庞参 / Pang Can (late Han)

Overview

Pang Can is presented in Hanji 815 as a highly reputed late-Han taiwei whose public standing cannot protect him once household failure becomes usable political evidence.

Current Profile

Pang Can’s profile combines moral reputation, court isolation, and domestic vulnerability. The source says that officials and common people praised his loyalty and uprightness, but slanderers repeatedly attacked him and a conflict around one of his recommended men gave the Sili xiaowei grounds to impeach him. Pang avoided the formal meeting by claiming illness, which prompted Duan Gongcheng to memorialize in his defense.

The decisive shift comes from Pang’s household. His current wife fears and resents a son from Pang’s former wife and throws the boy into a well, killing him. Zhu Liang, the Luoyang magistrate, uses the case to impeach Pang; Emperor Shun then dismisses Pang in the seventh month under a disaster-and-epidemic frame, after previously sending palace envoys with gifts to inquire about his illness.

Key Characteristics

• High office and reputation do not remove exposure to impeachment when household discipline collapses.
• Public moral capital can still generate a defense channel: Duan Gongcheng cites popular praise and warns against harming loyal ministers.
• Pang’s weakness is less policy failure than a combined vulnerability of isolation, slander pressure, avoidance, and domestic scandal.
• The case turns family governance into state-office liability because the magistrate can convert a household murder into an impeachment route.
• His dismissal creates the transition point for Shi Yan to become taiwei.

Evidence

• Household scandal as political liability: Hanji 815 says Pang’s current wife kills the son of his former wife by throwing him into a well, after which Zhu Liang impeaches him and Pang is dismissed.
• Moral reputation and public defense: Hanji 815 has Duan Gongcheng report that common people praise Pang’s loyalty and that harming loyal good people is a grave ruler error.
• Court isolation and slander pressure: Hanji 815 frames Pang as trapped among flattering officials and repeatedly endangered by accusation.

Qualifications

The page is currently bounded to a single 133 CE episode. The source does not identify Pang’s murdered son or wife by name, and it does not give Pang’s full earlier career. The dismissal is presented alongside disaster and epidemic conditions, so the household scandal is political leverage inside a broader omen-and-accountability idiom rather than the only stated reason.

What Changed

• Created the page because Hanji 815 makes Pang Can central rather than merely source-scoped.
• Established the household-scandal case as evidence for 家门失范政治连带.
• Linked Pang’s dismissal to Duan Gongcheng’s defense, Zhu Liang’s impeachment, Emperor Shun’s response, and Shi Yan’s succession.

Relationships

• 汉顺帝 / Emperor Shun of Han - ruler who first sends comfort gifts through palace envoys and then dismisses Pang after the impeachment context changes.
• 段恭诚 / Duan Gongcheng (late Han) - defender who tries to convert public praise into protection for Pang.
• 朱良 / Zhu Liang (Luoyang magistrate, late Han) - magistrate who turns Pang’s household murder scandal into impeachment leverage.
• 施延 / Shi Yan (late Han) - successor as taiwei after Pang’s dismissal.
• Household Misconduct Political Liability / 家门失范政治连带 - concept exemplified by Pang’s domestic scandal becoming a public-office vulnerability.
• Moral Reputation as Political Capital / 道德名望政治资本 - related pattern because Pang’s reputation creates a defense resource but not decisive protection.