Background
Li Guo'er was the youngest of four children that Emperor Zhongzong (Li Zhe) had with his wife Empress Wei. She was said to be born at a time when Li Zhe had, after a brief reign in 684, been deposed by his mother Empress Dowager Wu (later known as Wu Zetian), reduced to the title of Prince of Lulin, and exiled to Fang Prefecture (房州, in modern Shiyan, Hubei). He was replaced by his brother Li Dan the Prince of Yu (as Emperor Ruizong). It was said that at her birth, Li Zhe took off his shirt and wrapped her in the shirt, and thereafter named her Guo'er (meaning "the child that was wrapped"). As she was born in times of trouble, she was particularly pampered by her parents, and Empress Wei particularly favored her as she grew, as she was said to be beautiful and good at speaking.
In 698, at the urging of the chancellor Di Renjie, Wu Zetian (who had taken the throne herself in 690, reducing Li Dan to the rank of crown prince) recalled Li Zhe to the capital. Li Dan offered to yield the position of crown prince to Li Zhe, and Wu Zetian agreed, creating Li Zhe crown prince (and subsequently changing his name, first to Li Xian, and then to Wu Xian). Sometime after the end of exile, Li Guo'er married Wu Chongxun (武崇訓) the Prince of Gaoyang, the son of Wu Zetian's nephew Wu Sansi the Prince of Liang.
Read more about this topic: Princess Anle
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