Many friends who are familiar with the history of Tang Dynasty should know that there was a "Luling King" in Jiangxi in the Tang Dynasty, he was the third son of Wu Zetian, and Li Xian, emperor of Tang Zhongzong who had been emperor twice, but this Luling King never appeared in his fiefdom of Luling, which is today's Ji'an, Jiangxi, but was placed by Wu Zetian in Fangling, Hubei.
Whether it was a mistake in the records of the Tang Dynasty, or was wu Zetian mistaken in the name of the place, but looking at the old and new Tang Books and historical books, it is indeed recorded that Li Xian was the "King of Luling", but the fief was located in the present-day Fangling in Hubei Province, that is, the Fangzhou capital of the Tang Dynasty's ShannanDong Province. What's going on here? Today we will come to cut the melon and find out.
Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Li Xian, whose original name was Li Zhe, was the third son of a generation of empresses Wu Zetian, his compatriots Li Hong and second brother Li Xian were both demoted for opposing their mother's monopoly, Li Xian's personality was relatively weak, and he was completely different from his arrogant eldest brother, the second brother with a violent temperament, but he sat on the dragon chair twice, ascended the throne as emperor, and became an important figure in the Middle and Tang Dynasties to inherit a generation of prosperity.
Li Xian's father, Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi was also a well-known "wife management yan", and in the first year of Emperor Gaozong's reign, Li Zhi died of illness, and Li Xian, as crown prince, succeeded to the throne and became the fourth emperor of the Tang Dynasty. However, the supreme imperial power was in the hands of his powerful mother, Empress Dowager Wumei. At this time, Li Xian, who had never liked to be "in the limelight", wanted to be a "spoiled wife demon" and give his father-in-law Wei Xuanzhen a knighthood in the name of the emperor, in order to please his beloved Empress Wei.
Unwilling to annoy Wu Zetian, who could not rub the sand in his eyes, Wu Zetian was furious and deposed Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Li Xian, who had only been sitting on the dragon chair for 55 days, to the throne and demoted him to the position of King of Luling, and let him take his "precious wife" Wei Shi out of Chang'an and exile him to Luling County (Ji'an), the capital of Jizhou Prefecture in The Western Province of Jiangnan (Jiangxi), which was then regarded as the land of southern barbaric smoke.
Li Xian lived in the palace since he was a child, pampered and habitual, relatively obese, and often sick, where he could withstand such a bumpy ride and horse that traveled thousands of miles, and he could not avoid crying and screaming along the way, which was all looked at by the guardian officers accompanying him, and from time to time the flying pigeons passed on books to Report to Wu Zetian.
When he walked to the territory of Fangzhou in Shannan's eastern province (Fangling, Hubei), Li Xian was seriously ill and difficult to travel, and he thought for a moment that li Xian, the second brother who had been exiled to Bazhou in the western province of Shannan (Bazhong, Sichuan), had died young soon after he arrived in the degraded land, which made him think that Luling in Jiangxi was more remote from Chang'an, and it was eight hundred miles away than the Hongdu Yuzhang (Nanchang) where his twenty-second uncle Li Yuanbao, the king of Teng, was degraded, so he couldn't help but be grief-stricken, and he even reached the point where he had no love, and he had to hang himself for a while.
Fortunately, his strong wife Webster found out in time, rescued him, and carried out a heart-rending scolding of him. After being drunk by his beloved wife, Li Xian actually looked like a "Daigo empowerment", no longer crying and howling to die, but obeying Wei's words, kneeling down in front of the escort officer on the spot, begging to be stranded in Fangzhou, The eastern province of Shannan, to recuperate.
At first, the escort officer refused to agree, but Wei Shi said: "King Luling is also the son of Tianhou, if you let him drag his serious illness forward and die on the way, see how many heads you have can escape the death penalty!" When the escort officer heard this, he was also quite jealous, and said that this matter should be reported to the empress dowager for decision. As a result, Li Xian, the king of Luling, and his wife stayed in Fangzhou indefinitely.
After Wu Zetian received a letter from the escort officer in the eastern capital Luoyang, she was really speechless about this son, and at that time, the general Xu Jingye, who happened to be in Jiangnan at that time, raised an army to rebel under the banner of "supporting Tang and opposing wu", Wu Zetian considered that if Li Xian fell into Xu Jingye's hands, he was afraid that it would be very unfavorable to her, so she might as well let him stay in a place closer to Luoyang, so she asked the chancellor Pei Yan: "King Luling is seriously ill on the way, and the humidity in Jiangnan is too bad, so why not let him live in Fangzhou in the eastern province of Shannan to recuperate?" Pei Yan replied, "Fangzhou is also known as Fangling in ancient times, Lu is close to the tomb, Fang is also in the house, the empress dowager loves her son, go to Lu on the house, the king of Luling has to be born, this providence is also!" Wu Zetian was also very satisfied with this, and ordered Li Xian to be left in Fangzhou.
In this way, Li Xian and Wei Shi stayed in Fangling for fourteen years, during which they also gave birth to the famous "little witch" Anle Lord, fourteen years later, Li Xian and his wife returned to Chang'an, Li Xian, with the support of the ministers, once again ascended to the throne, but unfortunately he and Empress Wei's own daughter Anle fed "burnt bread", ending this tragic life.
Li Xian is the only Luling king in Chinese history, but he has never been to Luling in Jiangxi in his life, assuming that he gritted his teeth and ran to Luling, to be a veritable "Luling" prince, and perhaps to "live in peace and happiness" in the beautiful Luling in Jiangxi, auspicious and peaceful for half a life.
For the sad ending of Li Xian, the "King of Luling", there is a local saying in Ji'an that "pie falls from the sky, and you refuse to open your mouth to bite!" In the end, he did not choose the feng shui treasure land of Ji'an, Jiangxi As a place to live, and it has to be said that it was the biggest mistake he made in his life.