Emperor Muzong

Li Heng (李恆), known by his temple name Muzong, ruled the Tang Dynasty from 820 to 824. His era name was Changqing (長慶, 821–824). He was the son of Emperor Xianzong, who had spent his reign bringing the rebellious provinces back under the court's control.

Muzong's reign undid much of that work. Within little more than a year of his accession, mutinies in the north-east returned three powerful provinces to effective independence, and the court never recovered them.

Early Life

He was born Li You in 795, during the reign of his great-grandfather, Emperor Dezong. His mother, Consort Guo, was a granddaughter of the celebrated general Guo Ziyi, who had helped save the dynasty during the An Lushan Rebellion.

After his father came to the throne he was made Prince of Sui in 806, and in 812 he was named crown prince, taking the name Li Heng. When Xianzong died suddenly early in 820, reportedly killed by eunuchs, Li Heng was placed on the throne with the backing of powerful palace eunuchs.

The Reign of Emperor Muzong

Muzong began by punishing the men blamed for his father's death. The alchemists who had supplied Xianzong with elixirs of immortality were put to death, and the chancellor Huangfu Bo was exiled. He honoured his mother as empress dowager and provided for her lavishly.

He soon showed more interest in feasting, polo, music and hunting than in government. Officials who objected were generally tolerated rather than punished, but their advice made little difference.

The Provinces and the Court

Since the An Lushan Rebellion of 755–763, much of north-eastern China had been controlled by military governors, known as jiedushi, who commanded their own armies and often passed their posts to their sons. The most independent were the three provinces, or circuits, north of the Yellow River in modern Hebei: Chengde, Weibo and Lulong. Xianzong had forced all three to submit. Muzong inherited an empire that was, for the first time in decades, united under the court's authority.

The Settlement of 820–821

In late 820 Wang Chengzong, the military governor of Chengde, died. His officers wanted his brother, Wang Chengyuan, to succeed him, but Wang Chengyuan remained loyal to the court and asked to be transferred. Muzong accepted, and moved Tian Hongzheng, the loyal governor of Weibo whose submission in 812 had been a turning point in Xianzong's campaigns, to take charge of Chengde. The general Li Su was sent to govern Weibo.

In 821 Liu Zong, the governor of Lulong, gave up his post, and the court sent the civil official Zhang Hongjing to replace him. Zhang and his staff treated the Lulong soldiers with contempt. When one of his officials, Wei Yong, ordered an officer to be flogged, the troops mutinied, killed Wei Yong and several of Zhang's staff, and held Zhang captive. They chose an officer named Zhu Kerong as their leader.

Wang Tingcou's Mutiny in Chengde

A few weeks later, in the summer of 821, the Chengde officer Wang Tingcou led a mutiny against Tian Hongzheng, whose army had never accepted him. Tian Hongzheng, his staff and his family were killed, and Wang Tingcou took control of the province. Niu Yuanyi, prefect of Shen, one of the Chengde prefectures, stayed loyal to the court and was besieged by Wang's forces.

The Failed Campaign

The court ordered a campaign against both Chengde and Lulong under the overall command of the veteran chancellor Pei Du, with generals including Li Guangyan and Wu Chongyin. Li Su fell ill and was replaced at Weibo by Tian Hongzheng's son, Tian Bu, who marched against his father's killers.

The campaign went badly. The treasury had been drained by Muzong's spending, the imperial armies were poorly supplied and co-ordinated, and Pei Du's plans were undermined at court by the emperor's favourite, the scholar Yuan Zhen. Early in 822 Tian Bu's own Weibo troops refused to fight and turned to the officer Shi Xiancheng. Unable to regain control of his army, Tian Bu took his own life.

The court gave up. Zhu Kerong and Wang Tingcou were recognised as military governors of Lulong and Chengde, and Shi Xiancheng was confirmed at Weibo. The three Hebei provinces never again came under the court's control, and their independence remained a lasting weakness of the late Tang state.

Peace with Tibet

On the western frontier the reign brought a real achievement. In 821 and 822 the Tang and the Tibetan empire concluded a peace treaty, commemorated by a bilingual stone pillar set up in Lhasa in 823, which still stands outside the Jokhang Temple.

Death and Succession

Late in 822 Muzong suffered a stroke, reportedly brought on by a fright during a game of polo, and his eldest son, Li Zhan, was named crown prince. The emperor's health never recovered. Like his father, he turned to the elixirs of alchemists, and he died early in 824, aged twenty-eight. Li Zhan succeeded him as Emperor Jingzong.

Muzong's reign was short, but the loss of the Hebei provinces in 821 and 822 shaped the rest of the dynasty. Our page on Tang Dynasty art and inventions covers the wider culture of the period.

Ceramics of the Reign

Muzong's short reign falls in the great century of Yue ware. Kilns around Shanglin Lake in northern Zhejiang made stonewares with an even olive or grey-green glaze over a fine grey body, used for jars like the one shown here, ewers and above all tea bowls. Tea drinking had spread widely, and Lu Yu's Classic of Tea, written some forty years earlier, ranked Yue bowls first because their glaze made the tea look green.

In the north, the Xing kilns of Hebei made a plain white ware which Li Zhao, writing in the 820s, described as used by rich and poor alike. At Changsha in Hunan, potters were painting their wares under the glaze in brown and green, much of it for export by sea.