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:
“I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Old age is a tyrant that forbids us upon pain of death all the pleasures of youth.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)