Li Yu

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Li Yu was born on November 11, 726, the thirteenth day of the tenth lunar month of the fourteenth year of the Kaiyuan era, at Shangyang Palace in Luoyang. He was the eldest son of Emperor Suzong, Li Heng, though born to a secondary consort. His mother Lady Wu had been taken into the palace service because of her father's crime and died in 730, not long after giving birth to Li Chu; she was later posthumously honored as Empress Zhangjing.

Li Chu was fond of learning from childhood, concentrating on the Rites of Zhou and the Book of Changes. Histories describe him as benevolent, filial, gentle, respectful, broad-minded, generous yet decisive, and rarely showing anger or joy. Emperor Xuanzong had more than one hundred grandsons, but Li Chu was treated as the principal imperial grandson and looked distinctive among them, so Xuanzong favored him particularly. In 740 the fifteen-year-old Li Chu was enfeoffed as Prince of Guangping Commandery.

In 746 Li Chu married Lady Cui. She came from a distinguished family and her mother was the Lady of Korea, elder sister of Imperial Consort Yang, making Lady Cui a relative by marriage of Yang Guifei. As the crown prince's eldest son Li Chu held a secure position at court, but the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion transformed his life.

Rise during the Rebellion

In 755 An Lushan rebelled at Fanyang under the pretext of attacking Chief Councillor Yang Guozhong, beginning the An Lushan Rebellion. In the sixth lunar month of 756 the rebels captured Tong Pass and Emperor Xuanzong fled. After the mutiny at Mawei, Li Chu and his younger brother Li Tan, Prince of Jianning, strongly urged their father Li Heng to travel north to Lingwu. In the seventh lunar month Li Heng took the throne there as Emperor Suzong.

Suzong appointed Li Chu Supreme Commander of the Armies, placing the generals nominally under his direction. The new court initially possessed few troops. Li Chu treated followers with sincerity, gathered dispersed soldiers, and by the time he reached Pengyuan with Suzong had tens of thousands of men. He consulted day and night on military affairs with Li Mi, chief of staff to the supreme commander.

In the first lunar month of 757, the powerful eunuch Li Fuguo joined Suzong's favored consort Lady Zhang in a plot that threatened Li Chu's succession. Li Tan repeatedly reported the danger to Suzong, but Li Fuguo and Lady Zhang instead accused him, and the emperor angrily ordered Li Tan's death. Li Chu grieved but did not dare openly protest. That year chief councillor Fang Guan failed in an attack on the rebels, and Guo Ziyi, Military Commissioner of Shuofang, was badly defeated while returning toward Fengxiang. Li Chu selected courageous and capable men and repeatedly checked the rebel advance, restoring morale at court and in the army.

Recovery of the Two Capitals

In the ninth lunar month of 757 Suzong assembled a large army to recover the capital. Li Chu and deputy commander Guo Ziyi formed the central army, Li Siye led the vanguard, Wang Sili commanded the rear, and Uyghur troops under the yabghu prince served as a mobile force. Tang, Uyghur, and Western Regions troops totaled about 150,000, said to be 200,000, and marched east from Fengxiang. The Prince of Guangping and the Uyghur yabghu entered a ritual brotherhood, to the latter's delight.

West of Chang'an, north of Xiangji Temple, the allied army fought roughly one hundred thousand rebels from midday until evening and won decisively, reportedly killing sixty thousand. Rebel commander Zhang Tongru abandoned the city that night. Suzong had previously promised the Uyghurs gold, silk, and captives when the city fell, and the yabghu wished to claim them immediately. Li Chu bowed before the yabghu's horse and asked that the promise be deferred until Luoyang was taken, lest the people there resist to the death. Astonished, the yabghu dismounted and returned the bow, agreeing to proceed east first. Civilians, soldiers, and non-Han auxiliaries reportedly bowed and wept, calling the Prince of Guangping a true ruler of Chinese and non-Chinese alike. Suzong, hearing of the episode, exclaimed that he was inferior to the Prince of Guangping.

Li Chu then advanced east and at Xindian in Shanzhou defeated a force of 150,000 under An Qingxu. An abandoned Luoyang. After entering the city, Uyghur troops plundered for three days; Li Chu was deeply troubled, and only after Luoyang elders presented ten thousand bolts of silk did the plunder stop. His prestige rose sharply after both capitals were recovered. Suzong returned to the capital and proclaimed a general amnesty. In the twelfth lunar month of 757 Li Chu was advanced to Prince of Chu; in the third lunar month of 758 his title changed to Prince of Cheng, and in the fifth lunar month he was made crown prince and renamed Li Yu.

Accession amid Palace Crisis

Late in 761 Suzong became seriously ill and ordered Li Yu to supervise the government. Both Emperor Emeritus Xuanzong and Suzong were ill, and Li Yu traveled between them to attend personally, tasting medicines and food and scarcely removing his clothes. In the fourth lunar month of 762 Xuanzong died and Suzong's condition worsened. Empress Zhang had no son and feared that Li Yu's prestige would make him impossible to control. She secretly summoned Li Xi, Prince of Yue, to the palace and prepared to depose Li Yu.

On the sixteenth day Empress Zhang forged an edict summoning Li Yu. Eunuchs Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen learned of the plot and sent troops to Lingxiao Gate to protect him. That night they confined Li Xi, Empress Zhang, and others. Suzong was shocked by the disturbance and died. On the twentieth day Li Yu took the throne before his father's coffin. Li Fuguo, arrogant because of his role in the succession, told the emperor that he need only remain deep inside the palace while the old servant handled outside affairs. Li Yu outwardly honored him as "father of the state" and consulted him on everything, but secretly soon sent men disguised as robbers to assassinate him and then publicly ordered a search for the killers.

Final Suppression of the Rebellion and Later Reign

At Li Yu's accession the rebels had again occupied Luoyang. His first edict as emperor appointed his eldest son Li Shi Supreme Commander of the Armies. In the tenth lunar month of 762, Li Shi and Pugu Huai'en defeated Shi Chaoyi's forces and recovered Luoyang and the Hebei commanderies. By the following year the An Lushan Rebellion was completely suppressed.

The Tibetan Empire, however, took advantage of Tang disorder to seize territory in Hexi and Longyou and in 763 drove deep into the empire and occupied Chang'an. Li Yu fled to Shanzhou and recalled Guo Ziyi, who drove the Tibetan forces out. In 765 he again relied on Guo Ziyi and others to suppress Pugu Huai'en's rebellion. Thereafter regional military governors became increasingly powerful and the empire fragmented. In his later years Daizong was deeply devoted to Buddhism. Chief councillors Yuan Zai, Wang Jin, and Du Hongjian were also Buddhists; monasteries accumulated extensive lands and enormous expenditures, worsening the condition of government. Li Yu died in Zichen Hall at Chang'an on June 10, 779, aged fifty-four, and was buried at Yuanling Mausoleum.

His Family, His Birth and His Early Years

Li Yu, whose original name was Li Chu, was a man of Didao in Longxi, the eldest son of Emperor Suzong of Tang, his mother the empress Zhangjing, lady Wu. He was born in the fourteenth year of Kaiyuan, 726, in a side hall of the Shangyang palace at the eastern capital; and by the Cefu Yuangui, when he was born Xuanzong was at the warm springs of Ruzhou and "there were those who watched the air and said that within the palace was the air of a Son of Heaven," so that Xuanzong returned to the palace that day and that night the emperor was born. His mother lady Wu, having been brought into the palace service for her father's offence, bore the future Daizong and afterwards died and was buried outside the Chunming gate; and in the twelfth month of the year of Daizong's accession the ministers, the time for Suzong's burial being near, would by ritual attach the late empress dowager to the temple, and the chief minister Guo Ziyi and others memorialised giving her the posthumous name of empress Zhangjing. Li Yu loved learning from boyhood, especially the Book of Rites and the Changes, studying the Confucian classics; and he was kind, filial, gentle and respectful, in speech and bearing always according to ritual, of deep mind and large measure, generous yet able to decide, showing neither joy nor fear in his face. Though Xuanzong had more than a hundred grandsons, only Li Chu was a grandson by the principal line, and his appearance differed from that of the others, so that Xuanzong loved him especially. At fifteen he was enfeoffed as prince of Guangping; on the twenty-first day of the eighth month of the twentieth year as commandery prince of Guangping with the name Chu; in the twelfth month of the second year of Zhide he was advanced to prince of Chu; and in the third month of the first year of Qianyuan he was changed to prince of Cheng, made heir apparent on the nineteenth day of the fifth month and given the name Yu on the fifth day of the tenth month.

His Command in the Rebellion of An and Shi

In the rebellion of An and Shi Li Yu went with his father to Lingwu, and after Suzong took the throne he was made commander-in-chief of the armies of the realm, and as the nominal commander led Guo Ziyi and the other generals. At first Suzong, eager to recover the capital, had agreed with the Uighurs that "on the day the city is taken, the land and the people go to Tang and the gold, silk and children to the Uighurs"; and when the western capital was recovered and the Yabghu wished to carry out the agreement, Li Chu bowed before the Yabghu's horse and said that they had only just taken the western capital, and that if they plundered at once the men of the eastern capital would hold it to the death for the rebels and it could not be taken again, and asked that the agreement be kept until they reached the eastern capital. The Yabghu, astonished, leaped from his horse and bowed in return, kneeling and holding Li Chu's foot, saying that he would go straight to the eastern capital for the prince; and so with the Shuofang general Pugu Huai'en he led the Uighur and Western Regions troops past the south of the city and camped east of the water, and the people, soldiers and barbarians, seeing Li Chu bow, all wept and said that the prince of Guangping was indeed the lord of Chinese and barbarian alike, which Suzong hearing rejoiced at and said that he himself was not his equal. Li Chu drew up his army and entered the city, the people of all ages lining the road to cheer and weep; and having stayed in Chang'an three days to steady it, he led the great army east after the rebels. Afterwards the Uighur troops entered the treasury of Luoyang and took its goods and plundered the markets and villages for three days, which troubled Li Chu deeply, until the elders of Luoyang gave the Uighurs ten thousand bolts of gauze and brocade, when they stopped. By the merit of recovering the two capitals he was advanced in turn to prince of Chu and prince of Cheng.

The Coup of Baoying and His Accession

In the fourth month of the first year of Baoying, 762, Suzong being gravely ill and the empress Zhang, whom he favoured, having no son, she "feared that the prince's merit was too high to control and secretly brought the prince of Yue, Li Xi, into the palace, meaning to change the succession." On the day yichou the empress by false edict summoned the heir apparent, and the eunuchs Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen, knowing her design, drew up troops at the Lingxiao gate and, when the heir came, escorted him into the flying dragon stables to await events; and that night they drew up troops at the three halls, arrested the prince of Yue and the palace officers Zhu Guanghui and Ma Yingjun and imprisoned them, and shut the empress in a side hall. On the day dingmao Suzong died, and Cheng Yuanzhen and the rest received Li Yu at the Jiuxian gate, saw the ministers and performed the rites of regency; and on the day jisi he took the throne before the coffin. On the day jiaxu he decreed that in the great affairs of the state arms came first, and made the prince of Fengjie commander-in-chief of the armies; and on the day yihai he gave Li Fuguo the title of father-in-honour and made Cheng Yuanzhen general of the right of the palace gates. Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen having set him up, they grew the more overbearing; and Li Fuguo privately memorialised that the emperor might sit within and let the old slave settle affairs without, at which Daizong was angry at his insolence but, since he held the palace troops, did not wish to rebuke him at once, and so honoured him as father-in-honour and entrusted him with the decision of every matter great and small, in the fifth month adding to him the offices of minister of works and president of the secretariat with eight hundred households in real fief. Cheng Yuanzhen, wishing to take his power, asked the emperor gradually to restrain him and, finding an opening, had him deprived of the command of the armies, the titles below the stables being divided among favourites, and he was moved to live outside; and Li Fuguo then began to fear and lost his footing. He was enfeoffed as prince of Bolu and deprived of the presidency of the secretariat, being allowed to attend court on the first and fifteenth; and wishing to enter the secretariat to present a letter of thanks, the gatekeeper stopped him, saying that the father-in-honour, having ceased to be chief minister, should not enter that gate again, at which he said in anger that the old slave deserved death for not having served his lord well and would serve the late emperor below, and the emperor still answered him with a gracious edict. On the night of the eighteenth day of the tenth month robbers entered his house and killed him, carrying off his head and arm, and an edict had a wooden head carved to bury with him, conferring on him the post of grand tutor. On the day dingyou of the fifth month the emperor went up the Danfeng tower and proclaimed a general amnesty, restoring the titles of the former empress Wang, of the slandered heir Li Ying and of the princes of E and Guang, and clearing the names of the princes of Di and Yong.

The End of the Rebellion and the Curse of the Military Governors

In the tenth month of the winter of the first year of Baoying Daizong decreed that the prince of Yong, Li Kuo, commander-in-chief of the armies, should lead the troops of Hedong, Shuofang and the various circuits with those of the Uighurs, more than a hundred thousand, against Shi Chaoyi, concentrating at Shanzhou; and the prince set out, leaving Guo Yingyi and Yu Chaoen to hold Shanzhou, and the imperial army reached the northern suburb of Luoyang, and on the day jiaxu fought at Hengshui and utterly defeated the rebels, taking or killing some sixty thousand, so that Shi Chaoyi fled to Jizhou; and the prince reported the recovery of the eastern capital and the prefectures of Heyang, Bian, Zheng, Hua, Xiang and Wei. Afterwards the rebel military commissioner of Hengzhou, Zhang Zhongzhi, brought over the five prefectures of Zhao, Ding, Shen, Heng and Yi, and the court made him acting minister of rites, prefect of Hengzhou and military commissioner of Chengde, giving him the name Li Baochen, and so the prefectures of Hebei were all pacified, while the rebel governor of Fanyang, Li Huaixian, killed Shi Chaoyi and brought his head, asking to submit. In the intercalary month of the second year of Baoying Daizong made the surrendered rebel generals Li Baochen acting minister of rites and censor-in-chief, prefect of Hengzhou, prince of Qinghe and military commissioner of Chengde; Xue Song acting minister of justice, prefect of Xiangzhou and military commissioner of Xiang and Wei; Li Huaixian acting minister of war and concurrent palace attendant, prince of Wuwei and military commissioner of Youzhou; and Tian Chengsi acting minister of revenue, prefect of Weizhou, prince of Yanmen and commander of the defence of Weibo and the other prefectures. By the biographies of rebels in the New History of Tang, the emperor had at first decreed that only Shi Chaoyi be taken and all else pardoned, so that Xue Song, Zhang Zhongzhi, Li Huaixian and Tian Chengsi all bowed their heads before Pugu Huai'en, offering to serve in the ranks; but Pugu Huai'en, seeing his merit high and that with the rebels destroyed his position would fall and he could not keep his favour, asked that Hebei be divided into great commands and given to them, secretly binding their hearts to his support, and so Xue Song and the rest held them and became the trouble. Traditional historiography holds that Pugu Huai'en's fear that with the rebellion ended his favour would decline, and his memorial that Tian Chengsi and the rest be made governors in Hebei to serve as allies, made the division all but inevitable, while Li Yu, weary of war and hoping only for quiet, lacked long political vision and consented: a decision that began the age of the military governors' independence and had great consequences for the middle and late Tang. After the rebellion was put down, Tian Chengsi built shrines to An and Shi father and son, honouring them as the four sages, and asked the court for the chancellorship; and before such insolence Li Yu dared not launch a campaign, only sending the eunuch Sun Zhigu to dissuade him from the shrine and giving him the chancellorship to satisfy his ambition. In the tenth year of Dali, 775, Tian Chengsi stirred the officers of the Zhaoyi command to mutiny and then, under the name of relief, took territory; and when Li Lingyao rebelled and the court ordered a campaign, and Li Lingyao was defeated and fortune turned against Tian Chengsi, he memorialised an apology and Li Yu "had no way with him," restoring all his rank and excusing him from attending court. Through Li Yu's indulgence of Tian Chengsi the independence of the three commands of Hebei was all but complete by the end of his reign. These commanders joined together to protect one another, settling everything themselves, "serving the court in name but not using its laws": if the court built a city wall or added a soldier they complained and grew suspicious, while within their own borders they built ramparts and drilled troops without a day's rest, so that the three commands of Hebei, "though in name the princely subjects of China, were in truth as barbarian foreign lands." By the Comprehensive Mirror, the military commissioner of Pinglu, Li Zhengji, first holding ten prefectures and afterwards five more, "used punishments harshly so that none dared speak in his territories, yet his laws were uniform and his taxes equal and light, and he held a hundred thousand troops, dominating the east, so that neighbouring commands all feared him"; and Tian Chengsi held seven prefectures and Li Baochen seven, each with fifty thousand men, and Liang Chongyi six with twenty thousand, "joined together and coiled like roots, serving the court in name but not using its laws, appointing officers, raising troops, levying taxes and inflicting death all of themselves," which the emperor in his generosity allowed.

The Tibetan Invasions and the Rebellion of Pugu Huai'en

The Tibetans, taking advantage of the disorder, seized the lands of Hexi and Longyou and in the tenth month of the first year of Guangde, 763, rode as far as Chang'an, from which they were driven after fifteen days by Guo Ziyi, so that Li Yu returned to Chang'an in the twelfth month and richly rewarded Guo Ziyi; and the officials memorialising that Cheng Yuanzhen had been arbitrary and had ruined the military occasion, Li Yu deprived him of rank and office and sent him home, afterwards exiling him to Jiangling. In the ninth month of the first year of Yongtai, 765, the Tibetan army advancing to Fengtian and the capital being under martial law, Li Yu had two copies of the Sutra of the Benevolent Kings brought from the palace and sent to the Zisheng and Ximing temples, where high seats a hundred feet tall were set up and the monks chanted aloud until the Tibetans came near the capital; and in the tenth month, the Tibetans reaching Binzhou, the emperor again had monks expound the same sutra at the Zisheng temple. Afterwards Pugu Huai'en lured in the Tibetans and Uighurs, and Li Yu urgently summoned Guo Ziyi to camp at Jingyang north of Chang'an; and Pugu Huai'en dying suddenly of illness in his camp, Guo Ziyi persuaded the Uighurs to join the Tang and heavily defeated the Tibetans at the western plain of Lingwu terrace, taking fifty thousand heads and ten thousand prisoners, recovering four thousand of the men and women the Tibetans had carried off, and capturing cattle, sheep, camels and horses for three hundred li without a break. By the biography of Guo Ziyi, he led two thousand armored horse to appear on every side, and the barbarians asking who it was were told that it was Lord Guo, and the Uighurs said that Pugu Huai'en had told them the heavenly khan had left the four seas and Lord Guo too was dead and China had no lord, which was why they had come, and asked whether Lord Guo lived and the khan lived, and being told that the emperor lived ten thousand years without bound, they all said that Huai'en had deceived them. Guo Ziyi sent to tell them that they had once gone ten thousand li to cut down the rebels and restore the two capitals, and that now to abandon an old friendship for a rebel was folly, and that Huai'en, having betrayed his lord and cast off his kin, was nothing to them. His generals urging him not to go to the barbarians whose hearts could not be trusted, Guo Ziyi said that the enemy was ten times their number and could not be met by force, and that perfect sincerity moves even the gods, much more such men; and riding out slowly with a few dozen horsemen and taking off his helmet to greet them, he asked whether they were well and whether, having long shared loyalty and righteousness, there was any need for this, so that the Uighurs all laid down their arms, dismounted and bowed, saying that he was indeed their father. He called their chiefs, gave them wine and brocade and talked with them as of old, and urged them to turn against the Tibetans, who were their kin by marriage and had come without provocation, so that their herds filled the fields for hundreds of li and were a gift of heaven not to be lost; and Pugu Huai'en dying suddenly at Mingsha, the barbarians being without a leader agreed, and their chiefs went to court. Guo Ziyi sent the Shuofang commander Bai Yuanguang to join the Uighurs, and the Tibetans, learning of it, fled by night; and the Uighurs with Bai Yuanguang pursued them and Guo Ziyi's great army followed, heavily defeating more than a hundred thousand Tibetans at the western plain of Lingwu terrace. Afterwards the Tang armies several times beat the Tibetans between the tenth and twelfth years of Dali, and in the last years of Dali, with the Tibetans divided among themselves and their politics unsettled, their attacks lessened and they sent envoys to ask for peace, though the two sides remained at war; and Li Yu often detained the Tibetan envoys of peace and sent all Tibetan prisoners to the regions of the Yangzi and the mountains as penal slaves. Yet the peril of the Guangde and Yongtai years was after all removed, and the pressure on the Tang frontier greatly eased.

His Indulgence and Punishment of the Eunuchs, and His Employment of Men

Li Yu indulged the eunuchs: when they were sent on missions anywhere he never forbade them what they took, and even when they were sent to bestow gifts on consort families he asked on their return how much they had got, and if the gifts given them were small he took it as slighting the emperor's envoys, so that "the palace envoys openly sought bribes and gifts without scruple." The chief ministers kept money in their offices, and when a palace envoy came to bestow a thing or proclaim a decree, none ever went back empty-handed; and when envoys went to the prefectures and passed documents to take goods, "it was the same as the taxes, and they returned heavily laden." Li Fuguo, Cheng Yuanzhen and Yu Chaoen were most favoured, their power exceeding even that of the chief ministers. Yet he could also punish the overbearing: in the third month of the fifth year of Dali, 770, Yu Chaoen, surveyor of the armies and eunuch overseer, holding the office of grand general of the left of the palace gates and commissioner of the Shence army, was beyond measure favoured, his power overshadowing the court and insulting the chief ministers, and when the government business was settled without him he would say in anger whether there was anything in the world not done by him; and Li Yu, knowing that all the ministers hated him, took counsel in secret with the chief minister Yuan Zai to destroy him. By the Comprehensive Mirror, Yuan Zai, with Huangfu Wen and Zhou Hao, secretly planned it and told the emperor, and on the day guiyou of the third month, the cold-food festival, the emperor held a banquet for his favourites in the palace; and when the banquet was over and Yu Chaoen was about to return to his camp the emperor kept him to discuss affairs and reproached him with his designs, and Yu Chaoen defending himself spoke insolently, so that Zhou Hao and those about him seized and strangled him, and none outside knew of it. By the Du Yang Zabian, Yu Chaoen was so overbearing that the ministers dared not look up at him; and his young son Linghui, being fourteen or fifteen and serving in the inner hall, Yu Chaoen, angry that his place was below his fellows, memorialised before the emperor that his young son's place was beneath his colleagues and asked that he be specially given a golden seal to raise him above his rank, seeking the purple without passing through the scarlet; and before the emperor could speak Yu Chaoen had already had the purple robe brought by the officers, and the son thanked him before the hall, and the emperor, though knowing it improper, forced himself to say that the robe became the boy well. When Yu Chaoen was destroyed the whole realm rejoiced. In his employment of men Li Yu dismissed the arbitrary Yuan Zai and made Yang Wan chief minister to reform old abuses; and Yang Wan's chancellorship restrained the extravagance of the powerful and changed the customs of the time, so that within a few months he had won all hearts, but falling gravely ill he soon died, and Li Yu, deeply grieved, said that heaven would not let him bring the realm to peace and had taken Yang Wan from him too soon. By the Tang Yulin, Daizong, perplexed by Buddhist doctrines of the weight of retribution, entrusted government business largely to his chief ministers, and Yuan Zai was arbitrary and corrupted the state, affairs being settled by bribery; and when Chang Gun was chief minister, though bribes were no longer taken he was narrow and self-willed and his promotions and dismissals mostly missed the right men, so that the capital said of him that Chang made no distinctions and Yuan loved money, and that the worthy were counted fools and fools worthy. As to reports of disaster from the prefectures, when someone claimed that the land in his department had not been flooded Li Yu did not believe it, and sending the censor Zhao Ji to inspect Weinan, Zhao Ji too flattered him and said there had been no flood; and Li Yu said that flood and drought come evenly and Weinan could not alone have escaped, and sent the censor Zhu Ao to examine it again, who reported three thousand qing flooded, at which Daizong sighed that the magistrate's duty was to care for the people, and that one who had suffered no loss should still report loss, while to suffer loss and not report it showed no concern for the people's hardship, and degraded Liu Zao and Zhao Ji. By the Comprehensive Mirror again, Guo Ai once quarrelling with the princess Shengping said to her whether she relied on her father being Son of Heaven, and that his own father would not stoop to be Son of Heaven; and the princess in anger drove to the palace and reported it, and the emperor said that she did not understand, for it was true, and that if his father had wished to be Son of Heaven the realm would not be her family's; and he comforted her and sent her home. Guo Ziyi, hearing of it, imprisoned Guo Ai and came to await punishment; and the emperor said that the vulgar proverb had it that one cannot be a father-in-law without being a little deaf and a little blind, and asked what was worth hearing in the quarrels of young people in their chamber; and Guo Ziyi returning home flogged Guo Ai several dozen strokes.

His Death and the Yuanling

In the fifth month of the fourteenth year of Dali, 779, Li Yu fell ill and by the day xinhai did not hold court; on the day xinyou he decreed that the heir apparent should govern, and that evening he died in the inner hall of Zichen, leaving a testament that the heir should take the throne before the coffin; and on the day renxu the coffin was moved to the Taiji hall and mourning proclaimed. On the day gengshen of the eighth month the ministers gave him the posthumous name of the emperor of deep culture, filial and martial, with the temple name Daizong; and on the day jiyou of the tenth month he was buried at the Yuanling, being attached to the ancestral temple on the day dingyou of the twelfth month. By the Tang Huiyao he was fifty-four at his death, and in his reign the era name was changed three times. The Yuanling is a tomb cut into the hill, its precinct twenty kilometres about; its stone figures are like those of the Jianling and rather roughly made, and there now remain only the stone lions outside the eastern, western and northern spirit gates and fragments of the stone horses outside the northern gate.

Major Activities

Suppression of the An Lushan Rebellion

During the An Lushan Rebellion Li Yu served as Supreme Commander of the Armies, nominally directing Tang, Uyghur, and Western Regions forces. In 757 he defeated the rebels at Xiangji Temple and recovered Chang'an, then broke An Qingxu's main army at Xindian and recovered Luoyang. After accession in 762 he appointed his eldest son Li Shi supreme commander and Pugu Huai'en deputy commander. Their defeat of Shi Chaoyi led to the final suppression of the rebellion in the following year.

Resistance to the Tibetan Empire

In 763 the Tibetan Empire exploited Tang weakness, occupied Chang'an, and forced Li Yu to flee to Shanzhou. He recalled Guo Ziyi, who eventually drove the Tibetan troops out and recovered the capital. In 765 Pugu Huai'en brought Tibetan and Uyghur forces into the empire, and Li Yu again relied on Guo Ziyi to stabilize the situation. Even so, Hexi and Longyou remained under Tibetan control and Tang western defenses were seriously weakened.

Policy toward Regional Military Governors

After the An Lushan Rebellion, Li Yu sought stability by accommodating surrendered rebel commanders. He appointed Xue Song, Tian Chengsi, Li Baochen, and others as military commissioners, helping create powerful regional commands such as the Three Garrisons of Hebei. This policy opened the pattern of semi-independent military regions characteristic of the middle and late Tang and further weakened central authority.

Favor toward Eunuchs and Buddhism

Eunuch power expanded further during Li Yu's reign. He first depended on Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen and later favored Yu Chao'en, allowing eunuchs to intervene deeply in government. Li Yu was also devoutly Buddhist. When enemies approached, he ordered monks to lecture on the Scripture for Humane Kings to avert disaster and rewarded them heavily when the danger passed. Chief councillors Yuan Zai, Wang Jin, and Du Hongjian were likewise devoted to Buddhism. At Mount Wutai a Golden Pavilion Temple was built with gilded bronze roof tiles at enormous expense.

Travels and Places of Activity

In his early years Li Yu followed Xuanzong and Suzong between Chang'an, Lingwu, and Fengxiang. After the two capitals were recovered he resided mainly at Chang'an. When the Tibetan Empire occupied the capital in 763, he briefly fled to Shanzhou before returning.

The Suppression of the Rebellion and the Frontier

Li Yu in his early years was commander-in-chief of the armies in the rebellion of An and Shi, and as nominal commander led Guo Ziyi and the other generals to recover Chang'an and Luoyang, and by preventing the Uighurs from plundering on entering the city saved Luoyang from immediate sack; and after his accession he made his son Li Kuo commander-in-chief to lead Pugu Huai'en and the rest in heavily defeating Shi Chaoyi's rebels, recovering Luoyang and the prefectures of Hebei and putting down the rebellion altogether the next year. On the frontier, the Tibetans taking advantage of the disorder seized the lands of Hexi and Longyou and in the first year of Guangde rode as far as Chang'an; Li Yu fled to Shanzhou and afterwards employed Guo Ziyi to beat the Tibetans and recover the capital; and in the first year of Yongtai he used Guo Ziyi again to put down the rebellion of Pugu Huai'en and heavily defeated more than a hundred thousand Tibetans at the western plain of Lingwu terrace.

The Military Governors and the Eunuchs

Li Yu, weary of war and hoping only for quiet, consented to Pugu Huai'en's proposal to divide Hebei among the surrendered generals, beginning the age of the military governors' independence; and though he also campaigned against disobedient commanders, his indulgence of Tian Chengsi and the rest left the independence of the three commands of Hebei all but complete by the end of his reign. He indulged the eunuchs so that their exactions knew no bounds and their power exceeded that of the chief ministers, yet he could also punish the overbearing: Li Fuguo and Cheng Yuanzhen were in turn killed or degraded, and Yu Chaoen was secretly strangled by Yuan Zai and others, so that no eunuch tyranny arose.

His Employment of Men, His Administration and the People's Livelihood

Li Yu could take straight counsel: Chang Gun memorialised that the wealth offered in birthday tribute by the military commissioners could only be taken from the people, and that to gather resentment in seeking favour must not be allowed to continue; and he re-examined the reports of flood and degraded the censors Liu Zao and Zhao Ji who had concealed it to please their superiors. He dismissed Yuan Zai and made Yang Wan chief minister to reform old abuses, and Yang Wan's brief chancellorship was enough to change the customs of the court. By the judgement of historians, Daizong reigned eighteen years with troubles within and without unceasing, but by trusting Liu Yan and Guo Ziyi he maintained his rule with difficulty.

The Imperial Birthday and the Rites

By the Cefu Yuangui, after Li Yu's accession the day of his birth, the thirteenth of the tenth month, was memorialised to be a holiday after the manner of the Heavenly Longevity festival and was fixed as the festival of Heavenly Prosperity; and thereafter on each birthday the military commissioners of the circuits presented curiosities, clothes and famous horses, in the tenth month of the second year of Yongtai to the value of more than two hundred thousand, which became the annual custom. In the second year of Dali the chief ministers and the standing officials contributed money for a fast and ordained several hundred monks and Daoists; in the third year the commissioners offered clothes, horses, silk and gauze to more than a million; in the fourth year the hundred officials held a fast, incense and a musical assembly at the Zhangjing temple; in the sixth year a fast with many monks at the Zisheng temple with incense by the officials; and in the eighth year a fast of a thousand monks at the Zisheng temple with two hundred odd monks and nuns ordained. By the Comprehensive Mirror, on the day yiwei of the tenth month, the emperor's birthday, the military commissioners of the circuits offered gold, silk, vessels, clothes, curiosities and fine horses to the value of two hundred and forty thousand strings of cash.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji
• Father: Emperor Suzong of Tang, Li Heng
• Mother: Empress Zhangjing, Lady Wu
• Empresses: Empress Ruizhen, Lady Shen (posthumous); Empress Zhenyi, Lady Dugu (posthumous)
• Principal consort: Lady Cui, consort of the Prince of Guangping
• Eldest son: Emperor Dezong of Tang, Li Shi
• Younger brothers: Li Tan, Prince of Jianning; Li Xi, Prince of Yue
• Li Mi: chief of staff to the supreme commander, who discussed military affairs with Li Yu day and night
• Guo Ziyi: principal general in suppressing the An Lushan Rebellion and resisting the Tibetan Empire
• Li Guangbi: deputy supreme commander for Henan and other circuits, involved in suppressing the rebellion
• Pugu Huai'en: major commander in defeating Shi Chaoyi, later rebelled
• Li Fuguo: helped place Li Yu on the throne, later became arrogant and was killed
• Cheng Yuanzhen: helped secure Li Yu's accession and later monopolized power
• Yu Chao'en: favored eunuch in Daizong's later reign
• Yuan Zai: chief councillor and Buddhist devotee, later executed for abusing power
• Empress Zhang: attempted to depose Li Yu and was confined by Li Fuguo and others
• An Lushan, Shi Siming, Shi Chaoyi: principal rebel leaders in the An Lushan Rebellion
• Tibetan Empire: occupied Chang'an and repeatedly fought the Tang

Historical Assessment

Tang / Contemporary

• Emperor Suzong: "I am not equal to the Prince of Guangping!" (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 220)
• Civilians and soldiers reportedly said: "The Prince of Guangping is truly lord of both Chinese and non-Chinese!" (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 220)
• The historian's appraisal in the Old Book of Tang states that Daizong experienced disorder in youth, grew up in the army, personally endured hardship, and understood the difficulty of agriculture and livelihood.

Song–Yuan Period

• Sima Guang criticized the accommodation of military governors, noting that military commands spread across the interior, the largest controlling more than ten prefectures and the smaller three or four.
• Fan Zuyu criticized Daizong's entrusting the palace armies to eunuchs, arguing that the resulting harm became impossible to remedy.
• Hu Sanxing wrote that although Daizong suppressed the great rebellion, the disaster of regional military autonomy began from this period.

Ming–Qing Period

• Wang Fuzhi argued that Daizong's central failure was his inability to restore discipline and control the military governors, relying instead on accommodation.
• Zhao Yi wrote that the problem of military governors was already entrenched under Daizong and the Tang house never fully recovered.
• Wang Mingsheng criticized his appointments, arguing that reliance on eunuchs allowed Cheng Yuanzhen and Yu Chao'en successively to dominate politics.

Modern Period

• Lü Simian wrote that Daizong inherited the throne after great disorder and, although he may have wanted to act, circumstances forced him into a policy of accommodation.
• Cen Zhongmian acknowledged his role in restoring order but blamed accommodation for allowing military governors to grow entrenched.
• Huang Yongnian regarded Daizong's reign as a crucial stage in the Tang transition from prosperity to decline, with long-lasting consequences from his policy choices.