Li Longji was the third son of Li Dan, the Prince of Xiang, and he was originally unrelated to the Ninth Five-Year Supreme In any case. Bold, he was determined to gamble heavily, took the initiative to contact his aunt Princess Taiping and the generals of the Forbidden Army, launched a very bloody Tanglong Palace to remove the Wei hou forces, and put his father Li Dan on the throne of the emperor, for Tang Ruizong, and he surpassed the eldest brother Li Chengqi, who was the head of the Tang Dynasty and had been the yuan reserve, and was made crown prince.
Li Dan was mediocre and weak, and after being put on the throne by his sister and son, he was only a puppet, and the government was controlled by Princess Taiping and the crown prince. The struggle between the aunts and nephews for the dictatorship was fought over by the emperor in the first year of the first year of the first heaven (712), because Tang Ruizong was the crown prince of Tianxiang Zen, that is, Tang Xuanzong, and the Emperor Taishang fought against the new emperor under the persuasion and protector of Princess Taiping, and Xuanzong, in order to monopolize power, preemptively killed Princess Taiping and her henchmen, forcing Emperor Taishang to completely surrender.
Since the beginning of the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, almost every struggle for the throne and the transfer of power have been accompanied by a palace coup, and Tang Xuanzong, who was originally a branch of the clan, even consolidated the throne by implementing two bloody coups to ascend to the throne, and therefore, among the emperors of the Tang Dynasty, his suspicion of heirs was almost the most serious.
In December of the second year of the new century (714), Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, who had already passed the throne, chose Li Ying, the second son of the nearly six-year-old, as crown prince among the six sons of the emperor at that time. At that time, Zhao Lifei, the mother of Li Ying and a prostitute, was the most favored in the harem, so because he was selfish, he did not hesitate to break the patriarchal order of the concubines and the Tang Dynasty's tradition of respecting the clan.
Li Longji was lustful by nature, widely selected Jiali Meishu, and Zhao Lifei's position in the harem was gradually replaced by Wu Huifei. In the fourteenth year of the New Century (726), Princess Li died of illness in Luoyang, and Li Ying lost a close relative.
However, the roof leaked during the overnight rain, and at the end of the thirteenth year of the new century, Tang Xuanzong held the Taishan Sealing Ceremony, marking the peak of his imperial career. Standing on the top of Mount Tai, which is almost equal to Hao Tiantian, the solipsistic side of his heart is infinitely magnified, and he is more obsessed with the imperial power he holds, and his mentality has also changed dramatically.
For example, in the past, he made great efforts to govern and open up the way of speech, and shangshu pointed out that there were many sages who were insufficient in kings and argued about the gains and losses of current politics, and he often issued edicts to praise and give rewards or promotions to his direct subjects. However, after the return of Dongfeng to the dynasty, many ministers who dared to enter the court were exonerated him to varying degrees, resulting in a small number of counselors and encouraging the emperor's self-sufficiency.
Li Ying was also favored and valued by Emperor Xuanzong, and after three years of schooling, he added yuan clothes and paid homage to the Temple, of course, at this time, Li Ying was still young, and it was forgivable that he rarely involved in politics, but with the end of the Eastern Seal, Emperor Xuanzong regarded the prince as a "natural political enemy".
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang was determined to control and guard against his sons, and by this time he already had more than ten princes, and his heir Li Ying bore the brunt of it. Since the pre-Qin Dynasty, the Eastern Palace has been another name for the residence of the crown prince, and it is also a symbol of the lofty political status of the Yuan Emperor, but Li Ying's right of residence in the Eastern Palace was cancelled and he could only live near his father's residence, diluting the particularity of the Crown Prince in the Zongmiao Temple.
Moreover, the bureaucrats under the Eastern Palace were also simplified and reformed by Emperor Xuanzong, and the Eastern Palace officials were more similar to honorary officials, which in turn reduced the closeness of the connection between the crown prince and the subordinate officials of the Eastern Palace, and the political power of the crown prince was also weakened, and various documents rarely saw Li Ying supervising the state and participating in politics.
Obviously, Tang Xuanzong was wary of Li Ying's power structure as the crown prince, and he already had a large number of concubines and children, which invisibly reduced the attention paid to Li Ying in terms of family affection.
At this time, the middle palace was vacant for some time, and Emperor Xuanzong wanted to make Concubine Wu Huifei empress, but was opposed by the ministers, on the grounds that Concubine Huifei was a nephew of Wu Zetian and was bearing the original sin of blood, not to mention that Concubine Hui had a son, and if fuzheng was not conducive to Li Ying, and it was not appropriate to support concubines after the establishment, she should be re-elected, so Emperor Xuanzong did not succeed to the empress for the sake of the overall situation.
Concubine Wu Huifei enjoyed the courtesy of empress in the palace, was the actual lord of the harem, and her sons Li Huan the Prince of Shou and Li Qi the Prince of Sheng also favored the crowned sons, although the emperor did not have the idea of Yi Chu at the moment, but for Li Ying, The mother and son of Concubine Wu Huifei may still be a hidden danger.
It can be said that in a few years, Li Ying suffered a four-fold blow of losing her mother, being greatly weakened by her father's political influence, the relationship between father and son gradually drifting apart, and the favored concubine and brother may shake the throne.
Of course, Emperor Xuanzong's suspicions were not limited to the heirs, but for the kings and emperors, they took measures to minimize their political and economic authority. Of course, he did not allow his sons to have the opportunity to dominate the side of the domain, and after the Eastern Seal, he built a high-walled and deep courtyard near the Xingqing Palace for the elderly princes to live in, and later built the Hundred Sun Courtyard next to the Ten Kings' Residence. Due to the limited area, if necessary, the two kings can live in the same house, and the emperor and grandson can live in the same house for many people, and the kings' diet, living, children's weddings can be solved in the ten kings' residences, and the eunuchs are responsible for management and monitoring.
Emperor Xuanzong also ordered Yousi to use as much money as possible to provide for the kings, and as early as the eleventh year of the new century (723), he changed the system and transferred the power of the princess and prince to conscript the feudal goods to the central government, and the feudal family should go to the Shifang to ask for it. It was not until the twenty-first year of the new century (733) and the twenty-third year that all the princes were collectively enthroned with the title of 2,000 households and could officially open the government, of course, the shogunate was listed in the outer square, only to play the role of decorating the façade of the royal family, and there was little handover with the prince himself.
The purpose of curbing the crown prince's development of political power had been achieved, and around the nineteenth year of the new century (731), Tang Xuanzong hired a concubine Xue Shi for the crown prince, who may feel that he owed something to the prince in these years, and also in order to give the prince a reassurance pill, Li Ying's marriage grace was particularly solemn.
In order to celebrate the great happy events of the crown princess, the emperor issued a grace edict, including qu pardoning the capital, exempting the world from death row prisoners, exempting Chang'an County and Wannian County from land taxes, the promotion of jingguan, the officials in charge of the wedding and the officials of the Eastern Palace basically receiving favors, the Zhongshu who presided over the five ceremonies to personally welcome the princess Xiao Song to seal xu guogong, Li Ying's mother's family Zhao clan and the crown princess's family Xue clan each had members who crossed the rank and moved beyond the ranks, and so on.
However, the lively grace cannot make up for Li Ying's political and spiritual losses, and more importantly, Li Ying, who is already young, is still difficult to exert her fists in government affairs. Indignant and frustrated, he often met with his two closest younger brothers, namely Li Yao, the fifth brother of E, and Li Ju, the eighth brother of Guangwang. The fifth and eighth elders are both handsome and favored clan talents, and they live in the same house, the relationship is very good, Li Ju is even more literary and martial arts, and he is very appreciated by his father, and the first time the country is very beautiful.
The birth mothers of Lao Wu and Lao Ba were Huangfu Deyi and Liu Cairen, and they also had Zhao Lifei, all three of whom may have had a disagreement with Wu Huifei. The brothers were dissatisfied with their mother's loss of favor and the pressure of their father's rebellion, and they were unwilling to suppress their emotions under the emperor's obscenity, and often gathered together to complain about the emperor and Concubine Wu.
At this time in the political arena, a powerful figure who was about to put the three princes to death was gradually climbing and becoming a popular alternate candidate, he was the well-known traitor Li Linfu.
Li Linfu was good at surviving the wind, he made good friends with high-ranking and powerful people in order to get promoted, and then threw millions of dollars, using gold to bribe the emperor's left and right attendants, including Gao Lishi, and many favored concubines and eunuchs in the palace, and the drill camp was woven into a developed intelligence network, and Xuanzong's words and deeds could be easily detected by him.
Wu Huifei inherited the ambitions of her aunt Wu Zetian, and after the ideal of the empress was frustrated, she set her sights on the throne, but Li Ying showed no obvious signs of shaking her position and the new marriage was not long, and she did not dare to convey her demands directly to her husband, so she could only lie in the deep palace and wait for the opportunity.
Li Linfu, who was well versed in the emperor's nature of guessing at his heirs, saw an opportunity to provoke the emperor to depose Prince Yi, and he wanted to pursue longer-term political interests by supporting the new monarch. He was good at reading people's hearts, and entrusted eunuchs to contact Huifei and expressed his willingness to support King Shou, who was worried that she had no foreign aid, so she formed an alliance with Li Linfu to add bricks and tiles to his intelligence network.
Li Linfu, who was familiar with the emperor's likes and dislikes, was like a roundworm in the emperor's belly, and he behaved very well in the court, plus his capable business ability, and Xuanzong greatly favored and relied on him, so he paid homage to him in the twenty-third year of the new century (735).
As time passed, Tang Xuanzong, who was full of pride and had been in the world for a long time, gradually began to neglect government affairs and indulge in lust. At that time, the chief chancellor was the literary hero Zhang Jiuling, who was upright and strong, and often advised the emperor to refraining from self-denial, and the two monarchs often disagreed on personnel arrangements. On the contrary, Li Linfu was not only capable but also obedient to Junshang, Tang Xuanzong was no longer shrewd and heroic in the past, and his inner balance fell to Li Linfu.
In the face of Li Linfu, the chancellor who intentionally or unintentionally preached the virtues of King Shou, Li Ying and the Crown Princess Xue family began to be vigilant, and Li Ying had been the crown prince for twenty years, and his heart was very eager to take the throne early.
He conspired with his uncle to plot a persecution of the palace, whether it was to directly pull the old emperor off the throne, or to get rid of Concubine Wu's mother and son and Li Linfu and then manipulate the emperor as a puppet, anyway, once the coup was successful, he could be in charge.
The shallow-minded Li Ying directly asked the relevant departments for two thousand pairs of armor, and the matter of the armor was actually learned by another younger brother, Li Xuan, the thirteenth son of the emperor, and played the father's emperor. Emperor Xuanzong was furious and thought that the prince had a disobedient heart.
Not only was the misfortune, Princess Xianyi, the eldest daughter of Concubine Wu, also married Yang Huan in the twenty-third year of the New Century, and Princess Hui asked her son-in-law to secretly monitor the movements of Li Ying and the other three princes, and found that the three princes often gathered to complain. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Concubine Wu also cried to Emperor Xuanzong in tears: "The Three Princes secretly formed a party, wanted to get rid of our mother and son, and also spoke ill of the emperor. ”
His own son and his favorite concubine complained one after another, which was simply dancing on Xuanzong's sensitive power nerves, and he was furious and summoned the prime minister Zhang Jiuling, planning to depose all the restless three princes. Zhang Jiuling felt that the prince and others had been in the deep palace for a long time, and there was insufficient evidence of rebellion, how could they easily shake the country because of gossip, although the prince did have mistakes, but as a father, he should choose to forgive and hide his mistakes for his son.
Because Zai chen was opposed, and the abolition of the reserve was indeed of a great deal, Tang Xuanzong hesitated and did not act on the third prince for the time being, but he was furious and, in order to show punishment, exiled one of Li Ying's wife's uncles, Xue Yuan.
Concubine Wu Huifei, who had been waiting for nearly ten years, was naturally anxious, and if the crown prince succeeded to the throne safely, their mother and son would inevitably be retaliated against by the new king. She knew that her ally Li Linfu planned to overthrow Zhang Jiuling and replace him, so she secretly accused the eunuch Niu Gui'er of her confidant, niu Gui'er, to threaten Zhang Jiuling, saying that if she did not support Yi Chu, she would not be able to secure her position.
However, the upright Zhang Jiuling had no fear, and the next day he played the matter to the emperor, Xuanzong's face changed greatly, and he only felt that the situation was complicated, so when Zhang Jiuling reigned, the position of the three princes was relatively stable. However, with a strong personality, he did not revoke the suspicion of the three princes in his heart, and a sharp contradiction like a powder keg had arisen between father and son.
This waste of money also made Tang Xuanzong even more dissatisfied with zhang Jiuling, who loved to oppose him, and Li Linfu also understood that only Zhang Jiuling's stepping down could achieve his and Wu Huifei's goals, and he continued to exert his strength, from time to time in front of the emperor to shorten Zhang Jiuling, and Zhang Jiuling was further alienated.
At the end of the twenty-fourth year of the New Century (736), because Zhang Jiuling opposed niu xianke worship, he was no longer patient with Xuanzong, who had a deep grudge against him, and dismissed him from the power of the government. In April of the twenty-fifth year (737), Zhang Jiuling's overseer Yushi Zhou Ziyu (周子 forgiveness) was immediately ordered to be killed in the courtroom because of his false words, and Zhang Jiuling was also implicated and exiled from Beijing.
Now that Zhang Jiuling had fallen, Concubine Wu and Li Linfu quickly launched an action against the Three Princes, and Princess Huifei took advantage of the prince's cheap entry and exit from the palace to send people to deceive the Three Princes, claiming that there were thieves in the palace who were in trouble and asked them to rescue them. The three princes lacked the city government, and when they heard the news, they brought troops into the palace, perhaps because they really thought that there were thieves who took advantage of this to ask for credit, or they may want to take advantage of the chaos to launch a palace change to control the emperor to seize power.
Tang Xuanzong was furious again, and with the foreshadowing of the turmoil in the twenty-third year of the New Century, he had already decided in his heart that the Three Princes were plotting rebellion, and immediately summoned Li Linfu to discuss, Li Linfu of course supported the emperor's deposing of the Three Princes, so the Three Princes were deposed, and Tang Xuanzong also cruelly executed them on the same day, known as the Three Shu people.
Princess Xue's brother Xue Ru was also given death for complicity, and Li Ying's mother's family, the Zhao clan, Li Yao's mother's huangfu clan, and the crown princess's family Xue clan, all of which included dozens of people, were degraded or exiled. The three princes were once loved by Emperor Xuanzong, but now he did not hesitate to order them all to be killed, and the people of the world were shocked and felt wronged by the three people.
In fact, the third prince and the brother of the crown princess Xue Ru did have a plan to rebel, and The princess Wei Shi of Li Yao, the King of E, was pardoned by Emperor Xuanzong because she urged her husband not to do disobedience, and the Wei family was not implicated because of Princess Xiande.
But of course, this matter is the father's Li Longji is the most responsible, his repressive policy makes the crown prince Li Ying confused and worried about the status of the unsafe, just the third prince is not obedient, tolerant, rebellious character, Li Longji is too cruel to his sons, destroyed the family and humanity, and triggered the tragedy of the Three Shu people.
As a totalitarian, Tang Xuanzong's requirements for The Heir apparent were a high degree of self-discipline and self-discipline that was less involved in political affairs. From the perspective of the successor to the throne, such a request is too harsh, and it is accompanied by the pain of not being worthy of the name and the power is not worthy of the throne.
The reason why the world believes that the three princes have been wronged is also that Tang Xuanzong's supervision of the sons is too strict, and in the era of Chengping, it was difficult for the prince to have the political strength to rebel, which was the idea of Zhang Jiuling before. Although it is true that the three princes themselves lack mature scheming wisdom and wise political skills, with the political resources they have, it is indeed difficult to reverse the breakthrough war situation.
After the murder of the Sanshu people, Tang Xuanzong was in a state of trance and anxiety and difficulty sleeping and eating for more than a year, not remorse and sorrow, but mainly for the new crown prince. It turned out that Emperor Xuanzong wanted to push the emperor to stand up, and the eldest son of the emperor, Li Chun, the Prince of Qing, had the misfortune of seriously breaking his face while hunting, and he wanted to establish the third son of the emperor, Li Jie (that is, Li Heng of TangSuzong), but the prime minister Li Linfu had always advocated the establishment of King Shou, so Emperor Xuanzong fell into thought.
In August of the 25th year of the new century, four months after the death of the Sanshu people, Tang Xuanzong, in order to warn his sons and release the signal that he wanted lao san to succeed him, personally wrote six articles to admonish the kings, including the righteousness of the father and son of the Ming emperor and the emphasis on the matter of the harvest, so that the old sanzhong king led the kings to pander.
Because Emperor Xuanzong of Tang had made King Zhongzhong the crown prince, it was equivalent to Concubine Wu Huifei waiting for many years and painstakingly making a wedding dress for others, and she probably did not expect that Xuanzong was so fierce that she killed three children a day, and it was inevitable that she would be a thief with a weak heart. Under great psychological pressure, Wu Huifei fell ill in October of the same year, and she and the attendants on the left and right saw the ghosts of the Three Shu people, and even the sound of ghosts crying often sounded in the palace, and by December, Wu Huifei died in fright.
Although Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, in order to treat Concubine Wu Huifei and appease the fears of the people in the palace, he killed the executioners and reburied the Sanshu people. However, he still believed in his heart that the three sons were rebellious and deserved to die, so Li Linfu and Wu Huifei, who intensified the contradictions and manipulated right and wrong, did not fall out of favor because of this, and Xuanzong probably felt that they were the heroes who helped him see the unworthy son.
It was Li Linfu who continued to be promoted to the rank of knight, and after the death of Concubine Wu Huifei, she was posthumously honored as Empress Zhenshun, and after the funeral ceremony, Li Xuan, the Prince of Ying, who had denounced her brother, served as the final sacrifice in the eastern suburbs of the emperor's relatives in the first month of the 26th year of the new century (738), and the higher status of Yaxian was the prince Zhongwang. In June, Li Jie (李亨), the Prince of Zhong, officially became crown prince.
Although King Shou was most pleased by his father, he was hardly considered as crown prince by Emperor Xuanzong, and it should not be the reason why King Shou was supported by Li Linfu and possible internal and external collusion. Zhang Jiuling, who was also the prime minister at the beginning, tried to protect Li Ying, and Li Ying's position was relatively stable when Zhang Jiuling was a very popular subject. Later, the new crown prince Li Heng was framed by Li Linfu's henchmen, and Emperor Xuanzong said that "Wu'er lives in the deep palace, and Andrew conspires with outsiders, which must be vain", which shows that he is quite confident in his means of controlling his sons, and knows that it is difficult for the crown prince to unite with the courtiers.
The zhengshi records that Tang Xuanzong had many talented sons, but there was no Shou Wang among them, which shows that The Shou King's intelligence among many brothers was not outstanding, and he was favored by his father mainly by relying on his mother's love for his son and his gentle and polite personality. After the death of the Sanshu people, Emperor Xuanzong finally chose the elder Renxiao and the erudite Sanzhong King for the sake of the stability of the regime behind him.
The dust of the new crown prince settled, and Li Heng fully learned his lessons, further degraded his courtesy on the basis of Li Ying, and behaved very low-key and humble. However, Tang Xuanzong became more and more jealous of the clan and exerted mental pressure on Li Heng, still conniving at him to be slandered and persecuted by Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, and the subordinate officials of the Eastern Palace could not be promoted for a long time, Li Heng just did not eat the meat left on the knife when he was cut, and Emperor Xuanzong, who had spent a lot of money with Yang Guifei, was not pleased, and Li Heng was saved by extreme patience and flattery.
Other princes also walked on thin ice to live a careful life, and after King Shou was robbed of his wife by his father's horizontal knife, he did not dare to have any complaints in public and private occasions. The princess of the old fourth emperor Li Yan made a mistake, and Li Yan was afraid that his suspicious father would have an incident after he knew about it, and he did not dare to play his father, but he and the princess were separated from each other from then on.
Li Yan favored the two widows, who fought for favors behind his back using forbidden witchcraft, and Li Yan accidentally offended the eunuch who supervised him, so the eunuch falsely accused Li Yan of cursing his father. Although the results of the investigation were indeed the work of the two children, the angry Xuanzong Fox suspected that Li Yan knew about it and did not report it, and despite the intercession of the prince and other brothers, he actually cut his post and imprisoned him in the eagle dog factory with bad conditions, and Li Yan soon died in physical and mental suffering.
When the Anshi Rebellion broke out, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang left part of his clan and his grandchildren and fled south, and the twentieth prince Li Yue, the Prince of Yan, could not bear to abandon his thirty-six sons and daughters, and in order to let the children keep up, he did not arrive at the palace where his father was located. Emperor Xuanzong's suspicions re-attacked, suspecting that King Yan had taken advantage of the chaos to rebel and wanted to kill King Yan, thanks to the good words of Li Yu, the king of Hanzhong (the son of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang), who saved him, King Yan was able to survive this disaster without any danger. After Ma Song's change, Emperor Xuanzong parted ways with the crown prince, and he still harbored resentment toward King Yan, causing King Yan to follow his brother Crown Prince Li Heng to Lingwu.
Feng Shui took turns, and Li Longji, who lost his prestige in his twilight years and passively became the Emperor Taishang, pretended to say in front of his son Suzong, "Now that I have become the father of the Son of Heaven, I feel my own honor", and he was almost beheaded by Li Fuguo, a close eunuch of Suzong, and I don't know if he will regret his original unkindness for his father?