Regent and general-in-chief for one season, empress-dowager's kinsman; betrayed by the officers he trusted, he died outside the capital rather than be taken.
The eunuchs of the inner palace and their kin in the provinces have filled the offices and sold the law. If these are not swept away the Han cannot be set right, and I will not rest while they are standing.the substance of Dou Wu's memorials against the eunuch ring during his regency, 168 CE; Hou Han shu, Hereditary Biography of Dou Wu — the memoir's charge rendered in his person, not its sentence
Appears in
Relations
- Chen Fan colleagues — Regent and Grand Tutor for one season, chosen together, delayed together, exposed in the market together.
- Dou Xian successor — The house of Dou made an emperor's in-law twice and was cut down twice, in 92 and again in 168, both by the throne's own coup.
- Zhang Rang enemies — He began the work the ring survived; after his death its men wrote their own enemies into his case.
Myth vs record
Dou Wu fell in 168 as Dou Xian fell in 92: a kinsman of the empress, raised by the court and destroyed by it, father and son on the same bloody wheel.
Same house, not same household, and three-quarters of a century apart: both men were of the Dou of Pingling raised on Dou Rong's service, and each fell to an emperor's coup, one in 92 and one in 168 — the interval is exactly what makes the pair worth reading together. What the two disasters share is the shape: imperial in-laws who hold the throne's minority, hesitate, and are taken alive at the gates. Dou Wu's end was not battle glory either — he was cut down outside the northern gate, his body exposed in the market, his house sent to the northern garrisons.