Liu Chen

The chapter's title character: 'Weeping At The Ancestral Temple, A Filial Prince Dies' is about him. Fifth son of the Latter Ruler, Prince of Beidi, 'the ablest, and the only one above the common level of people'. Steps out from behind a screen to shout down Qiao Zhou — 'You corrupt pedant, unfit to live among people! How dare you offer such mad advice in a matter concerning the existence of a dynasty?' — and makes the only strategic argument anyone offers: the city still holds many legions, Jiang Wei is undefeated at Saber Pass and will come. Told he is too young to understand Heaven's will, he beats his head on the ground: 'If we have done our best and defeat yet comes, if parents and children, lords and ministers have set their backs to the wall and died in one final effort to preserve the dynasty, then in the shades of the Nine Golden Springs we shall be able to look the First Ruler in the face, unashamed. But what if we surrender?' Thrust out of the Palace. When the date of the abdication is fixed he girds on his sword, watches his wife kill herself rather than let him go first, kills his three sons and cuts off her head so that nothing can tempt him to live, carries it to the Temple of the First Ruler, announces himself to his ancestors, 'wept sore till his eyes ran blood', and takes his own life. 'While such a memory lingers none may say / That the Han Dynasty has perished.'