In the feudal dynasty system, the "prince" was a very special role. Although he was in a position below the emperor and above ten thousand people, and his status was extremely noble, his position was very embarrassing.
Because he was both a red man on the emperor's side and a person who threatened the throne. If the prince is not able to correct his position and situation and behaves too prominently, he will be suspected by the emperor of plotting against him and has different intentions, and then the princes who compete with him will try every means to frame the prince, throw dirty water, and finally, replace the position of the prince.
In short, the position of prince was really difficult to sit in, and there was both the emperor suppressing it and a group of brothers like hungry tigers staring closely at the side. Once they take a wrong step and disobey the emperor's dragon scales, they are punished and deposed, and the heavy are imprisoned and later beheaded. In addition, when the prince should always pay attention, be vigilant everywhere, and be prepared to sit in the position of prince for a long time.
If, when the prince of three to five years can sit on the emperor's throne, then he will grit his teeth and carry it. If the old emperor has a long life span and the prince has to be a prince for decades, then the physical quality and psychological endurance of the person who is the prince will be tested. In the history of ancient China, there were many people who sat on the throne of the prince for more than twenty years.
Among them, some princes were too poor in physical fitness and did not live long, such as Xiao Tong of Southern Liang and Zhu Biao of the Ming Dynasty. Some princes were suspected by the emperor because they were not cautious enough, and were framed, and in the end, they were either killed or deposed, such as Liu Zhao of the Western Han Dynasty, Li Ying of the Tang Dynasty, and Yin Rong of the Qing Dynasty.
In contrast, Li Shu of the Tang Dynasty served as a prince for twenty-six years before becoming emperor, becoming the emperor who sat on the throne for the longest time. During his twenty-six years as crown prince, Li Xuan not only experienced the chaos and turmoil of the division of the feudal towns, but also witnessed the rebellion and treachery of the ministers. However, for such a long time, he only expressed his views on one political matter, that is, to resolutely prevent Tang Dezong from promoting Pei Yanling and Wei Qumu, two treacherous and cunning people, as prime ministers.
Whenever Tang Dezong was in a good mood, Li Xuan argued with him and pointed out the inappropriateness of reusing these two people, and in the end, the two were not appointed. Therefore, Han Yu praised Li Xuan, saying that in the more than twenty years that he had been crown prince, everyone in the world had been protected by his blessings. According to records, Li Xuan was the eldest son of Tang Dezong, who not only had excellent literary style, knew various skills, had considerable academic experience, was good at calligraphy, and was very good at martial arts.
In the fourth year of Jianzhong, Tang Dezong fled to Fengtian because of the jingyuan rebellion, while Li Xuan protected him with a bow and arrow. At that time, the rebels surrounded the city and formed an encirclement, and Li Xu led a group of soldiers to resist hard, and finally, victory was achieved. Therefore, in the fourteenth year of the Gregorian calendar, Emperor Dezong of Tang issued an edict to make Li Shuli crown prince. Although Li Shu was able to write and martial arts, and his prestige in the imperial court was very high, his road to the crown prince was not smooth. For example, the case of Princess Gao Guo in the third year of Zhenyuan almost forced him to the desperate situation of being deposed.
Princess Gao guo was the daughter of Emperor Suzong of Tang and the mother of Crown Princess Li. After the death of her husband, Princess Gao Guo used her special status and ambiguous foreign ministers to secretly win over the imperial court ministers, and even engaged in witchcraft. After Tang Dezong knew about it, he suspected that it was Li Xuan's ghost and wanted to depose Li Xuan as the crown prince. Fortunately, a minister vigorously defended Li Xuan, and he was able to keep the position of crown prince. After experiencing this incident, Li Xuan, who was already very cautious, was even more careful.
In the later period of Tang Dezong's reign, the ambition to reorganize the order of the government and the opposition seemed to have been unable to be realized, so he could only bow to reality. As a result, political hesitation caused Tang Dezong to become more and more decadent and began to take the lead in luxury and lasciviousness.
Once, the imperial court held a feast in the Yuzao Palace, beautiful music kept ringing in the ears, young and beautiful girls were laughing and cheering, Tang Dezong was very happy, and couldn't help but turn back to Li Shu and ask: "How is this banquet?" He then said, "Good Lotte," and although this sentence did not directly point out the mistake of Tang Dezong's absurd behavior, it implied his great dissatisfaction with it. In addition, as the future heir of the Tang Empire, Li Xu was also worried about the state and government situation at that time.
Although he often paid attention to changes in current politics and talked to his confidants about the advantages and disadvantages of state affairs, he could not do anything about many problematic policies. For a long time, the life of the crown prince who could not talk about it and exert his ambitions made Li Xuan's heart more and more depressed, and slowly his physical condition also showed a downward trend. In the twentieth year of Zhenyuan, Li Xuan finally couldn't bear it and suffered a stroke. He could only be paralyzed in bed every day, his speech was not clear, even if his family had found a famous doctor for him.
A year later, Tang Dezong died, and Li Xuan succeeded to the throne.
Although Li Xuan could only lie in bed to manage government affairs, he immediately promoted and reused a large number of talents such as Wang Ling and Liu Zongyuan to reform a series of maladministrations during the Tang Dynasty.
For example, during the tang dynasty, eunuchs often used the palace to collect goods as a reason to plunder people's property, and this phenomenon was called "palace city". In order to win the emperor's favor, some officials looted the people's fat, squeezed the people, and paid the emperor money every month or daily. Li Xuan's reform, first of all, abolished all these "palace markets," "monthly advances," and "daily advances," eliminated the corrupt atmosphere in the bureaucratic ranks, reduced some unnecessary taxes, and lightened the people's burdens.
In addition, because Li Xuan had experienced the division of the feudal towns and knew what kind of disaster it would be to let the eunuchs hold the power of the government, he chose some veteran generals to lead the forbidden army and planned to regain the military power given to the eunuchs. However, these measures were strongly opposed by eunuchs and feudal forces. They united with some ministers, on the grounds that Li Shu had suffered a serious stroke and had been lying down for a long time and could not get up to manage government affairs, instigated a palace coup, and installed the crown prince Li Chun on the throne and deposed Li Xuan.
The opposition from the government and the public made Li Xuan very troubled, so he had to let the crown prince come to supervise the country. However, these eunuchs were not satisfied with this and constantly forced Li Tou to abdicate. As a result, soon after, Li Shuchan was placed as the crown prince and proclaimed himself Emperor Taishang. In the first year of the Yuan Dynasty, Li Chun added the honorific title to Li Shu as "Emperor Da'an Xiao of zhide". In this way, Li Xuan became the first Tang Emperor in history to have a seven-character honorific title. After some time, Li Shu fell seriously ill and died.
The cause of Tang Shunzong's death, according to the records of the Old Book of Tang and the Zizhi Tongjian, was an illness and death, and people have not suspected it for a long time. In the 1960s, historians made a breakthrough on this issue through the study of canonical history and note-taking novels, and a considerable number of people believed that Shunzong was killed. In his book Liu Yuxi Chronicle, Mr. Bian Xiaoxuan first put forward the view that Shunzong was killed. He believes that Shunzong's death was too sudden, which is a historical mystery.
Although Li Xuan's fate was uncertain, he finally ascended to the throne after more than twenty years as crown prince, but he was only emperor for less than eight months before he was ousted from power. It is undeniable that he was a very ambitious and talented emperor, and many of the policies he implemented during his reign that favored the people's livelihood had a great impact on the Tang Dynasty, and it was not a single word "xian" that could summarize his great imperial career.
Resources:
[Zizhi Tongjian, Old Book of Tang, Volume XIV, Benji 14th, New Book of Tang, Volume 7, Benji VII.