Li Jiancheng

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Li Jiancheng was born in 589 as the eldest legitimate son of Li Yuan, Duke of Tang, and Lady Dou. The Li family descended from Li Hu, one of the Eight Pillars of State of Western Wei, and held the hereditary title Duke of Tang, occupying a prominent place among the Guanzhong aristocratic elite. During Li Jiancheng's youth, Li Yuan successively served as inspector of Qiao, Long, and Qi prefectures, and the family moved with him. In 613 Li Yuan became Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud and later an inspector and suppression commissioner in Hedong. In 614 the twenty-six-year-old Li Jiancheng married Zheng Guanyin of the elite Zheng clan of Xingyang, a marriage that helped broaden the family's ties in the eastern aristocratic world.

In 615 Li Yuan became Taiyuan garrison commander while Li Jiancheng lived with his household in Hedong. As the Sui order collapsed, Li Yuan secretly prepared an uprising. According to the Diary of the Founding of the Great Tang, he ordered Li Jiancheng to “secretly connect with talented men” in Hedong, while Li Shimin was to “secretly recruit bold companions” at Jinyang. Li Jiancheng therefore spent this period building ties with local elites and men of talent in preparation for revolt.

The Jinyang Uprising and Capture of Chang'an

In early 617 Liu Wuzhou rebelled at Mayi, captured Loufan, and occupied Fenyuan Palace. Li Yuan recruited troops at Taiyuan under the pretext of suppressing rebels and secretly summoned Li Jiancheng from Hedong. In June Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji took back roads to Taiyuan; their younger brother Li Zhiyun was captured and killed by Sui forces. Once Li Jiancheng arrived, Pei Ji, Liu Wenjing, and others joined him in urging Li Yuan to rise, invoking precedents of deposing incapable rulers and proposing that Emperor Yang be removed, Prince Dai Yang You installed, a righteous army raised, and the movement given political legitimacy. Li Yuan accepted the proposal and formally began the uprising.

Li Yuan sent Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin to take Xihe. The newly raised soldiers were undisciplined, so Li Jiancheng established military regulations. On the march he shared hardship with the troops, required payment for local produce, and politely refused gifts. At Xihe he personally called on the city to surrender. Only commandery assistant Gao Deru resisted. After Zhu Zhijin enabled the army to enter, Gao was captured and executed while the rest were pardoned. The round trip took only nine days. Li Yuan praised the operation and created Li Jiancheng Duke of Longxi and Left Commander-in-Chief.

Later that summer, Li Jiancheng advised advancing on Huoyi after the rains. When Li Yuan worried that Song Laosheng would remain behind the walls, Li Jiancheng argued that Song was brave but lacked judgment and could be provoked into battle. Li Yuan adopted the plan. Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin led the left and right wings in feigned attacks, cut the enemy's retreat, and helped take Huoyi. The Old Book of Tang preserves a different version in which Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng were initially driven back and Li Jiancheng fell from his horse before Li Shimin reversed the battle; the two records therefore differ.

In September Li Jiancheng led Liu Wenjing, Wang Changxie, Jiang Baoyi, and tens of thousands of troops to Tong Pass and Yongfeng Granary to block Qutu Tong. After Qutu Tong's western route was cut, Li Yuan ordered Li Jiancheng to choose elite troops at Yongfeng and hurry toward the Changle detached palace. In October Li Yuan reached Bashang and joined Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin, bringing the army above 200,000. During the assault on Chang'an, Li Jiancheng attacked from the east and south while Li Shimin attacked from the west and north. The city fell in November.

Period as Crown Prince

After Chang'an fell, Li Yuan installed Yang You as emperor and became Prince of Tang. Li Jiancheng was named heir apparent to the Prince of Tang and given an official staff. In early 618 he became General-in-Chief for Pacification and Commander of the Eastern Expedition, leading 70,000 troops toward Luoyang. Supply problems forced a return in the fourth month, after which he was appointed Prefect of the Masters of Writing.

When Li Yuan founded the Tang in May 618, Li Jiancheng became Crown Prince. He assisted with government and repeatedly led campaigns. In 619 he suppressed Zhu Shanhai at Sizhu with General Sang Xianhe, then went to Yuan Prefecture to receive An Xinggui and Hexi after Li Gui's capture. In 620 he guarded Pu Prefecture against the Turks. In 621 he defeated the Ji Hu leader Liu Xiancheng in Fu Prefecture. After inducing a number of Hu leaders to surrender, he feared renewed disorder and ordered the execution of more than 6,000 surrendered troops when the plan became known and Liu Xiancheng fled to Liang Shidu.

When Liu Heita rebelled again in 622, Li Jiancheng accepted advice from Wei Zheng and Wang Gui and requested command. Wei Zheng proposed replacing the coercive policies used in earlier campaigns with leniency toward captives and families. Li Jiancheng followed the recommendation, released prisoners, and spread word that captured wives and children were being freed. This helped dissolve Liu Heita's support. Liu was captured at Raoyang in early 623, and Shandong was pacified.

Succession Struggle and the Xuanwu Gate Incident

As unification neared completion, rivalry between Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin intensified. Li Shimin had accumulated enormous military prestige through campaigns against Wang Shichong, Dou Jiande, and others, while the Prince of Qin's headquarters drew many talented civil and military officials. Li Jiancheng remained Crown Prince but faced a powerful rival. In 624, the Yang Wengan Incident implicated the Eastern Palace in an illicit transfer of arms. Li Yuan was furious and for a time reportedly promised the succession to Li Shimin, but withdrew the idea after remonstrance and instead exiled two of Li Jiancheng's officials, Wang Gui and Wei Ting. The episode deepened mistrust.

The Eastern Palace and the Prince of Qin's establishment then competed openly. Li Jiancheng allied with Li Yuanji, Prince of Qi, and repeatedly attacked Li Shimin politically before Li Yuan. In 626, when the Turks threatened the frontier, Li Jiancheng recommended Li Yuanji to command in Li Shimin's place and transferred elite troops from the Prince of Qin's establishment to the Qi prince, further weakening Li Shimin. Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, Du Ruhui, and others urged Li Shimin to act first. On the fourth day of the sixth month, Li Shimin ambushed the Xuanwu Gate. Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji realized something was wrong as they entered the palace. Li Shimin shot Li Jiancheng and Yuchi Jingde killed Li Yuanji. Li Jiancheng's five sons—Li Chengdao, Li Chengde, Li Chengxun, Li Chengming, and Li Chengyi—were also killed, and many Eastern Palace officials were executed or exiled. Li Jiancheng was thirty-seven.

His Achievement at the Rising of Jinyang: Xihe and Huoyi

When Li Yuan was made defender of Taiyuan in 617, Li Jiancheng was with the family at Hedong, and his father ordered him to make secret friends among men of ability there. The Record of the Founding of the Great Tang says of this that "the crown prince was then at Hedong, and only the prince of Qin attended him, and he was ordered to seek out the outstanding secretly at Hedong while the prince of Qin secretly gathered bold friends at Jinyang." In the same year Liu Wuzhou rose in revolt and called himself son of heaven, took the Loufan commandery in the third month and occupied the Fenyuan palace; Li Yuan, on the one hand, raised troops in the name of suppressing the rebels, and on the other sent secret messengers to Hedong urging Li Jiancheng to come to Taiyuan; on the sixth day of the sixth month Li Jiancheng and the prince of Qi, Li Yuanji, arrived from Hedong, at which Li Yuan "was greatly pleased," and Pei Ji and the others then petitioned through the crown prince and the prince of Qin that, after the precedents of Yi Yin's deposing Tai Jia and Huo Guang's deposing the duke of Changyi, the emperor be deposed and the prince of Dai set up, "raising righteous troops and proclaiming it to the commanderies and counties, and changing the banners to show the Turks," so that the enterprise should have a name.

The first hard fight after the rising was at Xihe. Its commander had repeatedly declared his loyalty to the Sui and blocked Li Yuan's road west, and on the fifth of the sixth month Li Yuan sent Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin against him with only three days' rations. Li Jiancheng, seeing that the newly raised troops were untrained and fearing they could not fight, laid down military law and set the army in order; on the march he shared hardship with his men — "fruits and vegetables by the roadside were not eaten unless paid for," and if one of the troops stole, he sent to find the owner and pay him without exposing the thief; when elders offered food and drink he "took their meaning to heart" and divided it equally among the soldiers in his sight, never taking it alone; and when cattle and wine were sent he thanked the givers and dismissed them with the words, "This is the Sui law; I do not dare." Reaching Xihe, the two brothers went unarmoured to proclaim their purpose, and all outside who wished to enter the city were let in "without distinction of sex or age," so that those within, seeing such forbearance, "all wished to run to them," and only the commandery assistant Gao Deru stood stubbornly out; Zhu Zhijin, the judicial clerk, let the troops in from the wall and brought Gao Deru out, and the brothers, counting his offences — he was the man who had once "seen a phoenix" in a wild bird and flattered the Sui ruler with an omen, "like Zhao Gao calling a deer a horse" — had him beheaded, "and beyond him not one man was killed, not a hair harmed." The whole expedition took nine days, and Li Yuan, hearing of it, said with delight, "Making war in this way, a man may traverse the world," and on that day fixed the plan of entering the passes, making Li Jiancheng duke of Longxi and grand commander of the left guard, with the three left armies under him.

The battle of Huoyi was another key action on the way into the passes. Song Laosheng would not come out, and Li Jiancheng and Li Shimin advised: "Laosheng comes of humble stock, brave but without wisdom, and has some name for hunting down small bandits. Coming here, he will expect great reward; if he does not fight he will certainly die. Tempt him with light horse and he will surely come out." Li Yuan therefore took several hundred light horse to within five or six li east of Huoyi to wait for the infantry, and "dividing his men into a dozen squadrons, rode about the southeast and southwest of the city, pointing and signalling as if to camp and attack," sending Yin Kaishan to hurry up the rear. Song Laosheng, seeing the rear approaching, thought they meant to camp under the walls and came out by the south and east gates with some thirty thousand men. Li Yuan, fearing he would not fight far from the city, formed his cavalry into left and right, Li Jiancheng commanding the left to hold the east gate and Li Shimin the right to cut the road to the south gate, "and ordered a slight withdrawal, feigning avoidance"; Song, seeing the retreat, thought Li Yuan afraid and advanced more than a li from the city and formed up. Then "the emperor ordered the two elder sons, as arranged, to gallop for the gates," and the troops came on shouting, so that "before the drums moved, the blades had met, with a noise like a mountain falling and the gate towers shaking"; Li Yuan spread word that Song Laosheng was beheaded, his men broke and fled for the gates, which the brothers already held with the portcullis down, and Song, climbing a rope let down from the wall, was cut down by Lu Jun'e's men and his head sent to Li Yuan. A variant account appears in the Old History's annals of Taizong: that "Li Yuan and Li Jiancheng formed east of the city and Taizong with Chai Shao south of it; Laosheng came on fast against Li Yuan, Li Jiancheng fell from his horse and the enemy pressed him, so that both Li Yuan's and Li Jiancheng's troops gave way, until Taizong came down the steep bank from the southern plain with two horsemen, broke the enemy's line and beat them utterly." Both accounts survive, and in both Li Jiancheng stands in the front line at Huoyi. On entering the passes Li Yuan sent the heir with Liu Wenjing and Wang Changxie to hold the Yongfeng granary and Tong pass, where the Sui general Qutu Tong was blocked by Liu Wenjing, "unable to go east and with no road west"; and he ordered Li Jiancheng to pick troops from the Yongfeng garrison and march by way of Xinfeng to the Changle detached palace, until in the tenth month Li Yuan reached Bashang, "joining the armies of the dukes of Longxi and Dunhuang, more than two hundred thousand men," and in the assault on the capital "the east and south faces were the duke of Longxi's and the west and north the duke of Dunhuang's."

Major Activities

Key Participant in the Jinyang Uprising

Li Jiancheng was a central participant in Li Yuan's uprising. Before the revolt he secretly built networks in Hedong; after reaching Taiyuan he joined Pei Ji and Liu Wenjing in urging Li Yuan to rise and helped articulate the political program of installing Yang You and proclaiming a righteous army. He then pacified Xihe, enforced military discipline, helped shape the strategy at Huoyi, and guarded Tong Pass and Yongfeng Granary against Qutu Tong, removing a major threat to Li Yuan's advance on Chang'an. The text therefore treats his role in the Tang founding as a leading contribution.

Military and Political Work as Crown Prince

As Crown Prince, Li Jiancheng often supervised state affairs when Li Yuan was absent and undertook important military tasks, including suppressing Zhu Shanhai, campaigning against Liu Xiancheng, guarding against Turkic attacks, and defeating Liu Heita. His adoption of Wei Zheng's conciliatory policy toward Liu Heita's followers helped recover Shandong and showed an ability to accept advice and win popular support.

Eastern Palace Talent Group

Li Jiancheng's Eastern Palace gathered notable advisers including Wei Zheng and Wang Gui. Wei Zheng repeatedly advised him on military and succession strategy, including leading the Liu Heita campaign and acting decisively against the Prince of Qin. After the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Li Shimin employed both Wei Zheng and Wang Gui, who became leading Zhenguan officials. Feng Li and Xue Wanche nevertheless continued fighting at the Xuanwu Gate in an attempt to avenge the dead crown prince, suggesting the loyalty he inspired among parts of his staff.

His Military and Political Activity as Heir, and the Eastern Palace Party

In 618 Li Jiancheng was made general pacifying the army and commander of the eastern expedition, and led Li Shimin and others with a hundred thousand men (some sources say seventy thousand) eastward to take territory and seek Luoyang; in the same year Zhu Shanhai, a bandit of Sizhu with a thousand followers who styled himself duke guarding the country, was attacked and destroyed by Li Jiancheng with the general Sang Xianhe. In 621, when Liu Xiancheng, chief of the Jihu, raised several tens of thousands of his tribe as a frontier scourge, Li Jiancheng was sent against him, met his army at Fuzhou, broke it heavily, taking several hundred heads and more than a thousand prisoners. He then by a stratagem released several dozen Jihu chiefs with ranks and titles and sent them back to summon their people, and Liu Xiancheng and the great chiefs came to submit; but Li Jiancheng, seeing the Hu troops still numerous and fearing a change, meant to kill them all, and proclaiming that prefectures and counties were to be added and cities built, "he had all the Hu brought tools for pounded-earth walls" and gathered them where the walls were to be raised, with soldiers secretly posted to seize them, so that Liu Xiancheng fled to Liang Shidu, "and in the end more than six thousand surrendered Hu were killed."

The campaign against Liu Heita was undertaken at the prompting of the Eastern Palace staff. Wang Gui and Wei Zheng said to Li Jiancheng, according to the Old History: "Your Highness holds your place only as the eldest by the principal wife and so has stepped into the position of the good heir; your achievements cannot be called notable, nor is your name for benevolence widely spread. The prince of Qin's merits are great and his martial fame shakes the four seas; men's hearts turn to him, and how is Your Highness to be at ease? Liu Heita leads the remnant of a broken force, not ten thousand men, cut off from supplies and not yet recovered from wounds; if a great army comes upon him he may be taken without a battle. Pray ask to be sent against him, and so win merit, plant yourself deeply, and bind the outstanding men of Shandong to you." Li Jiancheng followed the plan and asked leave to campaign; in the eleventh month of 625 the crown prince was ordered against Liu Heita, and in the twelfth month he broke him at Weizhou, beheaded him, and Shandong was pacified. Of the Eastern Palace party the Old History records that "the crown prince and the princes all received the imperial plans, gave out their wealth in relief, and humbled themselves before scholars; down to cloth-sellers and gamblers, gatekeepers and menials, if a man had one skill or one art worth noting, they met him as an equal and never wearied of it, and so they won the hearts of scholars and commoners alike," and its officials, Wang Gui and Wei Zheng among them, were later the ministers who helped make the government of Zhenguan. The struggle over the succession came to a head with the Yang Wengan affair of 624: Yang Wengan, commander of Qingzhou, was to raise troops and send them to the capital, and when the matter came out Li Yuan summoned Li Jiancheng by hand-written order; he dared not go, and on the advice of Zhao Hongzhi went lightly to make his apology, pleading for death and throwing himself on the ground; Li Yuan in anger had him held under guard for the night, and afterwards, asking Li Shimin's counsel, promised that on his return he would make him crown prince and enfeoff Li Jiancheng as prince of Shu; but when Yang Wengan was killed by his own men and Li Shimin returned, Li Yuan "changed his mind at once," let Li Jiancheng return to hold the capital, blamed only the incompatibility of the brothers, and exiled Wang Gui, Wei Ting and Du Yan, "and from this the resentment and suspicion grew daily." On the fourth day of the sixth month of 626 Li Shimin came to the Xuanwu gate with nine attendants for his own protection; Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji, summoned to the palace, reached the Linhu hall, sensed that something was wrong and turned back toward the Eastern Palace; Li Shimin called after them, Li Yuanji drew his bow three times and could not pull it, and Li Shimin shot, and Li Jiancheng fell dead at the twang of the string. The remnant of the Eastern Palace party, Feng Li and Xie Shufang, attacked the Xuanwu gate, and Xue Wanche urged the troops toward the prince of Qin's residence, until the heads of Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji were cut off and shown, and the Eastern Palace troops lost heart. After taking the throne Taizong posthumously enfeoffed Li Jiancheng as prince of Xi with the posthumous name Yin and reinterred him with ceremony, weeping bitterly at the Yiqiu gate on the day of burial, and made his own son Li Fu, prince of Zhao, his heir; in the sixteenth year he further granted him the title of crown prince with the same posthumous name. Judgments of him have always been divided: the historians of the Old History call him "cruel, no fit heir to the ancestral cup," even saying that to compare him with Qin's Second Emperor or Sui's Yangdi "would be too much"; yet on the first-hand Record of the Founding of the Great Tang, from the rising at Taiyuan to the entry into Chang'an and the founding of Tang, Li Jiancheng's achievement was no less than Li Shimin's, and the Old History records that Li Yuan, "anxious that he was not practised in government documents, had him study current affairs, and all but great matters of war and state were decided by him," so that his experience of government was the greater — which is why modern scholars urge caution about the accounts in the two Tang histories and the Zizhi Tongjian.

Personal Relations

• Father: Li Yuan, Emperor Gaozu of Tang
• Mother: Dou, Empress Taimu
• Wife: Zheng Guanyin of the Zheng clan of Xingyang
• Brothers: Li Shimin, later Emperor Taizong of Tang; Li Xuanba; Li Yuanji; Li Zhiyun, and others
• Sons: Li Chengdao, Li Chengde, Li Chengxun, Li Chengming, Li Chengyi, all killed during the aftermath of the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Wei Zheng: Groom of the Heir Apparent and important adviser; urged Li Jiancheng to campaign against Liu Heita and gain military merit
• Wang Gui: Attendant to the Heir Apparent; joined Wei Zheng in advising the Liu Heita campaign
• Li Gang: Chief Administrator of the Heir Apparent; reportedly sought resignation because Li Jiancheng trusted slander and became distant from kin
• Feng Li and Xue Wanche: Eastern Palace guard commanders who continued fighting for the crown prince after the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Yang You, Emperor Gong of Sui: made Li Jiancheng heir apparent to the Prince of Tang in 617 and appointed him Prefect of the Masters of Writing in 618
• Li Yuan, Emperor Gaozu of Tang: father who made him Crown Prince but vacillated during the succession struggle
• Li Shimin: Prince of Qin and succession rival who ultimately killed Li Jiancheng in the Xuanwu Gate Incident
• Li Yuanji: Prince of Qi and Li Jiancheng's ally against Li Shimin; killed in the same incident

Historical Assessment

Tang and Contemporary Assessments

The Diary of the Founding of the Great Tang by Wen Daya records Li Jiancheng's contributions at Jinyang, Xihe, Huoyi, and Tong Pass, presenting him as a disciplined commander who shared hardship with his troops and providing an important contemporary source.

The Old Book of Tang gives a strongly negative judgment of Li Jiancheng and questions his fitness to inherit the ancestral sacrifices. Because this assessment was shaped after Li Shimin's victory and the revision of court records in the Zhenguan period, the text notes its political tendency.

After the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Wei Zheng reportedly told Li Shimin that if the Crown Prince had followed his advice, the disaster would not have occurred. The remark both criticized Li Jiancheng for failing to act decisively and suggested that he was not wholly lacking in political judgment.

Song and Yuan Periods

Sima Guang's Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance states that establishing the legitimate eldest son as heir accorded with ritual principle, but also considers Li Jiancheng less talented than Li Shimin. This reflects a Song historiographical tension between ritual legitimacy and admiration of Emperor Taizong's achievements.

Fan Zuyu's Mirror of Tang summarized the rivalry as “Jiancheng by seniority, Shimin by merit,” interpreting it as a conflict between succession norms and military achievement and expressing sympathy for Jiancheng's fate.

Ming and Qing Periods

Wang Fuzhi argued in Du Tongjian Lun that Li Jiancheng's major failure was his inability to make full use of capable advisers such as Wei Zheng and Wang Gui.

Zhao Yi's Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories pointed to the tendency of early Tang official historiography to disparage Li Jiancheng and warned that records revised under Emperor Taizong should be read critically.

Modern Period

Chen Yinke's Draft Discussion of Tang Political History analyzed the Xuanwu Gate Incident in terms of factional power within the Guanzhong aristocratic order, arguing that the struggle was not simply personal hostility and that Jiancheng's defeat altered the trajectory of Tang politics.

Cen Zhongmian's History of the Sui and Tang emphasizes Li Jiancheng's military contribution to the founding of the Tang and argues that his achievements at Xihe and Tong Pass should not be underestimated.

Huang Yongnian's Political History of China from the Sixth to Ninth Centuries re-examines the succession struggle and argues that Li Jiancheng was not the incompetent figure depicted in traditional official histories; his defeat resulted mainly from the balance of military power.