Dong Xian | |
---|---|
Born | 23 BCE |
Died | 1 BCE |
Occupation | Commander of the armed forces |
Spouse(s) | Married |
Partner(s) | Emperor Ai of Han |
Dong Xian () (23 BC(?) – 1 BC) was a Han Dynasty politician who quickly rose from obscurity as a minor official to being the most powerful official in the imperial administration of Emperor Ai within a span of a few years.
Most scholars agree that Dong's quick career advancement came mostly because of his personal relationship with Emperor Ai, likely a sexual one, rather than a demonstration of abilities. Both men were married to women, but Emperor Ai, at least, was childless.
An idiomatic term for homosexuality in Chinese is duanxiu zhi pi (斷袖之癖, literally, "passion of the cut sleeve"), derived from an episode involving Dong and Emperor Ai. They often slept together on the same straw mat, which in ancient China was not necessarily an indication of a sexual relationship. One afternoon, after Emperor Ai woke up from a nap, Dong was still sleeping, and Emperor Ai's sleeve was stuck under Dong's head. Rather than waking Dong up, Emperor Ai cut off his sleeve to allow Dong to continue to sleep without disturbance.
It is unclear when Dong became a court official, but it is known that early in Emperor Ai's reign (which lasted from 7 BC to 1 BC), Dong was a minor imperial secretary (郎, lang), and he was a colleague of the later-posthumously famous Confucian scholar Yang Xiong.
By 4 BC, at the age of 19, he was an imperial attendant (侍中, shizhong) and the director of imperial equine operations (駙馬都尉), fuma duwei. (In later dynasties, this became a title for princesses' husbands. That was not true during the Han Dynasty, and it is, in any case, clear that Dong did not marry a princess.) His relationship with Emperor Ai would allow him to suddenly increase his power and prestige.
Circa 4 BCE, Dong had by this point become a favorite of Emperor Ai's. It was described that whenever Emperor Ai visited places outside the palace, Dong would accompany him, and once Emperor Ai returned to the palace, he would attend to the emperor. Emperor Ai rewarded him with large sums of money. Dong's wife was given unprecedented permission to enter and leave the palace as she wished, and she set up a residence with Dong inside the palace. Emperor Ai also created Dong's sister an imperial consort (with the prestigious title zhaoyi (昭儀)), ranked just below his wife Empress Fu. The three members of the Dong family thereby spent day and night near the emperor. Dong's father Dong Gong (董恭) was made the minister of palace supplies and created an acting marquess (關內侯).