Late Reign
After the incident, Huo stamped out anyone who could be considered to be a conspirator, gaining a reputation for autocracy and heavy-handedness. The victims included two ministers, Wang Ping (王平) and Xu Ren (徐仁). The relationship between Huo and Emperor Zhao remained a positive one, however.
In 77 BC, a controversial incident involving the Xiyu (modern Xinjiang and former-Soviet central Asia) kingdom of Loulan (on northeastern edge of the Taklamakan Desert) would unfold itself, although whether Emperor Zhao played any role in the decision-making is unclear. A few years earlier, the King of Loulan had died, and with Xiongnu support, one of his sons, Angui (安歸) succeeded him, and Angui started a policy of befriending Xiongnu and resisting Han, particularly because Luolan's geographical location meant that it was often ordered by Han to escort its imperial messengers, who were also rude to Luolan officials. Huo sent an imperial messenger, Fu Jiezi (傅介子) to assassinate Angui. Fu accomplished this by claiming that he was there to reward Xiyu kings with jewels and other precious items, and then, setting a private meeting up with Angui, he stabbed him in the heart, and then, warning that any further action would bring a large Chinese army, he got the Loulan nobles to submit and make a brother of Angui, Weituqi (尉屠耆), who was friendly to Han, king. Loulan was renamed Shanshan. (This incident was controversial in Chinese history in that many historians believed that this was one incident in which an assassination of a foreign king was thoroughly unjustified, particularly in the method it was carried out—using jewels as bait. Other historians believed that Angui should be punished for his failure to submit.)
In 74 BC, Emperor Zhao died without a son, and this would lead to a succession problem. After a short duration in which the unsuitable Prince He of Changyi became emperor, the throne was finally given to Emperor Zhao's grandnephew – former Crown Prince Ju's grandson—Liu Bingyi (劉病已), who would ascend the throne as Emperor Xuan.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Zhao Of Han
Famous quotes containing the words late and/or reign:
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)