According to common sense, the throne is passed to the son, whether it is the head of the family or the sage, after all, it is passed to the son. However, it is rare to pass on to brothers, and there are also abnormal successions, and Zhu Di is the best case. However, in the Tang Dynasty, there were also the spectacles of three brothers ascending to the throne in succession, these three were Tang Jingzong, Tang Wenzong, and Tang Wuzong, who were Muzong's eldest son, second son, and fifth son.
Jingzong in film and television dramas
Li Zhan, the eldest son of Muzong, was initially created the King of E, and later the King of Jing. After Muzong fell seriously ill, Jingzong oversaw the country as crown prince, and then (in 824) Muzong died of illness and Jingzong took the throne. After the 16-year-old Jingzong ascended the throne, he inherited his father's spirit of amusement and has always enjoyed games such as polo, wrestling, tug-of-war, and dragon boat racing. For the sake of entertainment, Emperor Jingzong often forgot about it, and his followers made slight mistakes, ranging from light insults to heavy punishment and exile, and for a time the palace complained a lot. In 826, when the conflict finally broke out, the eunuchs Liu Keming and Su Zuoming took advantage of Jingzong's drunkenness to kill Jingzong, who was only 18 years old, and at this time, Jingzong had only been on the throne for two years.
Tomb of Li Zhanzhuang of Tang Jingzong in Sanyuan, Shaanxi
After Emperor Jingzong's death, conflicts broke out among the eunuchs, Liu Keming and Su Zuoming falsely passed on the holy will in an attempt to establish Emperor Xianzong's son Li Wu the Prince of Qi, and the internal privy councillors Made Wang Shoucheng, Yang Cheng, and other eunuchs have great opinions about this, and mobilized the forbidden army to welcome Muzong's second son Li Han the Prince of Jiang into the palace, killing Liu Keming and Su Zuoming's gang, and Li Wu, the King of Qi, also died at the hands of the rebels. Li Han the Prince of Jiang was Emperor Wenzong, who changed his name to Li Ang after he ascended the throne.
Portrait of Tang Wenzong Li Ang
During the 14 years of Emperor Wenzong's reign, in the early days, he exerted great efforts to govern and personally did his own work, swept away the extravagance and exaggeration since his father Muzong and his brother Jingzong, and implemented a series of reform measures such as releasing palace women, laying off people and reducing government, releasing dogs and abandoning eagles, exempting various localities from making offerings, and strengthening the channels for counselors, so that the late Tang Dynasty, which was weakening day by day, had a hint of a zhongxing atmosphere. In addition to these reforms, Emperor Wenzong also tried to eliminate the power of eunuchs, and although Emperor Wenzong was supported by eunuchs, Emperor Wenzong was disgusted with eunuchs for holding heavy troops and controlling the government, so Emperor Wenzong carried out two major actions. The first was a conspiracy to eliminate the eunuchs by the joint chancellor Song Shenxi, and the plan was leaked at the initial stage, resulting in Song Shenxi being framed by the eunuchs and finally killed. After that, Emperor Wenzong was still not dead hearted, and he appointed Zheng Zhu, Li Xun, and others to start a second anti-eunuch campaign. In the ninth year of Yamato (835), Li Xun lured Qiu Shiliang and other eunuchs on the pretext of rewarding the "nectar" on the pomegranate tree behind Zuo Kingo's hall, in an attempt to wipe out the eunuchs, but the matter once again missed the wind. The eunuchs were furious when they learned the truth, and immediately launched an unprecedented retaliatory campaign, killing more than a thousand court officials, an event historically known as the "Ganlu Revolution". Afterwards, Emperor Wenzong completely lost power and became a vassal, as he himself said, completely subject to domestic slaves. In the following years, Emperor Wenzong lived in the shadow of eunuchs, depressed and depressed all the time, and in the first month of 840 AD, Emperor Wenzong became seriously ill, and the eunuchs Qiu Shiliang and Yu Hongzhi falsely passed on the holy will to depose Crown Prince Li Chengmei, and Li Ming, the younger brother of Emperor Wenzong, became the emperor's brother- In the same month, emperor Wenzong died at the age of 32, and Li Yan (chán) took the throne, and Li Yan (later renamed Li Yan) was Emperor Wuzong of Tang.
Statue of Emperor Wuzong of Tang
Emperor Wuzong, like his elder brother, was a promising monarch, and at the beginning of his term of office, he reused Li Deyu as chancellor and launched a series of reforms to the maladministration of the late Tang Dynasty. During Emperor Wuzong's seven-year reign, he first peacefully eliminated the power of eunuchs such as Qiu Shiliang and strengthened the centralization of power. At the same time, the Uighur counterattack was won. Later, the rebellion of Zelu Liu Shu was put down, and the feudal forces were weakened. Later, a huge campaign to exterminate Buddhism was launched, demolishing more than 4,600 temples, returning more than 260,000 people to the customs, and confiscating tens of millions of hectares of fertile land owned by monasteries, which undoubtedly increased the government's taxpayer population and expanded the country's economic resources. During this period, the whole country was relatively stable, known as Huichang Zhongxing.
In addition to these reforms, Emperor Wuzong also revered the Dao alchemy, begged for longevity and immortality, and was trapped in it. For a time, when Emperor Wuzong fell ill, the Taoist priest told Emperor Wuzong that the reason for the illness was that the name of Emperor Wuzong belonged to "water", while the Five Elements of the Tang Dynasty belonged to the territory. Tu wins water, Tuke "瀍", so it is easy to get sick, it should be renamed "Yan", inflammation from "fire", in harmony with the soil, can eliminate disasters and avoid disasters. As a result, Emperor Wuzong really changed his name to Li Yan. However, the change of name did not give him good luck, and on March 23 of the sixth year of Huichang (846), 12 days after the name change, Emperor Wuzong died. Emperor Wuzong thus became one of the other emperors who died after Emperor Taizong, Emperor Xianzong, Muzong, and Emperor Jingzong.