Death
In summer 1 BC, Emperor Ai suddenly died without an heir. Dong Xian, as the commander of the armed forces, was the most powerful official at court, but he was paralyzed by this sudden event. Grand Empress Dowager Wang took decisive action; she proceeded to Weiyang Palace and seized the imperial seal. She then summoned Dong, who was caught by surprise, and was unable to act. Grand Empress Dowager Wang summoned her nephew Wang Mang back to the palace as well and transferred the command of the imperial guard from Dong to Wang.
Wang Mang then ordered the palace secretary to issue an article of impeachment against Dong, accusing Dong of failing to attend to Emperor Ai when he was ill. Dong was prohibited from entering the palace, and was relieved of his post the next day. That night, he and his wife committed suicide, and were buried quickly. Wang Mang disinterred him to make sure that he was in fact dead, and then had him reburied within a prison. The entire Dong clan was exiled to Hepu (合浦, in modern Zhanjiang, Guangdong) and their assets forfeited to the imperial treasury.
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Read more about this topic: Dong Xian
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?”
—Langdon Smith (1858–1908)
“The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)