In 846, Emperor Wuzong of Tang died, leaving no heirs. In order to monopolize power, the eunuch Ma Yuanzhen consulted with the powerful minister Li Deyu and selected the "most stupid" person from among the members of the royal family to inherit the throne. He was Tang Xuanzong, Li Chen. Tang Xuanzong had just ascended the throne, and immediately issued a holy will, which made Ma Yuanzhen look stupid, because Tang Xuanzong deposed Li Deyu, the minister of power. Ma Yuanzhen chuckled in his heart, knowing that things were not good! But it was too late.
Li Chen, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, was the seventeenth emperor of Li Tang. In terms of generations, he was originally the uncle of the previous emperor Li Yan, but he was younger than Li Yan. Li Chen's biological mother, Zheng Shi, was originally a concubine of Zhenhai Jiedushi. Later, Jiedu was convicted of conspiracy, and Zheng was also punished to the palace as a concubine, and finally gave birth to Li Chen with Tang Xianzong. At the age of eleven, Li Chen was crowned the King of Light, and his name was very high, but because his mother's birth was too low, he was blinded by everyone. When Li Chen was young, because of his mother's origin, he was long excluded from the heir to the throne.
The eunuchs and palace maids in the palace, knowing that he would not have any future, dared to openly bully him. Although Li Chen was resentful in his heart, he also understood that he had no way to fight. Therefore, he turned his anger into forbearance, and in the face of the oppression of the palace people, he behaved with a wooden look and was unresponsive, and as a result, he was regarded as a fool. When Emperor Muzong of Tang succeeded to the throne, Li Chen and the rest of Emperor Xianzong's sons were persecuted to varying degrees by Emperor Muzong and Empress Guo. At that time, Li Chen was not yet old, and in order to survive, he could only continue to pretend to be stupid.
Unexpectedly, after Muzong's death, his son Emperor Wenzong ascended the throne and often called him to the imperial court to perform "stupid words". In the face of this kind of ridicule, Li Chen had no strength to resist at all, and only kept "stupid". As a result, the fact that he was a fool spread in the capital. Later, after Tang Wuzong succeeded to the throne, Li Chen could only continue to pretend to be crazy. However, when Tang Wuzong was thirty-two years old, he died violently because of taking Dan Pills. The fact that emperors took lead dan was very common among the emperors of the late Tang Dynasty, most of them were superstitious about Dan Dao, and several of them died of poisoning by taking lead dan.
After taking lead dan, some of them were lucky not to die for the time being, but also lost their sanity and became suspicious and irritable. Therefore, the power in the palace was always controlled by the eunuchs around the emperor, and Ma Yuanzhen was a great eunuch during the Tang Wuzong period. After Emperor Wuzong's violent death, because he had no children, Ma Yuanzhen thought about it and decided to find the "fool" Li Chen as the "Imperial Uncle". In this way, the power of him and The Prime Minister Li Deyu in the DPRK can be stabilized. In ancient times, there were Cao Cao's princes who "blackmailed the Son of Heaven to order", and he Ma Yuanzhen could certainly do it. This time, however, he miscalculated.
After Li Chen ascended the throne, Ma Yuanzhen and Li Deyu discovered that Li Chen was not only not stupid, but also a very wise monarch. Li Chen had been familiar with "Zhenguan Politicians" since childhood, and before he ascended the throne at the age of thirty-seven, he always read alone behind closed doors in the dead of night and studied government affairs. He had always understood the ills of the state, so when he first became emperor, he could make reasonable arrangements for the current situation in the DPRK and China. Therefore, he deposed Li Deyu, the minister of power, and on the surface treated Ma Yuanzhen with courtesy, but in fact slowly cut off Ma Yuanzhen's left arm and right arm, and it did not take long to completely exclude Ma Yuanzhen from the center of power.
During his reign, Li Chen was more sympathetic to the people, often reduced rent and tax exemptions, and paid attention to the selection of talents. Later, after overthrowing the eunuch forces, he rehabilitated a large number of loyal subjects in the "Ganlu Revolution". Let the Tang Dynasty follow the "Kaiyuan Prosperous Era" for a hundred years, and ushered in another "rule of the Great Middle". At that time, the people of Li Min believed that Li Chen had turned the tide and revived the Tang Dynasty. His exploits were comparable to those of Tang Taizong, so he was given the nickname "Little Taizong". Li Chen was wise and foolish, and he could endure the inability of ordinary people, and finally he was "the same as the phoenix bird on the south hill", and if he did not sing, he would have made a big splash.
However, it was very unfortunate that he, like his father, brothers and nephews, was overly obsessed with Dan Dao. Thirteen years old in middle school, fifty-year-old Li Chen was poisoned and could not afford to be ill. And the farce of the eunuch dictatorship was once again staged in the late Tang Dynasty. In 833, Li Chen's son established the state under the eunuch Wang Zongshi. Twenty-seven years later, all the achievements accumulated by Li Chen's "rule of the great middle" have been soaked.