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Liu Shan — the Later Ruler of Shu Han
劉禪 · 後主
简体 刘禅 · 后主
“Surrendered, moved to the enemy capital, and said he did not miss home”
Ruled forty years, the longest of any Three Kingdoms sovereign, and is remembered for the last of them. Zhuge Liang governed until 234; afterwards the state slid, and in 263 Liu Shan surrendered Chengdu without a siege. Asked in Luoyang whether he thought of Shu, he said he was enjoying himself too much to think of it.
The remark became a proverb for someone with no feeling for home, though a case can be made that a hostage saying anything else would not have lived.
Both of his empresses were daughters of Zhang Fei, married to him in succession; they share the Shu Han silk with his father's Empress Wu.
The empress of this reign
Painted on silk in gemstone mineral pigments by Xiang Li.
About this page
Written for this site to place Liu Shan's reign around the paintings. For the full biography, the dynastic histories and the scholarship behind them, start at Wikipedia.