12 days of Christmas history you don’t hear sung about, from messy murders and miserable Mao to the birth of Frankenstein’s monster
- Need a break from the usual holiday headaches? Then check out our alternative 12 days of Christmas, a historical hodgepodge of feats, fails and foul plays
It’s a familiar complaint. The real meaning of Christmas has been lost in an annual frenzy of consumerism and overconsumption. But move past the usual lamentations of “keeping Christ in Christmas”, think of a period far longer than any Boxing Day mania and see the 12 days of Christmas through a broader lens.
Here, with a bit of creative licence, we cherry-pick our own dozen, starting on a cold Christmas Eve in the 10th century…
24th December
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me … the most ill-judged triple murder in history
In AD948, 16-year-old Liu Chengyu succeeded his father, Gaozu, aka Liu Zhiyuan, as emperor of China during the later Han period at the latter end of the Five Dynasties.
Where Gaozu was “Profoundly Literate, Sagaciously Martial, Resplendently Majestic”, according to Xiu Ouyang’s Historical Records of the Five Dynasties, his son preferred “frolicking with petty men” and ignoring the wise counsel of Empress Dowager Li.
Nothing illustrated the younger Liu’s naivety better than his unfortunate habit of murdering anyone he suspected of, essentially, anything he didn’t like.
On December 24, AD950, Liu executed three of his closest, most experienced advisers: Yang Bin, minister of personnel, Shi Hongzhao, chief director of the Imperial Guard and bodyguard, and finance commissioner Wang Zhang.
