As the saying goes, "Poor people must have something to hate," and li heng, the third son of Li Longji of Tang Xuanzong, was like this. His origins, his growth process, the disasters and misfortunes he faced were all very sympathetic, but some of his decisions and his means of doing things were very abhorrent.
Next, let's talk about this chaotic heavenly son who died of fright in his illness.
When Li Heng was born, his father was only a prince. However, due to the tension between the prince and the princess Taiping, who was favored at the time, the prince was not happy but very worried when faced with this upcoming child. Because, he was afraid that Princess Taiping would borrow the title to play.
There are too many examples in history of the prince being deposed on the pretext that he was addicted to sound and color and was difficult to take on a big responsibility, like Yang Yong and like Li Chengqian. Crown Prince Li Longji did not want to follow in their footsteps, although he did not have anything out of the ordinary. So the worried prince ordered his subordinates to secretly find abortion pills, intending to kill this little life, but in the end, it was not carried out.
Perhaps it was out of pity in his heart as a father, or for various other reasons, that made this poor hard luck child survive. After Li Heng was born, he was not raised by his birth mother Yang Shi, after all, Yang Shi was only a small concubine, not to mention, the crown princess Wang Clan at that time had nothing to do.
In this hierarchical palace, the Yang clan dared to enjoy the joy of motherhood alone. Therefore, the infant was still in its infancy and sent to the princess to raise. When the crown princess had no children, she loved Li Heng a hundred times, but when she had her own child, treating Li Heng was a different situation.
In this way, along with the shadow of the sword and light in the palace, Li Heng stepped from a teenager to a youth, and this prosperous Tang Empire went into decline step by step. Li Heng's father, Li Longji, was obsessed with beauty in his later years, and there are still many affairs to this day, and the most extensive of them is his love story with Yang Guifei.
However, love can not withstand the fire of war. At the Battle of Ma Song, Li Shangyin could not help but sigh "how the four ages are the son of heaven, not as good as the Lu family." In this mutiny, Tang Xuanzong fought bravely to comfort the soldiers, and ordered Yang Guifei to hang herself, and a generation of beauties died of incense.
Li Heng was originally the Prince of Zhong, but in 738 he was made crown prince, and it was also at this time that his original name Li Jie was changed to Li Heng. After the mutiny, he was appointed as the Grand Marshal of the Terracotta Army, responsible for quelling the rebellion and the Anshi Rebellion, while Li Longji himself continued to flee west. Li Heng was left by the people, and he parted ways with his father and went north to Lingwu.
On July 12, 756, Li Heng ascended the throne at Lingwu, known in history as Emperor Suzong of Tang, and his career as emperor began. During his short seven-year reign as emperor, two things were carried out throughout:
The first is to recover the two capitals and eliminate the rebels;
The second is to handle the affairs of the Emperor Taishang well and maintain the stability of the regime.
In the first year of De's reign, that is, the year Li Heng had just ascended the throne, he plotted to recover the western capital Chang'an and the tokyo Luoyang. The chancellor Fang Zhen also had this ambition, and took the initiative to ask the miao to lead the troops to retake Chang'an, and Li Heng agreed to him. Unfortunately, however, before the army reached Chang'an, it was raided by the rebels, and Fang Zhen's army was completely destroyed.
The emperor was not satisfied, and so were many ministers, but the urgent desire to recover the lost land, suffering from the shortage of troops, prompted Li Heng to turn back to borrow troops. However, the condition for borrowing soldiers was to send all the gold, silver and treasures in the capital city and the children of the people to Huiyi. This means that only the land will be recovered, but the two capitals will be hit hard.
But this emperor could not take care of so much, after all, at this time, the An Shi rebels were infighting, and An Lushan was killed by his son An Qingxu, such an opportunity could not be missed, and it would not be lost again. Therefore, Emperor Li Heng appointed Guo Ziyi and other famous generals to recover the lost land and strive to regain the lost land in one fell swoop. Guo Ziyi and others did not live up to expectations, and successively retook Chang'an and Luoyang in the second year of Zhide.
The joy of victory seemed to make the emperor forget the fact that his troops were borrowed, and even more forgot the merits and loyalty of the generals who recovered the lost land. After Qianyuan changed the yuan, the emperor sent Guo Ziyi and others to Xiangzhou to besiege An Qingxu, however, he was suspicious and did not trust Guo Ziyi and others, so he did not set up a commander, but only sent a close eunuch to lead the whole army.
Unfortunately, the eunuch who has been in the deep palace for a long time, in addition to being deceitful and deceitful, can also understand what martial arts and what plans to deal with the enemy army.
Moreover, at this time, Shi Siming, the old department of An Lushan, was leading 130,000 troops to rescue An Qingxu, which was doomed to be a dead end. After the defeat in this battle, the eunuch Yu Chao'en, in order to protect himself, put all the responsibility on Guo Ziyi, and this precisely fit the emperor's dark speculation, so the emperor naturally deprived Guo Ziyi of his military power and degraded him to go home.
On the side of the Anshi rebels, the change of military power is even more unpredictable. First, Shi Siming killed An Qingxu, proclaimed himself Emperor of Great Yan, and in May of the same year, recaptured Luoyang. Within a few days of Shi Siming's happiness, he was killed by his own son Shi Chaoyi.
In the imperial court, because Tang Suzong had been committed to suppressing rebellion and solving various problems in the political and economic system, he no longer had the energy to limit the expansion of the power of the harem and eunuchs. This laid the groundwork for the reconstruction after the Anshi Rebellion, and also laid the groundwork for his own later fate. Datang has come to this point now, I am afraid that it is powerless to return to heaven.
Perhaps tang Suzong was willful, he followed Yu Chao'en, and then reused the eunuch Li Fuguo and others to take charge of military and political power, and the harem favored empress Zhang Liangdi, ignoring the harem and not allowing her to deal with political affairs.
The consequence of this must have been to hasten the end of his imperial career.
In 762, Tang Suzong fell ill for several months and could not go to the court, and the news of the death of Emperor Taishang made him sad in his heart and aggravated his illness. At this time, the people around him were more ambitious than one, and the empress first formed a party with the eunuch Li Fuguo, but she hated his dictatorship very much, so she made a vendetta against him, and wanted to establish Li Shi as the heir apparent.
At this time, Empress Zhang, Li Shi, Li Fuguo, and Cheng Zhenyuan began to oppose the three factions.
As the emperor's illness worsened day by day, the courtiers became more and more restless, and the fear of the two eunuchs in Empress Zhang's heart also flourished, so she summoned the crown prince Li Yu, hoping to kill the two people by the hand of the crown prince. However, the crown prince was worried about the emperor's illness, or worried that this move would annoy his father, who was seriously ill, so he rejected Empress Zhang's request.
Empress Zhang was not satisfied, and she summoned the Yue King Li clan again and told the matter again. Li Shi immediately ordered his men to select strong men from among the eunuchs to form a team and prepare to move. Unexpectedly, someone informed Li Fuguo of this matter, and Li Fuguo and Cheng Zhenyuan went into the palace with their men to listen to the news, and happened to meet the prince entering the palace to visit the emperor.
Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen immediately made a decision, falsely claiming that there had been a change in the palace, preventing the prince from entering the palace, and abducting the prince to monitor it. Later, under the guise of the crown prince, they instigated the forbidden army to enter the palace to arrest Li Shi, the king of Yue, and his subordinate Yan Wang, and put them in prison. Empress Zhang was horrified when she learned that the matter had failed, and rushed to the emperor's bedchamber to hide.
Who knew that Li Fuguo was so bold that he went to the emperor's palace to force Out Empress Zhang. Poor Empress Zhang had long since lost her face and refused to leave the palace, but only pleaded bitterly with the emperor on the sick bed. The emperor lying on his sickbed was so frightened by this that he could not speak for a moment. Li Fuguo took advantage of this gap and dragged Empress Zhang away.
The people who served the emperor were already frightened and scattered, and for a time, the hall of eternal life was silent, and the poor emperor lying on the sickbed suddenly worsened his illness due to fright, but no one cared, and he died on the sickbed on the same day, and his short seven-year political career came to an abrupt end. The hardships of life, the absurdity of death, the chaotic heavenly son is already in danger of his own life, how can he ask to save the edifice that will fall?
In short, Tang Suzong was a chaotic heavenly son, he inherited the achievements of Tianbao's prosperity, and while working to suppress rebellion, he tried to solve the shortcomings in the operation of the political and economic system since Tianbao, and laid a certain foundation for the empire behind him. Of course, because his main energy was in counterinsurgency, he could not limit the expansion of the power of the harem and eunuchs, but left a hidden danger for the reconstruction after the Anshi Rebellion.
This is Suzong's personal misfortune and the sadness of the Tang Empire.
Resources:
[New Book of Tang, Old Book of Tang, Zizhi Tongjian, Tang Ji, Suzong Civilization, Wude Dasheng Daxuanxiao Emperor]