Partisan Prohibitions: purges of scholar-officials

In 159 Emperor Huan broke the power of the domineering Liang Ji, brother of the former regent Empress Dowager Liang, with the help of five eunuchs and rewarded them with high office. Their corruption drove officials to unite against them, and the students of the Imperial University in Luoyang hailed these officials as heroes. The crisis came in 166: Li Ying, governor of the capital province, executed a murderer in defiance of an amnesty; eunuchs friendly to the murderer’s family accused Li and his allies of inciting the students against the government, and Emperor Huan had Li, the ministers Du Mi and Chen Xiang and some 200 students arrested. The annals of Emperor Huan record the arrests under the twelfth month of the ninth year of Yanxi, which fell at the turn of 166 and 167 (early 167 in the Julian calendar). It was this arrest order that coined the name “partisans” (dangren). In the summer of 167, after Dou Wu interceded, they were released and sent home but stripped of their civil rights, including the right to hold office, for life.

When Huan died in January 168, the regent Empress Dowager Dou restored the partisans, and her father Dou Wu and Chen Fan planned to destroy the leading eunuchs. The eunuchs struck first: Chen Fan was executed, Dou Wu killed himself, and in 169 the eunuchs persuaded the young Emperor Ling that the partisans were plotting rebellion. Li Ying, Du Mi, Fan Pang and others were executed — about a hundred people in all — and the restrictions on the rest were tightened, while men such as Yuan Shao and Kong Rong helped fugitives to hide. The court remained in the hands of the eunuchs. Only in 184, after the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out, did the eunuch Lü Qiang persuade Emperor Ling to pardon the partisans and restore their rights.