Empress Zhang Yan


Zhang Yan, known formally as Empress Xiaohui was an empress during the Han Dynasty. She was the daughter of Princess Yuan of Lu and her husband Zhang Ao, the Prince of Zhao and later Marquess of Xuanping.

Biography

In 192 BC, at the insistence of then-Empress Dowager Lü, Lady Yan married her uncle Emperor Hui, the son of Emperor Gao and Empress Dowager Lü, and she was created empress. The marriage was a childless one. At Empress Dowager Lü's instruction, Empress Zhang took several male children as her own and killed their mothers.
When Emperor Hui died in 188 BC at the age of 22, one of the children that Empress Zhang adopted became emperor, but Grand Empress Dowager Lü had effective total control of the imperial government. Empress Zhang, was not made empress dowager as this title was retained by Empress Dowager Lü who never claimed the title Grand Empress Dowager and did not appear to have significant influence. Nevertheless, when Emperor Qianshao found out in 184 BC that he was not actually her child, he made a careless comment that he would take vengeance on her—at which Empress Dowager Lü had him deposed and executed, and replaced him with his brother Liu Hong, who was also adopted by Empress Zhang. It was during Emperor Qianshao's reign that Empress Zhang's brother Zhang Yan was created the Prince of Lu.
After Empress Dowager Lü died in 180 BC, and the Lü clan overthrown and slaughtered by the officials opposed to the Lüs in the Lü Clan Disturbance, Emperor Houshao was deposed and killed. Empress Zhang was not killed, but she was put under house arrest in a palace to the north after being deposed from her position as empress and henceforth referred to as Empress Hui. Her brother, the Prince of Lu, was also deposed and reduced in rank to Marquess of Nangong. After this no records exist of her later life until her death. Empress Zhang died in 163 BC and was buried with her husband of merely four years.

Family