The warlord Zhu Quanzhong kills Emperor Zhaozong, the penultimate emperor of the Tang dynasty, after seizing control of the imperial government.
Emperor Zhaozong of Tang (March 31, 867 September 22, 904), n Li Jie, name later changed to Li Min and again to Li Ye, was the penultimate emperor of the Tang Dynasty of China. He reigned from 888 to 904 (although he was briefly deposed by the eunuch Liu Jishu in 900 and restored in 901). Zhaozong was the seventh son of Emperor Yizong of Tang and younger brother of Emperor Xizong of Tang. Later Li Jie was murdered by Zhu Wen, the Later Liang ruler who overthrew the Tang dynasty.
During Emperor Zhaozong's reign, the Tang Dynasty fell into total disarray and rebellions, which had been ongoing since the reign of his older brother Emperor Xizong, as they erupted throughout the country while the imperial government's authority effectively disappeared. In the midst of all this, Emperor Zhaozong tried to salvage the dying dynasty. However, his efforts to reassert imperial power generally backfired, as his unsuccessful campaigns against Li Keyong, Chen Jingxuan, and Li Maozhen, merely allowed them to re-affirm their power. Eventually, the major warlord Zhu Quanzhong seized control of the imperial government and in 904 had Emperor Zhaozong killed as the prelude of taking over the Tang throne. Zhu also killed many of Emperor Zhaozong's ministers, including the chancellor, Cui Yin. Zhu then placed Zhaozong's 13-year-old son as a puppet emperor (as Emperor Ai). By 907, Zhu himself took over the throne, ending Tang and starting a new Later Liang. Emperor Zhaozong's reign lasted almost 16 years and he was buried in Heling (). He was 37.
Emperor Taizu of Later Liang (後梁太祖), personal name Zhu Quanzhong (朱全忠) (December 5, 852 – July 18, 912), né Zhu Wen (朱溫), name later changed to Zhu Huang (朱晃), nickname Zhu San (朱三, literally, "the third Zhu"), was a Chinese military general, monarch, and politician. He was a Jiedushi (military governor) and warlord who in 907 overthrew the Tang dynasty and established the Later Liang as its emperor, ushering in the era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. The last two Tang emperors, Emperor Zhaozong of Tang (Li Jie) and Emperor Ai of Tang (Li Zuo), who "ruled" as his puppets from 903 to 907, were both murdered by him.
Zhu Wen initially served as a general under the rebel Huang Chao, but defected to the weakened Tang dynasty in 882. Taking advantage of the total chaos in the wake of Huang Chao's defeat, Zhu Wen was able to conquer parts of central China after destroying warlords such as Qin Zongquan, Shi Pu, Zhu Xuan, and Zhu Jin, although most of Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei remained outside his reach, controlled by rival states Qi, Jin, and Yan respectively. Most of his later campaigns were directed at the Shatuo-ruled Jin state (later to become the Later Tang) based in Shanxi, but they failed because of the Jin leaders, Li Keyong and his son Li Cunxu. Due to his emphasis on unifying the north, Taizu was not able to make any inroads into southern China. Southern China came to be controlled by about seven different states, and the ruler Yang Wu and Former Shu was not submissive to him.
Zhu Wen used a combination of strict enforcement, ruthless violence and solicitation to ensure his officers stayed loyal to him. Zhu Wen was also a notorious sexual predator who raped not only the wives of his officers Yang Chongben and Zhang Quanyi, but also his own daughters-in-law. Zhu Wen's reign came to an end in 912 when he was murdered in his palace by his son Zhu Yougui, whom he begot with a prostitute.