I would never be sarcastic about trying to solve a communication issue
I see. Sincere apologies then.
Fair enough on 1st, you and I are always going to disagree on the degree on second. I wasn't referring to Pan becuase she was murdered by the court rather then him
I dont see how Im wrong on the 2nd.
Then who were you referring to? Because last I checked we were debating official Empresses and Sun Quan only had one.
Why? I'm not saying it was the sole reason, Huan was able to get eunuch help to save himself from Liang Ji so he was always going to be grateful for that, Ling was possibly scarred by the Chen Fan incident and he was very very close personally to some of the eunuchs. But if your not fond of the gentry, as they were not, finding another faction (as well as the other attempts to build influence I mentioned) is the logical choice.
Yep, those ones. It is true it started when Ling was a kid. He was the one though that kept it up till 184 and actually went a lot harder when the gentry asked the, by then adult, Ling to ease up.
Fine. I will give you Huan. But I still doubt that he was as influential or powerful as 3k rulers when it came to political power. As for Ling, Chen Fan died because he plotted against Eunuchs so I dont see how Ling would be scarred?
Source that he went harder? Wiki states:
As the Han government became more corrupt, the people received heavier tax burdens. As Emperor Ling grew older, he not only took no remedial action, but continued to tolerate the eunuchs' corruption for the most part. A major defeat of the Han army by the Xianbei tribes in 177 further drained the imperial treasury.
In 178, Emperor Ling introduced the practice of selling political offices for money – a practice which severely damaged the Han civil service system and led to widespread corruption. The people who paid for these positions perpetuated corruption upon taking office. That was exactly what Emperor Ling had in mind: he allowed the officials to pay by instalments after taking office if they could not afford the initial amount.
During these years, Emperor Ling became interested in building imperial gardens so he ordered the commandery and principality officials throughout the Han Empire to pay their tributes to him directly, so he could use the money to finance his construction projects. This, in turn, created pressures on the officials to resort to corrupt practices so they could extract a larger tribute from their jurisdictions for the emperor. In spite of all his flaws, Emperor Ling occasionally heeded good advice from his subjects but was not consistent in doing so. His subjects often found it frustrating to try to convince him on policy issues because he only listened to them when he wanted to.
So Ling at best listened to good advice occassionally and if anything got along nice with the gentry considering that he selled positions and allowed them to pay in installments.
At worst, he just didnt care and wanted them to give him money for his fancy buildings.
Nothing about him going hard on gentry because of partisan prohibition.
So source?
but men murdering their wives seems a lot rarer then Empresses. Divorce was possible (though after Guangwu, does seem like something Emperors didn't feel was viable for them) ala Cao Cao and Lady Ding, Liu Bei and SSX, Cao Pi and Madam Ren (kinda) but isn't it telling Cao Pi killed her in the manner of an Empress?
Wrong? Most Emperor dont murder main wife because main wife usually become Empress. Not telling because inprisoning an official wife =! Killing an official Empress.