The History of China - #83 - Tang 2: The Incident at Xuanwu Gate

Episode Date: November 30, 2015

The Tang will achieve hegemony over the entirety of China’s heartlands, both North and South. But with external foes subdued, simmering tensions within the royal household will begin bubbling to the surface, culminating in a showdown that will decide the future of the Dynasty.Time Period Covered:618-626 CEMajor Historical Figures:Tang Dynasty:Li Yuan (Emperor Gaozu) Crowned Prince Li JianchengPrince Li YuanjiPrince Li ShiminLi Xiaogong, Prince of ZhaoGuard Captain Yang Wen’ganGeneral Yuchi JingdeLiang Dynasty:Xiao Xian (Emperor of Liang)Gokturk Khannate:Shibi Khan [d. 619]Illig Khan (alt. Xieli)Sources Cited:Weschler, Howard. The Cambridge History of China, vol. 3 (1979).Zhao, Ying and Liu, Shu. Jiu Tangshu (The Old Book of Tang). (945) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please either check out the support the show page on the website, or go directly to www.patreon.com slash thehistoryofchina. Once again to Caleb and Yuan, as well as to all of our generous supporters out there, thanks very much and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to the History of China. Episode 83, The Incident at Xuanwu Gate. We left our Emperor Gaozu of Tang on a high note in his bid to reunify China following the breakup of the Sui Dynasty. His second son, Prince Li Shemin, had just finished up an astonishing victory over the Tang dynasty's enemies in the North China Plains at the Battle of Hulao Pass, besieging and eventually taking the secondary capital of Luoyang, while simultaneously not only staving off,

but absolutely crushing the numerically superior forces sent by the so-called Prince of Xia to relieve the besieged city. In the aftermath, both the territories surrounding Luoyang and Xia were surrendered to the Tang, and its leaders executed. With his most dangerous enemies vanquished, and the breadbasket of China at last under his sole control, this time, we'll see Emperor Gaozu turn southward to deal with the warlords on the far side of the Yangtze River, and once again bring

all of China to heel. To begin with though, let's first take a brief look at the governmental situation that had begun to coalesce around the Tang throne. What did this rule look like? How was it similar, and how was it different from the Suis, or the Khans for that matter? This is a particularly important consideration, given that the decisions about how his government will be set up would impact not only Emperor Gaozu's reign, and not even only the rest of the Tang's time in power. But in the words of historian and professor Howard Weschler, quote, In many cases, Tang institutions continued to influence deeply Chinese civilization down to the 20th century,

and which provided the basic institutional models for the newly emergent states of Chinese-dominated East Asia, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Now, founding an imperial dynasty and gaining legitimacy was never going to be an easy task. But the Tang faced a particularly uphill battle. Militarily, of course, there were dozens of other competing claims to imperial authority, many of whom had yet to be dealt with completely. But at least as challenging was that in this time of crisis and civil war, building a respectable centralized state encountered numerous difficulties, both small and large in magnitude. For instance, Weschler notes that when he captured Chang'an in 617, Emperor Gaozu's staff found that the capital had almost no paper stocks to use. And given that, well, there was a war going on, it wasn't like they were just going to

order some more or anything like that. Their short-term solution, then, was rather hilarious. They simply raided the accumulated collections of earlier dynasties' edicts, memos, and other documents—those, say, from the Northern Zhou and the Sui, to name a couple—and simply flipped them over and wrote on the reverse side. That was effective in a pinch, I suppose, but issuing imperial decrees on recycled paper isn't, you must admit, the best way to inspire confidence in your government's staying power or legitimacy. Not quite as bad as drawing up laws on gum wrappers, but definitely not ideal. The paper shortage was by no means the only, or even the most important thing missing from the capital. Cash was in critically short supply, with the Sui imperial treasuries having

been largely depleted, and that situation was exacerbated by the fact that Gaozu was compelled to pay off his supporters up until now with gifts and prizes, leaving precious little to further conduct the campaign. And both of these issues, issuing imperial decrees on repurposed papers and offering to pay in IOUs, compounded into yet a third critical shortage, namely officials. Why should officials flock to this self-declared dynasty that seemed to have no money to speak of and couldn't even afford basics like clean paper in a civil war in which throwing in with the wrong side meant exile or death. It would take a while before the Tang was able to gain enough

respectability and military momentum to actually look like a horse worth backing at all. The capture of Luoyang and Xia certainly did wonders for that reputation and the people's faith in its future as a dynasty, but between 617 and 621, it was definitely slow going. Structurally, the Tang government kept intact many of the major governmental structures that had been implemented by the by now ousted Sui. Like the Sui, the Tang used a system of three central ministries to run all governmental affairs, the Chancellory, the Secretariat, and the Ministry of State Affairs. Though the initial phases of Gaozu's reign would see the still-nascent system experience what Weschler describes as growing pains and administrative confusion about who did what, the process that would ultimately be established

was that the Secretariat, or Cheng Shusheng, would be in charge of drafting an edict, which was then sent to the Chancellery, or Men Xiasheng, which would then be reviewed and additional comments added. Finally, the edict would be sent to the Ministry of State Affairs, or Shang Shusheng, which was the branch of government of the emperor himself. If he approved, the emperor would then direct the six departments under his ministry to carry out the policy. It all does sound very formal, and indeed later into the Tang it would become very much so. But for Gaozu himself, the process was actually fairly fluid and informal, with a comparatively small number of bureaucrats and cogs into the machine as of just yet. Weschler writes, quote,

Because Gazu felt insecure in his enterprise of founding a new dynasty, he staffed his administration with those persons he could trust the most, close friends, veterans of the Taiyuan uprising, and relatives, end quote. In fact, of the 12 chief ministers, eight of them were related to the emperor either by blood or marriage. High posts in the military and civil government were frequently filled by veterans of the campaign against Chang'an. Of the whole central bureaucracy, virtually every member fell into one or more of three categories, namely former Sui officials, members of the former imperial houses of Northern Zhou, Northern Qi, or Sui, or finally descendants of lesser former imperial houses.

Gao's new Tang order was indeed a military revolution, but in virtually every other key way, right down to the individual personnel, it was almost the opposite of a social or political revolution. Once again, in Weschler's words, quote, The coming to power of the Tang dynasty thus brought no significant challenge to the ruling elite of the previous dynasties, much less a social revolution, end quote. From a modern Western standpoint, that might seem like a negative, and almost all of us might want to stand up and cheer for some revolutionary figure to make a fundamental change to this top-down, absolute authoritarian society that was reforming under the Tang. But that, in fact,

is the wrong way to look at it. Leaving ancient events through a post-Enlightenment democracy is good sort of viewpoint only serves to distort the image that we're looking at into something totally unrecognizable. In fact, a promise of continuity, of keeping the social order intact, and all in all, not tipping the apple cart completely over, would have been seen as a huge positive in this time and place. In maintaining the extant government systems, Gaonzu was promising to bring back stability and order to a society that had, once again,

been thrown into chaos. He wanted to set the wheel rolling down the path of prosperity once again, not to try to reinvent it. And more than just earthly stability, remember that the very foundational principle of legitimate government in this society rested upon the idea of the mandate of heaven. It was the will of the divine that there should only be one holy, sovereign emperor to bring order and prosperity to the whole of the Middle Kingdom. So, while we might be tempted to look at him keeping on much of the same staff as the dynasty he was in the process of supplanting and think, oh, well, gee, that's not going to change much.

In fact, that was the point. Not changing much, but just getting that singular correct system of government functional once again. And in that goal, Gao Jie's choices for office holders proved not only intelligent but potentially crucial. From the Cambridge History of China, quote, The composition of this bureaucracy was a source of strength for the Tang. Its members were for the most part experienced in government. The large numbers of high-level officials with relationships to the imperial house served to strengthen Tang control, and the broad range of dynastic affiliations they represented reassured desperate elements throughout the country,

and eventually facilitated reunification, end quote. One of the most pressing problems for the Tang government in Chang'an was to achieve monetary solvency, which is to say, to actually get the systems of imperial taxation and official payments up and running again. As I'd mentioned earlier, they'd inherited from the Sui essentially empty state coffers and a fractured tax base that needed to be assured of political stability before they'd submit to making payments once again. During the earliest years of the Civil War, the Tang had funded itself and its forces in typical fashion, wartime looting and pillaging of the areas it took control of.

But that, of course, does not make for stable financial policy. Unless one plans to expand, well, forever, looting the people you plan on later taxing is like slaughtering your cow instead of milking it. Not exactly long-term thinking. So how could this new Tang government fulfill its many promises of payments to the various officials and military commanders who had supported it thus far? Well, it wasn't completely bankrupt yet, and so Emperor Gaozu essentially gave the high officials of each county under his control a fixed amount of capital, under the care of an elevated clerk

pulled from the merchant classes, with orders to take that money and either invest it into profitable local ventures or to lend it out at an interest rate. The resultant profits would come to form a portion of his official salaries. As for the rest, what the central authority lacked in liquid wealth, it did have plenty of in the form of land, much of which now, conveniently, had no one left to claim title to it any longer. So, Gaozu took a page from the practices of the southern dynasties of old and re-established in the north the system of shifantian, or the lands pertaining to office, which was pretty much what it sounds like. Office titles were to come

with a fixed piece of land, and the tenants of that land would pay them a rent to live and work in. You might think of it like sharecropping in the American South of the 19th century. In terms of direct taxation, Gazu and his Tang government once again stole a page from the previous dynasties and re-emplemented the equal-filled system of the Northern Wei. One almost wonders if their frequent recycling of old imperial edicts might have anything to do with the Tang's proclivity towards borrowing the previous dynasties' policies. Regardless, each taxpaying male was allotted a roughly equal parcel of land and then taxed at the same rate as everyone else, regardless of their region or their individual circumstance.

Finally, currency. As you may recall, the southern dynasties had been largely successful in implementing and maintaining their own coinage over the course of the period of disunion. But in the far more tumultuous Northern Dynasty's territories, the practice of using hard currency had been almost totally abandoned following the fall of the Han Dynasty. Though many of the 16 kingdoms had tried to establish their own currencies, overall the North had reverted to a completely barter economy. Once the Sui had reunified China, it too had attempted to reintroduce metal coinage in the north. However, the relative brevity of its time in power and the chaos that had gripped China at its end had meant that official coins were not in wide enough circulation to prove sufficient,

and that counterfeiting had once again become widespread, rendering the currency virtually worthless, and reverting the north of China, once again, back to a barter economy. But by 621, Emperor Gaozhu and his Tang administration were ready to roll out their own coinage into circulation. The new imperial coins, called Kaiyuan Pengbao, meaning inaugural currency, were of uniform size, weight, and composition, about 83% copper, 15% lead, and 2% tin, as it goes. They were essentially produced from the imperial Menten Luoyang, and unauthorized production carried with it the penalty of death. The Kaiyuan Tongbao coin would come to be the basis of all coinage throughout the Tang dynasty,

and indeed what the basis of later dynasties such as the Ming would base their own coin systems off of. It is not surprising, then, that it's more or less exactly what you would likely think of when you think of Imperial Chinese Coin, that is a circular metal disc with a square hole punched through its center and with the characters of the coin's name printed on one side. And I will be putting out a new companion post soon, so be sure to look for the photo of the Kaiyuan coin once that goes live on the website.

Alright, so let's get out of Chang'an and imperial tax policy for the time being, and head south to see who is still standing against the burgeoning might of the Tang Emperor, Gaozu. Well, just like in the north, the south had had its dozens upon dozens of competing warlords facing off against one another. But we're just going to simplify matters by saying that by around the year 618 or so, one of the southern warlords had pretty much emerged on top. And on a related note, by the way, I'm pretty largely simplifying the situation in the North as well. I don't mean to make it sound as though all was peaceful in the North China Plains at this point.

On the contrary, again, we're only going to be touching on a handful of the 200-plus warlords or so, so expect a fair few of them to just be dropped entirely under the umbrella statement I'm about to make right now, which is, the mopping up action continued more or less apace in the north of China, with an occasional setback, counter-strike, or enemy siege, almost all of which proved only a minor speed bump against the Tang might. Meanwhile, in the south, the giant, chaotic game of King of the Mountain was also going on there. And from it, the former county magistrate and now warlord, Xiao Xuan, had emerged as the prime faction south of the Yangtze. Now, you might be thinking to yourself,

hmm, that family name Xiao, that sounds vaguely familiar. Well, if you are thinking that, well, gold star to you, because indeed, he is the great-grandson of the final emperor of western Liang, before it had been absorbed by Sui in 587. In the summer of 618, then, Xiao had declared himself independent of the dying Sui dynasty, and established himself as the emperor of the revitalized Liang empire. His force, numbering as many as 400,000 soldiers by some accounts, quickly squashed the remainder of the loyalist Sui forces all across the south, and by late that year controlled virtually all of the territory between the Yangtze to as far south as Hanoi, Vietnam, and as far west as the Three Gorges. So yeah, the Emperor of Liang was kind of a big deal.

Nevertheless, his part in our story is going to be pretty short. Between the winter of 620 and the spring of 621, Emperor Gaozhou had begun to seriously turn his attention southward to bring that region back into his fold. To that end, then, he appointed his nephew, the Prince of Zhao, to lead an amphibious attack force against the Liang state. The Prince of Zhao quickly settled on a strategy aimed at attacking the Liang's capital city directly, the riverside fortress at Jiangling in southern Hubei. That summer, one of the prince's lieutenants led a raiding party across the Yangtze and commenced with attacking the outlying settlements,

in hopes of drawing out the Liang armies to engage him rather than sit tight within the capital itself. This would prove effective, and a significant portion of the Liang army sallied forth to do battle with what they thought to be the major threat sent against the Liang state. As the winter of 621 approached, the Emperor of Liang nevertheless felt safe within his capital, because though he knew that the Prince of Zhao was still on the other side of the Yangtze, the late autumn had provided copious rainfall, making the always challenging river crossing even more dangerous due to particularly high and wild water levels. So, you can imagine his surprise when the Prince of Zhao made the

river crossing anyway at the head of his army. Swiftly defeated, the Liang generals sent to stop him and then surrounded Jiangling City. With his own city guard reduced to but a few thousand, the Emperor of Liang sent messages to his commanders in the field, desperately ordering them to make for the capital at once and relieve him from the Tang siege. In an effort to confuse and delay the Liang reinforcements, though, the Prince of Zhao ordered that a number of captured Liang ships be floated down the Yangtze River in an effort to make the reinforcing armies think that their capital had already been captured. The reinforcing armies were indeed disheartened by the sight of their own navy having apparently been defeated and their capital taken,

and they greatly slowed their push to relieve the city, since, after all, they thought it was already too late. With his relief armies nowhere in sight, the Emperor of Liang lost hope. He announced to his officials, quote, Heaven does not protect Liang, and we can no longer stand. If we fight all the way to being completely worn out before surrendering, it will be the people who suffer. Thus, the Emperor of Liang surrendered to the Prince of Zhao, requesting only that he

alone be put to death and for the Prince to spare his people. As the traditional histories tell it, it was more or less this exact moment that the Liang relief army indeed arrived, a force of more than 100,000 soldiers. But upon seeing their emperor having already surrendered to the Tang army, they too laid down their arms and gave up. And that does make for a nice, neat ending to the tale of the Liang state, almost too neat and tidy, though, to be taken as absolute fact. Nevertheless, Xiao Xian, the erstwhile emperor of Liang, was taken in chains back to Chang'an and presented before Emperor Gao Zu. Gao Zu demanded to know why Xiao had refused to submit

to the will of the Tang, to which Xiao replied, quote, Sui lost its right to rule, and the heroes sought after it. I, Xiao Xian, was not blessed by heaven, and therefore I was captured. If what I did is criminal, I am willing to be boiled to death. Angered by what he perceived to be Xiao's ongoing refusal to submit, Gaozu ordered his execution. Though not by boiling, but rather by simply beheading him. 400 years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the

center of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Listen to Season 1 to hear about England's first attempts at empire building, in Ireland, in North America, and in the Caribbean, the first steps of the East India Company, and the political battles between King and Parliament. Listen to Season 2 to hear about the chaotic years of civil war, revolution, and regicide which rocked the Three Kingdoms and the fledgling empire. In season three, we see how Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell ruled the powerful Commonwealth and

challenged the Dutch and the Spanish for the wealth and power of the Americas and Asia. Learn the history of the British Empire by listening to Pax Britannica everywhere you find your podcasts, or go to pod.link slash pax. The Civil War, such as it were, was winding down as of late 621, but it was still far from over. It wouldn't be until 626, in fact, that we'd really consider the whole of China once again reunified in a meaningful sense. But while we might bumble through the next five years watching Emperor Gaozu and the Tang armies stomp out brush fire after brush fire, that would a. be pretty boring, and b. miss the far larger and more meaningful conflict that was actually occurring

behind the scenes. Think of it, perhaps, as detailing the second half of the 20th century by going over the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Cuba, Laos, Afghanistan, Cambodia, etc., without ever panning back to realize that they were all proxy wars in the greater conflict between the US and the USSR. In the same sense, then, much of the ongoing rebellions that were to break out between 620 and 626 against Pang dynastic rule, were in essence encouraged and propped up by none other than the Gokturk Khanate, whom Professor Weschler notes was, quote, by far the greatest threat to the Tang during its first years, end quote. You may recall at the beginning of his rebellion against the Sui that the Duke of Tang, now Emperor Gaozu,

had promised nominal submission to the Gu Turks and sent tribute to its Khan, Shibi, in return for assurances that the Turks would not invade China proper while the Tang were busy dealing with the rest of the empire. That policy of bribing off the Turks, however, would wind up proving rather less than effective. Even with the payoffs, the representatives of the Khanate within Chang'an paid little heed or respect to Tang authority and generally flouted Chinese laws. In one particularly notable incident, for instance, Gaozu was forced to pretty much just stand by and do nothing as the envoys of the Guhturks assassinated one of their rival Khagans,

sent to pay tribute from the Western Turks. By 619, the Guhurt Khan had been sealing alliances with Chinese rebels from the northern territories and was making plans to commence his full-scale invasion of the Chinese empire. Perhaps it was fortunate for Gaozu and the Tang dynasty then that, in late 619, Shibi Khan took ill and died. As his son was still too young to rule, the mantle of rule was given to his younger brother, who would himself die a short time later in 620, once again passing the Khanate to yet another younger brother, who would come to be known as Ilig or Xiali Khan. Though the rapid series of royal deaths temporarily staved off Turkic invasion and allowed Gazu the space he needed to shore up his holdings across China, it would prove to be Ilig Khan who would be the Tang's most formidable adversary across the

620s. In 622, Ilig Khan led a force purported to number as many as 150,000 men in an invasion aimed at the old Tang region of Taiyuan. If you remember from last episode, Taiyuan was unique in the northern plains of China in that it was almost an ideal staging ground to launch further attacks southward at the capital cities. What it also meant, though, was that it was virtually impregnable, a fact that Ilig Khan seems not to have quite taken into account. The Tang army was to be jointly led by the crowned Prince Li Jiancheng and his younger brother and decorated battlefield commander, Prince Li Shemin, who was the hero of Hulao Pass. The brothers were able to successfully fend off the Turkic advance and retain control of the strategically vital Taiyuan region. Ileg Khan, however, was not about to be thwarted by some minor setback. Between 622 and 624, Turkic raids all throughout the capital regions were

ongoing, and in spite of the fact that Gaozu reformed the 12 imperial armies he had previously disbanded in response to this northern aggression, there seemed little the Tang forces could do to stave them off. By 624, in fact, the threat had grown so serious that Chang'an itself had to be placed under martial law, and Emperor Gaozu began seriously considering putting the city to the torch and moving the capital to a more secure area, namely Fan City, then adjacent to Xiangyang in northern Hunan province. Though his crown prince approved of the action, he would ultimately be dissuaded from this by the urgings of Prince Ximing. In 625, the Turks once again made a play for Taiyuan, and though the Tang were once again

able to hang on, it was only just so, and they incurred heavy losses in the process. Unable to guarantee the security of his own capital region, much less the outlying cities of the north, Gazu was forced to order his city-level officials to fortify their own townships against barbarian raids and construct moats around their walls to stave off the Turks. It might seem as though Gaozu proved to be weak against Turkic aggression over the course of his reign. After all, he began his rule by kowtowing to the Great Khan, not exactly a sign of the favorite of heaven, and then only to have the Northern Lord and his brothers turn around and invade him anyway. But Professor Weschler cautions against

this potential interpretation by stating, quote, although Gaozou has been heavily criticized over the ages by ethnocentric Chinese historians for his subservience to the Turks at the beginning of the dynasty, and although his buying-off policy failed to stem the tide of successive Turkish invasions, he succeeded in purchasing security for the Tang during a critical period. This breathing space allowed the Tang army first to enter the Sui capital without fear of attacks on its rear, and then to consolidate its military power in Shanxi. It also enabled the Tang to begin making defensive preparations on its northern border under the direction of the heir apparent, Li Jiancheng, which,

while unable to completely prevent Turkish incursions, laid the foundation for strong Chinese resistance to the Turks during the remainder of Gaozu's reign. End quote. In other words, it seems as though the Turkic invasion was going to be an inevitability, regardless of the Tang's policies towards the Khanate. But by initially playing the part of subservience and staving off aggression at least for a while with gifts and tributes, it gave the Tang the breathing room to at least consolidate its holdings in China and organize an effective defense against the Turks when their relationship unavoidably broke down. So by the midpoint of the 620s, Gaoju's major rivals for the Chinese throne lay either dead

on the battlefields, executed at the capital, or had fled the empire altogether in disgrace and defeat. The Tang reigned supreme over, more or less, the whole of China once again. But what external foes and rebel lords had proved unable to overcome, by 626, was threatened from within, and at the very highest levels of power. The growing fissure within the Tang Imperium had developed between none other than Gao Zhu's sons, namely the crowned prince Li Jiancheng and his younger war hero brother, Prince Li Ximing. And though the wars between the Tang and the rebels, and then the

Gukturks, had forced the pair to work together, they certainly hadn't liked it. And following the easing off of hostilities from the Turks post-Taiyuan, and the relative stability within the empire itself, that toxic fraternal relationship had once again been given the breathing space to really begin to fester once more. Because of his impressive list of military victories, Prince Ximing had not only more. Because of his impressive list of military victories, Prince Shemin had not only earned the respect of his fellow commanders within the Tang armies, but had amassed tremendous personal power, both as rewards for his exploits from his father, and as a result of the relationships he'd built within the Tang generals from the north.

The heir apparent, meanwhile, had no such luck in building a suitably impressive military resume. He had instead spent the majority of the war commanding a garrison along the northern border against Turkic aggression. Nothing to sniffle at, to be sure, but nothing nearly as impressive as the Battle of Hulau Pass, for instance. The crown prince, then, seemed to have grown, well, jealous, or perhaps just intimidated, of his little brother, who seemed to so outshine him. This probably wasn't helped when in 621, Prince Ximing founded his own College of Literary Studies, in which he retained some 18 preeminent scholars that he kept on staff to advise him on all manners of state affairs. If he didn't know better, Crown Prince Jiancheng would have sworn that Ximing might be positioning himself to usurp his own place as heir apparent, but that was crazy talk, wasn't it?

Crown Prince Jiancheng would ultimately conclude that he needed to do all that he could to undermine Ximing's efforts and retain his own hold on the airdom. Weschler states that he, quote, sought to undermine the effectiveness of Shim'in's staff by having several of its members transferred to other posts. At the same time, he increased his own power in Chang'an by recruiting more than 2,000 young men who became known as the Changling troops and were stationed inside the heir apparent's residence, end quote. Prince Jiang Cheng also enlisted the help of his younger brother, Li Yuanji, who similarly was wary of Ximing's growing power and asked him to curry favor with

their father's consorts and concubines that they might whisper in the emperor's ears against their mutual rival. All through this time, Prince Ximing was rarely in the capital, but instead doing what he did best, being out on campaign and further solidifying his support among the military rather than the imperial court, as well as the civil officials within the secondary capital Luoyang. And you probably see where this is going. The princely Cold War continues to build over the course of 622 and 623, until at last, something gave. In the summer of 624, Emperor Gaozhou was made aware that while he'd been away from the capital in his summer palace, one of the imperial palace's guard captains, a man named Yang Wengang,

was amassing a large number of troops within the palace, and supposedly doing so under the orders of the crown prince so that he might launch a palace coup and seize the throne while Gaozong was away. The emperor sent for Crown Prince Jiancheng at once to explain himself, as well as to determine his level of involvement, if indeed he was directly involved, in the purported coup plot. When the emperor's envoys relayed their message to the crown prince, he faced a choice. He could either submit to the will of his father and journey to the summer palace to explain himself, or he could touch off the coup he was supposedly behind. The crown prince decided to go with the

former, informing the envoys that he would indeed make for the summer palace and make reparations with his father and explain the circumstances. That decision did not sit well at all with the guard captain Yang, who would effectively be left sitting high and dry as the instigator of what was by now pretty obviously a coup in the making. Sure, the High Prince might be able to explain away his own involvement, but that would leave Yang's own neck to take the brunt of the punishment that was sure to follow. Captain Yang quite simply could not accept this, and so, instead of assenting to the Crown Prince's decision to stand down, he incited the army

he'd gathered to rebel anyway. And rebel, they did. Responding to this outrage within Chang'an, Emperor Gazu sent for Prince Ximing, and tasked him with putting this rebellion down without delay, and even promised him that he would be made the crown prince should he succeed. Ximing and his army made for the capital, but they almost needn't have bothered, because no sooner did imperial forces arrive in the city than Captain Young's own officers assassinated him in order to save their own necks. In the aftermath of this abortive rebellion, Emperor Gazu was understandably pretty miffed at his eldest son and made preparations to depose him in favor of Shimene. But at this, the crown prince connections

within the imperial court and Gaozu's bedchambers made themselves useful, ultimately convincing the aged emperor to retain Jiancheng as his heir. In fact, there is at least some evidence to warrant the conclusion that Prince Ximing may have actually falsely implicated his brother in the plot as a tactic of his own to smear his brother, both to his father and in the eyes of history, but that does remain conjectural. Nevertheless, several of the crown prince's close advisors would be exiled to the furthest reaches of Sichuan as a direct result of this botched coup attempt. All through this period, it should be noted, Prince Shimin continued to send detachments of his personal troops back to Luoyang in order to build up his personal control over the city, as well as the force he'd need to oust his elder brother when and if the time came.

According to the Old Book of Tang, in 625, Prince Ximing would have a near brush with death. After attending a feast at the crown prince's palace, he came down with either a particularly severe case of food poisoning or just a case of outright poisoning, rendering him seriously ill for a period. While Shemin was laid out then, the crown prince and his confederate younger brother succeeded in convincing their father to remove from office several of Ximing's closest advisors, depleting him further of their council once he eventually recovered. Here I will let Professor Weschler continue the tale. Quote,

By 626, Ximing had become increasingly alarmed at the successful maneuvers by Jiancheng and Yuanji, designed to turn the emperor against him and to deplete his staff. Not long after the Yang Wanggan incident, Gao Zu, on being told of Li Shemin's growing pretensions, summoned him to the palace and told him plainly that he could expect no assistance from him. Fang Xuanling and Tu Juhui, two of Shemin's most important advisors, had been dismissed from his service through the machinations of his brothers. His general, Yu Cheqingde, had narrowly escaped death at the hands of assassins hired by Jiancheng and Yuanji, and when he was subsequently slandered by them at court, he was saved from execution

only through Ximing's intercession. When the Turks invaded the border in early 626, Yuanji, at the suggestion of Jian Cheng, was assigned to oppose them, and took many of Ximing's best generals and cracked troops with him. The two brothers also offered lavish bribes to Ximing's key men in hope of subverting their allegiance to him. The emperor seems to have made no attempt to subvert these stratagems. That was a long quote, but I thought it very nicely illustrated the lengths to which the brothers Jian Cheng and Yuan Ji were willing to go to undermine Prince Ximing's standing within the court and reduce his influence.

Through all of this, Prince Ximing was remarkably slow to take any overt action of his own, in spite of his advisors' and officials' urgings to the contrary. At most, he seems to have remained content to continue building his forces within Luoyang, and his strategy seemed to have been to flee there and use it as his secondary capital fortress, should he ultimately be forced from Chang'an. But everyone does have a breaking point, a line past which action simply must be taken. And for Prince Li Shemin, that line was finally crossed by his brothers in 626. As the histories tell it, one of his spies reported to him that his brothers planned to have him assassinated when he was to, as per custom,

go to see off his brother, Prince Yuanji, on his campaign against the Turks. The send-off, and therefore assassination, was to take place at the Xuanwu Gate of Chang'an, and so it is from this that the events to follow take their name, the Xuanru Men Jebian, or the Xuanwu Gate Incident. Prince Xiumi knew that it was life or death, and so, contrary to his earlier passivity, he now acted quickly. His two brothers had meddled in his affairs long enough, and now it was time that they were disposed of once and for all. His two closest advisors, those who had previously been dismissed from his service, were now vital to his plans, and so he recalled the pair and instructed them to disguise themselves as Taoist priests to avoid recognition.

He would likewise offer an enormous bribe to the commander of the Xuanmu Gate, who, critically, had previously been one of Ximing's personal officers and maintained his loyalty to the prince. The commander accepted the bribe, and would thereafter follow the prince's orders as the events progressed. Finally, on the third day of the sixth month, Prince Ximing sent a missive to his father, the Emperor, formally accusing his brothers, the crowned Prince Jiancheng and Prince Yuanji, of having illicit affairs with several of the imperial consorts. Emperor Gazu responded immediately to the accusations against Jiancheng and Yuanji, commanding Prince Ximing to hold audience with him the following morning to sort this whole affair out. Meanwhile, word of the accusations had leaked from the palace and straight to the ears of the crown prince and his confederate brother.

The pair, apparently aghast at the implications, decided not to even wait until the next morning to show up to the official audience, but instead to ride immediately for their father's palace and personally intercede on their own behalves and defend themselves against these ludicrous charges. All exactly as Prince Ximene had known they would. As his two brothers made for the imperial palace in a huff over the charges of sleeping with their aunts, Prince Ximene finalized his own endgame by taking total control of the Xuanwu Gate alongside twelve of his most trusted followers, who all took up their pre-planned positions and then lay wait. While the paid-off gate commander dutifully turned a blind eye to what was about to go down,

the unwary crowned prince and his brother entered through the Xuanmu Gate and into their own demise. As they rode through the constricted corridor, Shimin and his men seized upon their opportunity, striking out at the pair of princes with deadly precision. As the crown prince and Yuan Ji approached, they soon realized that things were not quite right and began to retreat eastward. However, Prince Shimin rode toward his brothers and hailed them. Apparently realizing that it was a trap,

Li Yuan Ji attempted to draw his bow and fire at Xiamen. Before he could do so, however, Xiamen drew his own bow and turned his eldest brother into a pincushion. Prince Yuanji attempted to flee, but Xiamen's general, Yu Cejingde, and seventy horsemen caught up with him and began to fire, causing Prince Yuanji to fall from his horse. As Prince Ximing attempted to catch his brother, however, he lost control of his own horse and became entangled in tree branches, trapping Ximing within the thicket. Prince Yuan Ji, realizing that this might be his only chance at survival, grabbed Ximing's bow from him and proceeded to wrap it around his neck in order to strangle his brother. Shimian's general Yucha arrived, however, forcing Yuan Ji to flee before he could finish the job. Nevertheless, Yucha overtook Prince Yuan Ji and ended the prince's life with his bow.

Of course, the two princes had not ridden alone, and their followers, realizing that there was a plot afoot, commenced an attack on the gate itself in an attempt to save their liege lords. But when the severed heads of Jiancheng and Yuanji were presented before the honor guard, the soldiers broke and fled. Prince Li Shemin was victorious. Prince Shemin was well aware that his father was unlikely to take this whole bloody usurpation at Xuanwu Gate well. He had, after all, basically turned a blind eye to the crown prince overtly acting against him, while stymieing his every effort to defend himself against Jian Cheng's and Yuan Ji's actions. And so he knew that the news of his heir apparent's untimely death would have to be carefully managed in order to prevent an, oh, inadvisable reaction. Ximing therefore sent his favorite general and recent savior, Yuche Qingde, a general emperor

Gaozhu had only recently condemned to death, no less, to announce the results of the Xianmuge incident to the sovereign. General Yuche found the emperor sailing around in this private lake within the imperial city. Weschler writes, Now entering the palace in full armor and armed with a spear, an act normally punishable by death, Yuche Qingde confronted the visibly startled emperor with the news of the deaths of his two sons. It was Lisha Min's dramatic way of announcing to his father that the tide of events at court had turned, and that now he was in full command. This dramatic turn of events was confirmed only three days later, when Emperor Gaozu, clearly with no other real option anymore, proclaimed Prince Shemin as his heir to the throne of Tang, and with it, most of the actual day-to-day administerial tasks and responsibilities.

Though Gaozu was at this point around 60 years old, he doesn't seem to have lost his cognitive capacities, and so this transference of power was more than likely forced by his son. Shortly thereafter, in the ninth month of 626, Gaozu officially gave up his throne and was bestowed the title Tai Huangdi, that is, Retired Emperor. In his stead, and against all odds, Prince Li Shemin would become the second sovereign of the Tang Empire, Emperor Taizong of Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over 10 generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all

podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.