Court of the North Star: Han Dynasty Survived the Three Kingdoms

[King Helü of Wu]

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So, let me be straightforward.

IOTL, China's Period of Disunion, encompassing Late Han, the Three Kingdoms, the Jin dynasty, the Barbarian Invasions, the Northern and Southern Dynasty and the early Sui Dynasty, has almost caused the nation of China to cease to exist. It finally ended with the Unification of Sui Dynasty (588 AD).

The main reason behind China's fragmentation during this period was the rise of the the big aristocratic families since Late Han Era.

They annexed land from the peasants, reducing the main source of state revenue: the peasants, to nothing.
They monopolized bureaucratic positions, causing the state machine to malfunction.

Like water hyacinth growing in a pond, strangling the ecosystem,the flourishing of these land-owning aristocrats strangled every attempt to try to build a strong state. This ultimately resulted in the country vulnerable to Barbarian Invaders, who devastated North China and made things even more complicated.

But it didn't have to be this way.

Cao Cao, founder of the Wei State during the Three Kingdoms Era, was from a small, non-aristocratic family. He hated the big families.

He envisioned a state based on meritocracy, not aristocracy. But it soon fell apart after Cao Cao's death, starting from his son, Cao Pi.

Would things all be different, if Cao Cao picked a different heir?

Let's wait and see, how Cao Zhi beat the aristocrats.

 

[King Helü of Wu]

Comments, any comment, is needed.

 

[Space Oddity]

Are you going to treat Liu Bei like the opportunistic bastard he actually seems to have been? ("Don't worry, Lu Bu, I've got your back!" "Yeah, you should totally kill Lu Bu. He's not trustworthy. Not like me, Cao Cao." "Hey, Cao Cao. I'm betraying you now.")

 

[WhatIsAUserName]

How can the Han Dynasty survive the Three Kingdoms? If there's no Wei, Wu, and Han, it doesn't seem very much like China's historical Three Kingdoms.

Do you suggest Cao Pi continue to rule through the Han Dynasty in the way Cao Cao did? I guess that would also produce a division into three parts, with the possibility of the Cao-ruled Han reunifying China.

 

[Kalvan]

Unfortunately, Liu Bei is a member of the Han Dynasty's Liu family, and would always consider himself more worthy of rulership than the street orphan adopted as a Eunuch known as Cao Cao, regardless of all facts about personal abilities and character. At least Sun Quan was from an actual princely family. Besides, the Sima family that monopolized the Wei Dynasty's Prime Ministership wasn't a shining example of loyalty, either.

Another possible scenario is "What if Cao Cao had died at the Battle of Red Wall, and Liu Bei had founded the Southern Han Dynasty?"

 

[elkarlo]

Interesting. The Chinese did seem to have problems with the nobles just eating up all the land, and taxing the peasants to death.

 

[Fredrick II Barbarossa]

unfortunatly liu bei has the best claim of the three to the han throne since he is the imperial uncle.

However the best way for cao cao to unite china is this. Zhuge liang fails to ally with sun quan who eyes jing province earlier leading to an earlier allaince beetween wei and wu. This leads to shu han being destroyed since it couldnt take the might of both armies without red cliffs.

Theb sun quan while invading shu dies. With sun quan dead the wu suffer a major blow and then cao cao strikes wu which is now in shu provinces. This leads to wu being defeating since it lacked allies. Then cao cao dies. His son deposes the emperor marries a relative of the emperor and proclaims himself emperor of the new han.

With shu han destroyed, Wu broken and the northern warlords crushed Cao pi has no immenet threat to his imperial rule. Plus cao caos senior generals many of whoom were briliant officers and loyal to him would easily keep Sima in check.

 

[tonsofun]

Sadly Liu Bei had the best claim to the throne being from that family. The best thing Cao Cao can do is to keep him by his side as a prisoner of sorts but that isn't exactly easy and it isn't going to be acceptable to many who already hated him controlling the emperor.

 

[Space Oddity]

Liu Bei is a distant cousin to the throne who by most accounts was making his living as a sandal-maker at one point--hardly the clear heir everyone seem to think he is. Further, the fact that he has the "better claim" is rather immaterial as Cao Cao never actually tried to take the throne. That was his son Cao Pi.

 

[scholar]

That's not IOTL, or at least no more than the reason why the American Revolution happened was because the British were horrible dictators that robbed the American people of _everything_ leaving them with nothing but the call to freedom, forcing them to rebel.

Aristocratic Families were the more powerful force behind the Han since before the Western Han fell, in fact Aristocratic families rose with the Shang and Zhou, the many Kingdoms of the Warring States were founded by families enfeoffed titles by the Kings. The reason why the Han Dynasty fell was not because of a rise of aristocratic families, though their existing was a significant factor. Rather it was the growing ambivalence towards the royal lineage and the belief that the Han Dynasty must be taken over by another clan or restored like the Eastern Han did with the West. By the time of the Jin the problem was not that there were powerful aristocratic families, but that they owed no particular loyalty to the state and were more concerned with their own power.

Rafe notes a few examples of this:

In the end, however, as the state of Western Jin fell into ruin, anecdotes of two men, the aesthete Wang Yan and the statesman Zhang Hua, could be presented as examples of the moral weakness that lay at the heart of the state.
Wang Yan was one of the most brilliant men of his time, skilled in the sophistries of pure conversation, a scholar both of diplomacy and of xuanxue. At Luoyang in 311 he was captured by Shi Le, who asked him about the failure of Jin. Wang Yan's answers were clear and elegant, and Shi Le spoke with him for several days. But Wang Yan also sought to explain how he himself had held aloof from such meanness, and those errors and failures were no concern of his. Shi Le replied, "Your fame extends over all the four seas, and since your youth you have occupied high positions.... How can you claim to have taken no part in the affairs of the world? Indeed it is your fault that the empire is defeated and destroyed!" And so he killed him.
In similar fashion, Zhang Hua wrote an essay of warning about consort families, but he later served the government of the Empress Jia. In 300 he was arrested and sentenced to death by Sima Lun. On the eve of execution he sought to justify himself to one of his captors, but he was asked to explain why he did not protest, even to death, at the deposition of the Heir Apparent Sima Yu. Zhang Hua replied that he had spoken against the project in open council. "And when your objections were ignored," came the reply, "why did you not resign your office?" Zhang Hua could make no answer.

Cao Cao wasn't exactly a man who came from nothing, he had his own link to nobility and for a man who is touted to despise large landed families, his own clan was quite large and landed and with close relations to the Xiahou. The members of his clan and their powers and stations are more abundantly recorded and numerous than any other clan with the exception of the Liu dynasty. Even the Yuan only has three notable focuses as far as branches go even though they were among the clans that dominated China at the time, and there were others that were their peers in terms of power and influence that get mere footnotes as far as their significance to the timeline in China. Cao Cao left behind a sprawling dynasty with ranks, nobility, and power across his entire domain. Cao Pi just decided to imprison all his siblings and limit his family's connections to other powerful clans, nearly destroying his main powerbase so that the cousins and offshoots were all that was left to protect the Wei Dynasty from outsiders. A few Xiahou deaths, a few dismissals, the removal of the few in-laws in power, and one coup to eradicate anything related to Cao Zhen and the hundreds of Cao family members spread across the Wei Dynasty were powerless to prevent the fall of their own family from power.

That said, I'm working on a timeline regarding the persistence of the Han Dynasty in China in the harsh turmoil and chaos of the Later Han-Three Kingdoms era. A good place to start would be Wang Yun's coup succeeds, but the revived Han court is still ultimately powerless to do anything beyond its borders.

 

[BBadolato]

The reason the Han Dynasty was in poor shape is that emperor Ling hardly cared to do anything himself and let the Ten Regular attendants who were Eunuchs oversee day to day affairs, who did so for their own ends. When a series of disasters broke out around the country the government did little and many people turned towards the religious leader Zhang Jiao who eventually lead a massive revolt called the Yellow Turban Rebellion. After the rebellion was crushed the Han had to deal with problems from tribes until Emperor Ling died.

When Emperor Ling died that's when it all really went to hell and imperial authority was completely lost. The Emperors brother in law He Jin and the Eunuchs got into conflict which resulted in He Jin's death and the 2 princes the future Emperor's Shao and Xian, being forced to flee . The two were discovered by Dong Zhou whose army was sent to the capital and he took control. I don't how trumped up some of things Dong Zhou did maybe but he kills emperor Shao puts Emperor Xian on the throne. Eventually a coalition is formed to stop him they drive him from Luo Yang and he flees to Chang An.

The Warlords themselves were a combination, of nobles,governors, and a few bandits and a tribal chief. You can't really save the Han at this point, unless you have warlords who aren't willing to make him abdicate.

 

[katchen]

Or unless a Han claimant can hole up in a defensible appendage of the Empire, husband his strength, encourage Han immigration, expand and wait for his enemies to exhaust themselves as Koxinga attempted to do 11 centuries later on Taiwan.
In this case, since you are calling it the Court of the North Star, I suspect the place he will hole up is Llaoning, maybe at what is now Shenyang. At this time in history there is actually plenty of room in Manchuria. This is still the Roman Warm Period and the climate is similar to our own with wheat and millet cultivatable through most of Manchuria and Korean stye rice cultivation possible in the Ussuri and even the Amur Basin. A refugee Han State would easily attract refugee immigrants both from what is now Hebei and across the Pohai Straits (only 30 miles) from Shantung to Lliaotung. If our claimant makes peace with Gogyreo instead of making a vain attack against it, he should do OK against the horse barbarians further West.

 

[Admiral Matt]

I've been thinking on this myself. Cao Cao was a better man, Liu Bei much worse, and the Sun's much more competent than they are typically portrayed.

The great thing about the Cao family position is that, by working with the actual emperor, they didn't need a claim on imperial power. They just needed to be the front-men for a restored Han Dynasty, and in doing so could easily have created a Chinese Shogun-like institution for themselves. But of course Pi took power and squandered it all gambling for the big chair, ultimately to no use.

 

[scholar]

Or unless a Han claimant can hole up in a defensible appendage of the Empire, husband his strength, encourage Han immigration, expand and wait for his enemies to exhaust themselves as Koxinga attempted to do 11 centuries later on Taiwan.
In this case, since you are calling it the Court of the North Star, I suspect the place he will hole up is Llaoning, maybe at what is now Shenyang. At this time in history there is actually plenty of room in Manchuria. This is still the Roman Warm Period and the climate is similar to our own with wheat and millet cultivatable through most of Manchuria and Korean stye rice cultivation possible in the Ussuri and even the Amur Basin. A refugee Han State would easily attract refugee immigrants both from what is now Hebei and across the Pohai Straits (only 30 miles) from Shantung to Lliaotung. If our claimant makes peace with Gogyreo instead of making a vain attack against it, he should do OK against the horse barbarians further West.

Gongsun Du and Kang decisively beat the Goguryeo and settled part of what is now Korea, Kang more so than Du. The Wei Dynasty went in, completely destroyed Goguryeo, and then encouraged everyone living in Korea who was Chinese to move back into China, which was having chronic population issues. Goguryeo regrouped, moved to fill in the void left behind by the Chinese, and became the dominant power in the northeast as a result (not including the northern Chinese states). All you need to do is have a notable Liu clansman take over the Gongsuns or gain appointment where Gongsun would have.

 

[WhatIsAUserName]

Or unless a Han claimant can hole up in a defensible appendage of the Empire, husband his strength, encourage Han immigration, expand and wait for his enemies to exhaust themselves as Koxinga attempted to do 11 centuries later on Taiwan.
In this case, since you are calling it the Court of the North Star, I suspect the place he will hole up is Llaoning, maybe at what is now Shenyang. At this time in history there is actually plenty of room in Manchuria. This is still the Roman Warm Period and the climate is similar to our own with wheat and millet cultivatable through most of Manchuria and Korean stye rice cultivation possible in the Ussuri and even the Amur Basin. A refugee Han State would easily attract refugee immigrants both from what is now Hebei and across the Pohai Straits (only 30 miles) from Shantung to Lliaotung. If our claimant makes peace with Gogyreo instead of making a vain attack against it, he should do OK against the horse barbarians further West.

Liu Yu would probably work as the claimant for this. I mean, he's in Youzhou, so I think the Liaodong Peninsula is part of his territory, and he's a member of the Han imperial family, with reasonable standing given how the coalition against Dong Zhuo wanted to make Liu the Emperor.

 

[scholar]

Liu Yu would probably work as the claimant for this. I mean, he's in Youzhou, so I think the Liaodong Peninsula is part of his territory, and he's a member of the Han imperial family, with reasonable standing given how the coalition against Dong Zhuo wanted to make Liu the Emperor.

Liu Yu wouldn't do it. Not unless the Capital was razed to the ground and the entire lineage of the Han had been exterminated or deposed. Liu Yu threatened to become peasant or run away to a Barbarian tribe when he was approached to become Emperor to challenge the west. Granted, provided the capital is razed to the ground and chaos rules the land without a clear candidate for the throne and other upstarts claiming regal titles outside of the Imperial family, Liu Yu would probably go along with it. But that's something that would require rather drastic changes and Liu Yu was knocked off rather early in the game by his former subordinate. He's also militarily incompetent and had unrealistic approaches to warfare for the time period. Only the guilty will be killed, the peasantry shall not be harmed, farmlands not be raided, property not be seized, amongst others. In a civil war that saw over two thirds of the population die off or fall off the registries, kindness without commanding the respect of others was suicidal.

 

[BBadolato]

Can we have a more ambitious and decisive Liu Biao, he did hold Jing which was wealthy and prosperous, although a succession problem could ruin if things go the way they did.

 

[scholar]

Can we have a more ambitious and decisive Liu Biao, he did hold Jing which was wealthy and prosperous, although a succession problem could ruin if things go the way they did.

Sure, Liu Biao regularly held off invasions by the Sun Family of Wu, northern powers, and Liu Zhang in Yi. Granted he lost many battles, but he never really lost the wars. Liu Biao was noted to use most of the privileges restricted to Kings and Emperors anyways, if succession is handed off relatively well and the north remains divided instead of becoming a united solid mass that would be very difficult to defend from the Liu family in Jing would be an island of stability in a raging storm. If the main line dies out or is replaced, Liu Biao is among the first candidates I would suspect to declare himself an outright emperor.

 

[King Helü of Wu]

How can I get so many replies without updating?

By the end of Han-Dynasty, people with "blue" blood might have numbered in their hundreds of thousands. While having a spoonful of imperial blood helps, you need to outmaneuver your opponents first before being able to utilize this advantage.

Especially if ITTL the Cao family decide to honour their puppet Emperor.

If the real emperor is there, neither Liu Bei, nor Liu Biao, nor Liu Zhang, nor any other Liu dare to claim the throne for himself.