The boy who attached himself to Liu Xiu in the capital's college, rode north to tell him an empire was there for the taking, and was made Grand Minister over the Masses in the field at twenty-four with a fief of ten thousand households. His house was still choosing emperors in 106 CE.
He consulted Deng Yu about every general he employed, and Deng Yu's picks all fitted the post, so the emperor was known for knowing men.His colleagues' verdict on the emperor's judgment, which is also a verdict on him — Hou Han shu, juan 16, Biography of Deng Yu; juan 1 lower
Appears in
Relations
- Emperor Guangwu commander — He attached himself to Liu Xiu in the capital's college, rode north to tell him an empire was there for the taking, and was made Grand Minister over the Masses in the field at twenty-four with a fief of ten thousand households.
- Feng Yi colleagues — The two men stand in the same month of the record: the twenty-four-year-old as Grand Minister over the Masses, and the surrendered prefect of five walled counties as the army's model of good order — while the eleven former emperors' spirit tablets had to be carried east by Deng Yu's staff.
Myth vs record
The restored Han was governed by the veteran generals who won it.
Its first cabinet is the opposite of that, and the record dates it to a single month: a twenty-four-year-old as Grand Minister over the Masses with a fief of ten thousand households, a horse-dealer as Marshal-in-Chief, a district official of Yewang as Grand Minister of Works, and the old man made Senior Grand Tutor had once been a county clerk. What the book credits the emperor with is not fighting but placement — he ran every general he employed past Deng Yu, and the picks fitted. Deng Yu's own house was still choosing emperors in 106 CE.