Post-death Developments
After Emperor Ai died in 1 BC, Grand Empress Dowager Wang quickly seized power from Emperor Ai's male favorite and probable lover Dong Xian, and summoned Wang Mang back to Chang'an to serve as regent to the new Emperor Ping -- the former Prince Jizi of Zhongshan. Wang Mang, bearing grudges against Grand Empress Dowager Fu and Emperor Ai, would immediately undertake several punitive actions against her posthumously. He had her title stripped, and further stripped her of her original title as princess dowager -- and had her referred merely as "the mother of Prince Gong of Dingtao" (while her daughter-in-law suffered a similar posthumous demotion to "Consort Ding").
Against Grand Empress Dowager Wang's initial sentiment of stopping the punitive actions at this point, Wang Mang went further. In 5, he persuaded Grand Empress Dowager Wang to allow him to disinterr Consorts Fu and Ding's caskets and strip their bodies of jade burial shells, and then returned to Dingtao to be buried there. Their tombs were then completely flattened and surrounded with thorns. According to legend, when their tombs were opened up, great fires started, damaging their bodies and the burial items.
Read more about this topic: Consort Fu
Famous quotes containing the word developments:
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)