In 741, Tang Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan first met at the Hot Spring Palace in Lishan. More than 60 years later, in 806 AD, the great poet Bai Juyi wrote a "Long Hate Song" based on folk tales and bold imagination, which very explicitly described the scene when Xuanzong and Yuhuan were together:
Spring cold bath Huaqing pool, hot spring water slippery wash gelatin.
The waiter lifted up the delicate and weak, and it was the time of the new cheng enze.
This is the Tang Xuanzong and Yang Yuhuan described by Bai Juyi in the "Long Hate Song": "When the spring is cold, Xuanzong gave her to bathe together in Huaqing Pond, and the warm spring water washed the gelatinous skin. The maids supported her, and the jade ring was as weak as the water hibiscus, and she began to receive the emperor's favor. ”
Yes, the age difference between Yang Guifei and Tang Taizong was 34 years old, and this naturally beautiful little woman tossed the old emperor to almost unable to stand up.
It should be known that before Yang Yuhuan was favored by Tang Xuanzong, she also had an identity, she was the eighteenth son of Tang Xuanzong and the princess of Li Mao, the King of Shou. To put it more ugly, it is Li Longji who has taken over his daughter-in-law.
In fact, this is not surprising for the Li Tang royal family with Hu Han blood, the people on horseback have this tradition, they call this "inheritance marriage", before Tang Taizong occupied his brother-in-law, Tang Gaozong Li Zhi adopted his father's daughter-in-law Wu Meiniang.
However, there was also a difference, Taizong and Gaozong were married to widows, and the twenty-two-year-old Yang Yuhuan was the current princess, which made Li Mao feel bad.
Yes, this makes Li Mao very embarrassed, in fact, Li Mao's situation has always been very embarrassing.
1. The youth of Li Mao, the King of Shou
After Emperor Xuanzong of Tang ascended the throne and became emperor, an important thing was to enrich the harem, for which he married many concubines, among which his favorite was Concubine Wu, whose origin was very unusual, she was the niece of Empress Wu Zetian, the daughter of The Constant King Wu Youzhi.
At first, Wu Huifei gave birth to several children to Tang Xuanzong, but all of them died early, and later Wu Huifei became pregnant again and gave birth to a son, named Li Qing.
Because the children born to Concubine Wu died one after another, they sent the children to the palace of Li Xian, the King of Ning, and were raised by the Concubine of the King of Ning.
The identity of this King of Ning was also not ordinary, he was the eldest brother of Li Longji, and he had the opportunity to be the prince at the beginning, but he felt that his ability was inferior to That of Li Longji, so he gave up his position as prince to him.
Under the care of King Ning, Li Qing, who grew up, was also a talent, and was loved by Tang Xuanzong, and in the thirteenth year of the New Century (725 AD), Emperor Xuanzong made him the King of Shou, and then gave him many official positions, such as the governor of Yizhou and the envoy of Jiannan Jiedushi, officially entered the inner circle of the imperial court, and changed his name to Li Mao.
It was also in December of the year in which he changed his name that he adopted the Yang clan as a concubine, which was later Yang Yuhuan.
2. The struggle for the throne of the Crown Prince
It is reasonable to say that Li Mao was the eighteenth son of Tang Xuanzong, according to the "eldest son system", it was not his turn to choose the prince, but Li Mao's mother, Wu Huifei, was Tang Xuanzong's favorite concubine at that time, so Wu Huifei wanted to fight, change her bicycle into a motorcycle, and fight for the position of prince for her son.
Before Tang Xuanzong ascended the throne, he had already married three concubines when he was crown prince, namely Zhao Lifei, Emperor Fu Deyi, and Liu Cairen. Their sons were Li Ying the Crown Prince, Li Yao the Prince of E, and Li Ju the Prince of Guang.
However, after Tang Xuanzong ascended the throne, the mothers of these three people were not favored, and the red person next to the emperor was Wu Huifei.
In order to overthrow the three brothers, especially the then crown prince Li Ying, Wu Huifei joined forces with Li Linfu, the chancellor of the dynasty, and used trickery to trick the three brothers into entering the palace wearing armor, and then framed them for deliberate rebellion. The three brothers, including Li Ying, were abolished as Shuren.
Concubine Wu huifei did everything, but in the end, her son Li Mao still had no connection with the position of crown prince. According to the analysis of later generations, this may be related to Li Mao's special origin, after all, although her mother Wu Huifei was favored, she was wu Zetian's niece and granddaughter, and Tang Xuanzong was still quite concerned about guarding against the re-emergence of the martial family's power. Moreover, Li Mao was raised by Li Xian, the King of Ning, who also had the opportunity to inherit the throne, and Tang Xuanzong did not want to see that the small clique of King Ning was too powerful. Finally, according to Gao Lishi's suggestion, Gao Lishi said that li li li chang, who was older, and the result was that the prince was the then king of Zhong, later Tang Suzong Li Heng.
3. You are the princess and I want to dominate your beauty
Although he had no connection with the position of prince, Li Mao did not care too much about this. But what he did not expect was that the father would not only seize his throne, but also his wife.
Shortly after the "Concubine Hui's chaotic government", Concubine Wu Huifei did not sleep well all day because she murdered the crown prince Li Ying, and suffered from suspicious heart disease, and soon died.
This made Tang Xuanzong very unhappy, although Concubine Wu Huifei had done a lot of bad things, but she was his favorite concubine, and now looking at the entire harem, there was no longer one who could make him feel moved!
Gao Lishi figured out the intention again, and he told Tang Xuanzong that Li Mao's concubine Yang Shi, the King of Shou, was quite beautiful and was a beauty, and Tang Xuanzong was really fascinated at first sight after seeing Yang Yuhuan. This matter is recorded in the New Book of Tang:
"Twenty-four years after the beginning of the new century, Wu Huifei Was a Concubine, and hou Tingwu was not the emperor's will. Or the concubine qualifications are heavenly, it is advisable to fill the court, so it is called to the internal prohibition, different. ”
Here I have to say more, as an emperor, what you want, the world is yours, but in order to miss a woman, you have to rob a woman with your son, I really don't know what this is, I can only say that once people have power and money, they will be very willful!
The wayward Tang Xuanzong took Yang Yuhuan to his Lishan Palace and lived there for two months. However, Tang Xuanzong thought about it, after all, Yang Yuhuan was his daughter-in-law, and it might not be too good if he was directly accepted as a concubine.
To this end, Tang Xuanzong thought of another way, and on the second day of the first lunar month in the twenty-ninth year of the new century (741 AD), Tang Xuanzong issued an edict to the world, declaring that in order to fulfill Yang Yuhuan's filial piety to the late empress, he approved her to voluntarily become a female Taoist monk, and also gave the Eight Classics of Zheng'er a Daoist name called Taizhen.
After the announcement, Yang Yuhuan did not really become a monk, but continued to play with Tang Xuanzong every day, soaking in the hot springs in Lishan Mountain, and even moving into the Xingqing Palace.
The two of them played together more and more frequently, and later they almost lived together in public, which led to Li Bai's three poems that have been passed down through the ages.
We know that Li Bai very much wanted to make a contribution to the imperial court, but Tang Xuanzong did not use him seriously, only let him write poems in the palace. Li Bai specially wrote three poems for Yang Yuhuan, the general title is "Qingping Tune", composed and sung by the famous musician Li Guinian, we are familiar with "the clouds want to dress and flowers, and the spring breeze blows Revlon." It is from here that the creation time is about three years after Yang Yuhuan was made a female Taoist.
Now that the matter is over, there is no need to hide it. On the sixth day of the first month of August in the fourth year of Tianbao (745 AD), Tang Xuanzong, who had just celebrated his 61st birthday, officially crowned the 27-year-old Yang Yuhuan as a noble concubine. Because there was no empress in the palace at that time, the noble concubine was actually the lord of the six palaces.
After four years of going around, the two finally cultivated the right results.
However, now, do you remember that Shou Wang Li Mao? He is the son of Tang Xuanzong and the ex-husband of Yang Yuhuan.
His life was indeed very embarrassing: because his first brothers had died early, he was sent to king Ning to raise after birth; his mother was Wu Zetian's niece and granddaughter, which made him have no connection with the position of prince; he married a daughter-in-law, and he was also favored by his father and became a concubine of Xuanzong.
Perhaps the father Tang Xuanzong also saw that this son was miserable, and in order to express his apologies, after completing a series of operations, he married Wei Zhaoxun's daughter for Li Mao and became a new princess.
As for Li Mao, intimidated by his father's authority, he did not dare to express anything, he carried forward the spirit of low-key and low-key, loving and loving with Wei Shi, still very respectful to his father, and on the occasion of seeing Yang Guifei, he also strictly abided by the etiquette of mother and son, which made Tang Xuanzong very satisfied with him, so his career as a prince did not seem to be more embarrassing because of this unusual relationship.
4. Li Mao's final ending
After Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei were together, in the words of the poem, that is, "from now on, the king will not be early in the dynasty", and the two of them also created a "Neon Dress Feather Song" together, happy like a god.
However, just when Tang Xuanzong fell into a gentle township, he did not know that at this time the entire Tang Dynasty had already had a crisis, and it was An Lushan, the son of The Noble Concubine Niangniang, who later caused Yang Yuhuan to die.
An Lushan is a Sogdian, it is said that he weighs more than three hundred pounds, but he is very flexible, can dance a whirling dance, and has very funny cells, which can make Yang Guifei laugh, so Yang Guifei recognized him as a dry son. You know, this An Lushan is sixteen years older than Yang Guifei, and I really don't know what Yang Guifei's operation is. Later, it was this An Lushan that launched the Anshi Rebellion that changed the fate of the Tang Dynasty.
In the tenth year of Tianbao (751 AD), An Lushan was made the emissary of Pinglu, Fanyang, and the three towns of Hedong. The combined strength of these three towns was nearly 200,000 people, accounting for 40 percent of the national border guard army, more than twice that of the Central Army. At this time, An Lushan had the capital to rebel.
And because of his many visits to Beijing, An Lushan had already explored the bottom of the empire clearly. The emperor was lazy, the officials were deceitful, and the express mail that was supposed to inform the government affairs and the military situation was actually the lychee of the noble concubine. Even Yang Guozhong, a small who came to power by nepotism, actually became the prime minister. Such a corrupt regime, that is really a golden jade and external defeat.
On November 9 of the fourteenth year of Tianbao (755 AD), the jiedu of the three northern towns caused An Lushan to launch a rebellion in Fanyang, from Fanyang to the fall of Luoyang, which took only thirty-four days, the offensive was very fierce, and then An Lushan declared himself emperor in Luoyang. Tang Xuanzong, on the other hand, was seduced by Yang Guozhong and executed Gao Xianzhi and Feng Changqing, who had lost the battle.
An Lushan then captured Tongguan, where Ge Shuhan was stationed, and the next target was the Tang Dynasty capital Chang'an.
The 71-year-old Tang Xuanzong saw that he was powerless to resist and fled to Shudi, while Li Mao was also in the entourage.
A day and a half after fleeing from Chang'an, the group reached Ma Songpo, more than a hundred miles away from the capital, at this time the soldiers in the army complained a lot, and the commander of the Janissaries, Chen Xuanli, worried about the mutiny of the soldiers, asked Tang Xuanzong to execute Yang Guozhong, the prime minister. Later, they also forced Emperor Xuanzong of Tang to kill Yang Guozhong's sister Yang Guifei.
Tang Xuanzong was forced to obey their demands and said, "Treat yourself." It is said that later Yang Guifei was hanged in the Buddhist hall, and the emperor even asked Chen Xuanli and others to go to the autopsy, and as a result, the soldiers saw it and called long live the mountain.
And Yang Guifei's former husband Li Mao also witnessed all this.
With the death of Yang Yuhuan, it is really "let the past go with the wind", and the embarrassing past between Tang Xuanzong and Li Mao's father and son because of Yang Yuhuan has also come to an end.
For some time after that, Tang Xuanzong and Li Mao fled south together and lived together in Sichuan for a while.
Unlike Tang Xuanzong and Li Mao, who fled south, the crown prince Li Heng, at the request of the people of Shu, chose to go north to quell the rebellion.
On July 13, 756, the fifteenth year of Tianbao (756 CE), almost a month after his breakup with Emperor Xuanzong, Li Heng, with the support of Shuofang's remaining officials, took the throne as Emperor Suzong of Tang.
Then Emperor Suzong of Tang, with the help of Li Bi, Guo Ziyi, Li Guangbi, and others, led the Tang army to fight the rebels and retake Chang'an and Luoyang. After retaking Chang'an, Emperor Suzong took his father, younger brother Li Mao, and others back to Chang'an.
However, one was the new emperor and the other was the old emperor, both living in Chang'an, which made the relationship between Tang Suzong and Xuanzong very delicate. Many of Xuanzong's relatives were also alienated by Li Heng.
However, Li Mao, the King of Shou, was an exception, Tang Suzong's younger brother Li Mao always appeared as not asking about political affairs, and Li Heng always had a good impression of him, so he did not interfere too much and exclude him, Li Mao lived in the capital until he died of illness and died in a chaotic world.
brief summary:
The life of Li Mao, the king of Shou, was tortuous and bizarre, he was born and sent to the king of Ning to raise; when he grew up, his mother Wu Huifei wanted him to fight for the crown prince, and there was a lot of noise in the palace; after marrying a beauty, he was looked up to by his father and became the concubine of his father.
But he knows very well that he is always happy and at ease with the situation, and after birth, he gives it to king Ning, then he is down-to-earth and becomes a talent; his mother let him fight for the crown prince and fail, then he lives well, anyway, he does not have this ambition; his daughter-in-law was snatched away by his father and emperor, that is not humble, showing a look of no desire and no demand, which also allows him to save his life in the chaotic world, how can this not be a great wisdom?