Liu Xiu is a famous prophecy person with vested interests.

At the beginning, he conquered Kunyang, conquered Handan, and occupied territory across states, with millions of soldiers. When he was touring Hebei, when he got to Zhongshan, someone tried to persuade him to proclaim himself emperor, but he said no. When he got to Pingji, everyone tried to persuade him, but he still refused. When he got to the small place of Chao, his classmates from the Taixue dormitory came to him and offered him a gift. A book called "Chi Fu Fu" recorded a mysterious prophecy: "Liu Xiu sent troops to capture the enemy, but the barbarians gathered in Long Dou Ye. On April 7th, fire will dominate." When Liu Xiu took a look, it turned out to be God. Everyone urged me to become emperor, so I ascended the throne and proclaimed myself emperor in Qianqiu Pavilion in this county.

In his memorial to Heaven, he said that he was still very aggrieved. Everyone tried to persuade me several times. I didn’t want to be the emperor at first, but “Liu Xiu sent troops to arrest people but failed to do so, and spent gold and cultivate virtue to become the emperor.”——God What he meant was so straightforward, I could only feel embarrassed.

Liu Xiu was so excited when he saw this book, as if he had just learned about it, but according to the records in "Book of the Later Han Dynasty", he had already known that his name appeared in the prophecy.

In "The Book of the Later Han: Biography of Deng Chen", in the last years of Wang Mang, Liu Xiu and his brother heard a group of people talking about "Liu Xiu should be the emperor" in Wancheng. Everyone was guessing who this Liu Xiu was. , some people ask, is it Liu Xiu, the national teacher? Liu Xiu continued, "How did you know it wasn't me?" As a result, a group of people laughed.

This shows that Liu Xiu knew this prophecy at least when Wang Mang was in his reign, but unfortunately no one believed it was him, but thought it was the national teacher Liu Xiu.

The national advisor Liu Xiu was actually originally named Liu Xin. He changed his name to Liu Xiu in the first year of Jianping of the Eastern Han Dynasty.

At this time, he was still the doctor of Guanglu Temple.

Neither "Hanshu" nor "Zizhi Tongjian" mentioned the reason for his name change.

However, the Ying Shao annotation of the Eastern Han Dynasty explained that it was because Liu Xin saw the book "Chifu Fu" at that time that he decided to change his name to Liu Xiu, with the purpose of going public through a backdoor.

In other words, the saying that Liu Xiu should be the emperor existed in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Coincidentally, in December of this year, in Chenliu County, five hundred miles away from Luoyang, the county magistrate's third son was born.

Because of the auspiciousness of one crop and nine ears of corn appearing in the county, the county magistrate named the child Xiu. He was also a member of the Han clan, and his surname was Liu. This is how the trademark Liu Xiu was registered. .

It’s a bit weird to say this. Some scholars have verified that Liu Xin changed his name to Liu Xiu at this time. In fact, it was because Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne that year. Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty was named Liu Xin. Liu Xin and Liu Xin have the same pronunciation, so he That's why he changed his name to Liu Xiu, which has nothing to do with "Chi Fu Fu".

But later Wang Mang ascended the throne and established a new dynasty, and Liu Xin (should be called Liu Xiu at this time) was also named a national advisor by Wang Mang. But Liu Xin was a person who received hints from God, and his ideal was to be an emperor. It turned out that this was a misunderstanding, and Liu Xin was eventually executed - feudal superstition really kills people.

One of Liu Xin’s fans, the alchemist Ximen Junhui, firmly believed that Liu Xiubi should be the emperor. Until the end when he was taken to the execution ground, he was still promoting "Liu Xiuzhen is your bet."

There is a question. Doesn’t he know that Liu Xin is finished? If you promote this to the onlookers, isn’t that deceiving yourself and others?

Of course not. The reason why Ximen Junhui promoted it so vigorously was because he believed in the "Revival of the Liu Family"

In fact, Ximen Junhui was the first to instigate Wang Mang's Wei general Wang She. At that time, what he said was: "When the star sweeps the palace, the Liu family will be revived, and the name of the national preceptor is also" - that is to say, when the comet sweeps, the Liu family will be revived, and then he said that Liu Xin was the person who answered the prophecy.

Liu’s revival—this was the mainstream argument at the time.

Because after becoming emperor, Wang Mang committed suicide every day, either blindly reforming or messing around. Everyone naturally missed the previous Han Dynasty. At that time, there were various rumors that the Han Dynasty was revived and the Liu family was once again in charge of the world.

All the rebel armies raised banners under the banner of the Liu family. The Green Forest Army supported Liu Xuan, the Red Eyebrow Army found the shepherd boy Liu Penzi to support him and proclaimed himself emperor, and the banner raised by Kuai Xiao was also " "Reviving Liu Zong", Gongsun Shu of Sichuan initially found someone to dress up as an envoy of the Han Dynasty and appointed him as a general to assist the Han Dynasty. Wang Lang became emperor in Handan and even changed his name to Liu Ziyu - "more than ten years later , Harassment from both outside and inside, from far and near, with false names, nicknamed Liu family, and the same name."

These people coincidentally used the Liu family's banner, which shows how popular they were at that time. Wang, but these people just used the character Liu and did not mention the name Liu Xiu.

In fact, the Grand Master Liu Xin may not believe that Liu Xiu should be the emperor. When Wang She said that he would support him, Liu Xin said that he would "surrender the emperor of Nanyang from the east" - the history books deliberately recorded this , creating a sense of mystery, because Liu Xiu was from Nanyang, making everyone think that Liu Xin was talking about him. In fact, if Liu Xin really said that, the Nanyang Emperor should also be referring to the Gengshi Emperor Liu Xuan supported by the Green Forest Army. Liu Xiu was only one of his generals, and his elder brother Liu Yan had higher prestige than him in all aspects. , there is no way he should be missed.

Liu Xin himself recognized the character Liu, not the name Liu Xiu.

Another point is that later, Gengshi Emperor Liu Xuan was suspicious of the heroes and worried that they would snatch his position. The first person to kill was Liu Xiu's brother Liu Yan. If he had known about this prophecy, he would have taken action against Liu Xiu long ago. .

So, in this case, "Liu Xiu should be the emperor" is a lie made up by Emperor Guangwu on behalf of his roommates?

It is too arbitrary to say this. I think this statement exists, but this statement is a supplement to the "Liu Family Revival".

Since the Liu family is going to be revived, it is natural that the Liu family should be the emperor.

What kind of person from the Liu family should be the emperor?

The Liu family are handsome people!

The so-called Liu Xiu, the chosen one, does not refer to a specific person, but a handsome member of the Liu family who should be the emperor. Because of the revival of the Han Dynasty, naturally a handsome member of the Liu family will become the emperor.

Later, he casually said that Liu Xiu was the emperor. Everyone knew that this show was an excellent show and not Liu Xiu's show, so they didn't take it seriously.

It just so happened that Emperor Guangwu was really named Liu Xiu. According to the logic of survivor bias, everyone naturally regarded this Liu Xiu as that Liu Xiu.

Coupled with the deliberate exaggeration of Liu Xiu himself, forging books like "Chi Fu Fu" to create public opinion, everyone has forgotten the original meaning of Liu Xiu.