Lü Zuan
In 401, Lü Chao, without prior approval from Lü Zuan, attacked the Xianbei chief Sipan (思盤). Sipan sent his brother Qizhen (乞珍) to file a protest with Lü Zuan, and Lü Zuan summoned Lü Chao and Sipan both to Guzang, which got Lü Chao nervous. Once Lü Zuan met with both, he threatened Lü Chao with death—but had no intent to carry the threat out; rather, he intended only to scare Lü Chao. He then held a feast for Lü Chao and Sipan, intending to create peace between them. During the feast, Lü Chao's brother Lü Long repeatedly offered Lü Zuan wine, and Lü Zuan was soon drunk. He sat on a man-pulled cart and gave Lü Chao and Sipan a tour of the palace. When the cart came to a threshold between two palaces, the cart could not roll over the threshold, and Lü Zuan's guards Dou Chuan (竇川) and Luo Teng (駱騰) left their swords on the side in order to lift the cart across. As they did, Lü Chao took their swords and attacked Lü Zuan. Lü Zuan tried to combat Lü Chao, unarmed, but Lü Chao quickly pierced him with a sword. Both Dou and Luo tried to combat Lü Chao but were also killed by him. Lü Zuan's wife Empress Yang tried to mobilize the guards to combat Lü Chao, but the guards soon abandoned her, and Lü Chao made his brother Lü Long emperor to succeed Lü Zuan. Lü Zuan's head was cut off and shown to the populace, but Lü Zuan was still later given an imperial posthumous name, albeit an unflattering one.