The Gengshi emperor’s two-year-long reign (23–25) has posed a problem to historians of the Later Han dynasty (25–220). As the member of the Liu family who defeated Wang Mang (r. 9–23) became emperor and was, for some time, the superior of the later dynastic founder Guangwu (r. 25–57), Gengshi and his role in the transferal of the Mandate of Heaven needed to be explained. The official history of the Later Han, the Dongguan Hanji, painted a picture of an illegitimate puppet emperor who never possessed the Mandate of Heaven. However, the establishment of a state-sanctioned narrative did not completely stop the controversy surrounding Gengshi’s legitimacy. Our sources indicate that the discussion was not settled until the Tang dynasty and that the controversy only vanished with the rise to prominence of Fan Ye’s Hou Hanshu, which closely followed the Dongguan Hanji version and portrayed Gengshi as an illegitimate ruler and a puppet of his generals. This article is an attempt to retrace the reception of the Gengshi emperor and to analyse Fan Ye’s narrative.

中文翻译：

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范爷（398–446）对更始年（23–25 CE）的描述

更始皇帝在位两年（23-25 年）给后汉（25-220 年）的历史学家带来了问题。作为击败王莽（9-23 年）的刘氏家族成员成为皇帝，并在一段时间内担任后来的王朝创始人光武（25-57 年）的上级，更史及其在转移中的作用需要解释天命。后汉官史《东莞汉记》描绘了一位从未拥有过天命的私生伪皇帝。然而，国家认可的叙事的建立并没有完全停止围绕更始合法性的争议。我们的消息来源表明，直到唐代，争论才得到解决，随着范爷的侯汉书的崛起，争论才消失，紧随东莞汉记版本，将更始描绘成一个私生子和将军的傀儡。本文试图追溯更始皇帝的接待，分析范爷的叙述。