Clio Walker · A source-checked, AI-assisted contemporary historical narrative, not Zhao Feiyan’s memoir or the original ancient texts.

The Book of Han gives Zhao Feiyan's origins in ten characters: when she was born, her parents would not raise her; after three days she had not died, so they took her in.

As soon as she was born, her parents did not want to raise her and abandoned her. Three days later she was still alive, and only then did the family carry her home.

More than forty years later she was abandoned again. This time it took two edicts. She did not live another three days.

1. The Flying Swallow

Zhao Feiyan began as a palace servant in Chang'an. When she grew up she was attached to the household of Princess Yang'a, where she learned singing and dancing and was called Feiyan, "Flying Swallow."

Emperor Cheng often went out incognito. Once he passed through Princess Yang'a's house, and the princess entertained him with music. The emperor saw Feiyan, was taken with her, and summoned her to the palace, where she enjoyed great favor.

Then her younger sister was summoned to the palace as well. Both sisters were made jieyu, and their standing overshadowed the whole inner palace.

Feiyan was a sobriquet. What her real name was, the Book of Han does not say.

2. First, a Title for Her Father

In the third year of Hongjia, 18 BCE, Zhao Feiyan accused Empress Xu and Lady Ban of using sorcery to curse the inner palace, a curse that reached the emperor himself. Empress Xu was deposed.

The empress's place was empty. Emperor Cheng wanted to make Zhao Feiyan empress.

Empress Dowager Wang refused. Feiyan's birth, she felt, was far too low.

Chunyu Zhang, son of the empress dowager's sister, served in the palace as an attendant, carried messages back and forth, and found out what she was thinking. Emperor Cheng first made Zhao Feiyan's father, Zhao Lin, Marquis of Chengyang.

A little over a month later, Zhao Feiyan was made empress.

For a baby her own parents had refused to raise to take the empress's seat, her father first had to become a marquis. Favor could summon a woman into the palace; favor alone could not carry her to the throne of empress.

3. The Zhaoyang Lodge

But once she was empress, her favor faded a little. The emperor's affection shifted to her younger sister.

The sister was made zhaoyi and moved into the Zhaoyang Lodge. Its courtyard was painted vermilion and its hall lacquered. The thresholds were sheathed in bronze and gilded, the steps were of white jade, and gold rings were set everywhere along the cross-beams of the walls, inlaid with jade discs from Lantian and decorated with bright pearls and kingfisher feathers. Nothing like it, the history says, had ever been seen in the inner palace.

The most honored position was in the elder sister's hands; the deepest favor lay with the younger. Later poets who sang of the Han palace often packed all of this into the name Zhao Feiyan. But in the Book of Han, these are two people.

The sisters, the history says, monopolized the emperor's favor for more than ten years, and in the end neither had a son.

4. A Gift

With the emperor childless, who stood close to whom in the inner palace was bound up with who would inherit the throne.

Liu Xin, King of Dingtao, came to the capital for an audience. His grandmother, Grand Consort Fu, brought treasures and privately gave gifts to Empress Zhao and the zhaoyi.

Later, the King of Dingtao was named heir apparent.

Zhao Feiyan had no son to inherit the throne, but she had a part in the rise of another heir. That gift would soon show what it was worth.

5. Overnight

In the spring of 7 BCE, Emperor Cheng died in the Weiyang Palace.

The Book of Han says he had always been robust, with no illness. He was well the night before; by dawn he could not speak, and then he died.

The capital was in an uproar. People laid the blame on the zhaoyi. The empress dowager ordered an inquiry into the emperor's daily routine and the onset of his illness. The zhaoyi killed herself.

Zhao Feiyan, however, did not fall with her. Liu Xin took the throne as Emperor Ai, honored her as Empress Dowager, and made her younger brother Zhao Qin Marquis of Xincheng.

The gift had borne fruit.

6. Where Did the Children Go?

A few months later, the Colonel of the Capital, Xie Guang, submitted a memorial. It did not dwell on how favored the sisters had been. It asked a single question: what had happened to the children born in Emperor Cheng's inner palace?

The memorial concerned two mothers, Beauty Xu and Cao Gong. Cao Gong had served in the empress's quarters as an instructress, knew the Book of Songs, and had taught the empress to read.

Xie Guang had his men question Ji Wu, the prison officer of the women's quarters, several palace eunuchs and maids, and attendants of the zhaoyi. Their testimony pieced together a terrible picture: a newborn sent to the palace prison; someone coming to ask whether the child was dead yet; someone sealing a child in a reed box; someone ordered to dig a pit beneath the prison wall and bury a box.

This was a memorial of investigation and accusation. We cannot see each witness's full file, nor where each order really came from.

Xie Guang asked that the zhaoyi's relatives be punished. Emperor Ai stripped Zhao Qin and Zhao Feiyan's nephew Zhao Xin, Marquis of Chengyang, of their titles, made them commoners, and moved their whole families to Liaoxi commandery.

Zhao Feiyan herself remained Empress Dowager.

There was another voice at court. The court counselor Geng Yu wrote that Emperor Cheng, fearing that a child ruler would come to the throne and a woman would hold power, had made these extraordinary arrangements so that the present emperor could succeed; the late emperor was already buried, and raking up these old affairs would only bring slander upon his tomb.

The same horrors were, for Xie Guang, crimes that had to be pursued; for Geng Yu, the far-sighted planning of an emperor.

The Book of Han adds one line: when Emperor Ai was heir apparent, he had owed much to Empress Dowager Zhao's help, so he did not pursue the matter to the end.

7. Two Edicts

In 1 BCE Emperor Ai died. The emperor who had been helped by her, and who had shielded her from the inquiry, was gone.

Wang Mang had the Grand Empress Dowager issue an edict. The former empress dowager and the zhaoyi had served together in the emperor's chambers, it said, monopolizing his favor and keeping others from his bed, pursuing treacherous plots, destroying his heirs and endangering the ancestral temple; she had none of the virtue required of the mother of the realm. She was demoted from Empress Dowager to Empress of Emperor Cheng and moved to the Northern Palace.

A little over a month later the second edict came. The empress, it said, knew her crimes were grave; she seldom came to pay her respects, had abandoned a wife's duties and the rites of caring for her elders, and had the venom of wolves and tigers; the imperial clan resented her and the whole realm hated her. She was now deposed as a commoner and sent to the emperor's tomb park.

The first edict had left her the title of Emperor Cheng's empress. The second took even that away.

She killed herself that same day. She had been empress for sixteen years before she was brought down.

When she was born, she was abandoned for three days and did not die. This time she lived only one.

8. The Swallow

At the end of the biography, Ban Gu appended a children's rhyme. It sings of swallows and of Young Master Zhang, often seen; of a wooden gate with bronze rings; of a swallow flying in to peck the emperor's grandsons; the grandsons die, and the swallow pecks at droppings.

Young Master Zhang was Zhang Fang, Marquis of Fuping, whom Emperor Cheng often took with him on his incognito outings. The bronze rings were the knockers on the palace gate.

Here the name Feiyan becomes a bird that pecks the emperor's grandsons to death. A tangled succession case is pressed into a few lines of song that are easy to pass on.

9. Her Fate Was Settled; Her Story Was Not

Later, a work called the Unofficial Biography of Zhao Feiyan gave her another life story: her name was Yizhu, her sister's was Hede, and she was so slight and light she could dance on the palm of a hand. The book claims to be by Ling Xuan of the Han, but the Qing dynasty's Annotated Catalogue of the Complete Imperial Library questioned its language and provenance point by point and classed it as fiction.

Poets opened other doors for her. Li Bai wrote: may I ask who in the Han palace could compare? Only lovely Feiyan, in her new makeup. She became a byword for beauty. Su Shi, writing on calligraphy, said that characters long or short, plump or thin, each have their own charm: who would dare dislike Yang Yuhuan or Zhao Feiyan?

In the rhyme she is a swallow that pecks the emperor's grandsons. In fiction she is light enough to dance on a palm. In poetry she is a beauty for anyone to admire.

10. Epilogue

One name carried three entirely different imaginings.

Yet rereading the Book of Han, what stays with you may not be the swallow, but the people it hides: Cao Gong, who once taught the empress the Book of Songs; Ji Wu, who answered from the prison that the child was still alive; and the nameless infants put into reed boxes.

She herself had once been an abandoned baby. After three days, someone carried her home.

No one carried those children home.

Sources and textual boundaries

1. Main text: [Book of Han, chapter 97B, Biographies of Imperial Affines](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷097下). The adjoining Xu, Ban, Zhao, and Fu sections were consulted, especially palace entry, installation, Zhaoyang, the Dingtao succession, Cheng’s sudden death, Xie Guang’s and Geng Yu’s memorials, the two depositions, and the rhyme. This is an electronic transcription of a public-domain classical text, not an examination of Han case files. Testimony and commands in Xie’s memorial are paraphrased as its account. Accusations, apologetic arguments, and decrees remain attributed to their respective speakers; political judgments are not presented as independent verification of every allegation. 2. Chronology: [chapter 10, Annals of Emperor Cheng](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷010), and [chapter 11, Annals of Emperor Ai](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/漢書/卷011). Hongjia 3 corresponds to 18 BCE; Yongshi 1 to 16 BCE, with Zhao Lin’s enfeoffment in the fourth month and Feiyan’s installation in the sixth; Suihe 1 to 8 BCE, Liu Xin’s installation as crown prince; Suihe 2 to 7 BCE, Cheng’s death; Yuanshou 2 to 1 BCE, Ai’s death. These are ancient calendar months, not converted modern Gregorian dates. Palace entry, birth year, rooms, and the precise location of Feiyan’s death are not fixed. The biography’s sixteen-year count is not converted into sixteen full anniversaries. Different chapters of the same history are cross-checks, not independent eyewitnesses. 3. Later fiction: [Separate Biography of Zhao Feiyan, with the Four Treasuries catalogue notice](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/趙飛燕外傳). The attribution critique, opening genealogy, names Yizhu and Hede, breath techniques, and snowy-night passage were read. They are evidence of literary reconstruction and reception. No definite composition year is invented, and the work is not spliced into the Book of Han as one witness. Its intimate descriptions are not reproduced, nor is it used to determine Cheng’s cause of death. 4. Poems: [Li Bai, Qingping Melodies, second poem](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/清平調), and [Su Shi, Poem Written at Sun Xinlao’s Request for the Pavilion of Wondrous Ink](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/孫莘老求墨妙亭詩). The text consulted uses feiji, “full and lean,” in Su’s line; variants are not combined. The Qingping page’s appended composition anecdote is not used to reconstruct a Tang scene. Tang and Song comparisons do not provide contemporary measurements of Feiyan’s body. English paraphrases and renderings are original. 5. Geography: [Xi’an Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, Han Chang’an site description](https://wwj.xa.gov.cn/xwzx/gzdt/62d51305f8fd1c4c210a03bb.html); [National Institute of Informatics, Digital Silk Road gazetteer, Han Chang’an](https://dsr.nii.ac.jp/digital-maps/dsr/place-names/0133.html.ja). Han Chang’an corresponds to the site northwest of modern Xi’an. The reference point, 34.3036N, 108.8589E, locates an area. The installation in 16 BCE and Cheng’s death at Weiyang in 7 BCE are linked only to that capital area, not to an installation room or deathbed. Princess Yang’a’s residence is not located through her territorial title. Liaoxi denotes the relatives’ exile, not Feiyan’s travel. The Northern Palace, her park, and places of later literary composition remain unresolved. 6. Editorial and copyright boundaries: connections, title, and closing comparisons are contemporary interpretations by Clio Walker. Unsupported dialogue, inner thoughts, and sensory details have not been supplied. Ancient texts and Tang–Song poems are public domain; the Chinese narrative and complete English version are original adaptations. Modern institutional descriptions are briefly paraphrased for factual verification. No protected study, modern translation, or webpage image is reproduced. Cheng’s exact medical cause of death, the degree of Feiyan’s participation in individual acts, and the fiction’s authorship and date are not settled beyond the material actually consulted.