The Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi's "Harem Words" once said: "The most ruthless imperial family", the world also said that the royal family has no father and son, in the throne, the most considered is the livelihood of the people in the world, for the love of father and son, it is indifferent. Even a prince can hardly enjoy a few days of fatherly love.
When Tang Dezong was in charge, the crown prince's mother-in-law was guilty, and Tang Dezong hated Wu Jiwu and almost deposed him as crown prince. Everyone in the court was in danger, and only Li Bi dared to stand up and speak for the crown prince. Li Bi only said three points, which made Tang Dezong change his mind, do you know which three points?
The crown prince's mother-in-law was Princess Gao Guochang and the daughter of Li Heng of Emperor Suzong of Tang, who had just begun to marry Pei Hui, the son of Yang Guifei's sister Lady Yu Guo, and Pei Hui was killed during Ma Songpo's change. So he later remarried to the capital Xiao Sheng, who was the daughter of Tang Xuanzong, Princess Xinchang and the son of Xiao Heng.
Eventually, she was renamed Princess Gaoguo by her nephew Tang Dezong, and her daughter became the eldest son of Tang Dezong and the crown princess of Li Xuan, the crown prince at that time. Therefore, Princess Gao Guo and Tang Dezong were related to each other.
After the death of her first husband, Pei Hui, although she remarried to Xiao Sheng, she did not observe the way of women and lived a misruly life. Entangled with Li Sheng, Xiao Ding, Li Wan, Wei Ke and others, and had an adulterous relationship, Xu was because she was the prince's mother-in-law, with a noble status, and people who knew about her ugliness did not dare to go and report her.
But later, with the respect of the emperor, she often rode in and out of the prince's palace on her shoulder. Not only that, she also prayed for the prince with the power of the curse, and the relatives of the emperor and the state could not get used to her arrogance, so they reported her various sins to Tang Dezong.
Tang Dezong was furious and imprisoned Princess Gaoguo, the crown prince saw that his father was angry, and his mother-in-law lost power, and for a moment he did not know how to deal with it, and then he listened to the rumors and asked to be reconciled with Concubine Xiao.
Tang Dezong saw that he only knew how to escape and had no responsibility, but because he was afraid of his anger and Xiao Concubine, who had been in love for a long time, he had the heart of abolishing the prince in one breath and wanted to establish his nephew King Shu instead.
King Shu was the son of Tang Dezong's younger brother Li Mi (李邈), and because of the early death of his younger brother Li Miao, Tang Dezong adopted him as his own and was very favored.
Later, Tang Dezong summoned Li Bi and asked for his opinion, and Li Bi said on the grounds that his own son should not be jealous: "What is it! His Majesty has only one son, but once he doubts it, he wants to abolish it and establish a nephew, and he will not lose any money! The son born to His Majesty now hesitates, what is the nephew! Although King Shu is filial, his majesty should make an effort to do so, and do not look back on his filial piety! ”
Roughly speaking, Li Bi thought that It was inappropriate for Tang Dezong to abolish the position of prince of his own son and establish a nephew instead. Later, he also listed in detail the lessons learned from the abolition of the crown prince since Zhenguan, analyzed Tang Taizong's caution about deposing the crown prince, and Tang Suzong's remorse for killing King Jianning because of his urgent sexual desire, and advised him to take precautions from the past and never to be too hasty.
When Tang Dezong heard him so belittle his affection with King Shu, although he was angry in his heart, he was more puzzled about whether he could enjoy his sacrifice in the future.
Although Tang Dezong wanted to maintain his father-son relationship with the crown prince, he still felt that the prince was overwhelmed, so he pointed out that during the Zhenguan and Kaiyuan years, the initiative to change the crown prince was to prevaricate Li Bi.
However, Li Bi did not hesitate to say that Li Chengqian plotted to rebel when he was crown prince, but Tang Taizong did not take his life because of this, but deposed him together with King Yu of Wei. The deposing of the King of Wei was because the King of Wei had the strength to compete with the prince, and if he was still in a high position, he would inevitably try his best to get rid of the deposed prince in order to relieve his worries.
Li Bi asked Tang Dezong to emulate Tang Taizong and depose King Shu along with the crown prince and make emperor Sun crown prince, and although Tang Dezong knew that the prince was incompetent, he would definitely not hand over The Tang Dynasty to a yellow-mouthed child. Li Bi also pointed out that during the Kaiyuan period, Wu Huifei plotted to kill the crown prince Li Ying, and was spurned by others, and now the prince has no major fault, and if Tang Dezong had to abolish him, he would inevitably be criticized by posterity.
Generations of emperors wanted to live for hundreds of generations, and Tang Dezong was no exception, and when he heard Li Bi say this, he couldn't help but worry about his reputation.
Finally, Li Bi used the example of Tang Suzong's mistaken killing of King Jianning to impress Tang Dezong and advised him not to hurt his flesh and blood relatives because of jealousy. Tang Dezong had already weighed in his heart, and finally Li Bi advised him not to repeat the same mistakes and calm down for a few days before making a decision.
The next day, Tang Dezong summoned Li Bi and said, "If you don't cut your word, you will regret it today!" As Qing said, the prince is benevolent and filial, but there is no him. At this point, Tang Dezong finally dispelled the idea of deposing the crown prince, and if Li Bi was as inflamed as Li Linfu and Yang Su, the position of prince would have already changed hands.
The reason why the emperor was able to change his mind was not only because of Li Bi's heartfelt words, but also because he still attached great importance to this father-son relationship. Although Tang Dezong was on the throne, he still retained a bit of tenderness in his heart, which was also the key to the preservation of the prince.
In the twenty-first year of zhenyuan, that is, in the first month of 805 AD, Tang Dezong died of illness at the age of 64 and reigned for 27 years. In the month when Tang Dezong died of illness, Li Shu, who had been the crown prince for 25 years, succeeded to the throne as emperor, and was known as "Tang Shunzong".
After Li Xuan ascended the throne, he advocated strengthening the centralization of power, opposing the division of feudal towns and towns, opposing the monopoly of eunuch power, and adopted a series of reform measures. Because of the series of reforms he carried out, which triggered the interests of some eunuchs and the feudal forces, in March, the eunuch Ju Wenzhen and others made Li Chun, the eldest son of Emperor Shunzong of Tang, the Prince of Guangling, the crown prince, and later renamed Li Chun.
After four months, he issued an edict in the name of Tang Shunzong and coerced Tang Shunzong to abdicate to the crown prince Li Chun. Li Chun was the emperor, that is, Tang Xianzong, and Tang Shunzong abdicated as Emperor Taishang.
Tang Shunzong reigned for a short time, whether as emperor or emperor Taishang, he only served as emperor for 186 days. In 806, after abdicating the throne, he served as emperor for five months and then died mysteriously, without even enjoying the blessings that the son of heaven should have.
The history books record that he died of illness, but some people said that he was killed, in short, the cause of Tang Shunzong's death is still a mystery that is difficult to solve to this day.
References: Zizhi Tongjian, Old Book of Tang, Volume XIV, Benji 14, New Book of Tang, Volume 7, Benji 7