刘贤 / Liu Xian, Crown Prince of Wu (Western Han)

Overview

刘贤 / Liu Xian is presented as the heir of 吴王刘濞 whose death during a Chang’an board-game quarrel with the future 汉景帝 becomes an early personal grievance behind Wu’s later estrangement from the central court.

Current Profile

Hanji 231 part 1 says Liu Xian travels to Chang’an during 汉文帝’s reign and drinks and plays a board game with crown prince Liu Qi. After losing, he reportedly overturns the board and speaks disrespectfully; Liu Qi responds by striking him with a gaming board or wooden gaming implement and kills him.

The political afterlife matters more than the episode’s character judgment. The court returns Liu Xian’s coffin to Wu, but Liu Bi sends it back to Chang’an on the ground that a son killed there should be buried there. The exchange converts a court death into reciprocal public rebuke, after which Liu Bi avoids attendance and accumulates fear and resentment toward the center.

Liu Xian therefore enters the wiki as a casualty and grievance node, not as an independently reconstructed political actor. His conduct may help explain the immediate quarrel in the episode, but it does not justify the killing or establish that his death by itself caused the Rebellion of the Seven States.

Key Characteristics

• Heir of the Wu kingdom and son of Liu Bi.
• Royal visitor to Chang’an during Emperor Wen’s reign.
• Participant in a drunken board-game quarrel with the future Han Jingdi.
• Killed by the crown prince after disrespect and physical escalation in the episode’s account.
• Posthumous center of a coffin-and-burial dispute between Wu and Chang’an.
• Personal-loss trigger in Liu Bi’s longer estrangement from the court.

Evidence

Death in Chang’an:

• Hanji 231 part 1 reports the drinking, game, disrespect, overturned board, retaliatory blow, and death.

Political afterlife:

• Hanji 231 part 1 says the court sends his coffin to Wu and Liu Bi returns it to Chang’an, after which relations deteriorate.

Qualifications

The current profile rests on one compact popular-history episode. Liu Xian’s age, mother, wider life, formal title, conduct, exact game, intoxication, words, killing instrument, burial place, and posthumous treatment remain source-scoped. The episode’s moral description of him as a poor loser is not a complete character assessment. His death is one grievance in a larger rebellion prehistory, not a sufficient explanation for the later war.

What Changed

• Created Liu Xian as the distinct Wu heir killed before Liu Qi became emperor.
• Separated the immediate quarrel from the later political use and memory of his death.

Relationships

• 吴王刘濞 - father whose grief and humiliation turn the death into a court grievance.
• 汉景帝 - opposing crown prince who kills Liu Xian in the episode’s account.
• 汉文帝 - reigning emperor whose court later attempts to calm Liu Bi.
• 吴国 - royal territory to which the coffin is first returned.
• 七国之乱 - later conflict for which Liu Xian’s death is a personal prehistory rather than a complete cause.