Emperor Xian of Han

Liu Xie became emperor at eight in 189 after the warlord Dong Zhuo deposed his half-brother and installed him as a puppet. When rival warlords rose against Dong Zhuo in 190, the general razed Luoyang and dragged the imperial court to Chang'an. After Dong Zhuo's assassination in 192, two of his former officers kept the boy emperor captive while regional powers acknowledged his legitimacy from a distance but sent no rescue. In 195 he escaped during a power struggle and reached the ruins of Luoyang, stranded, until Cao Cao arrived in 196 and took him to Xu. For the next two decades Cao Cao wielded the emperor's name to crush rivals and nearly reunify the empire, until the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208-209 broke his momentum and set the stage for the Three Kingdoms. After Cao Cao's death in 220, his son Cao Pi forced Liu Xie's abdication, ended the Han dynasty, and granted him the title Duke of Shanyang. He lived comfortably for another fourteen years and died in 234.