Today, the History Encyclopedia editor brings you the story of Li Zhong. Interested readers can follow the editor to take a look together.
After the death of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, Crown Prince Li Zhi ascended to the throne and became the third emperor of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, Li Zhi’s eldest son Li Zhong had already been born, but Li Zhong’s background was not very good and he was born to Li Zhi and palace officials. Later, Li Zhi’s empress dowager had no children, and in the harem, it can be said that the mother valued her son. The prince born to any empress or concubine who was appointed as the heir to the throne could obtain a high status. So Queen Wang wanted to adopt Li Zhong as her adopted son, so that Li Zhong would have the identity and status of his eldest son.
Later, Li Zhong was appointed as the Crown Prince by Li Zhi. Originally, Empress Wang’s status would have increased as a result, but an unexpected person appeared. Everyone is very familiar with this person, who is Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history. Of course, that was later on when Wu Zetian was only a concubine of Li Zhi.
Li Zhi was very fond of Wu Zetian, and his feelings for her surpassed those of Empress Wang. Moreover, shortly after Li Zhi ascended the throne, Wu Zetian gave birth to her son Li Hong. Wu Zetian was a very scheming person, not only successfully excluding Empress Wang and Consort Xiao in the palace struggle, but also planning to have her son sit on the crown prince’s throne. Wu Zetian first used a scheme to falsely accuse Empress Wang, causing her to be deposed. Li Zhi then appointed Wu Zetian as the empress.
Empress Wang was deposed, and Li Zhong’s status was once again lost. Wu Zetian took the opportunity to win over some ministers and persuade the emperor to depose Li Zhong’s crown prince. Li Zhi’s personality was relatively gentle, so he listened to others’ advice. As a result, Li Zhong was deposed as the crown prince, and soon after, Wu Zetian’s son Li Hong was appointed as the crown prince.
Li Zhong was demoted from the Crown Prince to the Prince of Liang, distancing himself from internal struggles and theoretically able to find peace and quiet. But Li Zhong was too suspicious because his fiefdom was not far from the capital city, and he was afraid that Wu Zetian would be ruthless and not let him go. Therefore, he could not eat well, sleep soundly, and live a suspicious life all day long.
Later on, Li Zhong became too cautious and often wore women’s clothes, dressing up as women, in order to prevent assassination attempts by assassins. And he always has nightmares. Whenever he has nightmares, he starts to have wild thoughts and goes to find someone to divine for him, to see if he is going to have a bad luck. Continuing like this for a long time not only consumes one’s spirit, but also makes it easy to be misunderstood. Later, Li Zhi found out that Li Zhong lived like this every day, which made him very angry. He thought that instead of being so suspicious of Li Zhong, he might as well become a commoner directly.
From the crown prince to the commoner, Li Zhong’s identity has been constantly changing up and down, and he was eventually demoted to commoner and imprisoned. But Li Zhi was not a ruthless person and did not execute Li Zhong, but Wu Zetian did not think so. Li Zhong’s life was not only a threat to her, but also because the eunuchs and courtiers around Li Zhong had offended Wu Zetian before. Therefore, Wu Zetian falsely accused Li Zhong of plotting rebellion with a private party. At this time, Li Zhong was no longer alive and was executed by Li Zhi at the age of only 22.
