de Crespigny, Rafe2024-11-182024-11-18https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733724787This work was first published in the journal T'oung Pao 64.1-3 (1980), pages 41 to 83. I am grateful to the publishers, E J Brill of Leiden, for permission to present an amended version. Though the essential material and argument of the article remains the same, I have made substantial adjustments and amendments, citing some more recent publications to supplement or replace the original references, with additional footnotes and appropriate renumbering. Official titles follow my adaptation of Dubs/Bielenstein.Liu Zhi, known to history by his posthumous title as Emperor Huan of the Later Han dynasty, reigned from 146 to 168 A.D. He came to the throne, however, as a boy of fourteen, and for the first part of his reign the government at the capital was dominated by the power of the great Liang family: first in the form of a regency under the Empress-Dowager nee Liang of Huan's predecessor Emperor Shun; and after her death by the military and political authority of her brother the General-in-Chief Liang Ji and his younger sister, Huan's own Empress nee Liang. In 159, after thirteen years of this tutelage and political control, the Empress Liang died and Emperor Huan took the opportunity to run a coup d'état within the capital, [42] Luoyang, which destroyed the power of Liang Ji and his relatives. For the remaining years of his life the emperor held chief authority in his government, and his personal favour and preferences were of major importance in the court and the capital.application/pdfen-AU© 2024 The Author(s)2024