Partisan prohibition

Partisan prohibitions ( Chinese 黨 錮 之 禍 ) occurred twice under the Later Han Dynasty . Partisans ( Chinese 黨人 , Pinyin dǎngrén ) was the name for a group of Confucian officials and the university students who supported them from the capital Luoyang , who resisted the influence of the eunuchs on the government. Some were executed, others released but deprived of their civil rights. The first partisan prohibition in 166 was bloodless, but after the deaths of the Confucian advocates Dou Wu and Chen Fan , there were mass executions in 169 . Feared only when the emperor that the partisans insurgent Yellow Turbans would join, he admitted them 184 civil rights again.   

The first partisan prohibition

The cause of the partisan prohibitions is probably the influential position that the eunuch faction enjoyed at court from 159 onwards . In an alliance with five eunuchs and their confidants, the Emperor Huan succeeded in overthrowing the powerful Liang Ji , who had usurped power at court. The rewards and high posts that the emperor bestowed upon the eunuchs after the coup quickly corrupted them. Confucian officials in the government saw the threat to its effectiveness in the empire and considered how they could reverse the harmful influence of the eunuchs. They were supported by the capital's students. The two factions at court held each other in balance for a number of years. The officials would intervene whenever a couple of eunuchs failed, and those eunuchs lost their power. Often the officials were also defeated and were then pushed out of the government.

A murder case in 166 finally escalated the situation. Zhang Cheng ( 張 成 ), a seer from the capital, had seduced his son into murder on the pretext of an imminent general amnesty . Li Ying ( 李膺 ), who was the governor of the capital district and a representative of the officials' faction , arrested the Zhang family, but a general amnesty was really soon announced. Li Ying was so angry at the seer's boldness that he nonetheless executed Zhang's father and son. However, he had not counted on the vengeance of the eunuchs, who accused him and the other Confucians of being against the emperor and the government. The emperor arrested Li Ying and two other ministers, Du Mi ( 杜 密 ) and Chen Xiang ( 陳翔 ). Chen Fan, the army commander in chief, warned the emperor not to take drastic steps, but he was removed from his post. When the capital's students petitioned the emperor to obtain the release of the ministers, Emperor Huan arrested 200 of them. In an edict he threatened the same fate with the students in the rest of the empire. In this writing he used the term "partisans" for the first time.

The following year, the Confucian official Dou Wu pleaded with the emperor for leniency for the partisans. Officer Huo Xu ( 霍 謣 ) sent a similar petition. The eunuchs, meanwhile, were uneasy about the partisan interrogations, in which the names of their own younger family members appeared more and more frequently. They wanted to put an end to the investigations and moved the emperor, the governor, the ministers and the students to release. The partisans were exiled to their home countries and their civil rights were revoked.

Brief relaxation under the reign of the Empress Mother

In the spring of 168 , Emperor Huan died without leaving an heir. His widow Dou Miao became the mother of the empress and took over the reign. Chen Fan and her father Dou Wu now held key positions at the court. The Empress Mother chose eleven-year-old Liu Hong ( 劉宏 ) to succeed her husband, and he ascended the throne as Emperor Ling . On the advice of her father, the empress mother had the partisans' civil rights restored.

The eunuchs continued to exert their influence on the young emperor, and Dou Wu and Chen Fan were forced to act quickly and drastically. They wanted to destroy the most influential eunuchs. However, the eunuchs learned of the conspiracy and wanted to have the two ministers arrested and executed by the palace guards. Dou Wu resisted, but after a brief campaign in the capital district, he was beaten and committed suicide. The eunuchs then removed all court officials who had been connected to the partisans and withdrew their civil rights.

The second partisan prohibition

Eliminating the opposition in the government was not enough for the eunuchs. A year after his accession to the throne, they made the emperor believe that the partisans were out for a revolt. Former officials' group leaders Li Ying, Du Mi, and Fan Pang ( 范 滂 ) were arrested and executed. More than a hundred people were killed in the raids. The remaining partisans were further restricted in their freedoms. Many of them went into hiding and hid with the help of an underground organization that later remained nameless, but which also included later rulers such as Yuan Shao and Kong Rong .

The end of partisan prohibition

After the uprising of the Yellow Turban broke out in 184 , the eunuch Lü Qiang ( 呂 強 ), who was close to the partisans, took heart. He convinced the emperor that given their predicament, the partisans would join the yellow turbans. This will worsen the government's situation. Emperor Ling made this clear, and he lifted the ban on the partisans and gave them back their civil rights. By doing this, Lü Qiang drew the wrath of the eunuchs, who slandered him with the emperor. Lü Qiang committed suicide.