After the Anshi Rebellion, although the Tang Dynasty had entered a period of decline from extreme prosperity, with eunuchs in the interior and feudal towns outside, in the second year of the Bao calendar (826), Tang Wenzong Li Ang succeeded to the throne, which made this late dynasty briefly revitalized. Li Ang was a three-good emperor who worked hard to govern, and at the beginning of his reign, he changed the extravagant atmosphere of the previous dynasty, sent three thousand palace women out of the palace, and cut off more than a thousand redundant officials and redundant personnel to reduce palace expenses; he was diligent in government affairs every day, reading a lot of books, and the subjects all hoped that under his leadership, the Tang Dynasty would re-enter the Taiping and prosperous world. Li Ang also lived up to expectations, and after several years of dormancy to develop his power, he was finally ready to attack the eunuch forces.
The eunuch chaos in the Tang Dynasty was much more serious than that of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty. No matter how the latter two eunuchs struggled, they were also subject to foreign forces and imperial power, and Wei Zhongxian of the Ming Dynasty was arrogant for so long, and he was not uprooted by Chongzhen, who had just succeeded to the throne, within three months, and the castration party group was scattered. The eunuchs in the middle and late Tang Dynasty really realized the slave turning themselves into masters, starting from Li Fuguo during the Tang Suzong period, the power of eunuchs expanded rapidly, whether it was the abolition of the emperor, the appointment and dismissal of the imperial court ministers, and even the life and death of the Tang emperor were all manipulated by them. Eunuchs want to support whichever emperor they want, and if the emperor provokes the eunuchs to be upset, they will directly kill them, and the great affairs of the monarchy are like children's plays. Tang Wenzong's grandfather Tang Xianzong was poisoned by the eunuchs Chen Hongzhi and Wang Shoucheng, and his brother Tang Jingzong was killed by Liu Keming, so it can be said that he and the eunuchs already had a blood feud.
Eunuchs can bully the emperor into such a way, and play superpowers between the palms of their hands, relying on the strength of the army, and this stems from Tang Dezongkai's bad head. After the Anshi Rebellion, the imperial court's control over the feudal towns became weaker and weaker, and in a war of feudal warfare, because Tang Dezong did not reward the envoys who helped suppress the rebellion, resulting in his own clan towns turning against each other one after another, Tang Dezong had to flee in a hurry. On the way, he ordered the Forbidden Army to come and escort him, but no one responded, and eventually fled to Fengtian under the protection of eunuchs. Since then, Tang Dezong has lost trust in the generals in the army, and handed over the two elite Shen Ce army to the eunuchs to control, and after that, the left and right lieutenants of the Shen Ce Army were basically served by eunuchs. Gradually, the eunuch clique that controlled the military power became dominant, and the civil and military officials could only compete to please and bribe, and the emperor was like a puppet.
The ambitious Tang Wenzong was naturally not willing to accept his puppet fate, and he began to plot secretly, determined to eliminate the eunuch Wang Shoucheng who had supported him in one fell swoop. If you want to do it, you must first have someone, and it is not enough to rely on yourself as a light rod commander, but fortunately, there are still some loyal ministers in the dprk who hope to revive the glory of the Li Tang Dynasty, such as Song Shenxi. After receiving the approval of Emperor Wenzong of Tang, Song Shenxi was promoted to the equivalent of Tongzhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi, who was the equivalent of the chancellor, and he began to woo officials in the court and secretly plan against Wang Shoucheng. However, Song Shenxi was a person with limited ability and could not see people's vision, so he revealed the plan to Wang Fan and promoted him to Jing Zhaoyin, but Wang Bian accidentally leaked the plan.
When Wang Shoucheng learned of this, he broke out in a cold sweat, but he did not expect that the emperor and the chancellor had actually conspired to murder him, so he immediately went to Tang Wenzong Xingshi to question him and wanted to execute all those involved in the matter. At this moment of life and death, Tang Wenzong suddenly instigated, quickly cleared himself, and resigned himself to the evidence concocted by Wang Shoucheng that Song Shenxi conspired against Li Zhao, the king of Zhang. Fortunately, there was a strong guarantee from the counselor, and in the end, Song Shenxi was only demoted to Sima of Kaizhou and banned from returning to the capital for life. Tang Wenzong's first rebellion failed in this way, and his only promise made Wang Shoucheng's arrogance more arrogant, and he did not pay attention to the emperor more and more.
In order to ensure that there was no second Song Shenxi, Wang Shoucheng sent two spies, Li Xun and Zheng Zhu, to monitor Every move at Tang Wenzong's side, but whenever the emperor had any wind and grass, he could snuff out the signs at the first time. However, what Wang Shoucheng did not expect was that his two spies were actually fooled by Tang Wenzong into two or five boys, and turned their heads to deal with themselves. Zheng Zhu had helped Wang Shoucheng frame Song Shenxi for rebellion, which led to Tang Wenzong having a very bad impression of him, but this man's medical skills were very good, and in the seventh year of Taihe (833), Tang Wenzong suffered a stroke and drank Zheng Zhu's medicine immediately, and the relationship between the two became better and better. Li Xun was a fortune teller, with first-class eloquence, who could recite "Zhou Yi" backwards like a stream, and frightened Tang Wenzong into a daze, thinking that this person was really a rare and strange man who could conspire to do great things, so he handed over the position of prime minister to Li Xun.
Li Xun and Zheng Zhu have very bad reviews in the history books, they belong to opportunists and political upstarts, they have no real talent and hard work, and the senior ministers in the DPRK look down on them. Moreover, they were originally promoted by Wang Shoucheng, but for the sake of their own official future, they actually killed their benefactor Wang Shoucheng, and their reputation for sinister and cunning spread throughout the palace and outside the palace, which can be said to be unflattering on both sides of the courtiers and eunuchs. After purging the henchmen and gaining power, the essence of the two ragtag groups was revealed and infighting began. Coupled with a shrewd emperor with small things and confused big things, the change of Ganlu began to be carried out under the planning of the three people.
At first, they planned to start on the day of Wang Shoucheng's burial, so the agreement echoed inside and outside, Li Xun sat in the capital, and Zheng Zhu transferred from the capital to fengxiang jiedushi to lead the army. However, li Lingzhi fainted, and when Zheng Zhu left the capital, Li Xun suddenly changed his mind and decided to kick Zheng Zhu out of the team, and he and the prime minister Shu Yuanyu jointly launched a coup in advance and swallowed the credit alone. In the ninth year of Taihe (835), on this day, the Jinwu general Han Yue lied during the upper dynasty that there was a ganlu Xiangrui coming, and Li Xun pinched his finger and immediately said that this was a sign of the revival of the Tang Dynasty, and His Majesty the Emperor had to personally go to worship. According to the script, Tang Wenzong pretended to send civil and military officials to find out first, and a large group of people returned and reported that they seemed to have made a mistake and were not real nectar. Tang Wenzong also sent the eunuch leaders Qiu Shiliang and Yu Zhihong to investigate, these two people were the left and right lieutenants of the Shen Ce Army, at this time Han Yue had already set up an ambush, if they were killed, the forbidden army would be leaderless.
But Jiang is still old and spicy, Han Yue was newly promoted from Taiwei, his psychological quality is not very good, his look is very panicked, and he is seen by Qiu Shiliang at a glance. The situation was urgent, Qiu Shiliang reacted quickly, and quickly grabbed Tang Wenzong and rushed back to the inner palace, and as soon as the palace gate was closed, he gathered the forbidden army and began to counterattack. Losing the advantage of starting first, how could Li Xun and Han Yue be the opponents of the eunuch clique with elite troops? The eunuchs were furious and sent a divine army to kill these ministers, and the prime ministers Wang Ya and Shu Yuanyu did not run away, and even Zheng Zhu, who was far away, was also killed, and the central officials and family members were basically wiped out, and more than a thousand people died, which is known in history as the "change of ganlu".
After that, the power of the eunuch group grew day by day, Tang Wenzong was completely reduced to a puppet, was placed under house arrest in the palace, the whole person gave up on himself, drank alcohol every day to dispel his sorrows, and finally died of depression in the Taihe Temple, eradicating the eunuchs and the dream of the Zhongxing Tang Dynasty was shattered.