Li Zhong - After Removal

After Removal

Later in 656, Li Zhong was moved from Liang Prefecture to Fang Prefecture (房州, roughly modern Shiyan, Hubei). As he grew in age, he began fearful that he would be a target of Empress Wu, and he sometimes wore women's clothes to try to evade assassins and engaged fortunetellers to try to see his future. These acts were reported to Emperor Gaozong, and in 660, Emperor Gaozong reduced him to commoner rank and put under house arrest in Qian Prefecture (黔州, modern southeastern Chongqing), held at the same house that his uncle Li Chengqian, who had been crown prince before Emperor Gaozong, had been held after his removal in 643.

In 664, after the chancellor Shangguan Yi made an unsuccessful attempt to have Emperor Gaozong agree to have Empress Wu removed on account of her misbehavior, Empress Wu had Xu Jingzong accuse Shangguan Yi and the eunuch Wang Fusheng (王伏勝, who had reported Empress Wu's misbehavior to Emperor Gaozong), both of whom had previously served on Li Zhong's staff, of conspiring with Li Zhong to commit treason. On January 4, 665, Shangguan and Wang, as well as Shangguan's son Shangguan Tingzhi (上官庭芝) were executed, and two days later, on January 6, Emperor Gaozong ordered Li Zhong to commit suicide. Later in 665, at Li Hong's request, Li Zhong was given a proper burial. Decades later, after Empress Wu's death in 705, her son Emperor Zhongzong posthumoustly honored Li Zhong as the Prince of Yan, but not crown prince.