Royals › Monarch / Emperor
Li Siyuan
Second Later Tang emperor, Mingzong, a Shatuo adopted son of Li Keyong who was put on the throne by mutineers in 926 and reigned as Tiancheng and Changxing
In a side chamber of a palace, a yellow ceremonial robe embroidered with a dragon hangs on a wooden stand, its hem worked with waves and rocks, before a carved folding screen, while a black lacquer chest sits on a low table by a lattice window and no person is in view.
Also known as Miao Jilie · Houtang Mingzong · Sheng De He Wu Qin Xiao Huang Di
Li Siyuan, originally named Miaojilie, was a Shatuo bodyguard whom Li Keyong adopted as a son. In 926 the Weibo troops mutinied at Yedu; sent by Emperor Zhuangzong to crush them, he was instead acclaimed by the rebels, and when Zhuangzong was killed in the fourth month in a palace revolt at Luoyang, he entered the capital as regent and then took the throne, starting the Tiancheng era. He executed the grasping revenue commissioner Kong Qian, and in 932, at the request of Feng Dao and Li Yu, ordered the Directorate of Education to print the Nine Classics from the stone-engraved texts, the first government woodblock edition of the classics. In the eleventh month of 933 his son Li Congrong, Prince of Qin, led troops into the palace and was killed, and the shaken emperor soon died at sixty-seven, with the temple name Mingzong. Ouyang Xiu wrote that his reign brought several good harvests and a modest peace by Five Dynasties standards.
Life and times
Dates 867 CE–933 CE
- 926Guo Congqian's Xingjiao Gate Mutinyage 59