The Tang Dynasty was very strong, but the Anshi Rebellion made the strong Tang Dynasty quickly weaken.
Although the Anshi Rebellion lasted less than ten years, its impact on all aspects of the Tang Dynasty was devastating.
Since then, the Tang Dynasty has been in power for nearly a century and a half, but it has never been able to get rid of the nightmare brought about by the "Anshi Rebellion".
For example, the eunuch dictatorship.
At that time, the Son of Heaven fled westward, and the crown prince ascended the throne as the emperor under the planning of the eunuch Li Fuguo and others, and it was for Tang Suzong.
Su Zong, who was plagued by internal and external troubles, trusted Li Fuguo very much and gave him all kinds of powers, including military power, making him the most powerful person in the imperial court for a time.
It would be good if Li Fuguo was as dedicated to the country as Gao Lishi, but it is a pity that he is a person with low character and great desire.
He grabbed power by unscrupulous means, and in the end, he was so powerful that he dared not even listen to Suzong's words and supported the Tang Dynasty Sect to succeed him.
In order to solve Li Fuguo, Daizong cooperated with eunuchs such as Cheng Yuanzhen and Yu Chaoen, which was nothing more than drinking to quench his thirst, and things still fell into the strange circle of eunuch dictatorship.
This also made the Tang Dynasty one of the most serious dynasties in history when eunuchs interfered in politics.
How serious is it?
In the late Tang Dynasty, the emperor was abolished, and the eunuchs had the final say; The eunuchs have the final say on the life and death of the emperor; The eunuch has the final say on all major affairs of the country......
In 846, the eunuchs planned to install another emperor, which had been a common occurrence in recent years, but this time the officials of the court and China were worried about it.
It's just that this time they went too far, and for the sake of their own power, they even asked a fool who couldn't speak and had a blank face to be the emperor.
However, this "fool" emperor surprised everyone, and his first holy decree under the throne shocked everyone in the court.
It turned out that this emperor had been pretending to be stupid and had deceived everyone with his superb acting skills.
This emperor is Li Chen.
Li Chen, formerly known as Li Yi, his father was Tang Xianzong, and his mother was a criminal courtier who was charged into the court as a maid.
Although Li Chen is a royal noble, under the high walls of the deep palace full of dangers, how much fatherly love can he get? Coupled with his mother's identity, he was even more discriminated against.
Li Chen is very smart, as the thirteenth son of Xianzong, he has no idea about power, and thinks more about how to live.
Therefore, he began to disguise, learned to be cautious in his words and deeds, learned to pretend to be stupid, and no matter how others laughed at him, he would not respond or laugh.
Some people even threw him into a dung pit, but he still let them torture him, and he could only laugh.
Everyone said he was stupid.
During this period, the emperor changed one after another, after Xianzong, Muzong, Jingzong, Wenzong, and Wuzong ascended the throne one after another, and every change of power was inevitably a bloody storm.
Li Chen relied on the trick of "stupidity" to escape danger again and again and save his life.
Once Wu Zong had an intuition that his stupid uncle was not simple, and he sent someone to kill him. The killer couldn't bear to attack the fool, so he sent Li Chen out of the palace with an open face.
Although he is in exile and has a hard life, there are not as many open and secret battles in the palace, and there are many crises.
Li Chen ate fasting and recited Buddha in a temple, devoted himself to studying Confucian classics, and wrote poems, but lived more freely.
If there are no variables, no one should think of this foolish clan outside the palace again!
But fate always likes to joke, when Tang Wuzong did not set up a prince, he actually took medicine and ate himself to death, and the throne was temporarily vacated.
Wu Zong made a small deed, effectively suppressed the power of the eunuch, and when he died, the eunuch began to live again.
You can't find another smart person to be the emperor, otherwise you can't manipulate it, and this won't make you unhappy! For the sake of his own future, it would be nice to have a foolish emperor.
Eh, isn't Li Chen recognized as a big fool? Where is he? Hurry up and invite me back to be emperor.
In this way, because Li Chen was "stupid" enough, he was put on the throne without warning by the eunuch Ma Yuanzhen and became the seventeenth emperor of the Tang Dynasty, for Tang Xuanzong.
However, when the 37-year-old fool Li Chen ascended the throne, he tore off the previous "fool" disguise and began to rectify the government vigorously.
On the second day of the official handling of state affairs, he began to take the eunuch group headed by Ma Yuanzhen, and the ministers of the DPRK and China who formed gangs and factions, degraded and degraded, killed and killed, and shocked many people with thunderbolt methods.
After that, Xuanzong governed the country from admonishment and thrift, not only rectifying the rule of officials and appointing talents, but also sent troops to recover a large area of land in the Western Regions and lost land.
The already declining Tang Dynasty, under his diligent governance, unexpectedly showed the short-term glory of "Zhongxing", known as the "rule of Dazhong" in history.
In 859, Li Chen, who had been emperor for thirteen years and was respected by later generations as "Little Taizong", died of poisoning by taking elixir.