Princess Anle

Princess Anle (; 684? – 21 July 710), personal name Li Guo'er, was a Chinese princess of the Tang dynasty. She was the youngest daughter of Emperor Zhongzong and his wife Empress Wei. Popular history holds that she was doted upon heavily by her parents and siblings, which contributed to her later drive for power. After Emperor Zhongzong died in 710 — a death that traditional historians assert was due to poison, and carried out by Empress Wei and Li Guo'er, a coup led by Li Guo'er's cousin Li Longji, the Prince of Linzi, and Princess Taiping, Li Guo'er's paternal aunt, overthrew and killed Empress Wei and Li Guo'er. Background Li Guo'er was the youngest of four children that Emperor Zhongzong (Li Zhe) had with his wife Empress Wei. She is said to have been born at a time when Li Zhe had, after a brief reign in 684, been deposed by his mother Empress Dowager Wu (later known as Wu Zetian), reduced to the title of Prince of Lulin, and exiled to Fang Prefecture (房州, in modern Shiyan, Hubei). He was replaced by his brother Li Dan the Prince of Yu (as Emperor Ruizong). It was recorded in her biography in the New Book of Tang that at her birth, Li Zhe took off his shirt and wrapped her in it; thereafter, she was named Guo'er (meaning "the child that was wrapped"). The same biography also recorded that as she was born in times of trouble, Guo'er was pampered by her parents; Empress Wei, in particular, favoured her when she became older, as she was beautiful and eloquent. In 698, at the urging of the chancellor Di Renjie, Wu Zetian (who had taken the throne herself in 690, reducing Li Dan to the rank of crown prince) recalled Li Zhe to the capital. Li Dan offered to yield the position of crown prince to Li Zhe, and Wu Zetian agreed, creating Li Zhe crown prince (and subsequently changing his name, first to Li Xian, and then to Wu Xian). Wu Zetian was surprised to see her and stated that she was likeness of herself. Sometime after the end of exile, Li Guo'er married Wu Chongxun the Prince of Gaoyang, the son of Wu Zetian's nephew Wu Sansi the Prince of Liang.