Chinese Empire

How Chinese Emperors Were Chosen

The question of how a Chinese emperor was chosen sounds, on first hearing, like a question with an obvious answer: a son succeeded his father. But the reality was far more complicated, and the complication is one of the most important features of Chinese imperial history. Out of the roughly 350 emperors who reigned between 221 BCE and 1912 CE, only a minority were born as the eldest son, formally designated as Crown Prince, and succeeded to the throne in their father’s lifetime without incident. Many more were chosen by force, by faction, by adoption, by usurpation, or by the accident of a child’s survival.

This article surveys the mechanisms by which Chinese emperors actually came to the throne: the designated heir, primogeniture, the empress dowager as regent, abdication both voluntary and forced, and the usurpation that founded new dynasties. The companion piece on the role of the empress dowager treats the most important mechanism in greater detail, and the comprehensive overview of the institution is in the section on Chinese emperors and imperial power.

The Designated Heir

In the early dynasties, the most important mechanism was the designation of an heir by the reigning emperor. The heir might be a son, a brother, a nephew, or even a non-relative. The designated heir received the title of Crown Prince (太子, tàizǐ) and was formally presented to the court. In practice, however, designation often did not settle the question, because the emperor could change his mind, and powerful factions could intrigue against the heir.

The Hongwu emperor of the Ming designated his grandson Jianwen as heir, bypassing several sons. The result was the Jingnan Campaign of 1399–1402, in which the fourth son, the future Yongle emperor, launched a civil war against his nephew and seized the throne. The Kangxi emperor of the Qing kept the question of his heir open for decades, and the uncertainty produced a long post-mortem struggle. Designation was necessary but not sufficient.

Primogeniture and Its Discontents

The principle of primogeniture — that the eldest legitimate son should inherit — was the Confucian ideal, and several dynasties tried to enshrine it formally. The Hongwu emperor of the Ming wrote a primogeniture rule into his ancestral instructions; the Kangxi emperor tried to make the eldest son the default heir. But in practice primogeniture was honoured as often as it was broken.

The cases where primogeniture worked are notable because they were unusual. The Kangxi-to-Yongzheng transition of 1722 was nominally primogeniture (Yongzheng was the fourth son, but the elder sons had predeceased Kangxi or been passed over). The Qianlong-to-Jiaqing transition in 1796 was straightforward father-to-son succession. The Han Wudi-to-Han Zhao transition in 87 BCE was a designated primogeniture that worked.

Factional Struggles

The designated heir had rivals, and every succession was accompanied by a struggle between the heir’s faction and the factions of the other sons or brothers. The Crown Prince was a formal office, with his own household, his own officials, and a special place in court ritual. The position was coveted, but it was also dangerous. Crown Princes were deposed, killed, or forced to commit suicide with depressing regularity.

Some examples illustrate the pattern. The Crown Prince Yinreng of the Kangxi emperor was twice imprisoned and eventually died under house arrest. The Crown Prince Li Jiancheng of the Tang was killed by his brother Taizong in the Xuanwu Gate Incident of 626. The Crown Prince Yinzhen of the Kangxi emperor was one of many candidates, and his eventual succession was contested until the moment of the old emperor’s death. The factions that surrounded these contests typically included the consort families (the maternal relatives of the various princes), the eunuch establishment, and the senior ministers of the bureaucracy. In every case, the new emperor had to assemble a coalition of these groups, and the losers were usually purged.

The Empress Dowager as Regent

The most consequential figure in many successions was the empress dowager, the emperor’s mother. When an emperor died and was succeeded by a minor son, the empress dowager usually became regent (攝政, shèzhèng), exercising sovereign power on behalf of the child. The arrangement was dangerous because the regent often became the real ruler, and the young emperor on reaching his majority sometimes had the regent killed in a counter-coup.

The pattern of female regency is one of the most distinctive features of Chinese imperial history. The Empress Dowager Lü dominated the early Western Han and nearly established a new dynasty. Empress Dowager Wu — later Wu Zetian — dominated the late Tang and eventually took the throne in her own name. Empress Dowager Cixi dominated the late Qing for nearly fifty years. The phenomenon is examined in detail see our the role of the empress dowager

Abdication: Voluntary and Forced

The Chinese political tradition developed a unique concept of peaceful abdication (禪讓, shànràng) in favour of a more virtuous successor. The legendary examples of Emperor Yao yielding to Shun and Shun to Yu shaped the Chinese imagination, and the principle that a virtuous ruler should yield to a still more virtuous one remained a recurrent theme. In practice, however, almost every historical abdication was forced, and the formula was used by founders of new dynasties to legitimise their seizure of power.

Cao Pi forced the last Han emperor to abdicate in 220 CE, founding the Wei. Sima Yan forced the last Wei emperor to abdicate in 265, founding the Jin. Yang Jian forced the last Northern Zhou emperor to abdicate in 581, founding the Sui. Zhao Kuangyin accepted a similar arrangement in 960 to found the Song. Zhu Yuanzhang accepted the abdication of the last Yuan claimant in 1368 to found the Ming. And Puyi, the last emperor, formally abdicated in 1912 in a ceremony that explicitly invoked the ancient ideal, even though the actual handover was by force of arms.

Usurpation and the Founding of New Dynasties

When a dynasty was exhausted and a powerful general or rebel leader had the means to seize the throne, the formula of abdication was used to clothe the takeover in legitimacy. The new ruler would publish a list of the old dynasty’s crimes, demonstrate that it had lost the Mandate of Heaven, and accept a “voluntary” abdication. The pattern was so common that historians have a specific term for it: the “borrowing of the Mandate” (假天命, jiǎ tiānmìng).

The most successful usurpations founded new dynasties that lasted centuries. The Sima family took the throne from the Wei in 265 and founded the Jin. Yang Jian took it from the Northern Zhou in 581 to found the Sui. Zhao Kuangyin took it from the Later Zhou in 960 to found the Song. Zhu Yuanzhang took it from the Yuan in 1368 to found the Ming. And the Aisin Gioro took it from the Ming in 1644 to found the Qing. In every case, the formula preserved the principle that the transfer was legitimate, even though the actual mechanism was force.

The Rarity of Peaceful Transitions

The most striking feature of Chinese imperial succession is the rarity of peaceful transitions. Of the roughly 350 emperors who reigned, only a small minority died in office of natural causes after a stable reign. Many were murdered, forced to abdicate, starved, or killed in childhood by palace eunuchs. The very instability of succession was, paradoxically, a source of dynastic resilience: every new emperor, however he came to the throne, was expected to perform the rituals of legitimation, accept the Mandate, and continue the dynastic cycle. The pattern was most pronounced in the late phases of each dynasty, when the imperial family was exhausted, the institutions were corrupt, and the population was restless. The boy-emperor system was not inherently unstable — the Kangxi emperor came to the throne at seven and became one of the greatest rulers in Chinese history — but it was vulnerable. The full story of the institution is told in the section on Chinese emperors and imperial power.