Sun Yuanheng (孫元亨) (died October 26, 696) was an official of
Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian (17 February 624 – 16 December 705), personal name Wu Zhao, was the ''de facto'' ruler of the Tang dynasty from 665 to 705, ruling first through others and then (from 690) in her own right. From 665 to 690, she was first empres ...
's Zhou Dynasty, serving briefly as
chancellor
Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
.
Despite Sun's high status, little is firmly established about his career except for the time that he served as chancellor—as, unusual for a chancellor, he did not have a biography in either the ''
Old Book of Tang
The ''Old Book of Tang'', or simply the ''Book of Tang'', is the first classic historical work about the Tang dynasty, comprising 200 chapters, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories. Originally compiled during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdo ...
'' or the ''
New Book of Tang
The ''New Book of Tang'', generally translated as the "New History of the Tang" or "New Tang History", is a work of official history covering the Tang dynasty in ten volumes and 225 chapters. The work was compiled by a team of scholars of the So ...
''. He was not even listed in the table of the chancellors' family trees in the ''New Book of Tang'' for the Sun clan, and therefore, nothing is known about his family tree.
''New Book of Tang'', vol. 73, part 2
In spring 696, Sun was serving as the acting minister of defense (夏官尚書, ''Xiaguan Shangshu''), when Wu Zetian gave him the designation ''Tong Fengge Luantai Pingzhangshi'' (同鳳閣鸞臺平章事), making him a chancellor ''de facto''.
In late 696, there was a treasonous plot by the officials Liu Sili (劉思禮), Qilian Yao (綦連耀), and Wang Ju (王勮) -- as the conspirators believed that Qilian was fated to be emperor one day. The official Ji Xu
Ji Xu () was a Chinese politician during Wu Zetian's Zhou Dynasty, serving briefly as chancellor.
Background
It is not known when Ji Xu was born, but it is known that he was from the Zhou capital Luoyang. He was said to be tall, good at hiding ...
heard of the plot and relayed it to the secret police official Lai Junchen
Lai Junchen (Chinese: 來俊臣) (died April 28, 697) was a Chinese politician and writer. He was a well-known secret police official during the Chinese Tang and Wu Zhou dynasties, whose ability to interrogate and falsely implicate officials of cri ...
, who in turn reported it to Wu Zetian. Wu Zetian had Wu Yizong (武懿宗) the Prince of Henan (the grandson of her uncle Wu Shiyi (武士逸)) investigate, and Wu Yizong, promising Liu that he would be spared, had him implicate as many officials as he could, and Liu implicated some 36 officials, including Sun, fellow chancellor Li Yuansu
Li Yuansu (李元素) (died October 26, 696) was an official of Wu Zetian's Zhou Dynasty, serving twice as chancellor.
Li Yuansu was the younger brother of Li Jingxuan, who served as chancellor during the reign of Wu Zetian's husband Emperor Gaozo ...
, and other officials Shi Baozhong (石抱忠), Liu Qi (劉奇), Zhou Bo (周譒), and Wang Ju's brothers Wang Mian (王勔) and Wang Zhu (王助). All 36 households were slaughtered on the same day, and some 1,000 related persons were exiled.
Notes and references
* ''Zizhi Tongjian
''Zizhi Tongjian'' () is a pioneering reference work in Chinese historiography, published in 1084 AD during the Northern Song dynasty in the form of a chronicle recording Chinese history from 403 BC to 959 AD, covering 16 dynast ...
'', vols. 205
Year 205 ( CCV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelius and Geta (or, less frequently, year 958 '' Ab urbe condita' ...
, 206.
Chancellors under Wu Zetian
696 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Executed Tang dynasty people
People executed by the Tang dynasty
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