Li Ang

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Li Ang was originally named Li Han. He was the second son of Emperor Muzong Li Heng, and his mother was Empress Zhenxian Xiao, who had originally been a palace maid and became a consort after giving birth to an imperial son. Li Ang was born on the tenth day of the tenth month of the fourth year of the Yuanhe era (20 November 809), and in 821, the first year of Changqing, he was enfeoffed as Prince of Jiang.

As Prince of Jiang, Li Ang enjoyed reading Emperor Taizong's Zhenguan Zhengyao. Whenever he read of Taizong's diligent attention to government, he aspired to the same. He resented the abuses of eunuch domination under the Muzong and Jingzong reigns and resolved to remove the dangerous elements. His grandfather Emperor Xianzong Li Chun and elder brother Emperor Jingzong Li Zhan both died at the hands of eunuchs, while his father Emperor Muzong Li Heng and Li Ang himself were both raised to power by eunuch support. These experiences fostered his deep hatred of eunuch power.

Accession and Early Government

On the eighth day of the twelfth month of the second year of Baoli (9 January 827), Emperor Jingzong Li Zhan was assassinated by the eunuchs Liu Keming, Su Zuoming, and others, who forged an edict placing Prince Jiang Li Wu, a son of Emperor Xianzong, in charge of state affairs. On the tenth, Military Affairs Commissioner Wang Shoucheng and Yang Chenghe, together with Shence Army commanders Wei Congjian and Liang Shouqian, led the Shence and Flying Dragon forces into the palace, killed Li Wu and Liu Keming, and then went to the residence of Prince Jiang to escort Li Ang into the palace. On the eleventh Li Ang met senior ministers and asked how military and civil affairs should be handled. On the twelfth, ministers and officials submitted three petitions asking him to take the throne. On the thirteenth he ascended the throne in Xuanzheng Hall of the Daming Palace. On the sixteenth he formally began holding court and honored his mother, Lady Xiao, as Empress Dowager.

At the beginning of his reign Li Ang pursued reform and tried to remove abuses inherited from previous reigns. On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the second year of Baoli (28 January 827), he released three thousand palace women, dismissed 1,270 redundant musicians, performers, technicians, and occult specialists attached to the court and Hanlin establishments, released hawks and hounds kept by the Five Bureaus, and stopped tribute of red ribbons, carved objects, and beds ornamented with gold baskets and jewels. On the thirteenth day of the second month of the first year of Dahe (9 August 827), he declared a general amnesty, adopted the era name Dahe, and remitted half of that year's summer tax in the Capital Region. On the seventh day of the fifth month he abolished the practice by which censors searched senior ministers before they were allowed to enter the palace to report.

In 827 Li Tongjie, deputy military commissioner of Henghai, assumed the succession after the death of his father Li Quanlüe and resisted the court's appointment. Li Ang ordered Wu Chongyin of Tianping and forces from other circuits to suppress him. The Cang-Jing rebellion was pacified in the fourth month of the following year, and Li Tongjie was executed, his head being sent to the capital Chang'an.

Failure of the First Anti-Eunuch Effort

In 830, the fourth year of Dahe, Li Ang began planning the destruction of the eunuchs. Because eunuchs lived within the palace and controlled the imperial armies, he felt that in the “the deep palace” he could not speak openly with generals and chief ministers. He saw that Hanlin Academician Song Shenxi was upright, loyal, and not involved in factional intrigue, and secretly consulted him about eliminating the eunuchs. Li Ang soon promoted Song to Left Vice Minister of the Department of State Affairs and then appointed him Grand Councilor. Once Song was chief minister he made Wang Fan, Vice Minister of Personnel, Mayor of Jingzhao and secretly conveyed the emperor's intention that the forces of the capital government be used against the eunuchs.

Wang Fan leaked the plan. Zheng Zhu, a retainer of Wang Shoucheng, learned of it and informed him. Wang Shoucheng therefore decided first to destroy Song Shenxi and then Li Ang's younger brother Prince Zhang Li Cou, who enjoyed a good reputation. In 831 Wang Shoucheng ordered Doulu Zhu, a Shence Army officer, to submit an accusation that Song Shenxi and Prince Zhang intended to rebel. Deceived by the charge, Li Ang reduced Li Cou to Duke of Chao County and exiled Song Shenxi as military adjutant of Kai Prefecture. Both died soon afterward in grief and anger.

Li Ang soon realized that he had been deceived, but under eunuch pressure could not clear their names. Only in the ninth month of 836, the first year of Kaicheng, did he disclose the matter. Grand Councilor Li Shi then memorialized that Song Shenxi had been loyal and upright, had died in distant exile after being slandered, and had not yet been vindicated. Li Ang “FuShou Jiu Zhi，JiErLiuTiXuan Ran” and said: “CiShi Zhen Jiu ZhiQiWu，Jian RenBiWo，YiSheJiDaJi，XiongDiJiBuNeng Bao，Kuang ShenXi，Jin Quan Yao LingEr。”

The Second Anti-Eunuch Effort and the Sweet Dew Incident

After the first effort failed, eunuch arrogance increased and Li Ang's resentment deepened. The killers of Emperor Xianzong had never been fully punished. Although Li Ang outwardly treated the eunuchs with restraint, he internally resolved to destroy them. Yet senior ministers were chiefly concerned with preserving their positions and comfort, and no one was willing to undertake the danger. Li Ang therefore searched among lower-ranking men and separately promoted Li Xun to Censor-in-chief and then chief minister as a trusted agent.

Following plans made by Li Xun and others, Li Ang killed the eunuch Chen Hongzhi, who had participated in the killing of Emperor Xianzong. He then exploited divisions among the eunuchs by making Qiu Shiliang, a subordinate of Wang Shoucheng, commander of the Left Shence Army so as to weaken Wang's military power. Wang Shoucheng was then stripped of his command and ordered to drink poison.

By this time Zheng Zhu had been appointed Military Commissioner of Fengxiang. Li Ang intended Zheng to select several hundred trusted troops and, when the eunuchs all left the palace for Wang Shoucheng's funeral, to kill them en masse. Li Xun, seeking to take the credit first, altered the original plan while Zheng was away in Fengxiang. He and Li Ang agreed to kill the eunuchs before Zheng returned and then expel Zheng as well. Li Xun recommended Wang Fan, Minister of Revenue, as Military Commissioner of Taiyuan and Guo Xingyu, Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, as Military Commissioner of Binning, hoping that both would recruit troops before leaving for their circuits. Luo Liyan, acting head of Jingzhao, Han Yue, Minister of the Court of Imperial Treasury and General of the Left Jinwu Guard, and Li Xiaoben, a Justice Ministry official and acting censor, were likewise to recruit clerks and soldiers for the attack.

On the twenty-first day of the eleventh month of the ninth year of Dahe (14 December 835), during morning court in Zichen Hall, General Han Yue reported that sweet dew had appeared overnight on a pomegranate tree in the compound of the Left Jinwu Guard. Li Xun and others said Heaven had bestowed an auspicious sign close to the imperial precinct and that the emperor should inspect it. Li Ang therefore moved to Hanyuan Hall and ordered the chief ministers and officials of the Secretariat and Chancellery to inspect first. They returned and reported that it appeared not to be genuine sweet dew. Li Ang then sent the eunuch commanders Qiu Shiliang, Yu Hongzhi, and others with a group of eunuchs to look.

When Qiu Shiliang and his companions reached the Left Jinwu compound, they saw Han Yue visibly nervous and discovered armed men hidden behind screens. They hurried away. Li Xun's plan had been to lure the eunuchs into the compound under the pretext of viewing the sweet dew and kill them at once, but the plan had been exposed. The eunuchs retreated to Hanyuan Hall and forced Li Ang onto a soft sedan chair to carry him into the inner palace. Li Xun shouted for the Jinwu Guards to protect the emperor and grabbed the chair, crying “BiXiaBuKeRuGong”. Several dozen Jinwu guardsmen, government clerks from Jingzhao, and Censorate personnel, about five hundred in all, rushed onto the hall and attacked, killing or wounding dozens of eunuchs. Li Ang then rebuked Li Xun; the eunuchs struck Li Xun down and carried the emperor through Xuanzheng Gate, which they closed behind them, scattering the officials.

Once the eunuchs had taken Li Ang into the inner palace, they immediately dispatched five hundred Shence soldiers with swords through the eastern gate, killing everyone they encountered; six or seven hundred died. They then closed the palace gates, searched for additional targets, and killed more than a thousand people. Grand Councilors Wang Ya, Jia Su, Shu Yuanyu, and other senior officials were killed, and their families were implicated and exterminated. The source describes the deaths of more than a thousand people in the aftermath as the Sweet Dew Incident.

Controlled by the Eunuchs and Final Years

After the Sweet Dew Incident Li Ang was effectively confined by the eunuchs. State affairs were controlled by eunuch power, while chief ministers were reduced largely to processing documents. The eunuchs intimidated the Son of Heaven, treated chief ministers with contempt, and bullied officials as if they were weeds. Li Ang could do little and sought intoxication in wine and relief in poetry.

He lamented to the duty academican Zhou Chi that he was controlled by household slaves and that his position was worse than that of King Nan of Zhou or Emperor Xian of Han, shedding tears. Zhou Chi prostrated himself and also wept. Li Ang asked, “ZhenKeFang Qian DaiHeZhu？” Zhou answered, “BiXia Yao、Shun Zhi ZhuYe.” Li Ang replied: “ZhenQiGanBiYao、Shun！SuoYiWen Qing Zhe，HeRuZhou Nan、Han XianEr.” Zhou was shocked and said that those were rulers who lost their states and could not be compared with his virtue. Li Ang answered: “blushing、Xian Shou ZhiYuQiang Zhu Hou，Jin Zhen Shou ZhiYuJiaNu，YiCiYan Zhi，Zhen DaiBuRu！” and wept until his robe was wet.

When Grand Councilor Zheng Tan pointed out to the eunuchs that Li Xun and Zheng Zhu had themselves originally been recommended by eunuchs, and when Liu Congjian, Military Commissioner of Zhaoyi, memorialized in defense of Wang Ya and denounced Qiu Shiliang, Qiu became somewhat more cautious, allowing Li Ang and his ministers to exercise a limited measure of authority.

On the fourth day of the first month of the fifth year of Kaicheng (10 February 840), Li Ang, ill and depressed, died in Taihe Hall of the Daming Palace at the age of thirty. After Crown Prince Li Yong had died, Consort Yang and Grand Councilor Yang Sifu proposed Prince An Li Rong as imperial younger brother and heir, while Wenzong, following Grand Councilor Li Jue's advice, selected Emperor Jingzong's younger son Prince Chen Li Chengmei as crown prince. The formal installation had not taken place when Wenzong became gravely ill. At the end of his life he entrusted the succession to Yang Sifu and Li Jue, but Qiu Shiliang and Yu Hongzhi, angry that the crown prince was not their choice, ignored Li Jue's opposition, forged an edict reducing Li Chengmei back to Prince of Chen, and instead made Li Chan, Prince of Ying and younger brother of Prince An, imperial younger brother and heir. After Wenzong's death, they persuaded Li Chan to order the deaths of Li Chengmei, Li Rong, and Consort Yang. Li Chan then became Emperor Wuzong of Tang.

Li Ang, originally named Li Han, was the second son of Emperor Muzong, his mother the empress Xiao. Born on the tenth day of the tenth month of 809, he was made prince of Jiang in 821. In the twelfth month of 826 (January 827) Emperor Jingzong was murdered by Su Zuoming and others, and Liu Keming and his fellows forged an edict setting the prince of Jiang, Li Wu, over military and state affairs; the privy commissioner Wang Shoucheng and the palace commander Liang Shouqian led the Shence and flying-dragon armies into the palace, killed Li Wu and Liu Keming, and went to the prince of Jiang's residence to bring Li Ang in. On the eleventh day he received the ministers in the palace and asked their counsel on military and civil affairs; on the twelfth the ministers and officials thrice petitioned him to take the throne; on the thirteenth he ascended it in the Xuanzheng hall of the Daming palace, and on the sixteenth began to hold court, honoring his mother as empress dowager on the twenty-fourth and mourning the prince of Jiang with three days' suspension of business. Wang Shoucheng, who had made him emperor, thus held at once the office of commissioner of the right army and the privy seal and the control of the Shence armies, establishing a position at court not easily shaken.

As prince of Jiang Li Ang had loved to read the Essentials of Government of the Zhenguan Reign, and took Emperor Taizong's diligence in government as his model; the abuses of the reigns of Muzong and Jingzong he resented as a personal shame and was determined to root out. At his accession he set about reform: on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month he released three thousand palace women, reduced the court musicians of the teaching workshop and the supernumerary technical and divinatory attendants by 1,270, freed the hawks and dogs of the five parks, and stopped the tribute of dyed silk cords, carved and chased wares and jeweled bedsteads. In the second month of 827 he proclaimed a general amnesty and changed the era name to Taihe, remitting half the summer tax of the capital region and granting rank to the descendants of those who had attended the nine ancestral shrines and to meritorious soldiers; on the seventh day of the fifth month he abolished the rule by which ministers had to be searched by censors before entering the hall to report. These measures, with his later efforts to clarify administration and check the eunuchs, set the tone of the Taihe court.

In the third month of 827 Li Tongjie, vice commander of Henghai, took the post of acting commander without waiting for the court's appointment on his father's death and sent men to court to ask for recognition. Li Ang granted him rank and titles and appointed the commander of Tianping, Wu Chongyin, to Henghai in his place; Li Tongjie refused, and the court ordered the garrisons of Yanhai, Cangjing, Yiwu, Weibo, Yiding and Youzhou to attack from all sides. In the fourth month of the following year he was beaten and stripped of his territory and killed by the court's envoy, his head sent to the capital, and the officials offered congratulations. The affair ended in a court victory, yet it exposed the heredity of the garrisons and the difficulty of making the center's writ run, and deepened the emperor's sense of being pressed both by eunuchs within and by the provinces without.

The central political problem of the reign was the destruction of the eunuchs. His grandfather Xianzong and his brother Jingzong had both died at eunuch hands, and his father and he himself had both been set up by eunuchs; he meant therefore to exterminate them and avenge his house. In the sixth month of 830 he began to plot, but since the eunuchs lived in the palace and commanded the guards, he felt that in the depths of the ninefold palace he could not speak plainly even with his ministers, and took the Hanlin academician Song Shensi into his confidence. Song Shensi, upright and free of faction, was soon made chancellor, and then appointed the vice minister of personnel Wang Fan governor of the capital region, with secret instructions, hoping to use the metropolitan troops against the eunuchs. Wang Fan let the secret out, however, and the eunuch Zheng Zhu learned of it and told Wang Shoucheng, who determined first to destroy Song Shensi and then the emperor's younger brother Li Cou, prince of Zhang, who was able and widely esteemed. At his order the Shence commander Dou Lu Zhu laid an accusation that Song Shensi meant to rebel with the prince. The emperor, deceived, reduced Li Cou to duke of Chaoxian and sent Song Shensi to Kai prefecture as a subordinate; both died of grief and anger. In the ninth month of 836 the chancellor memorialized that Song Shensi had been loyal and upright, slandered by villains and driven to death in a far place without any clearing of his name; the emperor bowed his head for a long time, then wept, and said that he had long known the matter to be a mistake, that wicked men had forced his hand, and that for the sake of the state he had barely been able to protect his own brother, let alone Song Shensi.

After that failure the eunuchs grew more overbearing. The emperor turned to men promoted from below, Li Xun and Zheng Zhu, to carry the work on; in 835 they contrived the removal of Wang Shoucheng and then planned a single stroke against all the eunuchs. The plot was discovered, and Chou Shiliang and his fellows led the guards in a massacre of the court officials, Li Xun and Zheng Zhu were killed, and the emperor himself was seized and confined — the "Sweet Dew Incident". Thereafter he was a puppet, and is said to have remarked to an attendant that the Zhou king Nan and the Han emperor Xian had been ruled by powerful feudal lords, while he was ruled by his own household slaves, and was perhaps worse off. He died in the first month of 840 and was succeeded by his brother Li Yan, Emperor Wuzong. Through his reign he was known for diligence, frugality and a desire to restore the older order; his reforms of abuse were unusual among the later Tang emperors, but held in by the eunuchs at home and beset by the garrisons abroad, with both attempts against the eunuchs ending in failure, he could not alter the structure of power in the later Tang.

The course of the Sweet Dew Incident is recorded in detail. In the eleventh month of 835 the emperor, with the chancellors Li Xun and Shu Yuanyu and Zheng Zhu, planned to use a fall of sweet dew on the pomegranate trees behind the hall of the left golden-spear guard as an auspicious sign to draw the eunuchs out to see it, while troops lay hidden in the hall, intending to destroy them at a stroke. On the twenty-first, after the morning audience, the general Han Yue reported the dew; the emperor made a show of delight, sent the chancellors and the officials of the secretariat and chancellery to inspect it, and on their report that it might not be true dew, ordered the Shence commanders Chou Shiliang and Yu Hongzhi to take the eunuchs to verify it again. Arriving at the hall, Chou Shiliang saw Han Yue change color and sweat; a gust of wind blew the curtain aside and revealed the hidden soldiers, and the eunuchs, taking alarm, ran back to the Hanyuan hall, seized the emperor and carried him into the palace. The Shence troops then came out and slaughtered the ministers: the chancellors Wang Ya, Jia Su and Shu Yuanyu were accused of treason and wiped out with their families, Li Xun was killed in flight, Zheng Zhu was killed by his own men, and the officials, clerks and commoners killed in the affair numbered in the thousands, so that no one in Chang'an felt safe.

The consequences were far-reaching. The emperor was thereafter closely controlled by Chou Shiliang and his fellows, hardly able to appoint men of his own choosing, and diverted himself with poetry, scholarship and the editing of texts; in 837 the Kaicheng Stone Classics were completed and set up at the National Academy, a landmark in Tang letters and one of the few relatively peaceful cultural achievements of the reign. The crown prince Li Yong, whom he had named early, died suddenly in 838, and the succession was left long unsettled. In the first month of 840, gravely ill, the emperor saw Chou Shiliang and Yu Hongzhi forge an edict deposing the heir he had chosen and making the prince of Ying, Li Chan, heir-apparent and brother of the emperor; the emperor died at once and Li Chan took the throne as Emperor Wuzong. The fourteen years of the Taihe reign began with a eunuch-made emperor and ended with a eunuch-forged succession; both his reforms of abuse and his two attempts against the eunuchs failed, and the savagery of the Sweet Dew Incident tipped the balance further between officials and eunuchs, so that the making and unmaking of emperors lay almost wholly in eunuch hands thereafter.

Major Activities

Political Reform

After taking the throne Li Ang worked to remove abuses inherited from previous reigns. He released three thousand palace women, dismissed 1,270 redundant personnel of the court entertainment and Hanlin establishments, and stopped tribute of luxury goods. He issued an edict restricting excessive clothing, carriages, and residences, setting treatment standards for officials of different ranks and punishing violations to curb extravagance. In judicial administration he promoted governance by law, establishing supervisory mechanisms to hold officials responsible for delays in handling cases.

Efforts to Eliminate Eunuch Power

Li Ang made elimination of eunuch power a central political objective. He launched two efforts. The first relied on Grand Councilor Song Shenxi and failed after the plan was leaked. The second relied on Li Xun and Zheng Zhu, succeeded in killing Chen Hongzhi and forcing Wang Shoucheng to commit suicide, but collapsed in the Sweet Dew Incident.

Suppression of a Military-Governor Rebellion

In 827, Li Tongjie, deputy military commissioner of Henghai, assumed authority after his father's death and resisted the court's appointment. Li Ang ordered troops from Tianping and other circuits to attack. The Cang-Jing rebellion was pacified in the fourth month of the following year and Li Tongjie was executed.

Factional Conflict under Wenzong

During Wenzong's reign, court factions attacked one another and official appointments changed frequently as the Niu–Li factional struggle reached a peak. Li Ang is reported to have lamented: “Removing the rebels of Hebei is easy; removing the factions at court is hard.”

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Emperor Xianzong Li Chun (killed by eunuchs)
• Father: Emperor Muzong Li Heng
• Mother: Empress Zhenxian Xiao
• Elder brother: Emperor Jingzong Li Zhan (killed by eunuchs)
• Younger brothers: Prince Zhang Li Cou (falsely accused by eunuchs of treason and exiled to death); Prince An Li Rong (ordered to die after Emperor Wuzong's accession)
• Sons: Crown Prince Zhuangke Li Yong (born to Consort Wang); Prince Jiang Li Zongjian (died young)
• Daughters: Princess Xingtang; Princess Xiping; Princess Langning; Princess Guanghua
• Consorts: Consort Wang; Consort Wang De; Consort Yang; Consort Liu
• Successor: Emperor Wuzong of Tang, Li Yan (Li Chan)
• Song Shenxi: grand councilor secretly charged with eliminating the eunuchs; falsely accused and exiled to death
• Li Xun: grand councilor and principal planner of the Sweet Dew Incident; killed after its failure
• Zheng Zhu: Military Commissioner of Fengxiang and important participant in the anti-eunuch plan; killed after its failure
• Wang Ya: grand councilor killed by the eunuchs during the Sweet Dew Incident
• Jia Su: grand councilor killed by the eunuchs during the Sweet Dew Incident
• Shu Yuanyu: grand councilor killed by the eunuchs during the Sweet Dew Incident
• Li Shi: grand councilor who spoke for Song Shenxi's vindication during Kaicheng
• Zheng Tan: grand councilor who pointed out that Li Xun and Zheng Zhu had been recommended by eunuchs
• Zhou Chi: Hanlin Academician to whom Wenzong confided his suffering under eunuch control
• Wang Shoucheng: powerful eunuch who supported Wenzong's accession and was later ordered by Wenzong to commit suicide
• Qiu Shiliang: powerful eunuch who dominated after the Sweet Dew Incident and forged an edict installing Wuzong
• Yu Hongzhi: Shence Army eunuch commander who participated in the Sweet Dew Incident and in the forged succession edict
• Chen Hongzhi: eunuch who participated in the killing of Emperor Xianzong and was executed under Wenzong

Historical Assessment

Tang / Contemporary

• Historians under Emperor Wuzong: “Emperor Wenzong was diligent and elegant, rising from a natural disposition, but was much constrained by circumstance and could not achieve great things.” (Old Book of Tang)
• Grand Councilor Li Shi: “Your Majesty is a son of Yao and Shun and walks in the government of Tang, yet Heaven has sent calamity; the fault lies in one man.” (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance)
• Liu Congjian, Military Commissioner of Zhaoyi: “Wang Ya and his fellows were refined and cultured men who acted for the ruler of the state, yet if one morning they plotted treason they would be hated within and without.” (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance)

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang: “Emperor Wenzong wished to remove the eunuchs, but instead was controlled by them: he knew the evil yet not the means to remove it.” (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance)
• Ouyang Xiu: “Emperor Wenzong was diligent and sparing, with the bearing of a prince, yet he was indulgent and irresolute, and so brought ruin.” (New Book of Tang)
• Hu Yin: “Emperor Wenzong had the will to remove the eunuchs but employed the wrong men; Li Xun and Zheng Zhu were petty men, how could they accomplish anything?” (Dushi Guanjian)

Ming and Qing Periods

• Wang Fuzhi: “That Emperor Wenzong wished to remove the eunuchs was no error; but to use such petty men as Li Xun and Zheng Zhu for a great undertaking was to invite certain failure.” (Du Tongjian Lun)
• Wang Mingsheng: “Emperor Wenzong was diligent and sparing with the air of the Zhenguan era, yet he was controlled by his household slaves and in the end could achieve nothing: this is pitiable.” (Shiqishi Shangque)
• Zhao Yi: “Emperor Wenzong wished to remove the eunuchs and was instead controlled by them; his ability fell far short of Emperor Xuanzong's.” (Nian'ershi Zhaji)

Modern Period

• Lü Simian: “Emperor Wenzong had the will to remove the eunuchs but used the wrong men and his plans were not secret, so that the Ganlu incident followed and more than a thousand court officials died: this is truly lamentable.” (History of the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties)
• Cen Zhongmian: “In Emperor Wenzong's time the power of the eunuchs was already complete: even with an able ruler it was hard to deal with them. His failure was not that he did not see it, but that the circumstances made it impossible.” (History of Sui and Tang)
• Huang Yongnian: the Sweet Dew Incident marked the high point of eunuch domination in the Tang; Wenzong thereafter became virtually a puppet and Tang politics declined further. (Twelve Lectures on Tang History)