成帝五侯 / Chengdi Five Marquises (Western Han)

Overview

成帝五侯 / Chengdi Five Marquises enter the wiki through Hanji 511 as the five younger brothers of 王政君 whom 汉成帝 enfeoffs on the same day in 27 BCE.

Current Profile

The group is a compact outer-relative reward bloc. The episode names 王谭, 王商, 王立, 王根, and 王逢 as the five, while noting that Wang Zhengjun’s same-father brother 王曼 had died earlier. The significance is less any single office than the public spectacle of maternal-family concentration.

Key Characteristics

• Five Wang-family brothers enfeoffed by Chengdi on the same day.
• Identified as Wang Zhengjun’s same-father brothers other than Wang Man.
• Function as a visible marker of Wang-family outer-relative privilege.

Evidence

• Same-day enfeoffment: Hanji 511 says Chengdi enfeoffs Wang Tan, Wang Shang, Wang Li, Wang Gen, and Wang Feng / 王逢 as marquises in June 27 BCE.
• Group label: Hanji 511 says people called them the Five Marquises because they were enfeoffed together.
• Family boundary: Hanji 511 says only Wang Man had died earlier among Wang Zhengjun’s same-father brothers.

Qualifications

This page is source-scoped to Hanji 511. It does not reconstruct all five titles or later office histories. It keeps 王逢 separate from the already established 王凤 page.

What Changed

• Created Chengdi Five Marquises from Hanji 511’s same-day Wang-family enfeoffment.

Relationships

• 王政君 - elder sister and dowager source of the group’s political significance.
• 汉成帝 - ruler who enfeoffs the five.
• 王谭, 王商, 王立, 王根, and 王逢 - individual Wang-family figures grouped by the episode.
• 外戚预防性约束 - contrasting concept because the group shows honor turning into concentrated kinship privilege rather than being restrained.
• 外戚专权与清算 - downstream danger field to which concentrated natal-family rewards can contribute.