Xu Jingzong - During Emperor Taizong's Reign

During Emperor Taizong's Reign

In 634, eight years after Li Shimin had succeeded Emperor Gaozu as emperor (as Emperor Taizong), Xu Jingzong was made an imperial scholar responsible for editing imperial history, as well as a mid-level official at the legislative bureau of government (中書省, Zhongshu Sheng). In 636, after Emperor Taizong's wife Empress Zhangsun died, the officials were observing a period of mourning and rotating in watching her casket, when Xu, seeing that the official taking that particular shift, Ouyang Xun, was exceedingly ugly in appearance, burst out in laughter, and was accused by the imperial censor for disrespect. He was demoted to the post of military assistant of the commandant at Hong Prefecture (洪州, roughly modern Nanchang, Jiangxi). Eventually, he was recalled to the capital to be in charge of imperial supplies and continued to also serve in the role of editing imperial histories. In 643, he assisted the chancellor Fang Xuanling in editing and then submitting imperial histories for Emperors Gaozu's and Taizong's reigns and, for his contribution to the project, was created the Baron of Gaoyang, given an award of silk, and promoted to be the acting deputy head of the examination bureau of government (門下省, Menxia Sheng). He was also soon made a junior advisor to Emperor Taizong's crown prince Li Zhi.

In 645, Emperor Taizong was on the campaign against Goguryeo when the chancellor Cen Wenben, who was in charge of the legislative bureau and writing his edicts, died suddenly. Emperor Taizong had left Li Zhi at Ding Prefecture (定州, roughly modern Baoding, Hebei), to be in charge of logistics, assisted by a number of officials led by the chancellor Gao Shilian, and Xu was a member of Li Zhi's staff there. After Cen's sudden death, Emperor Taizong summoned Xu to the front and put him in charge of writing the edicts, and made him acting deputy head of the legislative bureau. After Emperor Taizong had a major victory over the main Goguryeo forces, he had Xu draft an edict announcing the victory, and he praised Xu for the beauty of the language that Xu used. (Despite the victory, however, Emperor Taizong's campaign would eventually end in failure, as he was unable to capture Anshi (安市, in modern Anshan, Liaoning) against the fierce defenses by the Goguryeo general later known in Korean popular stories as Yang Manchun.) Later, at Xu's suggestion, staff members of Li Zhi's older brother and predecssor as crown prince, Li Chengqian (who was deposed in 643 in light of discoveries that he had plotted to overthrow his father), who had been long banned from civil service, had their eligibility restored.