Life
Liu Sheng was born to Emperor Jing of Han and Consort Jia, who also had another son, Liu Pengzu the Prince of Zhao. He was given the fief of Zhongshan by his father in 154 BC, and therefore reigned in the period right after the Rebellion of the Seven States, when the political atmosphere was one of suspicion regarding the feudal states. Given this atmosphere Liu Sheng was one of the more successful feudal rulers.
In the third year of the reign of Emperor Wu, his younger brother, Liu Sheng and several other princes were invited to Chang'an to feast; at the feast Liu Sheng wept and complained of the treatment of the feudal princes by centrally appointed officials, who made use of their role as monitors to constantly trump up charges against the princes. Impressed by this petition the Emperor explicitly ordered that the unfair scrutiny of the princes should stop, and Liu Sheng became one of the most renowned of the feudal rulers of his time.
He was known to indulge in alcohol and women, and is reputed to have had some 120 sons.
Read more about this topic: Liu Sheng
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Everybody’s a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We’re all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.”
—David Cronenberg (b. 1943)
“There was a time when the average reader read a novel simply for the moral he could get out of it, and however naïve that may have been, it was a good deal less naïve than some of the limited objectives he has now. Today novels are considered to be entirely concerned with the social or economic or psychological forces that they will by necessity exhibit, or with those details of daily life that are for the good novelist only means to some deeper end.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)