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Zhangsun Wuji
Early Tang minister and brother of Empress Zhangsun who helped Li Shimin seize power, headed the Lingyan Pavilion portraits and the code commentary of 653, and was driven to suicide
Mural of the event “Promulgation of Tang Code”, which this person took part in.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong, the expanding Tang Empire required a definitive legal code with binding jurisprudential commentary to standardize justice across the empire.
Also known as Zi Fuji · Zhaoguo Gong
Zhangsun Wuji, courtesy name Fuji, came from Luoyang and was the elder brother of Taizong's Empress Zhangsun. A friend of Li Shimin from youth, he helped plan the Xuanwu Gate coup of 626, became a chief minister of the Department of State Affairs when Taizong took the throne, and was later made Duke of Zhao. In 643 he headed the twenty-four meritorious officials whose portraits Taizong had painted in the Lingyan Pavilion, and that year, after the crown prince was deposed, he pressed for Li Zhi, Prince of Jin, to succeed. Under Emperor Gaozong he was Grand Commandant and led the drafting of the legal commentary issued in 653, known today as the *Tang Code with Commentary* (*Tanglu shuyi*). His opposition in 655 to making Consort Wu empress cost him the emperor's favor, and in 659, falsely accused of treason by Xu Jingzong, he was stripped of rank, exiled to Qianzhou and forced to hang himself there. In 674 Gaozong restored his offices.
Life and times
- c. 595 CEBorn
Sui
Tang - 653Promulgation of Tang Code
Took partHarmonizing legal codes with Confucian ethics, establishing the foundational jurisprudence of the East Asian legal sphere.- Zhangsun Wuji Compiling Tang CodeZhangsun Wuji compiled the Tang Code and Commentaries, establishing the foundational classic of Chinese jurisprudence.
- Zhangsun Wuji Compiling Tang Code
- 659 CEDied
Works
Literature · Prose2- Tang Code with CommentaryTangZhangsun Wuji's 653 commentary on the Yonghui Code, China's oldest complete legal code
- Tang Code with Commentary: Tang Code with Commentary: Preface to the General PrinciplesTang
- Literature · Sayings2
- Punishing So That Punishment May EndTangIdiom in the preface to the Tang Code: law that aims to make itself unnecessary
- Killing So That Killing May EndTangIdiom in the preface to the Tang Code: the death penalty as a check on killing
Family tree
- Direct kin
Zhangsun Wuji
