CHAPTER IX .

THE TRAGEDY OF CROWN PRINCE CHENG-CHIEN,

AD 643

Up to the year AD 640 the life and reign of Shih-Min had been unbrokenly glorious and successful. He had never met with failure in any enterprise of importance, and his domestic life, apart from the fatal quarrel with his brothers, had been serene and fortunate. It is true that he had already, four years previously, had to bear the sad loss of the Empress Chang-Sun, a lady of virtues as tare and outstanding as those of the emperor himself. Seldom indeed has a monarch of the genius and wisdom of Shih-Min been blessed with a consort of an equally admirable character.

It might have been hoped that the children which this remarkable lady bore to Shih-Min would inherit some of the virtues and strength of character which so signally distinguished their parents. But it was here that the jealous gods reserved for the great emperor the nemesis which lies in wait for the over-fortunate. Li Cheng-Chien, the eldest son of the Empress Chang-Sun, had been appointed crown prince when Shih-Min succeeded to the throne in AD 626. Although the boy was then eight years old, and his father only twenty- six, Cheng-Chien was not the eldest of Shih-Min’s sons, Li Tai Prince Wei was a year older, but Tai was the son of a concubine, and therefore had no claim to the throne while any son or grandson of the empress was living.

Shih-Min had several other sons, some by the empress, and others by concubines, but of all these only two played a prominent part in the politics of the time, Li Chih Prince Chin, second son of the Empress Chang-Sun, and Li Yu Prince Chi, son of the concubine Queen Yin.

It was in the year AD 640, when he was twenty-two years old, that the conduct and character of the Crown Prince Cheng-Chien first began to attract the unfavourable notice of the court, presaging a repetition of the terrible quarrel between Shih-Min and his brothers, which had convulsed the capital fourteen years earlier. The character of Prince Cheng-Chien, as described by the historians of the time, is especially interesting to an age which has made psychology a science. The old historians, steeped in the traditional Confucian morality, naturally regarded Cheng-Chien as the perfect type of what a Confucian prince should not be. They were not interested in psychology, not did they understand the influence of heredity.

When the actions and words of this seventh-century prince are regarded in the light of modern psychological knowledge, it becomes perfectly plain that Cheng-Chien was an unbalanced neurotic with tastes and inclinations derived from his far-off Tartar ancestry. He was also lame in one leg, and as it is nowhere stated that this was due to an accident, it was more probably an inherited defect. Cheng-Chien’s curiously atavistic tastes took the form of a passionate admiration for everything Turkish: he craved the simplicity of Tartar life, and the crude barbarity of nomad social customs. As was inevitable with these inclinations, he took a violent dislike to the tutors and courtiers who endeavoured to perfect him in the polite civilisation of China.

Already, in ad 640, his delight in wild, barbarian music, and his persistent neglect of the ministers of the court brought him rebukes from the emperor and from his tutors. The next year, as these improper habits grew upon him, and he began to keep Turks among his retainers, the chief tutor admonished the prince so strongly that the unbalanced youth attempted to have this zealous official assassinated. The prince sent two desperadoes in secret to his tutor’s house, but the ruffians, having found the old man peacefully asleep, were unable to nerve themselves to commit such a crime, and withdrew, leaving him unharmed. This murderous plot was therefore undiscovered at the time.

While the crown prince was becoming the object of unfavourable court gossip on account of his extravagant behaviour, his elder half-brother, Tai Prince Wei, of an utterly different character, gained the esteem and affection of all by his accomplishments and personal charm. The fatal antithesis of Chien-Cheng and Shih-Min seemed to be repeated, as if the gods, with cruel irony, were determined to revenge the morning at the Hsuan Wu gate by enacting a similar tragedy with Shih-Min’s own sons as participants.

Tai was talented and fond of literature, indifferent to the lusts of the flesh, courteous and respectful to the scholars who frequented his palace and eagerly sought his friendship. But the prince had one fault, which in one of his rank could not be considered trivial. He was ambitious. His position as a concubine’s son, though the eldest of all the emperor’s children, was galling, especially when he observed the improper conduct of his half-brother, the crown prince, who would one day inherit the throne. Tai knew that he was the more suitable character to be crown prince, nor could he banish the hope that the follies of Cheng-Chien would one day lead to his degradation and the elevation of himself, Tai, to that coveted dignity.

Tai knew himself to be the emperor’s favourite son. Shih-Min was much attracted to this talented youth, whose interests and tastes coincided with his own. He could not help recognising that Tai had inherited his own character and brains, while Cheng-Chien seemed to have more of the evil disposition of the dead Li Yuan-Chi, Shih-Min’s younger brother. Tai knew that his father had these thoughts. The trample of the fatal morning at the Hsuan Wu gate was always before the prince to suggest the possibility that crown princes do not always live to wear the crown, while brothers not in the direct succession sometimes find a way to win a position which was not theirs by birth.

Chien Lung, the greatest emperor of the Manchu dynasty, who most nearly of all later emperors approaches the greatness of Shih-Min by his conquests in war and sage administration in time of peace, wrote concerning the domestic tragedies of his Tang predecessor, “The quarrel between the sons of Tai Tsung (Shih-Min) was the consequence of the quarrel between Tai Tsung and his own brothers”. A profoundly true comment. The example of violence which Shih-Min had given when he slew his brothers, inevitable though it may have been, dominated the minds of his own sons, and beckoned them on to similar extremities.

The ambitions of Tai Prince Wei were first brought to the notice of the emperor by Chu Sui-Liang, President of the Board of History, who in the year ad 642 presented a memorial on the behaviour of this prince. Chu Sui-Liang asserted that while many officials were giving expression to the opinion that Prince Wei should be made crown prince and Cheng-Chien degraded, Tai himself did not treat his half-brother with the courtesy properly accorded to the crown prince, behaviour which naturally aggravated the jealousy of Cheng-Chien.

The emperor, who fully appreciated the arguments put forward by Chu Sui-Liang, decided to take positive action to prevent the jealousy of the brothers leading to a serious quarrel. His own experience at the hands of the vacillating Li Yuan had made him fully aware of the dangers of procrastination in affairs of this kind. Cheng-Chien had recently given fresh proof of his unbridled nature by violently assaulting an officer who had ventured to remonstrate with him on his wasteful extravagance. As this incident had led to increased talk of the crown prince’s degradation by the partisans of Prince Wei, the emperor derided to silence such intrigues by issuing an edict, in which he announced that in the event of the death of the crown prince (who, as has been mentioned, was partly crippled and had delicate health), Cheng-Chien’s five-year-old son would inherit the position of crown prince; in no circumstances would any one of the sons of the imperial concubines be preferred over the children or grandchildren of the Empress Chang-Sun.

At the same time, in order to reform the character of Cheng-Chien, Wei Cheng, the emperor’s most respected and eminent minister, was appointed Grand Tutor to the crown prince. It was hoped that the instructions of this statesman, famous for his forthright nature, and the frankness of his criticisms when he did not approve of the conduct or policy of the emperor himself, would make a lasting impression on the wayward prince.

Perhaps Wei Cheng might have reformed Cheng-Chien had he lived; unfortunately, early in ad 643 this great minister died, to the abiding sorrow of Shih-Min, who was inconsolable at his loss. On the occasion of Wei Cheng’s funeral, which the emperor was with difficulty restrained from following in person, Shih-Min said to the court, “In my life I used three mirrors. One of bronze to adjust my dress; the records of history to correct the mistaken policies of the present; and Wei Cheng who served to reveal the faults of my character. Now I have lost the best of my mirrors”.

Whether it was due to the influence of Wei Cheng, or to the fear of his father’s displeasure, Prince Cheng-Chien had made an apparent change in the manner of his life. He no longer showed fury and hatred to those who endeavoured to correct him. Instead he professed in public the most model virtues, frequently citing the maxims of the sages with enthusiasm. If reproved, he would listen docilely to any admon­ishments, accept the criticism with every sign of gratitude, and feign a most tractable disposition. But in the privacy of his own palace he maintained a very different style of life.

His atavistic passion for nomad simplicity and Turkish customs led him to perform the most astonishing actions. Dressed in Turkish costume, and speaking the Turkish language, he passed his time with a few attendants whom he had chosen for their resemblance to Turks. These men he dressed in Turkish style with sheepskin coats and their hair done in queues. With these mock Turks he passed hours, and even days, in a Turkish tent which he had erected in the grounds of his palace. There, under the floating pennants of Turkish “wolf’s head” banners, the prince would feast with his imitation Turks upon the flesh of a sheep toasted whole at a camp fire, and roughly carved up with swords, in the true nomad style. He obtained the animals which were needed for these barbaric repasts by sending his followers out to steal them from the citizens of Chang An, for in his character of a Turkish freebooter he could not bear to feed upon meat purchased in the ordinary legal way.

Another favourite amusement of the eccentric young man was a play, or pageant, which he called the “Funeral of the Khan”. While Cheng-Chien himself, stretched out upon the ground, impersonated the dead khan, his imitation Turkish followers rode round him on horseback uttering the yells and howls of nomad lamentation. These amusements, though bizarre, and to the Chinese most unseemly, predicted no great harm. It was in casual conversation with his intimates that the crown prince gave expression to views and plans which raised the gravest doubts as to his fitness for the imperial throne. “When I am emperor”, Cheng-Chien was wont to remark, “the first thing I shall do is to take an army of several thousands of horsemen and go hunting in the Turkish country. There I shall live and dress in true Turkish style and have a free life.”

This aspiration gives striking proof of the nature of Cheng-Chien’s obsession. To a character which seemed to have harked back to some distant Tartar ancestor, the civilised life of seventh-century China presented no attractions. Cheng-Chien found the restraints and ceremonies of Chinese court life an intolerable and meaningless bote. His soul craved the free life of the Mongolian steppe. The well-meant attempts of his father and tutors to mould him to the pattern of a Chinese prince merely made him more intractable and savage. Had he been granted his wish, and sent to rule the vassal Turkish tribes as khan, he might have passed a useful and happy life; instead, doomed to perform the part of a Chinese prince, his brusque and wilful character became warped to a savage melancholy.

Almost the only friend of the crown prince was his half­uncle, Li Yuan-Chang Prince Han, one of die youngest of Li Yuan’s many concubine-born sons. Yuan-Chang, who was about the same age as the crown prince, was a cheerful libertine, who though content with the life of a Chinese prince, and free from Turkish longings, cultivated the friendship of his half-nephew in the hope of gratifying to the full his own passion for wine and women. Yuan-Chang and the crown prince became inseparable companions; and the former, more corrupt by nature than the eccentric Cheng-Chien, soon introduced the crown prince to more questionable amusements.  

Cheng-Chien’s liking for drama and pageantry was stimulated by Yuan-Chang’s devices. The two princes divided their followers into two corps, between whom they staged sham battles, and although the combatants were only armed with bamboo spears, and were protected by felt armour, the princes urged them an so furiously that serious casualties were not uncommon. Cheng-Chien was so taken with this sport that he planned, when emperor, to divided the regular army into two camps and stage a grand gladiatorial combat between them at Chang An.

Any qualms the people of China may have felt at the prospect of such a ruler were not diminished by another of his sayings, “When I am emperor”, the prince used to remark, “I must have my way in all matters. If anyone remonstrates with me, I will have him put to death. After I have done that to a few hundreds the test will keep silent of their own accord”.

It certainly seems probable that Cheng-Chien would have found this prediction confirmed in the event.

Although the crown prince kept the expression of such sentiments for the ears of his intimates, there were not lacking spies who reported his extravagant words to his half-brother, Tai Prince Wei, who was only too anxious to hear anything which was to Cheng-Chien’s discredit. Tai began to cultivate the court more assiduously than ever, and foment the belief that Cheng-Chien ought to be degraded. These intrigues were in due course reported to the crown prince himself, for in China, then as now, nothing can ever be kept hidden for long. Cheng-Chien conceived a furious hatred and jealousy of his brother, and henceforward began to entertain murderous projects.

From the account of Cheng-Chien’s character so far presented, it will have been made plain that he was a neurotic to whom the exotic and the perverted made a natural appeal. It is therefore in no way surprising that this love of perversion manifested itself in his sexual life.

Mention has already been made of the dramatic dances such as the Po Chen which were performed at the Tang court. These dances were performed by boys specially trained to dance and sing. In this year, AD 643, Cheng-Chien fell madly in love with one of these boys, Cheng Hsin by name, who was about thirteen years old, and not only had a beautiful voice but was also exceptionally handsome. Before long this connection, which the prince was at no pains to keep secret, was brought to the knowledge of the emperor.

The luckless Cheng Hsin was executed, and judging by the severity of this sentence and the extreme displeasure which Shih-Min showed to his son, homosexuality was held in horror in seventh-century China.

If Shih-Min was indignant at the behaviour of his son, Cheng-Chien was not only unrepentant, but desolated by the fate of his young friend. His grief was so real that he became ill, kept entirely to his palace, and spent his time lamenting Cheng Hsin. He had a statue of the boy set up in the hall of his palace, and offered libations before it as if mourning the death of a near relative. In his gardens he set up a memorial tablet to the dead boy. In spite of the emperor’s displeasure at these manifestations, Cheng-Chien avoided the court and remained plunged in sorrow.

It was natural that before long his excessive grief should find an outlet in the desire for revenge. Cheng-Chien believed, and it is very likely that he was right, that the emperor had been informed of his relationship with Cheng Hsin through the agency of his rival and enemy, his half­brother Tai Prince Wei. Whether right or wrong, the crown prince acted on this belief, finding solace for his grief in plotting the death of his brother.

There has never been a court, be it ruled never so wisely, that has not harboured malcontents. The very justice of Shih-Min’s rule and his firm stand against corruption and the iniquities which commonly flourish under a despotic government had alienated those whose conduct was not above reproach. Among these was one man of no mean importance, the general, Hou Chun-Chi. Hou Chun-Chi was one of the most distinguished officers in the Tang service. The conqueror in recent years of the Tu-yu-hun, the Tibetans and Karahodjo, he had been one of the emperor’s intimate followers, a member of the council which planned the ambush at the Hsuan Wu gate.

But now Hou Chun-Chi was in semi-disgrace. He had been found guilty of appropriating part of the royal treasure the  of Karahodjo, and making a false return of the riches found in that kingdom, which by law should have been paid into the imperial treasury. The offence was one which normally entailed the penalty of death, for the emperor, accustomed to reward his generals and ministers with great liberality, expected honest service in return. Hou Chun-Chi had been spared on account of his distinguished services. He had escaped with a reprimand, a reduction in rank, and the loss of his office.

Unfortunately the general, instead of acknowledging this leniency with gratitude, could not endure his disgrace. He became convinced that he was the victim of an unjust persecution, and observed very little reticence in airing his grievance. It happened that the general’s son-in-law was an officer of the crown prince’s household, and this man, knowing that the prince had some scheme afoot, brought the disgruntled Hou Chun-Chi to see Cheng-Chien. The crown prince had so far only planned the murder of his brother Tai Prince Wei, for which purpose be had enlisted one Ho-Kan Cheng-Chi, a bravo who had brought with him a hundred bad characters to form a sort of murder gang.

Once Hou Chun-Chi was brought into the circle of conspiracy the affair became far more serious. Cheng-Chien was a love-sick young man who madly hated his half-brother. Hou Chun-Chi was a famous general of great enterprise and ability, well known to the army and the empire, but smarting under a fancied       grievance. He was not interested in the murder of Prince Wei, which could not further his ambitions. He wanted a revolution which would restore him to his former importance, and perhaps sooth his vanity by proving to Shih-Min that he, Hou Chun-Chi, was not a man to be lightly reprimanded.

At one interview with the crown prince, the general, baring his right arm, exclaimed, “This good arm is at Your Highness’s disposition”. Forthwith he urged the prince to avenge his wrongs on their seal author—his father the emperor. Cheng-Chien, far from being shocked at this unnatural proposition, was delighted to gain so valuable and influential a supporter. He richly rewarded Hou Chun-Chi, and followed his advice in every particular. The proposed revolution also found an enthusiastic supporter in Li Yuan-Chang Prince Han, who, however, was actuated by other motives. Yuan-Chang, who had often been rebuked by Shih-Min for his licentiousness, had taken a violent dislike to his imperial half-brother. The light-hearted libertine solicited as his reward, when Cheng-Ch’en should be on the throne, that he be given all the girls and boy musicians in the palace, a proposition to which his nephew readily assented.

The conspiracy also included one or two young noblemen of the court, a son of the dead statesman Tu Ju-Hui, and a half-nephew of the emperor, whose mother was the daughter of another of Li Yuan’s many concubines. These youths, who resented the fact that their follies had excluded them from the public service, readily fell in with the plot. All took a blood oath to live or die together.

It was first proposed to seize the palace by open force, but Hou Chun-Chi pointed out that the failure of the similar plan adopted by the Tartar rebel Qachashar, proved that the guards were too strong. Instead it was decided that Cheng-Chien should feign a serious illness. The emperor would be sure to pay him a visit, and the other conspirators, who would be lying in wait, could take this opportunity to assassinate the emperor and proclaim Cheng-Chien. But the consummation of the iniquity plotted by one of Shih-Min’s sons was to be prevented by the flagrant crimes of another.

Li Yu Prince Chi was the son of a concubine, the Queen Yin. Created Prince Chi, a title formerly held by Li Yuan-Chi, the young man had been sent to govern that region with headquarters at Chi Nan Fu. It had been the emperor’s intention to train the youth to play a useful part in public life by this practical experience in the government of a province. As Yu was still very young, several trustworthy officers of experience were attached to his household as advisers, with orders to report on his conduct to the throne.

Yu did not profit by the counsels of these worthy men. A volatile and foolish young man, he fell, instead, under the influence of corrupt and ambitious members of his mother’s family. He was particularly swayed by Yin Hung-Chih, his maternal uncle, who hoped to use the young prince as a ladder by which all the clan might mount to power and wealth. To this end Yin Hung-Chih worked on the youth’s ambition. “After ten thousand years have passed (i.e. when the emperor is dead)”, he said, “there will perhaps be troubles and a contest for the throne. Unless you have a following and troops of your own, how can you protect yourself and us?”

Acting on this advice Yu started to enlist troops of desperadoes through the agency of one of Yin Hung-Chih’s relatives.

These proceedings soon attracted the attention of the officers whom the emperor had appointed to watch over and assist the young prince. They remonstrated with him, not only on the matter of his fondness for the company of worthless intriguers such as Yin Hung-Chih, but also on account of his excessive passion for hunting, a pursuit upon which he wasted much money, inflicting hardship on the farming people of the province. His chief adviser even went so far as to dismiss many of the bad characters enlisted by Yin Hung-Chih, but the prince immediately cancelled this order.

The emperor, hearing some report of his son’s bad behaviour, wrote him a letter of warning and reproof. This evidence of the imperial displeasure made no impression upon Yu, but the chief tutor, realising what was likely to happen, feared that some serious scandal arose, he himself would be held responsible for failing to guide and control the young prince in a proper manner. He therefore decided to put himself in the right with the emperor. He suggested to Yu that, in view of his father’s letter, it would be best to send someone to Chang An to make explanations, and assure the emperor that he had been misinformed about his son’s conduct. The prince thoroughly approved this plan, and the chief tutor adroitly offered to be the messenger.

His real motive for seeking an interview with the emperor was not to defend Yu, but, on the contrary, to report his misbehaviour, and so avoid the accusation of having failed, to exercise proper care over the prince. Shih-Min, who did not know that the tutor had deceived his son, rewarded the official for his zeal, and wrote a much stronger letter of admonition to Yu. On receipt of this unexpected rebuke, the prince flew into a furious rage, exclaiming, “The Chief Tutor has sold me, accusing me to acquire merit for himself. He deserves to die!”

From this moment Yu began to hate his tutor with a deadly enmity, which was folly shared by all his loose associates and favourites. The chief tutor, on his return from Chang An, could not but notice the hostile attitude of the court of Chi Nan Fu: indeed the enmity of the prince’s followers so worked on his nerves that he began to fear for his life. Accordingly he sent a letter to Chang An declaring that he was menaced with death. This act precipitated the fate he feared.

The emperor, realising that affairs at Chi Nan Fu were coming to a dangerous pass, and finding it difficult to discover the real facts at such a distance, ordered both the prince and his tutor to come up to Chang An and explain matters. Yu was greatly alarmed at this order. He feared that once he reached Chang An the emperor would find out all about his illegal army of desperadoes, as well as his misconduct in other matters. The only way out of this difficulty, according to his friends, was to kill the chief tutor on the road. That official, for his part, had wasted no time once he had the imperial permission to leave Chi Nan Fu, where he went in fear of death. But his harried departure did not save him. The prince sent some of his bravos in pursuit, who having overtaken the luckless chief tutor, murdered him on the public road.

The controller of the household, another of the imperial officials who had the duty of supervising the young prince, was the next victim. Refusing to become an accessory to the conspiracy and the murder of his colleague, he too fled for his life, but was pursued by the prince’s followers and killed in the same manner as the chief tutor.

As the murder of two highly placed imperial officials was not a matter which could be passed over without enquiry, the prince now found himself in a more desperate position than before. On the advice of his harebrained court he decided to seek safety by disobeying the emperor’s order and declaring an open revolt. Having issued a proclamation assuming full authority in the province, he seized and opened the govern­ment arsenals at Chi Nan Fu, ordering the people of the district to assemble in the city to be enrolled in his army.

The citizens of Chi Nan Fu had more common sense than their governor. They realised that this foolish youth stood no chance at all of withstanding the full power and authority of the whole empire, while, if they assisted him in his revolt, their city would pay bitterly for such folly. Instead of flocking  to his standards, they profited by the night to escape over the walls and take refuge elsewhere.

On hearing the news of Yu’s disobedience, crimes and rebellion, the emperor reluctantly realised that the matter had passed beyond the stage of rebukes and admonitions. Li Shih-Chi was ordered to assume command of the tegular army in the eastern provinces and suppress the revolt. At the same time a final warning was sent to the prince, urging him to surrender before he should incur graver penalties by an armed resistance to the imperial authority. The prince, who apparently thought himself a match for all comers, threw away this last chance, and prepared to defend the city.

His foolhardiness did not, however, appeal to the officers of the regular army forming the Chi Nan Fu garrison. They realised that any attempt to oppose a general such as Li Shih-Chi, with the garrison of one city and the few hundred bravos whom Yu had enlisted, was downright imbecility. The inevitable consequence would be defeat, and the exter­mination of the clans of all found guilty of open rebellion against the imperial throne. The officers were by no means ready to run the risk of such a penalty. The improvident conduct of the prince himself was the surest augur of his impending ruin. So far from devoting his time to the training of troops, and preparations for the defence of the city, he spent his days in feasting, and his nights in drunken debauches with Yin Hung-Chih and his favourites.

The officers of the garrison, loyal to the emperor, had thus no difficulty in surprising the prince in the midst of a feast, and seizing the city. As they were about to force their way into Yu’s palace, a cry was raised that Li Shih-Chi’s “Flying Horse” were before the walls. This news rousing the revellers to a realisation of their plight, Yu prepared to defend himself, only to find his palace besieged by the mutinous garrison. With the assistance of his private following he defended the palace throughout the night, till his enemies decided to set fire to the building and burn him out.

When Yu realised their intention, he tried to purchase his safety by offering to surrender Yin Hung-Chih and other favourites, but the officers of the garrison replied that the prince was now a declared rebel, with whom it would be a crime to make any composition. Seeing no hope left, the prince then surrendered unconditionally. Yin Hung-Chih and others of the prince’s unworthy court were promptly put to death, while Yu himself was sent up to Chang An to answer for his crimes.

Thia tragi-comic rebellion, of slight importance in itself, served to unveil the really dangerous and deadly conspiracy of Hou Chun-Chi and the Crown Prince Cheng-Chien. When those involved in Yu’s rebellion were examined, it was found that among the confederates of Yin Hung-Chih was Ho-Kaa Cheng-Chi, the bravo whom Cheng-Chien bad enlisted to murder Tai Prince Wei. This criminal, knowing that his only hope of avoiding a terrible death was to turn king’s evidence, immediately confessed the whole plot.

No time was lost in arresting the accused. Cheng-Chien, Yuan-Chang Prince Han, Hou Chun-Chi and the rest were brought before a specially constituted tribunal, composed of the highest and most trusted officials in the emperor’s service—Chang-Sun Wu-Chi, Fang Hsuan-Ling, Hsiao Yu and Li Shih-Chi. The proofs being clear and undisputed, the court convicted the accused and reported its findings to the emperor, Shih-Min, who could not conceal his distress at this evidence of his son’s unnatural crime, and the treachery of his old friend Hou Chun-Chi, turned to the ministers and asked what they advised him to do. In view of the rank of the chief culprit, no one dared to offer an opinion.

Shih-Min pondered the terrible decision for a long space. He could not resolve to put his own son to death. Instead, Cheng-Chien was imprisoned, degraded from his rank to the humble status of the common people, and subsequently exiled to a remote town in southern Szechuan province, then on the frontier of the empire. There, little more than a year later, the wretched youth died, his health, always weak, undermined by the loss of all hope and meaning in a further existence.

The emperor wished to spare the life of his half-brother Yuan-Chang also, but the ministers firmly insisted that an example should be made in this case. Yuan-Chang was therefore permitted to commit suicide in his own home, a more honourable death than public execution. His family were freed from all penalties, which was a rare clemency in the criminal practice of that age. Even to Hou Chun-Chi, whose guilt was black and unpardonable, the emperor, for old friendship’s sake, extended the utmost possible clemency. He wished to save the life of his former friend, but the minis­ters represented that such a pardon would be misconstrued, and would encourage the formation of fresh conspiracies. Shih-Min at length yielded to these reasons. Hou Chun-Chi was led before the emperor, and when he had been told of his sentence Shih-Min said, “It is a last farewell”. Hou Chun ­Chi, overcome by remorse and the realisation of his own insensate folly, threw himself on the ground in tears. He was then led out to execution.

By an unparalleled leniency the lives of Hou Chun-Chi’s wife and son were spared, and they escaped with the lighter sentence of permanent exile to Canton. The minor members of the conspiracy were decapitated, but in their case also their families only suffered lesser penalties. The tutors and officers of the former crown prince’s household, held guilty of negligence for their failure to correct his wayward disposition and report his evil conduct, were all cashiered.

When the conspirators had been toed and sentenced, the question of Cheng-Chien’s successor to the post of crown prince arose to agitate the disturbed court. Shih-Min`s first thought of yielding to his natural inclination and appointing Tai Prince Wei, but the ministers, particularly Chang-Sun Wu-Chi, the brother of the late empress, and Chu Sui-Liang, were strongly opposed to the elevation of any concubine’s son, so long as there still remained sons of the empress worthy of the post.

Tai sealed his own fate by that ambition which had provoked Cheng-Chien to plot his terrible crime. Fearing that Cheng-Chien’s younger full-brother, the second son of the Empress Chang-Sun, Chih Prince Chin, would be preferred, he attempted to intimidate the boy (Chih was then sixteen) by accusing him of having been a close friend and companion of Yuan-Chang Prince Han and other conspirators. Chih was so alarmed by his half-brother’s menaces that he became quite unwell, and his dejected and terrified appearance attracted the attention of the emperor. When questioned, Chih revealed the reason for his fears.

Cheng-Chien, when brought before the emperor, had tried to excuse his conduct by blaming the ambition and intrigues of Tai Prince Wei. Shih-Min, who desired above all to be just, investigated this accusation, and found that Tai had indeed been guilty of planning to obtain the succession. When these facts were added to his attempt to intimidate the young Chih, the emperor decided that Tai was an unsuitable candidate for the throne. “Whoever covets a post is unworthy to occupy it”, he said. Thereupon Chih Prince Chin was appointed crown prince with the full approval of the court, while Tai was punished for his intrigues by being degraded to a lower rank of princes, and was exiled to a city in Hupei province. He did not long survive his disgrace, dying at his place of banishment within two years.

Shih-Min, fully determined to guard the new crown prince against the follies and crimes to which his elder brother had been prone, appointed the most eminent ministers of his court to be the boy’s guardians and tutors. With Chang-Sun Wu-Chi, Fang Hsuan-Ling, Hsiao Yu and Li Shih-Chi as tutors, he hoped that no corrupt influence could come near his destined heir. Chih, indeed, gave every proof of filial devotion and loyalty, but his character was weak and timid. When he in due coarse did succeed and reign as emperor, his indolence and weakness opened the road by which his famous concubine Wu Shih, afterwards the Empress Wu, climbed to supreme power and influence in the Tang empire.

CHAPTER X

THE KOREAN WAR AND THE CLOSING YEARS.

AD 645-650