西汉常山国 / Changshan Kingdom (Western Han)

Overview

西汉常山国 / Changshan Kingdom is the Western Han vassal kingdom and royal title line presented through successive royal outcomes and the household-investigation crisis that ends the kingship in 114 BCE.

Current Profile

The episode supplies a royal-outcome sequence rather than an administrative history. Liu Buyi dies soon after transfer to the title, Liu Hong is killed amid a disputed-parentage purge, 刘顺 rules for thirty-two years under paternal favor, and Liu Shun’s son Liu Bo is soon deposed. The title is then said to lapse until the Eastern Han.

Hanji 342-2 now explains the final removal. Liu Shun’s divided household, 刘棁’s exclusion, 刘勃’s alleged mourning violations, and his interference with 张骞’s investigation turn a family grievance into a central-court case. Deposition ends the royal line and Changshan becomes a commandery, while separate grants to Liu Ping and Liu Shang preserve other branches of Liu Shun’s descendants.

The sequence still makes Changshan the organizing center of a “cursed title” story, but Hanji 342-2 supplies a political and legal mechanism for the last case rather than supernatural causation. The polity’s geography, offices, revenues, and ordinary local administration remain outside the supplied accounts.

Key Characteristics

• Western Han vassal kingdom represented through a succession of same-surname kings.
• Presented through royal deaths, killing, indulgence, and deposition rather than territorial administration.
• Includes Liu Shun’s unusually long thirty-two-year reign as a partial exception to the title’s ominous pattern.
• Ends through a combined household, mourning, and investigation crisis rather than title fate alone.
• Associated in the episode with 高庄汉墓 through the proposed burial of Liu Shun.
• Converted from a vassal kingship into a commandery after Liu Bo’s deposition.

Evidence

Royal succession pattern:

• Hanji 342-1 names Liu Buyi, Liu Hong, Liu Shun, and Liu Bo as Western Han holders of the Changshan title and summarizes their different outcomes.

Long reign and burial connection:

• Hanji 342-1 gives Liu Shun a thirty-two-year reign and reports an archaeological attribution of Gaozhuang to him.

Title discontinuity:

• Hanji 342-1 says Liu Bo’s deposition is followed by a gap in use of the Changshan title until the Eastern Han.
• Hanji 342-2 links the abolition to the Liu Bo case and reports new grants for his brothers Liu Ping and Liu Shang.

Household-to-central escalation:

• Hanji 342-2 shows an inheritance grievance reaching a Han envoy and escalating through a centrally commissioned investigation.

Qualifications

This profile is bounded to two short popular-history episodes. It does not reconstruct the kingdom’s location, foundation, institutions, population, economic base, complete king list, or ordinary government. The received chronicle’s conversion of Changshan into a commandery should not be confused with a general end to Liu Shun’s descendants: the later Zhengding and Sishui grants relocate dynastic continuity rather than restore the Changshan kingship.

What Changed

• Added the household accusation, central investigation, and commandery-conversion mechanism behind the final deposition.
• Distinguished abolition of the Changshan kingship from later grants to other sons of Liu Shun.

Relationships

• 常山宪王刘舜 / Liu Shun, King of Changshan (Western Han) - long-reigning king whose life partially resists, and whose burial completes, the episode’s ominous pattern.
• 常山王刘勃 / Liu Bo, King of Changshan (Western Han) - final king whose deposition ends the Western Han royal line.
• 刘棁 / Liu Zhuo (Western Han Changshan) - excluded royal son whose accusation opens the final case.
• 居丧行为法律化 / Mourning Conduct Legalization - legal-ritual frame through which royal private conduct becomes dynastic consequence.
• 高庄汉墓 / Gaozhuang Han Tomb - royal tomb attributed by the episode to Liu Shun.
• 汉景帝 / Emperor Jing of Han - emperor and father whose favor protects Liu Shun during his reign.
• 封号诅咒叙事 / Cursed Title Narrative - narrative device through which heterogeneous royal outcomes are treated as one title’s fate.