As Empress
After Empress Zhang became empress, she tried to have her son Li Shao, who was said to be only a few years old, made crown prince. Emperor Suzong, who favored Li Chu as crown prince, could not decide immediately, but after consulting with the official Li Kui, he created Li Chu crown prince later in 758 and changed Li Chu's name to Li Yu. She nevertheless thereafter tried to have Li Yu replaced with Li Shao, but after Li Shao died in 760, because Li Tong was even younger, Li Yu's position was secure.
Throughout the years, Empress Zhang and Li Fuguo's alliance held, and in 760, they together persuaded Emperor Suzong to acquiesce to forcibly moving Emperor Xuanzong, who was then at his preferred subsidiary palace Xingqing Palace (興慶宮), back to the main palace, and exiling Emperor Xuanzong's staff members. However, as of spring 762, when both Emperors Xuanzong and Suzong were seriously ill, Empress Zhang and Li Fuguo had begun to be rivals. (During Emperor Suzong's illness, at one point, to display her love for him, she used her blood to write Buddhist sutras in order to seek blessing for him.) She summoned Li Yu and tried to persuade him to join her in killing Li Fuguo and his ally Cheng Yuanzhen. Li Yu declined, and she instead tried to persuade his younger brother Li Xi (李係) the Prince of Yue, to join her. Li Xi agreed. (Her biographies in Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang also indicated that she offered to make Li Xi emperor.) She and Li Xi thereafter had the eunuch Duan Hengjun (段恆俊) select some 200 strong eunuchs, ready to ambush Li Fuguo and Cheng.
On May 14, Empress Zhang issued an order in Emperor Suzong's name, summoning Li Yu. Cheng found out and informed Li Fuguo, who intercepted Li Yu at the palace gate and then escorted him to the camp of the imperial guards under Li Fuguo's command. The guards under LI Fuguo's command then entered the palace and arrested Empress Zhang and Li Xi; the other eunuchs and ladies in waiting fled, leaving Emperor Suzong without care. On May 16, Emperor Suzong died, and Li Fuguo thereafter executed Empress Zhang and Li Xi, as well as Li Xian the Prince of Yan, and then declared Li Yu emperor (as Emperor Daizong). Many of her associates were executed, while Zhang Qing, Zhang Qian, and her uncle Dou Lüxin (竇履信) were exiled. She was posthumously demoted to commoner rank.
Read more about this topic: Empress Zhang (Suzong)
Famous quotes containing the word empress:
“The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)