刘度 / Liu Du (late Han)

Overview

刘度 / Liu Du is a source-bounded late-Han Jingzhou inspector in the 162 CE southern crisis. He is currently important less for a full biography than for a failure pattern: defeat by rebels is followed by flight, leaving later officials such as 李肃 to face, and fail, a widening provincial emergency.

Current Profile

Liu Du appears in Hanji 856 as Jingzhou inspector during the southern unrest that spreads through Changsha, Lingling, Wuling, and related commanderies. He is defeated alongside envoy 马睦 and flees. The source then escalates the failure through Li Su’s attempted abandonment of Nan Commandery and killing of Hu Shuang.

Liu Du’s role shows that provincial title alone is not a crisis-stabilizing center. The inspectorate should coordinate local defense, but in this case the named inspector becomes part of the collapse. Emperor Huan reduces Liu Du’s death penalty by one degree, so the source distinguishes his failure from Li Su’s killing of a remonstrating subordinate while still marking it as punishable dereliction.

Key Characteristics

• Jingzhou inspector during the 162 CE southern rebellion crisis.
• Defeated together with envoy Ma Mu in the Ai County rebel branch.
• Flees after defeat, weakening provincial command credibility.
• Punished but spared execution through a one-degree reduction of the death penalty.
• Comparative failure case between ordinary battlefield defeat and Li Su’s harsher dereliction.

Evidence

• Office and setting: Hanji 856 identifies Liu Du as Jingzhou inspector amid the 162 CE southern unrest.
• Defeat and flight: Hanji 856 pairs Liu Du with Ma Mu in defeat and flight.
• Punishment: Hanji 856 records Emperor Huan reducing Liu Du’s death penalty by one degree.
• Contrast with Li Su: Hanji 856 follows Liu Du’s flight with Li Su’s killing of Hu Shuang and execution, creating a graded failure sequence.

Qualifications

This page is limited to Liu Du’s 162 CE Jingzhou crisis role. The transcript form “刘渡” is normalized to 刘度 from the received historical sequence. No relation is inferred to other Liu Du figures without source evidence.

What Changed

• Created this source-bounded page from Hanji 856.
• Recorded Liu Du as the provincial-inspector layer of the southern command-collapse chain.

Relationships

• 马睦 - envoy defeated and fleeing alongside Liu Du.
• 李肃 - later southern failure case whose punishment is harsher than Liu Du’s.
• 胡爽 - duty contrast whose remonstrance exposes what Liu Du’s flight lacks.
• 荆州 - province Liu Du is responsible for as inspector during the crisis.
• 情绪不外露的战略纪律 - negative case where pressure turns fear into visible retreat.