Li Chengqian (619 – January 5, 645), eldest son of Emperor Taizong of Tang and Li Shimin.
Born in the Chengqian Temple, the name "Chengqian" implies the meaning of inheriting the imperial business and leading Gankun. Emperor Wude of Tang Gao was created king of Hengshan in the third year (620).
After Emperor Taizong of Tang ascended the throne, he was made crown prince at the age of eight, and because of his intelligence and sensitivity, Emperor Taizong was particularly fond of him. Emperor Taishang died in the ninth year of Zhenguan, and during emperor Taizong's filial piety, Li Chengqian took charge of the imperial government for the first time, and his performance was very good, and the ministers were well-known.
According to the history books: "quite knowledgeable" and "quite able to hear and judge", Emperor Taizong also admired his performance. From then on, whenever Emperor Taizong left Chang'an, he let the crown prince oversee the country.
Later, because Li Chengqian had a foot disease, Emperor Taizong was too fond of his fourth son, Li Tai, and Li Tai had the heart to seize the Eastern Palace. Li Chengqian was afraid that he would be deposed, so in the seventeenth year of Zhenguan (643), he conspired with li yuanchang, Hou Junji, Li Anyu, Du He (du ruqian's son), and Zhao Jie (princess Changguang's son) to protect himself, but before he could implement it, he was denounced by Qigan Chengji.
Afterwards, Li Chengqian was deposed as a Shuren and moved to Qianzhou, where he died two years later. After his death, Emperor Taizong specially deposed him and buried him with the ceremony of a prince. During the Kaiyuan period, at the request of Sun Li Shi, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang gave him the title of king and the title of emperor, and buried him in 738 AD.
The crown prince was called the crown prince, the successor to the throne, and the future leader of the country, so the establishment of the prince was the most important event in each dynasty.
Tang Taizong, like the emperors of previous dynasties, attached great importance to the selection and cultivation of princes. When he chose his eldest son, Chengqian, as the crown prince, trouble ensued, and soon he fell into the trouble of deposing the crown prince.
The young Chengqian was very intelligent, and Tang Taizong looked at it and liked it very much. In July of the fourth year of Zhenguan (630), Emperor Taizong of Tang selected the highly respected Li Gang as the crown prince's master and was responsible for Chengqian's education.
Li Gang was an old master, who was always instilled in Chengqian in the Confucian way of a father and son, and when he gave lessons, he was "generous in speech and had an indelible ambition." The young Chengqian seemed to really understand, "I don't want to be respectful", and I have great respect for him.
Tang Taizong was very satisfied when he saw that the two masters and disciples were so serious. In order to enable Chengqian to cultivate his ability to govern from an early age, Emperor Taizong also asked Chengqian to handle some simple political affairs, and Chengqian was very decisive and quite knowledgeable.
However, Chengqian grew up in the royal deep palace, did not come into contact with folk diseases, and the problem of short-sightedness gradually appeared. The crown prince's incomparable status, coupled with his good feelings for himself, became increasingly infected with extravagant and loose habits.
He opened his mouth and closed his mouth to be loyal and filial, and he also looked very calm in front of people, but behind his back, he was very fond of sound and color, and he was wandering with a bunch of villains. Because he was very good at disguise, many courtiers were deceived by him and did not know what kind of person he really was, and only when Tang Taizong stared at him sternly did he feel a little afraid.
Tang Taizong also found that he had a big problem at this time, but he did not want to give up on him, thinking that he was still very young, although he had some bad habits, he could still change them, after all, he was still malleable, as long as he had the guidance of a good teacher, he should become a good prince.
After Li Gang's death, Emperor Taizong of Tang placed the heavy responsibility of education on the shoulders of the crown princes Yu Zhining and Li Baiyao. Li Baiyao found that Chengqian paid great attention to the classics and loved to play, and once wrote a "Praise daofu", which satirized Chengqian with the success or failure of the ancient prince, which was approved by Tang Taizong.
However, it was impossible for Chengqian to really listen to Li Baiyao's persuasion, and he was still the same. Two years later, Li Baiyao left in discouragement. In the seventh year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong of Tang selected Du Zhenglun , the zhongshu attendant , as the right son of the crown prince.
Du Zhenglun was famous for his direct advice, and Tang Taizong wanted him to work with Yu Zhining to counsel the crown prince. Tang Taizong initially visited the Eastern Palace to learn about Chengqian's academic progress.
At this time, Chengqian fell ill with a foot disease and could not go to the court, so he avoided Tang Taizong's direct supervision of him, and a group of villains took the opportunity to come to him and lure him to play more absurd. Du Zhenglun and Yu Zhining's blunt exhortations were to no avail, and Chengqian could not listen to their words at all.
When Tang Taizong found out, he was very dissatisfied. Despite this, he did not lose hope in him, and chose the famous Confucian Kong Yingda as the right son of the crown prince, hoping to strengthen education and let Chengqian correct his shortcomings.
Kong Yingda was very responsible, as soon as he saw that Chengqian had a problem, he immediately put his face into counseling, but Chengqian smiled and smiled, and his habits were the same. Emperor Taizong had no choice but to change his teacher again, and in the twelfth year of Zhenguan, he appointed Zhang Xuansu as the right son of the crown prince.
Chengqian failed to live up to his father's expectations again and again, and looking at his son's appearance, Tang Taizong was very anxious in his heart, and the flesh and blood affection between father and son became increasingly indifferent, and as the days went on, Taizong developed disgust.
More importantly, Tang Taizong found that the gap between the crown prince and him in political views was even greater. Emperor Taizong of Tang always flaunted the practice of ruling the country by virtue of literature and honoring the wise and honoring the scholars, but Chengqian did not understand why his father did this, let alone the principle that the crown prince Shoucheng was very important in keeping the text, blindly playing and abandoning his studies, and was very fond of the Turkic martial customs.
After Tang Taizong ascended the throne, he vigorously advocated the acceptance of advice, and also hoped that the crown prince could be like him, and he could not imagine that Chengqian did not like the counselors, did not accept good words, and violated the teachers assigned to him by his father.
If Tang Taizong was thirsty for sages, once he found a virtuous person, he would pay tribute to corporal Xian, but Chengqian did not hear of the act of loving the virtuous and being kind, but instead "privately led to the connection, most of them are villains", which made Taizong very disgusted.
Tang Taizong was very disappointed in Chengqian, and gradually had the idea of deposing the crown prince. At this time, he found that Li Taicong, the crown prince of Wei, was extremely sensitive, and began to favor him, and gave Li Tai a lot of preferential treatment in all aspects, and the monthly economic supply to Li Tai, the king of Wei, exceeded that of Chengqian.
Li Tai was made the governor of Xiangzhou, but he did not go to office and could stay in the capital. Later, in order to facilitate travel, Emperor Tai asked Li Tai to move to the Wude Hall in the imperial palace, and also specially ordered the Wei palace to set up a literary museum. The reason for this was that Tang Taizong mainly wanted to gradually establish Li Tai's prestige and prepare for the replacement of the crown prince one day.
At that time, Chengqian also realized his father's growing estrangement from him and his preference for Li Tai, knowing that he had fallen out of favor and the position of the crown prince was in jeopardy, and his heart was irritated.
The bleakness of the future made him discouraged and withered, and he simply broke the jar and broke it, abandoned himself, and indulged in wine all day long. He recruited hundreds of people in the East Palace to pretend to be Turks, play Hu music, dance Hu, wave the wolf flag of the Hu people, and also set up a Hu people's felt tent, imitate the Hu people's military formations, hold the Hu people's short swords in their hands, and even let people burn firewood and roast the whole sheep, pull out the sabre and cut it little by little.
He himself was likened to a khan, pretending to die suddenly, causing the crowd to cry on the side of the dead body according to hu customs, and making the Eastern Palace a miasma of smoke.
He privately adopted a little music trick, and spent all day having fun with her, and was very fond of her. Shi Zai, Li Chengqian once fancyd a boy named Satisfied Heart, who was both talented and beautiful, and could sing and dance and especially flirtatiously, and the Thai demon was almost the same, and he also had a pair of intimate looks all day long (the big sister of the song world, Mei Yanfang, sang his heart).
When Li Shimin found out, he was furious and sent someone to kill Xiao Le, which made Chengqian extremely sad, and set up a spiritual hall for her in the Eastern Palace, built a tomb and chiseled a monument, made sacrifices morning and evening, wept bitterly, and pretended to be unwell for several months without going to the court, in fact, he did not want to see his father and emperor.
Li Chengqian suspected that Li Tai had made a small report, and was very angry, saying that he was ill for several months. All day long for this beautiful child prostitute who died for him washed his face with tears, and spent his days in a daze in front of his portrait, the standard infatuated lang. Since then, he has also had a feud with Li Tai, and he will not give up until he plays dead.
In order to keep his position as crown prince, Chengqian began to act.
He consulted with his henchmen and prepared two plans. They first sent the assassin Qigan Chengji to assassinate Li Tai, the King of Wei, believing that only by eliminating Si Jun's rivals could they ensure their position, but they did not expect that this plan did not succeed.
The first plan did not work, and the second plan was to proceed to the second, that is, to make a desperate bet at the time of last resort, launch a palace coup, let Tang Taizong abdicate as the emperor, and use force to ascend the throne.
Chengqian's misdeeds made Tang Taizong very distressed, and he hesitated on the issue of making a prince more. He still fantasized that Chengqian could reform himself.
Until the sixteenth year of Zhenguan, he also sent Wei Zheng as the crown prince's master to strengthen the education of Chengqian. Wei Zheng was a man who firmly advocated the succession of the eldest son of Li Concubine to the throne, so Tang Taizong wanted him to make a final effort against Chengqian, because only Wei Zheng would wholeheartedly want Chengqian to go the right way.
In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, Wei Zheng fell ill and died, and his last efforts to save Chengqian were shattered.
When King Tai of Wei saw that he was approaching the throne, he showed an aggressive posture, and Chengqian could not think of anything but to speed up the pace of rebellion.
Together with Chengqian, King Yuanchang of Han, Hou Junji of Shangshu, and Du He, the duke of Qima, were originally only a little unhappy with Tang Taizong, but under the influence of Chengqian, they had pity for each other, and several people got together to talk and decided to rebel.
Everyone swore by cutting off their arms, wiping blood with a drapery, burning it to ashes, and drinking it together with wine, reciting a few words of life and death on their lips, and deciding to sneak to Tang Taizong's palace at the right time.
I didn't expect something to happen at this time. In February of the seventeenth year of Zhenguan, Li You, the King of Qi in Qi Prefecture, plotted a rebellion.
When the news came, Chengqian was very happy, and said to his subordinate Qigan Chengji: "The western wall of my palace is only more than twenty steps away from Ouchi, if I want to get something out with you, is it comparable to the King of Qi?" The rebellion of the King of Qi was quickly put down, and a cadre of people and others were taken to Chang'an for interrogation.
In April, unable to withstand the torture during interrogation, Chengji confessed chengqian's plan to plot a coup d'état. Tang Taizong filed a case for trial and asked Changsun Wuji and other ministers to form a special court to hear the matter, and after feeling that the evidence was complete, Emperor Taizong sent a forbidden army to quickly arrest Chengqian and his henchmen with lightning speed, and a coup d'état that had not yet been launched was aborted.
Li Yuanchang, the king of Han, was given death, and hou Junji's subordinates were sentenced to capital punishment. A few days later, Emperor Taizong deposed Crown Prince Chengqian as a Shuren and imprisoned him in the Right Leading Palace. A few months later, he exiled Chengqian to Qianzhou. Not long after arriving in Qianzhou, Chengqian died inexplicably.
A crown prince, towards a sad ending.
Some people say that the essence of Li Chengqian, the first problem boy in the royal family, is not too bad, at most it is only a willful stubborn point (it is not difficult to see from his obsession with the dead former love), with the "rebellious teenager" of the age-specific "smashing window" prank mischievous to win the parents' greater attention and favor mark.
This kind of mischief is not a heinous evil, the key is that he was born in the wrong place, he should not have been born in the palace, and he was the successor of the most successful emperor in history, then this kind of mischief is very childish and out of line, which is a low-level mistake that professional politicians cannot allow, and even playing is a blasphemy against his noble status.