang'an fell in 316 and the court at Jiankang proclaimed new era names, he went on dating every document at Guzang by the Jianxing era of the deposed Emperor Min, a refusal that made a calendar the practical constitution of a state, and he was killed in 320 by the clients of a wonder-worker named Liu Hong and was succeeded by his brother Zhang Mao.
- Duke Cheng of Former Liang Zhang Mao, 277 – 324 · ruler of Former Liang Zhang Mao (277–324) was the younger brother of Zhang Shi and the third ruler of the Zhang house in Liang province, which he held from 320 until his death. In 323, after a Han Zhao army came west and his river defences collapsed, he sent an envoy to submit to Liu Yao and accepted the title king of Liang, the first of his family to hold a royal rank from a sovereign other than Jin; he kept the province intact but paid tribute for it, and in 324 he died childless and left the province to his brother's son Zhang Jun.
- Duke Zhongcheng of Former Liang Zhang Jun, 307 – 346 · ruler of Former Liang Zhang Jun held the province of Liang from 324 to 346 and never took a royal title, though he founded an academy, commissioned a state history in fifty scrolls, divided his territory into three provinces and turned the oasis of Gaochang into a commandery in 327. He kept the dead Western Jin era Jianxing on his documents, took and shelved titles from Jin, Han Zhao and Later Zhao as the balance of power required, and left behind a court that survived him and an heir chosen over an elder son.
The Tang Age
隋唐五代581 – 9601 dynastySui reunified the country and dug the Grand Canal; Tang turned that unity into a cosmopolitan empire whose capital at Chang'an was the largest city on earth. When Tang fell in 907, five short dynasties and ten regional kingdoms divided the country for half a century.