Dou Wu

Dou Wu ( chin .: 窦武; † 168 ), court name Youping , was a politician of the Han dynasty , who was known as a Confucian scholar and served under Emperor Huan as a minor official until his daughter Dou Miao became the empress's imperial concubine was raised. As a result, he was promoted until he became one of the most important officials at court and his daughter Empress Mother and Regent for Emperor Ling . Together with Chen Fan , he tried to break the power of the eunuchs and bring Confucian scholars into the government, but after his conspiracy against the eunuchs, he was defeated by them in battle and committed suicide.

Career under Emperor Huan

Dou Wu's father, Dou Feng, was a great-grandson of Dou Rong, who had made a great contribution to Emperor Guangwu's campaigns to reestablish the Han regime. Dou Feng had been the governor of a command post. When Dou Wu was young he was known for his studies in Confucianism and was famous throughout the Western Empire, but did not participate in politics.

This changed in 165 when his daughter Dou Miao was chosen as an imperial concubine, an acceptable woman from an honorable clan. Therefore, Emperor Huan Dou made Wu a lowly official. Later that year, following the ousting of Empress Deng Mengnü , the imperial officials preferred Dou Miao because of Dou Wu's reputation as the new empress. Emperor Huan gave in to them, although personally he did not favor Dou Miao. In the same year she was made empress. Dou Wu was appointed commander of the capital ( Luoyang ) defense forces and marquis .

In 167, when partisan prohibition first came to a head (in which Confucian officials and their students were insulted as partisans against the emperor ), Dou Wu advocated the Confucianists and recommended leniency while he submitted his resignation to Emperor Huan ( which he did not accept). Through his intervention and that of Huo Xu, the emperor did not have a single executed, although he deprived them of their civil liberties. Dou Wu also proposed many scholars who were not charged for high posts at the time.

Career under the reign of his daughter and death

Early in 168, Emperor Huan died without an heir. Empress Dou became the mother of the empress and regent. She consulted with her father and Chen Fan about who should be the new emperor. They finally decided on the twelve-year-old Liu Hong, the Marquis of Jietuding, who ascended the throne as Emperor Ling that same year . Empress mother Dou continued to serve as regent.

Dou Wu and Chen Fan became the main officials in the government. Dou Wu received a larger mark , while his son and two nephews were made marquises. Dou and Chen called the partisans back and deployed them to important government agencies. Meanwhile, however, they began to worry about the Empress Mother and the Emperor being flattered by eunuchs. Zhao Rao, the nurse of Emperor Ling, also gained more and more influence.

Chen and Dou therefore agreed a plan to wipe out the eunuchs. In the summer of 168 they brought this plan to the Empress Mother Dou, who was surprised and refused it on the grounds that the eunuchs had done no harm after all. With their refusal, the plan was dropped.

In the fall of that year, the eunuchs learned of the plan and became angry. Zhu Yu, who got wind of it first, conspired against Chen and Dou when he was 17 eunuchs. They quickly took Emperor Ling into custody (supposedly for his own good), issued edicts on his behalf to execute Chen and Dou, and then kidnapped Empress Mother Dou. Then they sent troops to arrest Chen and Dou. Chen was quickly captured and executed, while Dou publicly proclaimed and resisted a eunuch uprising. The eunuchs persuaded General Zhang Huan that Dou Wu was a traitor, and Zhang beat Dou on the battlefield. Dou committed suicide after the defeat, and the Dou clan was wiped out, with the exception of his wife, who was exiled to Bijing (in what is now northern Vietnam ).