Brooke Spehar
Empress
Lü
Empress Lü ruled from 188 – 180 B.C.E.
She was known as Empress Dowager Lü: Empress Dowager was the title generally
given to the mother of a Chinese emperor.
When Emperor Liu Bang died he left the throne to his son Huidi. There was much objection to this but Liu Bang’s justification for having the son of Empress Lü receive the throne was that Huidi would have Empress Lü to assist him in important decisions of rulership.
Although Huidi was officially the emperor, Empress Lü was the backbone behind the ruling of the Han Dynasty.
Huidi died in 188 B.C. and Empress
Lü placed an infant on the throne that died shortly after. He was quickly
replaced with another infant.
Through the use of puppet emperors,
Empress Lü was able to rule the Han Dynasty on her own without being overthrown
by her rivals.
After she had established power she
began removing members from her late husband’s family from office and began
replacing them with her own family members.
Throughout her rule there were families who had just as much or more of a right to have their children on the throne. Empress Lü is said to have murdered all the princes who were a potential threat to her rule. She probably is responsible for the death of four princes and may have killed several others including her husband’s son from another wife.
It is hard to
figure out exactly how many people she killed but it seems that anytime a
person could potentially threaten her rule, no matter if in was an infant
or a pregnant soon to be mother, they would end up dead.
Although she was ruthless in her ways
of maintaining power and she was not an actual heir of the Han dynasty, she
offered the empire much needed stability under her rule.
She died in 180 B.C.E.. Upon her death
two Han officials appointed an emperor to the throne who was more closely
related to the Han founder's Liu - clan. They removed all of Empress Lü’s
family members form their positions of power, some of them by force and some
of them by assasination.
Empress
Lü