There is a saying that "there is no father and son in heaven, and there is no brother." This is because there is only one throne, and in order to be able to ascend to the supreme throne, brothers and sisters can also sword each other. However, during the Tang Dynasty, there was a prince who did not pursue imperial power all his life, but only wanted Mingzhe to protect himself. However, in the end, he was still involved in the power struggle and died tragically at the hands of Wu Zetian, who was Li Zhong.
Li Zhong's father, Li Zhi, was not a qualified emperor, and his personality was too weak. Perhaps this is related to the fact that he did not receive an education from an orthodox heir as a child. Li Zhi was the younger son of Empress Changsun and Li Shimin, and his brother Li Chengqian was made crown prince by Li Shimin long ago. Li Shimin did not care about Li Zhi's education, but only wanted him to be an idle prince.
But I didn't expect that Li Chengqian would become more and more unsuccessful later, and he even had the idea of rebellion. Li Shimin had no choice but to depose him as crown prince and replace him with his younger son Li Zhi, who was not outstanding, as crown prince. After Li Zhi became emperor, he crowned his wife Wang Shi as empress and his favorite concubine Xiao Shi as Shu Concubine. Although Empress Wang accompanied Li Zhi for many years, she was never able to give birth to a son and a half daughter. Li Zhong was the eldest son of Li Zhi, and his birth mother was only a palace girl with a very low status.
Because Empress Wang was childless, she designed to get rid of the palace girl and raised Li Zhong under her own name. After Wang became empress, Li Zhong became the eldest son of Li Zhi's concubine, and his status was very honorable. Later, in order to deal with Concubine Xiao Shu, Empress Wang took Wu Zetian back to the palace. Unexpectedly, in the end, she and Xiao Shufei were planted in the hands of Wu Zetian, and even her life could not be saved. Li Zhong is a very cautious person and acts very low-key.
When Empress Wang was still on the throne, he was crowned crown prince because he was the eldest son of a concubine. After the fall of Empress Wang, Li Zhong knew that he could no longer sit on the throne of the crown prince. In order to save his life, he made a small prostration in front of Wu Zetian, and even ran directly to find his father Li Zhi, saying that he was not worthy of the position and wanted to resign from the position of prince. Li Zhi originally had no feelings for Li Zhong, and he did not like Li Zhong's birth mother, nor did he like his adoptive mother Wang Shi.
As a result, Li Zhong's crown princeship was taken away, and Li Zhi quickly crowned Wu Zetian's eldest son Li Hong as the new crown prince. Li Zhong was later enfeoffed as the King of Liang by Li Zhi and left the palace to take up his fiefdom. Li Zhong left the palace like a refugee, lest he stay for another moment. In the fiefdom, Li Zhong also failed to live a peaceful day. He had heard about Wu Zetian's various means, and he was afraid that the next turn would be himself. He divination and fortune telling every day is to calculate how long he can live.
In order to paralyze Wu Zetian, he also deliberately put on a woman's dress and danced for fun. When Li Zhi heard of his various outrageous behaviors, he reprimanded him, and Li Zhong was indifferent. But even so, Wu Zetian never wanted to let Go of Li Zhong. This is because Li Zhong is, after all, Li Zhi's eldest son, and he has also been praised by Li Shimin.
There is a poem called "Wildfires burn endlessly, and spring winds blow and grow again", if Li Zhong is left unchecked, then he will always be a hidden danger. Dissatisfied with Li Zhong, Li Zhi eventually revoked Li Zhong's title of King of Liang and degraded him to a commoner. Even so, Wu Zetian was still not satisfied, and later she used her means to frame Li Zhong for rebellion, or took Li Zhong's life.