In history, many powerful ministers married their daughters to the emperor, such as Huo Guang's daughter Huo Chengjun, who was the empress of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty; Cao Cao's daughter, Cao Jie, was the empress of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, and the other two daughters were nobles; Yang Jian's daughter, Yang Lihua, married Emperor Xuan of the Northern Zhou Dynasty.
Wang Mang, naturally, is no exception.
When he was still the great Sima who was "humble and unusurped", he married his favorite concubine to Emperor Ping of Han. Historical records show that at that time, he did not seem to be thinking about usurping the throne.
So, when Wang Mang finally usurped the Han Dynasty, did he consider this daughter? After the fall of the Western Han Dynasty, what happened to this poor queen?
In this article, we will talk about Wang Mang's daughter and the last queen of the Western Han Dynasty, Queen Xiaoping.
Wang Mang's eldest daughter, her name is not recorded in the history books, so before she becomes the queen, we will temporarily call her "Miss Wang".
Miss Wang married Emperor Ping of Han and experienced some twists and turns.
Emperor Ping of Han, named Emperor, was actually just a mascot. The previous emperor, Emperor Han Ai, once expelled Wang Mang from Chang'an, causing the Wang family's relatives to lose power. After the untimely death of Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty, Wang Mang, with the support of the Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun, once again regained the power of the court.
Emperor Ai of Han had no children and no brothers, and the heavy task of choosing a new emperor for the Han Dynasty fell to Wang Mang. And Wang Mang out of selfishness, after a long month of selection, finally selected the 9-year-old Zhongshan King Liu Jizi, that is, Emperor Ping of Han.
In order to prevent new relatives from fighting for power with the Wang family, Wang Mang also specially let Emperor Hanping enter Chang'an alone, and then found a reason to kill Emperor Hanping's mother and uncle, leaving only Emperor Hanping's mother Wei Ji alone.
The power of the government is completely in the hands of Wang Mang.
In the third year of Emperor Hanping, Wang Mang couldn't wait for Emperor Hanping, who was less than 13 years old, to elect the empress.
His wishful thinking was to marry his daughter to Emperor Ping of Han, and in the future, his daughter would give birth to the crown prince, and he would be the grandfather of the future emperor. However, in order to hide his selfishness, he pretended to let Yousi Haixuan select a girl with a suitable resume for the court to choose.
In this way, in addition to Wang Mang's daughter, many girls from the Wang family also entered the list of candidates for the queen.
Because the one who has the most say in the marriage of Emperor Ping of Han is the Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun. For Wang Zhengjun, as long as she is the daughter of the Wang family, it is in her interests, and it does not necessarily have to be Wang Mang's daughter to take the throne. Therefore, these Wang girls are all strong competitors for Wang Mang's daughter.
In order to eliminate these competitors and make a show of shirking humility at the same time, Wang Mang played Wang Zhengjun: My daughter has no talent and no virtue, so she will not run for the queen.
Wang Zhengjun believed it to be true, and mistakenly thought that Wang Mang didn't want the Wang family to be too public, so he issued an edict to let all the daughters of the Wang family, including Wang Mang's daughter, withdraw from the queen's candidacy.
Next, Wang Mang began to exert his strength for his daughter.
The commoners, students, and officials of Chang'an City wrote books one after another, claiming that only the daughter of Wang Mang, the Duke of Anhan, was the most suitable for the world, and there were as many as 1,000 people who wrote the book.
The ministers of the court also either wrote to appeal, or knelt down in the court to plead, and they had to ask for Wang Mang's daughter's life.
Only then did the Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun see through Wang Mang's tricks. However, it is difficult to disobey the people's will, and Wang Zhengjun is also happy to see another queen of the Wang family, so Wang Zhengjun issued an edict that Wang Mang's daughter will become the new queen of the Han Dynasty.
Wang Mang naturally put on a show as usual, and excused himself as usual, so he "reluctantly" married his daughter into the palace.
In the fourth year of Emperor Han Ping, the 14-year-old Wang girl officially married Emperor Han Ping and became the queen.
Before the wedding, a clan wrote that Wang Mang was only the new marquis, which did not match the father of the future queen, and suggested that Wang Mang be crowned and Wang Mang's fief should be sealed to a hundred miles.
In fact, the custom of the Han Dynasty was that the father of the empress was a marquis, but under special circumstances, this practice was not necessarily enforced. For example, Xu Pingjun's father, Xu Guanghan, was obstructed by Huo Guang and could only be named Changchengjun, and he was not made a marquis until Huo Guang died.
The number of feudal households is not much. Shangguan An, the father of Emperor Shangguan of the Han Zhao Emperor, closed only 1,500 households. Empress Zhang, Emperor Hui of the Han Dynasty, and Empress Chen, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, when they became queens, their fathers were already liehous, and they did not add additional seals.
Wang Mang, as the new marquis of the capital, had 1,500 households at the beginning of the seal, and later added 28,000 households, and was also the great Sima and An Han Gong, this identity is second to none among the fathers of the queen of the Western Han Dynasty, and even Huo Guang can't compare.
This clan's move was just to curry favor with Wang Mang, and at the same time give Wang Mang another chance to put on a show.
Sure enough, Wang Mang "deeply understood" and refused to be sealed this time.
Subsequently, the court discussed the issue of the dowry of Wang Mang's daughter.
The dowry of the queen of the Western Han Dynasty is generally 20,000 gold, which is converted into 200 million yuan, as well as countless luxury goods such as silks, jade, chariots and horses. Wang Mang modestly accepted only 20 million yuan, and took out a lot of money to distribute it to the same clan and the family that married, earning a wave of good reputation.
The wedding of Emperor Ping of Han and Empress Wang was completed in the limelight. On the wedding, the court ignored Wang Mang's modesty, and still added Wang Mang's fief to the previous Baili, and respected him as "Zai Heng", Wang Mang's wife was named the meritorious monarch of Tang Muyi, and Wang Mang's two sons were also named marquis in the name of the queen's brothers.
None of these are the normal sealing treatment of the Queen of the Western Han Dynasty's family, and they are exclusive to Wang Mang's family.
In other words, Wang Mang has done enough show and earned enough reputation by marrying his daughter, and he gave him the seal he didn't want to give him at all, and also earned the status of Zai Heng and the sealing of his wife and son.
It's really fame and fortune.
In the second year after the wedding, Queen Wang had "Sun Zirui", which means that when she has her menstruation, she can have children from now on.
Wang Mang was very happy and repaired the meridian road from Duling to Hanzhong.
It can also be seen from here that Wang Mang at this time probably did not have the ambition to usurp the throne. At that time, he thought that he would become a "saint" admired by everyone while being a supreme minister, and his daughter would be able to give birth to a future emperor.
However, it didn't take long for the situation to take a turn for the worse. At the end of that year, the 15-year-old Emperor Ping of Han died suddenly. Some people believe that he was poisoned by Wang Mang, who grew in ambition.
However, the "Book of Han", which is closest to Wang Mang's era, did not adopt the statement that Wang Mang killed the king, which also made the cause of the death of Emperor Ping of Han a layer of mystery.
However, no matter what the cause of Emperor Hanping's death was, his premature death gave Wang Mang a new chance.
He was no longer reconciled, and was only an auxiliary minister.
Empress Wang did not give birth to a son for Emperor Ping of Han, and Wang Mang once again chose an emperor for the Han Dynasty. It took him a full 3 months to select Liu Ying, who was less than 2 years old.
Before Liu Ying could officially succeed to the throne, someone reported that he had found a stone with the words "Sue An Han Gongmang as Emperor" written on the stone.
Wang Mang seems to want to take advantage of this wave to ascend to the sky in one step and become the emperor himself. However, the Empress Dowager Wang Zhengjun was furious and reprimanded Wang Mang: This slander is against the world and cannot be executed!
Wang Mang had no choice but to retreat to the next best thing, named Liu Ying as the crown prince, and made himself the "regent emperor", and declared that as long as Liu Ying grew up, he would return to Liu Ying.
And his daughter, Queen Wang, is also respected as the queen mother.
For a while, the pattern of the imperial court was a little strange: Wang Mang was the emperor, and his daughter Wang was the empress dowager; Liu Ying is nominally the son of the Wang family, but he is only the crown prince.
This embarrassing situation did not last long. Only 3 years later, Wang Mang officially usurped the throne and demoted Liu Ying to "Ding'an Gong", and his daughter Queen Mother was also renamed "Ding'an Gongdowager".
This year, Wang was 18 years old.
After Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, there was a rift in the father-daughter relationship between Wang and Wang Mang. Wang often claimed to be ill and refused to attend court meetings. In this regard, the history books record that Wang Mang "respects and sorrows", that is, he respects, fears, sad, and loves his daughter.
He hoped that his daughter would be able to remarry, so he named his daughter the "Yellow Imperial Master".
After Wang Mang ascended the throne, in order to cut off from the Han Dynasty, he changed the palaces, official names, and place names related to the Han Dynasty, such as the magnificent "Weiyang Palace", which was changed to "Shoucheng Room".
The lord of the yellow royal family, which means the princess of the new dynasty. Some historians believe that this "room master" is not only because Wang Mang changed the palace into a room, but also contains the meaning that the woman is not married in the room.
Wang Mang wanted to use this title to cut off his daughter from the Han Dynasty, so that when the world mentioned her, she was no longer the Empress Xiaoping of the Han Dynasty, but the daughter of the emperor of his new dynasty, the princess of the new dynasty.
Wang Mang's desire for the Huang royal family to remarry soon spread.
There is a father and son, Zhen Feng and Zhen Xun, who started the idea of the head of the Huang royal family.
Because Wang Mang usurped the throne by creating auspicious rui and talismans, after he ascended the throne, there was an endless stream of people who relied on offering auspicious rui and talismans to Wang Mang to seek officials, and Wang Mang was overwhelmed, so he had to order a ban on private offering talismans.
Soon after the ban was issued, Zhen Xun, the son of the old minister Zhen Feng, gave Wang Mang a talisman, which said that Wang Mang should follow the example of Zhou Tianzi and set up a second uncle in Shaanxi.
Perhaps Wang Mang had been building himself in the image of Duke Zhou before usurping the Han Dynasty, and this talisman cut him off from Duke Zhou, highlighting that he was already the Son of Heaven; Perhaps because Zhen Feng was one of the heroes of Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty, in short, Wang Mang did not pursue Zhen Xun's crime of privately offering the talisman, but simply agreed to the matter of the talisman.
Zhen Xun was overjoyed when he saw that the talisman was still valid, and offered a new talisman, saying that the head of the Huang royal family should marry Zhen Xun as his wife.
Wang Mang saw that Zhen Xun actually coveted his daughter, and was angry: Huang Imperial Family is the mother of the world, what does this mean! and ordered the execution of Zhen Feng and Zhen Xun's father and son, implicating hundreds**.
We noticed that Wang Mang here still calls his daughter "the mother of the world". And the mother of the world refers to the queen and the queen mother, and will not refer to the princess in any case.
It can also be seen here that Wang Mang not only hopes that his daughter will be separated from the Han Dynasty, but also feels that his daughter has been the queen of the Han Dynasty and is extremely noble.
After the turmoil between Zhen Feng and Zhen Xun's father and son passed, Wang Mang still hoped that his daughter Huang would be able to marry.
The new son-in-law in his picture is his confidant, Sun Jian, the son of Sun Jian, one of the four generals. He hopes that his daughter can like Sun Xiang.
At that time, the head of the Huang royal family was ill. Wang Mang ordered Sun Yu to dress up and take the doctor to see the Huang royal family.
As soon as she saw this specially dressed young man, she immediately knew that this was the new husband that Wang Mang had chosen for her.
The lord of the Huang royal family was immediately furious, and ordered someone to bring a whip and beat the attendants who served on the left and right, and then the illness reappeared, and he lay on the bed, refusing to get up again.
After Wang Mang heard about this, he was so frightened that he didn't dare to force his daughter anymore.
The Yellow Imperial Family appeared in the history books again, and it was already the time for Wang Mang's new dynasty to fall.
In 23 AD, 15 years after Wang Mang ascended the throne, the Green Forest Army invaded Chang'an, killed Wang Mang, and burned Weiyang Palace.
When the fire burned to the palace where the Huang royal lord lived, the Huang royal lord did not flee, but sighed: What a face to see the Han family! He committed suicide at the age of 32.
In her life, as Wang Mang's daughter, she has been the queen and queen mother of the Han Dynasty, and the princess of the new dynasty, but in her mind, she will always be the Empress Xiaoping of the Han Dynasty.
Her father's behavior made her extremely painful. But she was powerless to stop Wang Mang from usurping the Han, so she could only express her silent ** in her own way.
Perhaps, she has long forgotten what her little husband Emperor Hanping, who has only been with for a year, looks like. But until the end of her life, what she was thinking about was not her father, who was uncertain about life and death, but that she had experienced such a life, and she was really sorry for the identity of Empress Xiaoping.
Empress Xiaoping, as Wang Mang's daughter, was not happy that her father was the emperor, but thought about the Han Dynasty in her heart.
And her performance is not an exception. We can see that almost all queens and queen mothers will seek benefits for their mother's family and find ways to promote their mother's family, but when the interests of the mother's family and the husband's family conflict, the most typical scene is that when the mother's family becomes a powerful minister and even wants to usurp the throne, most of the queens or queen mothers are on the side of the husband's family.
Cao Cao's daughter, Cao Jie, was the empress of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty. When her brother Cao Pi usurped the throne and asked her for a jade seal, she scolded Cao Pi: Heaven is not Zuoer!
Yang Jian's daughter, Yang Lihua, was the empress of Emperor Xuan of the Northern Zhou Dynasty. When Yang Jian usurped the throne, she was resolutely opposed. Later, Yang Jian hoped that she would remarry, even if Emperor Xuan of the Northern Zhou Dynasty treated her badly during her lifetime and almost killed her, she refused to remarry, and was buried with Emperor Xuan of the Northern Zhou Dynasty after her death.
Why do these queens and queen mothers have their hearts set on their husbands' families and don't want to see their fathers or brothers ascend the throne?
First, according to the ancient concept, after a woman marries, she is a member of her husband's family.
The ancient view of marriage is different from that of modern times. Modern people don't think that when a daughter gets married, it's not their own family. But in the concept of the ancients, even if the daughter is in the boudoir, she is also a "coquette", and she will become a person from another family in the future.
As soon as a woman gets married, she is no longer her mother's family, but her husband's family. Even the three clans of Zhulian will not implicate their married daughters under normal circumstances.
Therefore, we can see that the Shangguan Empress of Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, her father and mother were all exterminated, but she was an orphan girl, and she was still the queen, the queen mother, and the queen mother. Because she married Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, she was a member of the Liu family, not the Shangguan family or the Huo family.
When Huo Guang's Huo family was exterminated, thousands of families were implicated, but Huo Chengjun, the empress of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, survived, and was even deposed because she had murdered the prince and was discovered, not because she was the daughter of the Huo family.
Therefore, according to the ancient concept, Wang Mang's daughter is the Liu family, Cao Cao's daughter is the Liu family, and Yang Jian's daughter is a member of the Yuwen family. When there is no conflict between the interests of the husband's family and the mother's family, of course, a win-win situation can be achieved. And when the mother's family wants to usurp the throne, they resolutely defend their own interests.
Second, in ancient times, the power of the queen mother and queen was far greater than that of the princess.
We can see that before Wang Mang usurped the throne, her daughter was the queen mother.
The queen mother of the Western Han Dynasty, and then the dynasty called the system, and retired to live under the emperor's support. Even if the court is ruled by powerful ministers, as long as the powerful ministers still have face, they dare not be disrespectful to the queen mother. Not to mention, this powerful minister is still his father, and he will not really hurt himself, but will only worship himself.
And once Wang Mang usurped the throne, she was demoted from the queen mother to the princess, and many things were involuntarily. Her fate is completely in Wang Mang's hands.
Just from the fact that Wang Mang forced her to remarry, we can see that if Wang is the queen mother, then Wang Mang would not dare to mention this matter. And the Wang family was demoted to a princess, whether she would marry or not was all in Wang Mang's thoughts.
When Wang Mang dies and her brother ascends the throne, her life is good or not, and it depends on her brother's face.
It was the same for the daughters of other powerful ministers. When they are queens, or even queen mothers, life is much more comfortable than when they are princesses.
The usurpation of the throne by the father or brother is really harming their own interests, and they naturally want to oppose it.
Don't you think?
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