Reign
At the time Emperor Ai took the throne, one of the chancellors was Zhu Quanzhong's close associate Liu Can. Liu, not from an aristocratic family, resented the traditional aristocrats, and he advocated to Zhu that the senior aristocrats should be slaughtered to prevent them from resisting Zhu. Zhu agreed, and in 905, under edicts issued in Emperor Ai's name, some 30 of them were gathered at Baima Station and ordered to commit suicide; their bodies were then thrown into the Yellow River. The victims included the former chancellors Pei Shu, Dugu Sun, Cui Yuan, Lu Yi, and Wang Bo, as well as the senior officials Zhao Chong (趙崇) and Wang Zan (王贊). Around the same time, nine of Emperor Ai's brothers, including Li Yu, were also killed on Zhu's orders.
Meanwhile, Liu, as well as Zhu's other close associates at the Luoyang court, Jiang Xuanhui (蔣玄暉) the director of palace communications and Zhang Tingfan (張廷範) the commander of the imperial guards, were preparing ceremonies to have Emperor Ai yield the throne to Zhu. Pursuant to past precedents on dynastic transitions, they first had Emperor Ai issue edicts to create Zhu the Prince of Wei and bestow on him the nine bestowments — but Zhu, wanting the throne even faster and believing false accusations by Wang Yin (王殷) and Zhao Yinheng that Jiang, Liu, and Zhang were intentionally slowing the transition down with these ceremonial formalities, then had Jiang, Liu, and Zhang put to death. Wang and Zhao then falsely accused Empress Dowager He, who had been cooperating with Jiang in the hopes that she and the young emperor would be spared, of carrying on an affair with Jiang. She was therefore also killed, and Emperor Ai was forced to posthumously demote her to commoner rank, although he was still allowed to mourn for her.
In 907, under advice from his ally Luo Shaowei the military governor of Weibo Circuit (魏博, headquartered in modern Handan, Hebei), Zhu finally resolved to take the throne. Later in the year, he had the young emperor yield the throne to him, ending Tang and starting a new Later Liang Dynasty as its Emperor Taizu — although several regional warlords, including Li Keyong, Li Maozhen, Yang Wo, and Wang Jian, refused to recognize him, and effectively became rulers of their own states (Jin, Qi, Wu, and Former Shu, respectively). Of those new states, Jin, Qi, and Wu continued to use Emperor Ai's Tianyou era name, implicitly still recognizing him as emperor.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Ai Of Tang
Famous quotes containing the word reign:
“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)
“See how peaceful it is here. The sea is everything. An immense reservoir of nature where I roam at will.... Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight, tear one another to pieces. A mere few feet beneath the waves their reign ceases, their evil drowns. Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here I am free.”
—Earl Felton, and Richard Fleischer. Captain Nemo (James Mason)
“The 1990s, after the reign of terror of academic vandalism, will be a decade of restoration: restoration of meaning, value, beauty, pleasure, and emotion to art and restoration of art to its audience.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)