The emperor's nephew and the second chancellor of these eleven months. He won the street war, and was cut in two afterwards on a fresh charge of witchcraft.
The chancellor who divided the seal and held the capital's streets against the crown prince, and was loaded in a provision-cart and cut in two in the eastern market some months later on a fresh charge of the same witchcraft.The record of Liu Quli; the histories give no speech of his; Hanshu, juan 66, Biographies of Gongsun He, Liu Quli, Tian Qianqiu and others; the street war also in juan 6 and juan 63
Appears in
Relations
- Liu Ju enemies — He was the emperor's nephew and the chancellor who took the order to make his ramparts of ox-carts and kill and wound in numbers, and whose five days broke the prince's hold on the city.
- Emperor Wu commander — His lord's letter to him during the fighting put being the emperor's nephew aside: did not the Duke of Zhou execute his own brothers?
Myth vs record
The story you may know
Liu Quli was a stanch defender of the throne who fell to a later intrigue.
What the sources say
He did win the street war for his uncle, and the record dates the five days and the tens of thousands dead to his command. But it also gives him a bargain struck with the general Li Guangli at the Wei bridge to make a rival prince heir, and makes his own end a charge of the very crime he had been suppressing: his wife accused of sacrificing at the soil-altar and cursing the emperor, he was paraded through the town and cut in two, his family's heads on the Huayang street (Hanshu, juan 66; juan 6).