Li Chongjun

Li Chongjun
Li Chongjun
Crown Prince Jiemin
Died	7 August 707
Spouse	Lady Yang
Issue	Li Zonghui, Prince of Huyang
Father	Emperor Zhongzong of Tang

Li Chongjun (李重俊) (died 7 August 707

Li Chongrun, had been killed before his father's return to the throne, but on account of his mother's low birth, he was often humiliated by Empress Wei's daughter Li Guo'er the Princess Anle and her husband Wu Chongxun (武崇訓). In 707, in anger, he started a coup and killed Wu Chongxun and his father Wu Sansi the Prince of Dejing, but his subsequent attempt to arrest Empress Wei, Li Guo'er, and Consort Shangguan Wan'er

was thwarted, and he was killed in flight.

Background

It is not known when Li Chongjun was born, but it was recorded that he was the third son of Emperor Zhongzong (Li Xian), although his younger brother Emperor Shang was born in either 695 or 698, and so he must be born sometime there before. It is not known who his mother was other than that she was not Emperor Zhongzong's wife Empress Wei. It is further unknown whether he was born before or during Emperor Zhongzong's brief first reign in 684, or during his exile from 684 to 698. However, upon the recall of Li Xian, then carrying the title of Prince of Lulin during the reign of Li Chongjun's grandmother Wu Zetian, to the capital Luoyang, Wu Zetian created Li Chongjun the Prince of Yixing.

In 705, Li Xian was restored to the throne after Wu Zetian was overthrown in a coup. He created Li Chongjun the Prince of Wei and made him the prefect of Luo Prefecture (洛州, i.e., Luoyang). He was also made a general and the commandant at Yang Prefecture (揚州, roughly modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu), although he remained at Luoyang and did not report to Yang Prefecture.

As crown prince

In 706, Li Chongjun was created crown prince. It was said that he was intelligent and decisive, but because he lacked good teachers, he did not act properly. Emperor Zhongzong made his brothers-in-law Yang Shenjiao (楊慎交) the husband of Princess Changning and Wu Chongxun the husband of Li Guo'er the Princess Anle his advisors. It was said that all Yang and Wu did were to play sports with Li Chongjun and were not carrying out actions to educate or protect him. His staff members Yao Ting (姚珽) and Ping Zhenshen (平貞慎) did frequently advise him to act properly, and Li Chongjun treated them with respect, but could not carry out their suggestions.

At that time, Wu Chongxun's father Wu Sansi the Prince of Dejing was a lover of Empress Wei and a trusted advisor to Emperor Zhongzong, and shortly after Li Chongjun was created crown prince, he persuaded Li Chongjun to suggest that five officials who had been instrumental in returning Emperor Zhongzong to the throne but who had subsequently lost out to Wu Sansi in a power struggle -- Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan, Zhang Jianzhi, Yuan Shuji, and Cui Xuanwei—be killed and their clans be slaughtered. Emperor Zhongzong did not accept the suggestion, although subsequently the five were all either killed cruelly or died in exile.

Meanwhile, because Li Chongjun was not born of Empress Wei, she disliked him. Further, Wu Chongxun and Li Guo'er both often humiliated Li Chongjun, sometimes even calling him "slave" on account of his mother's lower birth. Li Guo'er, Emperor Zhongzong's favorite daughter, also often suggested to Emperor Zhongzong that he depose Li Chongjun and make her crown princess. In fall 707 (by which time the capital had moved back to

Qinling Mountains

, but soldiers deserted on the way, and by the time he reached Hu (戶縣, near Chang'an), he only had several soldiers with him. As they were resting under a tree, the soldiers killed him and surrendered.

Emperor Zhongzong presented Li Chongjun's head to the imperial ancestral temple (in other words, treating him as having committed treason), and then also presented it to the caskets of Wu Sansi and Wu Chongxun. He then hung Li Chongjun's head on the government wall. None of Li Chongjun's staff members, fearful that they would be accused of treason themselves, dared to approach Li Chongjun's body, but the secretary general of Yonghe County (永和, in modern Linfen, Shanxi), Ning Jiaxu (甯嘉勗), took off his own shirt, wrapped Li Chongjun's head in it, and wept bitterly—and as a result was demoted to be the secretary general of the distant Xingping County (興平, in modern Foshan, Guangdong). After Emperor Zhongzong's death in 710, Empress Wei was overthrown in a coup led by Li Chongjun's cousin Li Longji the Prince of Linzi and their aunt Princess Taiping, and Li Longji's father and Li Chongjun's uncle Li Dan the Prince of Xiang became emperor (as Emperor Ruizong). Emperor Ruizong restored Li Chongjun's title as crown prince, reburied him with honors due a crown prince and gave him the posthumous name of Jiemin (meaning "self-controlled and suffering").