Emperor Hui of Han
emperor of the Han dynasty
Emperor Hui of Han (Chinese: 漢惠帝; pinyin: Hàn Huìdì; 210 BC – 26 September 188 BC), born Liu Ying (劉盈), was the second emperor of the Han dynasty. He was the second son of Emperor Gaozu, the first Han emperor, and the only son of Empress Lü from the powerful Lü clan. Emperor Hui is generally remembered as a somewhat weak character dominated and terrorized by his mother, Empress Lü, who became Empress Dowager when her husband died after being wounded in a war she had encouraged him to personally take command in.
Huidi was personally kind and well-intentioned, simple, hesitant, soft-hearted and generous, unable to escape the impact of his mother's viciousness. He tried to protect his younger half-brother Ruyi, Prince Yin of Zhao from being murdered by Empress Dowager Lü, but failed. After that, he indulged himself in drinking and sex, gave up government affairs to his mother, and died at a relatively young age. Emperor Hui's wife was Empress Zhang Yan, a niece of his by his elder sister Princess Yuan of Lu; their marriage was the result of insistence by Empress Dowager Lü and was a childless one. After Emperor Hui died without a designated heir, Empress Dowager Lü installed two of his alleged sons whom she adopted into her clan, Emperor Qianshao of Han and Liu Hong, sons of one or more of the Emperor's concubines. They and the rest of the Lü clan were exterminated in the wake of the ensuing Lü Clan disturbance, and Emperor Hui's half-brother Liu Heng was established as Emperor Wen.
Early life and years as crown prince
Early years
Liu Ying was born during the Qin dynasty.
“Emperor Hui of Han” enters the record as emperor of the Han dynasty. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Emperor, emperor and dynasty can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Emperor Hui of Han” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.