Liu Bei's proclamation as King of Hanzhong

Liu Bei's proclamation as King of Hanzhong marks the moment when battlefield gains were translated into a contested claim of political legitimacy. Pressed to become emperor, Xuande resisted the appearance of rebellion; he ultimately accepted the title of king in late AD 219, presenting the decision as a duty to the House of Han and a means of rallying people against Cao Cao.

Background and Strategic Setting

The immediate setting was Cao Cao’s retreat from Hanzhong. Kong Ming anticipated the route Cao Cao would take and sent Ma Chao to harry the withdrawing army. The pursuit caused heavy losses and a collapse in morale; wounded and in pain, Cao Cao hastened to Chang’an, where his troops at last felt safe enough to rest. In the wake of his retreat, surrounding places came under Xuande’s control, while others surrendered on the expectation that his rule would bring peace and security to ordinary people.

These gains sharpened the political question at the heart of the proclamation. The Han court still existed, but Cao Cao’s accumulation of power had, in Kong Ming’s account, displaced the true ruler’s authority. The three emerging leaders of the era were carving kingdoms from the declining Han empire, yet Xuande’s claim was distinguished by his descent from the House of Han and by his stated commitment to its restoration. His commanders’ appeal for him to become emperor therefore joined a practical change in power to an argument about who could legitimately wield it.

Debate over the Title

Kong Ming brought the commanders’ appeal to Xuande and argued that the time was right for him to become emperor. He invoked both Heaven and the people: Xuande, he said, was renowned for benevolence and had restored peace to the regions under his control. Taking the throne would allow him to destroy the traitor and act as a blessing to the country. Xuande rejected the proposal at once. Though he belonged to the Han imperial lineage, he considered himself an ordinary subject and feared that accepting the imperial title would make him appear a rebel.

Kong Ming answered that the realm had been torn apart by men who seized power wherever they could, while loyal and courageous people risked their lives trying to preserve honour. They longed for a true emperor, he argued, and Xuande’s refusal might cost him their support. Those around Xuande reinforced the pressure, warning that the people’s hearts could harden against him if he continued to say no. The debate made the tension explicit: the very claim that Xuande could restore the Han also risked making him look like another claimant who had seized authority for himself.

When Xuande remained unwilling to accept the imperial title, Kong Ming proposed a lesser step: since Xuande controlled Jingzhou and Shu, he could take the title of King of Hanzhong. Xuande insisted that without an offer from the emperor, even that would still be rebellion. Kong Ming countered that the circumstances were no longer ordinary and that convention could not simply be preserved when it had ceased to serve. Zhang Fei then broke into the discussion, arguing that Xuande deserved more than kingship because others without Han lineage were trying to take power. Xuande sharply stopped him. Kong Ming returned to a narrower proposal: take the title of king now and petition the emperor later.

Proclamation and Its Terms

After refusing three times, as convention demanded, Xuande agreed. In late AD 219 he was crowned King of Hanzhong in a formal ceremony. The rite faced south, and an altar was arranged to mark the five directions. The carefully staged ceremony gave public form to a decision reached through argument and reluctance: Xuande assumed a royal title, but not the imperial one his commanders had first urged upon him.

The appointments that accompanied the proclamation established a line of succession and recognized his principal commanders. Xuande named his son Liu Shan as heir. Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Zilong, Ma Chao, and Huang Zhong received the title of the Five Tiger Generals, while Wei Yan became governor of Hanzhong. These decisions made the new kingship more than a personal honor: it gave shape to a governing order in the territories Xuande had secured.

The Letter and the Claim to Legitimacy

After the ceremony, Xuande wrote to the Han emperor in a long letter that presented his acceptance as an act of family and political responsibility. He traced the troubles of the imperial family back to Dong Zhuo and recalled the repeated efforts he and others had made to defend the throne, sometimes with what the letter described as Heaven’s assistance. Cao Cao, he argued, had grown ambitious and usurped the emperor’s authority. Xuande also recalled the failed conspiracy he had shared with Dong Cheng, its exposure, and his resulting flight from place to place. He attributed the empress’s murder and the heir apparent’s poisoning to the absence of effective resistance to Cao Cao.

The letter’s central defense was that members of the imperial family should support one another, even when separated by distant branches of descent. With Cao Cao corrupting the court and taking its power, Xuande argued, a member of the House of Han had a particular responsibility to act. He described himself as pressured and troubled in conscience, but insisted that Cao Cao’s continued survival endangered the ancestral temple and the shrine for the nation’s welfare. Accepting kingship, in this presentation, was the means to rally the people so that Heaven might bless both them and the imperial family. The letter thus framed the proclamation not as a break with the Han but as an effort to preserve its lineage and political future.

Aftermath and Significance

Cao Cao responded with fury when he heard that Xuande had become King of Hanzhong, and ordered preparations for an invasion. The episode therefore immediately deepened the rivalry between the two leaders. It also exposed the competing uses of Han legitimacy: Xuande represented his royal title as a constrained, reluctant service to the dynasty, while Cao Cao’s power rested on his control of the emperor and the court.

That conflict over authority continued beyond the proclamation. Later, after Cao Pi’s accession to the throne of Wei, Kong Ming urged Xuande to become emperor in order to continue the Han lineage. Xuande again reacted with horror at the prospect of what he called a rebellious and disloyal act; Kong Ming answered that Cao Pi had already usurped the throne and that Xuande’s descent made it his duty to reclaim it. The later dispute echoes the earlier debate over kingship: in both, Xuande’s hesitation collides with the argument that political circumstances and Han descent require action. The proclamation is therefore a decisive intermediate step—an acceptance of sovereign authority, carefully distinguished from the imperial claim he had refused.