Emperor Shang of Tang (695 or 698[2] – 5 September 714),[3] also known as Emperor Shao (少帝), personal name Li Chongmao, was an emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, ruling briefly in 710.
Li Chongmao was the youngest son of Emperor Zhongzong, born to one of Zhongzong's concubines. As of 710, Empress Wei and her daughter Li Guo'er the Princess Anle were exceedingly powerful, but Li Guo'er was unable to convince Emperor Zhongzong to have her created crown princess. Empress Wei, meanwhile, wanted to become Empress Regnant like her mother-in-law, Emperor Zhongzong's mother Wu Zetian. Traditional historians believed that she and Li Guo'er poisoned Emperor Zhongzong in July 710 although it may have been a stroke or heart attack that killed Emperor Zhongzong. Empress Wei then arranged for Li Chongmao, then the Prince of Wen, to succeed Emperor Zhongzong as emperor, hoping to control the young teenager as empress dowager and regent.
Empress Dowager Wei's plans, however, were foiled when Emperor Zhongzong's sister Princess Taiping and nephew Li Longji the Prince of Linzi launched a coup less than a month after Emperor Shang's enthronement. Both Empress Wei and Li Guo'er were killed during the coup, and on July 25 the young emperor was forced to cede the imperial throne to Li Longji's father Li Dan the Prince of Xiang, a former emperor (as Emperor Ruizong).
Li Chongmao, who had been emperor for only 17 days, was reverted to a princely rank and sent away from the capital Chang'an. He died four years later without having returned to the capital. Immediately after his death, Li Longji, who had by then succeeded his father Emperor Ruizong (as Emperor Xuanzong), restored Li Chongmao's imperial dignity and gave him the posthumous name Shang which literally means "died at an early age." Li Chongmao is also known in histories as Emperor Shao, which literally means "the young emperor." Most traditional historians did not consider him a legitimate emperor and do not include him in the list of emperors of the Tang dynasty, although modern historians usually do.
^ abThe chronicles of the reigns of Emperor Shang's father Emperor Zhongzong and uncle Emperor Ruizong, which included his own brief reign, in the Old Book of Tang, indicated that he was 15 at the time of his brief reign in 710, making him born in 695, but, in his own biography, gave his age as 16 at the time of death in 714, making him born in 698. It is not known which account is correct. Compare Old Book of Tang, vols. 7 and 86.
