emperor.

The chief influence of the cliques lay, however, in the selection of
officials. It is not surprising that the officials recommended only sons
of people in their own clique--their family or its closest associates.
On top of all this, the examiners were in most cases themselves members
of the same families to which the provincial officials belonged. Thus it
was made doubly certain that only those candidates who were to the
liking of the dominant group among the gentry should pass.

Surrounded by these cliques, the emperors became in most cases powerless
figureheads. At times energetic rulers were able to play off various
cliques against each other, and so to acquire personal power; but the
weaker emperors found themselves entirely in the hands of cliques. Not a
few emperors in China were removed by cliques which they had attempted
to resist; and various dynasties were brought to their end by the
cliques; this was the fate of the Han dynasty.

The beginning of its fall came with the activities of the widow of the
emperor Yüan Ti. She virtually ruled in the name of her
eighteen-year-old son, the emperor Ch'eng Ti (32-7 B.C.), and placed all
her brothers, and also her nephew, Wang Mang, in the principal
government posts. They succeeded at first in either removing the
strongest of the other cliques or bringing them into dependence. Within
the Wang family the nephew Wang Mang steadily advanced, securing direct
supporters even in some branches of the imperial family; these
personages declared their readiness to join him in removing the existing
line of the imperial house. When Ch'eng Ti died without issue, a young
nephew of his (Ai Ti, 6-1 B.C.) was placed on the throne by Wang Mang,
and during this period the power of the Wangs and their allies grew