The Death of the Emperor: The 27 Most Fortuitous Emperors in History

Author: Bei Yang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: As a renowned writer of modern and contemporary China, Bei Yang's representative works fall into two categories: essays and historical writings composed during his imprisonment. In The Death of Emperors and The Death of Empresses, Bei Yang boasts them as "genuine and well-structured" "historical notes," which in reality combine the characteristics of both historical studies and essays—both restoring and disseminating historical knowledge while also employing the satirical, humorous, and biting qualities of essays to critique the present through the lens of the past. In these works by Bei Yang, you can witness scenes entirely different from the official history that has been followed for thousands of years. Bei Yang believes that from the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan to the last emperor Puyi of the Qing Dynasty, China has seen 397 emperors and 162 kings. Among these 559 rulers who claimed imperial or royal titles, approximately one-third died unnatural deaths. Whether they met their end fortunate enough to die on the dragon throne after "spending day and night with the mountain of beautiful women in the palace" or met their fate as emperors, being hanged, starved, or imprisoned, it was all due to the self-inflicted calamities of the system's structure. In a world where men vie for power, political factors reign supreme. And the empresses were often even more directly linked to "false accusations." "False accusations" seem to be a part of traditional Chinese culture, and even the noble empresses were not immune. Behind every empress who met a tragic end, there was always a "struggle for the bed," and the essence of this struggle was nothing but power. "It's not about whether they are beautiful or not, but about who is more beautiful. Every beautiful rival is another beauty." "These beauties were thrown into a court of snakes and scorpions, and in the end, they themselves became snakes and scorpions, only to be bitten to death by another one." Whether they were killed, hanged, suffocated, or drowned in rivers or wells, it was all a tragedy of the times, a of the times. Under the rule of politics, Chinese historical texts became a breeding ground for literary deception. When the emperors and kings fell on their faces, groaning and unable to hold their heads high, the historians always "hid" the truth. Sometimes they were vague, or they became mute witnesses, leaving people so angry they could spit blood. Alas, for China to modernize successfully, the first thing should be to shatter the shackles of political dominance and allow the true faces of history to be revealed. This is a starting point, to use it to train our thinking, to examine why they had those days, to think about why they feared the truth being known. Mr. Bei Yang only hopes that through continuous reporting, the generation of paste will be wiped out early, and the next generation will be the generation of thinkers. Mr. Sun Guanhan said: "Respect the facts." Chinese people must have the ability to speak the truth, to tell the plain truth, to cleanse any filth or makeup that has been painted over the facts. Therefore, when the China Times in New York asked me to write an article, I was overjoyed to accept. At first, I wrote a thousand words a day, but later, the words expanded automatically to fifteen hundred words a day. As I wrote, over three months, I had written around one hundred thousand words, covering the period from the 23rd century BC to the 7th century BC, from the Yellow Emperor's dynasty to the Warring States period, which could be published as a volume. My dear readers are truly fortunate to see the truth of history. If it had been in the past, I would have been imprisoned, or my entire family would have been exterminated, and I would have been unlucky, but you would not have had this fortune. Thinking of this, if you don't buy it now, is there still justice, conscience, or the law and human feelings? This is the preface.