A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 904: Xianzong's violent death, the emperor's lack of restraint, the eunuchs in power

The 15th year of Yuanhe

According to ancestral system, the Crown Prince Li You of the Tang Dynasty changed his name to Li Heng. With the support of eunuchs and court officials inside and outside the court, Li Heng succeeded to the throne in front of the coffin of the late emperor.

The court decided to posthumously title Li Chun "Emperor Ruisheng Wenwu", temple name "Xianzong", and set the reign title for the next year as "Changqing".

Logically speaking, the late emperor gradually lost the hearts of the eunuchs, foreign officials, and local governors because of his excessive tyranny and indulgence in alcohol and sex in his later years, which led to his sudden death.

As a vested interest, Li Heng should take this as a warning, keep himself clean, make good friends both at home and abroad, first focus on protecting himself, and then after consolidating his position, revitalize the government, inherit the Yuanhe rule, and create his own Changqing rule.

Finally, it’s never too late to enjoy yourself.

However, Li Heng himself does not think so.

He believed that the world was now peaceful under the rule of the previous emperor, and that he had never had any big ambitions.

In fact, because he had the support of eunuchs at home and the help of important officials such as his mother's family, the Guo family, no one could threaten his position.

So he skipped the stages of consolidating the foundation and reviving the country, and went straight to the ultimate goal of becoming emperor. Soon after he ascended the throne, he began to ignore state affairs and indulge in pleasure.

While the court was still in mourning for Emperor Xianzong, Li Heng made no secret of his love for entertainment. He went out of the palace many times to play and indulge in drinking and sex.

After Xianzong was buried in Jingling Mausoleum, without the restrictions of funeral rites, things became even more unrestrained.

On the second day after the mourning period ended, he took his entourage to the royal forest park for hunting for fun.

He also loved banquets, holding a big banquet almost every five days and a small banquet every three days. He also squandered the wealth in the treasury to reward the eunuchs and confidants who entertained him.

Originally, Xianzong had spent a lot of effort in the early days, bearing the infamy, and forcibly confiscated the wealth and goods from all over the country into the imperial treasury, but Li Heng gave them away like water.

Even though his ministers advised him that he "indulged in too many feasts and indulged in hunting and traveling without limit," the world was still not at peace, the local governors were still a major threat to the court, and he should focus on state affairs.

But Li Heng still believed in himself.

This almost crazy entertainment was not curbed until November of the second year of Changqing.

The reason was that an accident happened when Li Heng was playing polo with palace people.

A eunuch suddenly fell off his horse, as if he was hit by an unknown external object.

Li Heng was very frightened, so he stopped and went to the main hall to rest.

Due to the alternating heat and cold, he suddenly found himself unable to walk on the ground, felt dizzy and had a stroke.

After Li Heng suffered a stroke, he naturally could not have fun and lay in bed all day, feeling depressed and his body never recovered.

Under such circumstances, his thoughts became more and more extreme. He thought about immortality and believed that only the elixir of life could cure his stroke. He even indulged in pleasure.

So he became as crazy about gold and stone medicine as his father, even more obsessed with it than himself.

The first month of the fourth year of Changqing.

Li Heng, who had to take pills to survive almost every day, died in his bedroom due to poison from the pills.

After Li Heng's death, Crown Prince Li Zhan succeeded to the throne and named the reign "Baoli".

Although Li Heng was extravagant, there was still more than ten years of great prosperity during the Yuanhe period of Emperor Xianzong.

Therefore, there was enough wealth left in the inner treasury, and Li Heng had no chance to spend too much because of his stroke.

Therefore, when Li Zhan ascended the throne, the savings in the Chang'an treasury were still quite abundant.

In view of this, after Li Zhan ascended the throne, he followed his father's example, abolished state affairs, indulged in pleasure, and was even more crazy than his father.

He even raised a group of strong men for his own entertainment, who were by his side almost day and night.

Sometimes when they were having fun, they would lose all scruples and would often punish the playing wrestlers, eunuchs, and generals by exile, confiscation of their property, or even beating to death.

This makes many people full of fear and resentment.

Even the more powerful eunuchs in the palace, such as Xu Suizhen, Li Shaoduan, and Yu Hongzhi, were dismissed from their posts because they did not cooperate well with him in "fighting night foxes".

In the third year of Li Zhan's reign, this day was like usual, he called everyone around him out of the palace to "hunt night foxes."

After returning to the palace, he was in high spirits. He played ball with the eunuchs Liu Keming, Tian Wucheng, and Xu Wenduan, and drank with the military generals Su Zuoming, Wang Jiaxian, Shi Dingkuan and 28 others.

After drinking a lot, he went into the room to change clothes.

Suddenly, the lights in the hall went out, and Liu Keming, Su Zuoming and other eunuchs and generals rushed to the throne with ferocious faces, looked at the hungover Li Zhan, and shouted: "I, I, I, dog-foot I."

After saying this, he raised his sword and slashed it down, and the most honorable emperor in the world, the sage of the Tang Dynasty, Li Zhan, passed away.

After Li Zhan's death, Liu Keming, Su Zuoming and others wanted to support Li Chun's son, Prince of Jiang Li Wu, to ascend the throne.

But they were only middle-level eunuchs, generals of the imperial guards, and powerful eunuchs such as Wang Shoucheng and Yang Chenghe who did not speak.

Then there was a series of political and military attacks on each other.

The Privy Councilors Wang Shoucheng and Yang Chenghe, who controlled the internal and external affairs of the court, achieved the final victory.

By controlling the power of the Shen Ce Army and the Feilong Army, he killed Prince Jiang Li Wu, Liu Keming, Su Zuoming and others.

Finally, Prince Jiang Li Ang was chosen by them, ascended the throne and became emperor, changing the era name to "Taihe".

The Privy Councilor Wang Shoucheng, who had contributed greatly to the enthronement of the emperor, was appointed lieutenant of the Right Army and held control of the Shence Army.

At this point, Wang Shoucheng held both military and political power, establishing an unshakable position in the court.

In just a few years, three emperors rose and fell in succession in the Tang Dynasty. The throne was controlled by eunuchs, and killing an emperor was like killing a child.

This dealt a heavy blow to the prestige of the imperial court, and local governors increasingly disregarded the imperial court.

March of the first year of Taihe
After the death of his father, Li Quanlue, the governor of Henghai, Li Tongjie, the deputy governor of Henghai, took the post of acting governor without waiting for the court to appoint a new governor, and sent people to the court to request submission.

But Li Ang was different from the previous two emperors. He naturally wanted to change the status quo. He was an emperor who wanted to do something, at least to restore the situation during the Yuanhe period.

So, at the suggestion of court officials, Li Ang rejected Li Tongjie's request and allowed him to serve as an official in the court. He also ordered Tianping Jiedushi Wu Chongyin to be transferred to Henghai Jiedushi.

Naturally, Li Tongjie disobeyed the order, so Li Ang ordered Wu Chongyin, the governor of Henghai Cangjing, to be the chief general, and also mobilized the governors of the six towns of Wuning, Pinglu, Weizhou, Lulong, Yicheng and Yiwu to lead their troops to participate in the campaign against Li Tongjie.

In April of the second year of Taihe, under the siege of the troops of the seven garrisons, Li Tongjie was defeated and lost his territory. He was executed by the court envoy Bai Qi and his head was sent to the capital Chang'an. From then on, the vassal states became slightly quieter.

In the fourth year of Taihe, with the planning of Li Ang and court officials, the local vassal states were finally somewhat appeased.

After the outside issues were resolved, Li Ang began to plot to kill the eunuchs.

However, since the eunuchs lived in the imperial palace and controlled the imperial guards, Li Ang felt that he was in the Nine-Layer Forbidden City, with eunuchs' eyes and ears everywhere, and it was difficult for him to discuss matters with the loyal generals and ministers in the outer court.

Soon, Li Ang saw that Hanlin scholar Song Shenxi was upright and loyal and did not form cliques for personal gain, so he invited him to discuss how to get rid of the eunuchs.

Soon Song Shenxi was promoted to Shangshu Zuocheng, and was soon appointed Tongzhongshumenxia Pingzhangshi.

After Song Shenxi became prime minister, he began to kill eunuchs, appointed Wang Fan, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel, as the prefect of Jingzhao, and "secretly conveyed the emperor's instructions" in an attempt to kill the eunuchs with the Jingzhao government soldiers.

However, Wang Fan leaked the news, which was discovered by Zheng Zhu, a retainer of the eunuch Wang Shoucheng, who then informed Wang Shoucheng.

June of the fifth year of Taihe
Upon hearing the news, Wang Shoucheng ordered Dou Luzhu, the chief military officer of the Divine Strategy Army, to present a petition to Li Ang to falsely accuse Song Shenxi of plotting a rebellion with the highly respected Prince of Zhang, Li Cou.

Because Li Cou was Li Ang's younger brother, he had a good reputation in the court and the country. In addition, there were precedents for palace coups in the Li Tang court, and they occurred one after another.

For the sake of his own throne, Li Ang finally immediately ordered Li Cou to be demoted to the Duke of Chao County and Song Shenxi to the Sima of Kaizhou.

Not long after, the two died of grief and anger.

After Li Cou and Song Shenxi died, Li Ang soon realized that he had been deceived, but was unable to clear their names due to pressure from the eunuchs.

(End of this chapter)