Death
Huo Guang's wife, Lady Xian, would not be denied her wish of making her daughter an empress, however. In 71 BC, Empress Xu was pregnant when Lady Xian came up with a plot. She bribed Empress Xu's female physician Chunyu Yan (淳于衍), under guise of giving Empress Xu medicine after she gave birth, to poison her. Chunyu did so (with aconitum), and Empress Xu died shortly after she gave birth. Her doctors were initially arrested to investigate whether they cared for the empress properly. Lady Xian, alarmed, informed Huo Guang what had actually happened, and Huo, not having the heart to turn in his wife, instead signed Chunyu's release. (It is not known what happened to Empress Xu's newborn child, but since Chinese historical sources at that time did not pay much attention to children who die young, presumably the child died early.)
Empress Xu was buried with full imperial honors near, but not with, her husband, whose third wife Empress Wang was later buried with him. Her son Prince Shi would later become crown prince and later Emperor Yuan after surviving attempts on his life by Empress Xu's successor, Empress Huo. Eventually, the Huo clan would be destroyed in 66 BC.
Read more about this topic: Empress Xu Pingjun
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep, careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.”
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“In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper. All rose, exchanging smiles.”
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“I want Death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)