Li Ang

Also known as Tang Wenzong · Li Han · Jiang Wang

Li Ang, first named Li Han, was the second son of Emperor Muzong and was made Prince of Jiang in 821. When his brother Jingzong was murdered in January 827, the eunuch Wang Shoucheng put down the assassins and enthroned him, and the next year he began the Dahe era. He released more than three thousand palace women, but the factional feud between the Niu and Li parties ran on, and he lamented that bandits in Hebei were easier to remove than cliques at court. In 835 he and Li Xun and Zheng Zhu tried to lure the eunuch Qiu Shiliang into a trap by announcing that sweet dew had fallen on a pomegranate tree; the plot leaked, and the chief minister Wang Ya and others were killed with their families. In 839 he told the scholar Zhou Chi that, ruled by his own household slaves, he fared worse than the last kings of Zhou and Han. He died in February 840 at thirty-two, with the temple name Wenzong.