Late Reign
Meanwhile, late in 869, Li Shiwang provoked Dali by killing its emissary Yang Qiuqing (楊酋慶). Dali's emperor Qiulong thus launched a major attack on Dingbian, and neither Li nor his successor Dou Pang (竇滂) was able to repel it. The Dali forces quickly arrived at Chengdu's vicinity and put Chengdu under siege. Emperor Yizong commissioned Gao Pian as Xichuan's military governor, and Dali forces thereafter withdrew, but both Dingbian (which was then merged back into Xichuan) and Xichuan had been deeply wounded.
Princess Tongchang died in 870, and this caused a major display of Emperor Yizong's caprice at the capital Chang'an, as Emperor Yizong, in anger that the imperial physicians were not able to cure her, executed some 20 imperial physicians and had some 300 of their relatives imprisoned. When the chancellor Liu Zhan and the mayor of Jingzhao Municipality (京兆, i.e., the Chang'an region) Wen Zhang (溫璋) tried to intercede, both were exiled; in response, Wen committed suicide. Princess Tongchang was buried in a grand ceremony that demonstrated Emperor Yizong's wastefulness. As described in the Zizhi Tongjian:
The members of the Wei household fought over the ashes of the items burned as offerings to the Princess, in order to sieve out the gold and the silver among the ashes. The clothing, jewelry, and toys burned filled 120 wagons each. The paper ceremonial guards and paper guard corps were decorated with colorful silk, jewelry, and jade, as were the items that she would be using in the underworld, such that the light reflected from them from as far as 20 li away. The Emperor awarded the funereal household over 100 hu missed their daughter greatly, and they commissioned the musician Li Keji to author a music piece entitled, "Lamentation for a Hundred Years," with sad and delicate tones and several hundred dancers set to dance to it. The palace storage provided large numbers of jewels to decorate the dancers, and some 800 pi of silk serving as the carpet they danced on. After their dance was over, the jewelry that fell off them covered the ground completely.Despite Princess Tongchang's death, Emperor Yizong continued to remain close to Wei Baoheng, who became extremely powerful and corrupt late in Emperor Yizong's reign. Emperor Yizong also reacted in anger whenever Consort Guo's family was accused of misconduct.
In 873, in a grand ceremony, Emperor Yizong welcomed what was claimed to be a relic (a finger bone) of Gautama Buddha to the palace, despite warnings by some that his grandfather Emperor Xianzong died shortly after also welcoming the same relic to the palace. (Emperor Yizong responded to the warnings by stating, "As long as I can see it once while living, I do not have regrets about dying.") The ceremony was said to bring out great offerings by the households of Chang'an. Emperor Yizong himself walked toward the relic and bowed on the ground in tears.
Later in the year, Emperor Yizong became critically ill. With his not having designated an heir, the eunuchs Liu Xingshen (劉行深) and Han Wenyue (韓文約) supported his 11-year-old son Li Yan the Prince of Pu as his heir. Liu and Han had an edict issued in Emperor Yizong's name creating Li Yan crown prince. Emperor Yizong died the next day, and Li Yan took the throne (as Emperor Xizong).
Read more about this topic: Emperor Yizong Of Tang
Famous quotes containing the words late and/or reign:
“So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast.
And the heart must pause to breathe
And love itself have rest.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Here reign the simplicity and purity of a primitive age, and a health and hope far remote from towns and cities.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)