Li Hong - As Crown Prince

As Crown Prince

As Li Hong grew in age, he developed a reputation for studiousness and kindness. He had, at one point, studied the Zuo Zhuan under the official Guo Yu (郭瑜), and when they reached the records dealing with how King Mu of Chu had killed his father King Cheng, Li Hong became distressed even reading about the incident, and after Guo pointed out that studying history was important so that history would not be repeated, he was still distressed, and so Guo advised him to study the Classic of Rites instead.

In 661, formally by his orders, Xu Jingzong, Xu Yushi, Shangguan Yi, and Yang Sijian (楊思儉) compiled a collection of particularly beautiful writing into a 500-volume work entiteld the Yaoshan Yucai (瑤山玉彩, literally "the Colors of Jade from Mount Yao") and presented it to Emperor Gaozong. Li Hong, as well as those officials, were rewarded with silk.

Around the new year 669, after Tang forces commanded by Li Ji had conquered Goguryeo in 668, Li Hong, noting the harshness of Emperor Gaozong's prior edict that conscripted soldiers who deserted would be beheaded and their wives and children forced into servitude, submitted a petition, in which he pointed out that at times the alleged deserters were in fact innocent—that they could have been ill, captured by Goguryeo forces without anyone realizing it, drowned while sailing on the way to the Goguryeo front, or been stuck behind Goguryeo lines. He requested that the penalty as to the alleged deserters' families be removed, and Emperor Gaozong agreed.

In 671, perhaps due to Empress Wu's distaste for the capital Chang'an (due to her recurring dreams of Empress Wang and Consort Xiao taking vengeance on her), Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu left Chang'an and took up residence at the eastern capital Luoyang, rarely returning to Chang'an from that point on. Li Hong was left in charge at Chang'an, although it was said that he was often ill, and the decisions were largely made by his staff members Dai Zhide, Zhang Wenguan, and Xiao Dezhao (蕭德昭). However, several acts of kindness were attributed to Li Hong. Most notably, during a major famine in Guanzhong (the capital region), Li Hong, realizing that even his own guards were eating acorns and tree barks, distributed rice from the imperial storage, and distributing public lands at Tong Prefecture (同州, roughly modern Weinan, Shaanxi) to the poor.