The Han shu records that Wang Mang took the throne from a Han child, declared all land the "king's fields", repealed it three years later, and his head was kept for 272 years

When Emperor Ping of Han died in AD 6, the regent Wang Mang chose a two-year-old boy of the Liu clan as successor. He did not make the boy emperor. He called him "young prince" and himself acting emperor. In AD 9 he declared the Han ended and took the throne of a new dynasty, Xin. The same year he decreed that all land in the empire was renamed "king's fields" and slaves "private dependants," and that neither could be bought or sold. A family with fewer than eight males that held more than one jing, the old well-field unit, had to give the surplus to kin and neighbours. In AD 12 an official, Ou Bo, told him the people were not ready. Wang Mang then decreed that holders of king's fields could sell them, free of the law. In AD 23 rebels broke into Chang'an. The Han shu says a merchant named Du Wu killed Wang Mang and took his seal ribbon, and an officer, Gongbin Jiu, cut off his head. The head was sent to the new Han emperor at Wan and hung in the market, where people struck it and some cut out and ate the tongue. The Liu clan took back the throne. The Jin shu records that in AD 295 a fire in the imperial arsenal destroyed treasures of past dynasties, among them Wang Mang's head, Confucius's shoes and the sword the founder of the Han used to cut down a white snake.