Liu Zhi had no sons during his twenty-year reign as emperor.
So, in the first month of the following year—January 168 AD—twelve-year-old Liu Hong, the Marquis of Xiedu Pavilion, was brought to the capital and made emperor.
After Liu Hong ascended the throne, Dou Wu, formerly the Commandant of the City Gates and father of Empress Dowager Dou Miao, was appointed Grand General.
Former Grand Commandant Chen Fan was appointed Grand Tutor.
Together with Minister over the Masses Hu Guang, the three were entrusted with overseeing imperial affairs.
Among these three, Chen Fan was a practical reformer and a member of the “Pure Officials” faction.
He was both competent and incorruptible.
Later generations would remember him fondly—he is the very same Chen Fan mentioned in Wang Bo’s Preface to the Prince of Teng’s Pavilion in the line: “Heaven’s treasures and Earth’s marvels shine on the ruins of the Ox and Dipper; heroic spirits bless this blessed land, where Xu Ru once descended from the bed of Chen Fan.”
As for the other two, Dou Wu sympathized with the ideals of the Pure Officials but was not a strict member, while Hu Guang, although not a part of the faction, was a capable administrator.
If these three could have continued to hold power during the early years of Liu Hong’s reign, then even if the Eastern Han dynasty did not thrive again, at the very least, its continued decline might have been halted.
Unfortunately, the lives of Dou Wu and Chen Fan were already on the countdown.
Shortly after Liu Hong took the throne, he declared a new era name: Jianning.
He also gave Liu Zhi the posthumous title of Emperor Huan, officially styled as Emperor Xiaohuan.
“Huan” was considered a laudatory posthumous title, one especially used to praise military achievements.
The definition went: “To expand territory and subdue distant lands is ‘Huan’; to serve the people diligently is ‘Huan’; to conquer and annex neighboring states is ‘Huan’; to bring peace to the four directions through force is ‘Huan’; to swiftly achieve success is ‘Huan’; to subdue enemies and bring distant peoples to heel is ‘Huan’; to fulfill martial ambitions is ‘Huan’; and to be strong and mighty is ‘Huan’.”
Emperor Huan received this title primarily because he had forcefully suppressed border rebellions during his reign, resolving major incidents such as the Qiang rebellion in the northwest, the Xianbei invasion, and the southern tribes’ uprisings.
However, in the eyes of Mengde, such martial strength meant little if the people lived under a broken and corrupt regime.
In the early 20th century, Ilyich once called the Russian Empire—a global power at the time—a “prison of nations.”
Similarly, though the Eastern Han might still be brimming with martial strength, to its citizens, it was nothing more than a sturdier cage.
Perhaps the only consolation the common folk could find was that, despite being rotten, this cage was still preferable to the brutal nomadic slave states surrounding it.
***
After gaining power in the court, Grand General Dou Wu and Grand Tutor Chen Fan immediately set out to purge the eunuchs from the palace.
In the fifth month of the year, a solar eclipse appeared over Luoyang—a bad omen for a feudal dynasty.
Using the eclipse as justification, Dou Wu requested his daughter, Empress Dowager Dou Miao, to execute the eunuchs.
As a result, the Central Regular Attendants Guan Ba and Su Kang were killed.
However, Dou Wu’s request to eliminate the rest of the eunuchs was refused by Dou Miao.
Her refusal was politically motivated—meant to strengthen her influence at court.
The execution of Guan Ba and Su Kang had been nothing more than personal revenge.
In the twelfth month of the previous year, just before Emperor Huan passed away, he had promoted nine palace maids, including Tian Sheng, to the rank of Guiren (Imperial Concubine), hoping they would be treated well after his death.
But Dou Miao was consumed with jealousy.
Right after the emperor’s death—before his coffin had even been buried—Dou Miao had Tian Sheng executed.
She even planned to eliminate all of Emperor Huan’s concubines.
It was only because of the desperate pleas of Guan Ba and Su Kang that this massacre was prevented.
Even so, Dou Miao bore a grudge against the two men.
So when Dou Wu later proposed purging the eunuchs, she conveniently sacrificed them as scapegoats.
***
At this time, in the Cao residence, five-year-old Miss Mengde was sitting in the study, reading.
Her father, Cao Song, was seated nearby.
Whenever Mengde encountered something she didn’t understand, he would explain it.
Everyone loves to play teacher, and Cao Song was no exception—especially since his daughter was naturally gifted.
A single hint was often enough for her to grasp complex ideas.
Teaching her gave him a tremendous sense of satisfaction.
Ever since Mengde was one year old, whenever Cao Song was home from work, he would take time to guide her studies.
After reading quietly for a while, Miss Mengde suddenly fell into deep thought.
“What’s wrong? Is there something you don’t understand?” Cao Song asked with curiosity.
Mengde raised her head, her expression complicated.
“Father, I heard that the Grand General and Grand Tutor plan to act against the eunuchs. Is that true?”
“It is,” Cao Song nodded.
“Ever since Central Regular Attendants Guan Ba and Su Kang were killed, it’s become an open secret in the court.”
“Why do you suddenly ask about this?”
In a soft voice, Mengde asked, “If the Grand General is about to take action against the eunuchs, Father, are you just going to sit by and watch?”
Cao Song stared at his daughter in stunned silence.
Though he had long known she was precocious, hearing such a question from a five-year-old still struck him as surreal.
‘Is it really possible,’ he wondered, ‘that someone can be born with knowledge?’
Unknowingly, a sense of awe—one he didn’t even notice at first—began to rise in his heart toward his daughter.
With such thoughts in mind, he voiced his opinion to his daughter.
“What’s the point of getting involved now? The Grand General and the Grand Tutor hold all the power at court. Killing a few eunuchs would be easy for them. Even if I joined now, it would just be a case of offering my warm face to their cold asses.”
“Besides, don’t forget—your grandfather was a eunuch. I, your father, am the son of a eunuch. Even if I joined them, the so-called noble ‘pure officials’ would only mock me.”
Mengde smiled faintly and said, “Father, do you really think the Grand General and the Grand Tutor are guaranteed to win?”
“What do you mean?”
Cao Song looked at his daughter in confusion.
Was there still room for this situation to be reversed?
Mengde pressed further.
“Father, where does the greatest power in the court lie right now?”
“In the hands of the Grand General and the Grand Tutor?” Cao Song answered uncertainly.
“Wrong, wrong.” As if her playful childlike side was surfacing, Mengde shook her head proudly.
“Right now, the greatest power in the court lies in the hands of the Empress Dowager—more specifically, in the Imperial Seal that represents the emperor.”
“The Imperial Seal?”
“The eunuchs’ biggest advantage is that they’re in the palace—closer to the Imperial Seal than anyone else. Father, if the eunuchs are driven to desperation and seize the emperor, taking the seal from the Empress Dowager and issuing an imperial decree to arrest the Grand General—what could the Grand General and Grand Tutor possibly do?”
“This…!”
Cao Song broke into a cold sweat at the scene Mengde described.
***
After a long silence, he finally responded thoughtfully.
“The Grand General holds military power. One of the five Northern Army units—the Infantry Colonel—is his nephew. If the Grand General enters the Northern Army and leads troops in resistance, then the outcome is still uncertain…”
“But in doing so, the Grand General would effectively be rebelling,” Mengde said coldly.
“Don’t forget, Father, there’s another general who just returned to Luoyang not long ago.”
“Zhang Huan!”
Cao Song exclaimed the general’s name in surprise.
Zhang Huan, the Protector-General Against the Xiongnu, one of the Three Bright Stars of Liangzhou, had just returned to Luoyang after quelling a rebellion of the Xianbei and Western Qiang tribes at the border.
In the military, merit and seniority mattered. Although Dou Wu held the title of Grand General, he had been nothing more than a Gate Colonel until recently.
He only got his current position thanks to his daughter becoming the Empress Dowager.
He had no real standing among the troops.
Even if Dou Wu chose to resist with force when the eunuchs issued a false edict, once they branded him a rebel and ordered Zhang Huan to suppress the rebellion, Dou Wu—who commanded just over a thousand foot soldiers—wouldn’t last long.
Historically, that’s exactly how it happened.
Dou Wu and Chen Fan were executed as rebels, and the second Disaster of the Partisan Prohibition, led by the eunuchs, began.
If the first Prohibition under Emperor Huan had any pretense of restraint, then the second one, under eunuch control, was a complete and shameless power grab.
Many scholars of great renown were executed, and the scholar-official class began to lose faith in the imperial court.
Ambitious noble families, like the Yuan clan, began to rise to prominence.
You could say that this incident was another heavy stomp on the gas pedal along the Eastern Han dynasty’s road to destruction.
Mengde, for her part, was happy to see the Han dynasty collapse.
‘After all, if the dynasty didn’t fall, how could she seize power and replace it?’
But at the same time, she didn’t want to see good people wrongfully executed.
The late Eastern Han court was a mess.
Eunuchs and imperial in-laws took turns grabbing power.
With those two parasitic factions pulling the strings, how could the country possibly be governed properly?
Chen Fan was the only true pillar of integrity in that chaos—someone who didn’t fight for power but actually did the work of governance.
‘How could eunuchs or in-laws know how to run a country? If these two groups were left to handle state affairs, the Han dynasty might have collapsed decades earlier.’
Fan Ye wrote in The Book of the Later Han, “The Han dynasty survived despite chaos, thanks to the efforts of a few officials over a hundred years.”
You could say Chen Fan was the one patching up the collapsing structure of the Han.
He was a genuinely good man.
Mengde couldn’t bear to see someone like him die unjustly in his old age.
Since he wanted to restore the Han dynasty, then she’d let him try for a few more years.
After all, he was already in his seventies—he didn’t have much time left.
As for whether he could restore the Han?
Mengde could only think, ‘Just believe in what Emperor Ling of Han and those parasitic officials are capable of.’
A tree rotted through by bugs doesn’t recover just because you water it for a few years.
Seeing that her father Cao Song now understood the heart of the matter, Mengde advised, “Father, adding flowers to a brocade is not as valuable as delivering charcoal in the snow. If you rush to support the Grand General now, he’ll only look down on you.”
“But if events unfold just as I’ve described, then you can visit General Zhang at the critical moment and reveal the truth to him. Zhang Huan sides with the scholar-officials. If he realizes what’s really happening, he will definitely support the Grand General. At that point, the eunuchs will be crushed.”
“And after the Grand General escapes from the brink of death, he surely won’t forget your help. You’ll be rewarded with titles and rank.”
“This…”
Cao Song hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind.
“If things really do unfold the way you say, then I’ll do exactly as you suggest.”
Mengde had already laid out the coming situation with perfect clarity—she had practically spoon-fed Cao Song every move.
If he still failed to seize the opportunity, then he had no business being in court at all.
As for helping the eunuchs?
Neither Mengde nor Cao Song ever considered it.
Although Mengde’s grandfather and Cao Song’s father, Cao Teng, had been a eunuch, he was a virtuous one.
As his descendants, how could they ever align themselves with the corrupt pests that filled the palace today?