Biography
Family Background and Early Years
Li Chong came from the Li clan of Longxi and was a great-grandson of Li Gao, Emperor Wuzhao of Western Liang. His father Li Bao was Northern Wei General Who Guards the North and Duke Xuan of Dunhuang. The youngest of the brothers, Li Chong lost his father when young and was raised by his eldest brother Li Cheng, Administrator of Xingyang. He was calm, elegant, and broad-minded. Li Cheng often praised him: “CiErhis ability is extraordinary, and he is fit to be entrusted with the household.” Li Chong accompanied Li Cheng to Xingyang. At the time, sons of local officials often harassed the population and demanded goods, but Li Chong and Li Cheng's eldest son Li Shao maintained a reputation for probity, avoided private exactions, and acted openly, winning local praise.
Entry into Office and Favor under Empress Dowager Feng
In 471, the fifth year of Huangxing, Li Chong became a student of the Secretariat. He was sociable but did not engage in careless joking, and his peers respected him. Early in Yanxing that same year he was promoted to Secretarial zhongshan, handling palace documents. His careful, intelligent, and efficient work gradually won the appreciation of Empress Dowager Feng, and he rose to Director of the Inner Secretariat and Palace Gentleman of the Southern Office.
Early Northern Wei used a local system of clan-master supervision in which household registration was severely concealed; as many as thirty or fifty households might be registered as a single household. In the second month of 486, the tenth year of Taihe, Li Chong devised the Three Chiefs system: five households formed a neighborhood, five neighborhoods a ward, and five wards a community, each with a chief, in order to verify household registration and equalize taxes and labor service. Empress Dowager Feng was very pleased by the memorial and summoned the court to debate it. Secretariat Director Zheng Xi, Secretariat Director Gao You, and others opposed it, saying “Yan ShiKeYong，Shi Shi Nan Xing”. Defender-in-chief Tuoba Pi agreed that the system would benefit both state and people but proposed delaying implementation until the agricultural slack season after autumn. Li Chong argued that unless the system was introduced at tax-collection time, people would see only the burden of chiefs and household verification, not the benefit of equal burdens and lower exactions; if introduced during the assessment season, they would directly feel the advantage of fairer taxation and implementation would be easier. Empress Dowager Feng concluded: “LiSan Zhang，ZeKeYou Chang Zhun，FuYou Heng Fen；Bao Yin ZhiHuKeChu，Jiao Xing Zhi RenKeZhi。HeWeiErBuKe？” The Three Chiefs system was therefore implemented and, according to the source, benefited both public and private interests.
Li Chong was then promoted to Secretariat Director and Cavalier in Regular Attendance and soon transferred to Minister of the Southern Office, receiving the title Marquis of Shunyang. His favor under Empress Dowager Feng increased. He received monthly gifts amounting to tens of millions in cash and was advanced to Duke of Longxi. The empress dowager also privately gave him treasures and imperial objects unknown to outsiders. His household, previously poor, became wealthy. Yet the source says he remained modest and self-disciplined, skilled both at accumulating wealth and at distributing it to help others. Relatives and people from his home region shared in his resources. He treated people humbly, pitied the poor, sympathized with families whose status had declined, and recommended numerous officials for advancement, earning widespread praise.
A Powerful Minister under Emperor Xiaowen
Northern Wei custom had high princes and ministers addressed directly by personal name, but Emperor Xiaowen often called Li Chong “Secretariat Director” rather than naming him. After Empress Dowager Feng died, the emperor treated Li Chong with exceptional courtesy during his mourning. In discussions of ritual, law, wording of edicts, and the fixing of penalties, Xiaowen, although personally drafting texts, first sought Li Chong's opinion before deciding. Li Chong devoted himself fully to the ruler, withheld nothing he knew, and displayed constant concern and diligence. The source says even old ministers and imperial relatives could not compare with him; the realm increasingly trusted him and outsiders also regarded him as worthy. Emperor Xiaowen relied upon and respected him deeply.
In the twelfth month of 486 the court reformed the bureaucracy, reorganized offices, and established a five-rank nobility system. Li Chong participated in fixing the institutional forms, was enfeoffed Founding Marquis of Xingyang Commandery with eight hundred households, and was appointed Minister of the Court of Judicial Review. Soon he became Palace Attendant and Minister of Personnel and served as tutor to Yuan Xi, Prince of Xianyang. In the sixth month of 493 Emperor Xiaowen made Yuan Xun crown prince, and Li Chong was appointed Junior Preceptor to the Crown Prince. When the emperor established ranks of consorts and nine concubines in the inner palace following the *Rites of Zhou*, Li Chong's daughter was appointed a consort.
Moving the Capital to Luoyang and Building the New Capital
In the eighth month of 493 Emperor Xiaowen led an army south and appointed Li Chong General Who Assists the State, commanding the escort. The Northern Wei army departed Pingcheng and moved toward Luoyang. Heavy rain continued through the ninth month, yet the emperor insisted on advancing. Officials knelt before his horse to remonstrate. Li Chong asked to turn back because the troops were exhausted and provisions insufficient. Emperor Xiaowen angrily declared: “FangYuJing YingYuZhou，YiTongQuYu，ErQing DengRuSheng，LvYiDaJi，FuYue You Chang，QingWuFuYan！” and prepared to ride on. Prince of Anding Tuoba Xiu, Prince of Rencheng Tuoba Cheng, and others wept and pleaded with him. The emperor then said: “Jin Zhe Xing DongBuXiao，DongErWuCheng，HeYiShi Hou？……RuoBuNan Luan，JiDangYiDouYuCi.” The officials were thus compelled to accept moving the capital to Luoyang.
The source explains that Xiaowen had intended from the beginning to move south to Luoyang but feared opposition and therefore used the southern campaign as a device. Before the move, Li Chong privately advised that the emperor temporarily return to Pingcheng and formally move south only after the Luoyang palaces were ready. Xiaowen replied that he would inspect the mountains and rivers in the four directions and afterward stay temporarily at Ye; he never returned to Pingcheng. Soon Li Chong was appointed General Who Guards the South. On the first day of the tenth month of the seventeenth year of Taihe (26 October 493), the emperor ordered Li Chong and Dong Jue to supervise construction of the Luoyang palaces. Li Chong was later retitled Founding Marquis of Yangping Commandery without changing the size of his fief. After the move he determined the base plan of Luoyang, designed the imperial ancestral temple, and supervised palace construction. The Mingtang, Circular Mound, ancestral temple, and Taiji Hall at Pingcheng were also, according to the source, designed by him. He later rose to Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs and was retitled Founding Marquis of Qingyuan County.
Final Years and Death
When Li Chong was in his forties his hair had already grayed, though the source says his appearance remained handsome and showed little sign of age. Li Biao, whom Li Chong himself had promoted, later acted against his interests, and Li Chong joined other nobles in attacking him. Normally mild, Li Chong became violently agitated when angry, suffering palpitations, confused speech, and repeated angry denunciations of Li Biao as a petty man. Medicine could not help. A physician diagnosed damage and rupture of the liver. Li Chong died more than ten days later at age forty-nine. The court posthumously awarded him Minister over the Masses, gave him the posthumous name Wenmu, and buried him at Mount Fuzhou.
Self-Discipline, Impartiality and Generosity with Wealth
Though he stood high in office, Li Chong was always strict with himself and impartial in his dealings. In earlier years his elder brother Li Zuo and the governor of Henan, Lai Chong, had come over to Wei together from Liangzhou but were long at odds, and Li Zuo wove charges against Lai Chong that starved him to death in prison; later Lai Chong's son Lai Hu accused Li Zuo of corruption, Li Zuo was thrown into prison, and Li Chong with the rest of the family, though innocent, was caught up in the affair and imprisoned with him until a general amnesty released them. Afterwards, when Li Chong was trusted with power, Lai Hu was serving as a gentleman of the southern bureau and feared that Li Chong would take revenge, and kept out of his way; but Li Chong comforted him instead and told him to set his mind at ease, and when Lai Hu was later implicated in a case of corruption Li Chong of his own accord memorialized that Lai Hu had nothing to do with it, so that he escaped involvement. Being favoured by Empress Dowager Feng, Li Chong's honours grew daily, with gifts of many tens of millions of cash each month, and he was raised to duke of Longxi, while the empress dowager also privately gave him treasures and articles for imperial use of which outsiders knew nothing. His family had been poor, and from this time it grew rich; yet he remained modest, strict with himself, and as good at gathering wealth as at scattering it to help others — his kin and even ordinary men of the same district almost all received something from him. He pitied the poor and rootless and those whose families had declined, and many officials at court rose only through his recommendation, so that men praised him on every side.
Debate on Campaigning in the Qinghui Hall and the Feast for the Heir
After 493, Emperor Xiaowen once received his ministers in the Qinghui Hall, saying that the sage's great treasure is office and merit, that he had moved the pole of government to the centre and established himself at Song and Luo, and that though the great structure was unfinished the lines of order were laid out; but that there were unsubmitted petty men in the south and fierce barbarians close at hand, and that this was why he grieved day and night, that "the plan to take the south is settled," only the date being uncertain, and that diviners had all urged him that a campaign now would surely succeed; this being a matter of family and state, each minister should speak his whole mind, and none should waver merely because he had spoken first. Li Chong answered that "in the method of war, human affairs come first and divination after; now the divination is auspicious but human affairs are, I fear, not ready — this year's harvest falls short of the usual, the capital has only just moved and the people's livelihoods are unsettled; to add a campaign to this I hold unwise, and it should wait until next autumn." Emperor Xiaowen granted that "the president's words are not without reason" but held to his resolve on grounds of the danger to the altars of state and the nearness of the enemy, arguing that in the past he had led two hundred thousand men without leaving the capital region, which was abundance of human affairs but not of season, while in other years the season was good but human affairs lacking, so that if he always waited for human affairs there would never be a campaign at all, and closed by saying that if the autumn expedition failed to win a victory the three ministers should be handed to the minister of justice, and dismissed the assembly. When Yuan Xun was made heir apparent, Emperor Xiaowen held a feast in the Qinghui Hall, saying that setting up an heir was a matter that harmonized the three powers, illumined the seven ancestral temples, delighted the ten thousand and was celebrated by heaven and men alike, and reflecting that the way of heaven and earth is now full and now empty, that no good thing lasts forever, and that if heaven itself is so, how much more human affairs, in which rank rises and falls from of old. Li Chong answered that with the heir taking the position of the heir apparent all the people felt honoured, but that he had formerly disgraced the office of tutor by failing to guide Yuan Xun in the right way, and was ashamed before the emperor, and that he was both glad and ashamed to be included in the feast through the emperor's kindness; and Emperor Xiaowen said that he himself could not change Yuan Xun's dullness, so why should Li Chong apologize.
Memorial Against Garrisoning Nanzheng
When Emperor Xiaowen campaigned south, Li Chong was made concurrent president of the left and left to hold Luoyang. After the imperial carriage crossed the Huai, separate edicts sent the general of the south, Yuan Ying, and the general of the pacified south, Liu Zao, against Hanzhong, and six thousand men were called up from Yong, Jing and Qi to garrison Nanzheng once the city was taken. Li Chong memorialized against it, saying that Qinzhou was perilous and bordered the Qiang and the Yi, that since the western army set out the court had sent pay and reinforcements without pause, and that with the Di and Hu in revolt on every side, hauling grain and donning armour had not ceased to this day; to send garrison troops in advance to a place beyond the mountains, though they were exempted from labour service, would still, he feared, alarm the people, and if the city were never taken it would only stir up the populace and perhaps join the Hu and bind the Yi, with consequences hard to guess. He went on that the western road was perilous, a single track a thousand li long, with a garrison deep beyond the borders and alone at the mouth of a host of rebels; if the enemy attacked it could not be relieved in a moment, and when the food was gone no grain could be transported — as the ancients said, "though the whip be long, it does not reach the horse's belly," and Nanzheng was for the state exactly the horse's belly. The king's campaigns, he said, are meant to save the people, while the barbarian foe guards what he holds out of love for the land, and of the two principles the virtue differs in depth; the emperor's gracious fame had gone far already, why be so hasty for one city? Wei already covered eight of the nine provinces and held nine parts in ten of the people, and only the far north of the desert and the lands beyond the Yangtze remained unsubmitted, to be bound in time and not in haste today; the thing to do was to open the frontiers wide, take cities and strongholds, accumulate goods and grain until there was enough to sustain a war, and only then establish offices and appoint generals for the work of swallowing the enemy. As it was, Zhongli and Shouyang lay close at hand and were not taken, and Zhu city and Xinye but a step away had not submitted; if the eastern lands could not be held by near forces, could the far west be held by distant ones? If troops must be posted, he feared the end would be to hand them to the enemy; and now that the capital stood in the centre of the land and bordered the enemy's territory, the need was to gather men who would die, to sweep the south; to send out a lone and scanty force and abandon it to destruction would make men fear to hold a frontier in future campaigns, and then to get them to fight to the death would be no easy matter. From all of which he concluded that "not to garrison is best." Emperor Xiaowen followed his advice.
The Case of Li Biao and His Death
In 498, when Emperor Xiaowen campaigned south, Li Chong and the minister of personnel, the prince of Rencheng, Yuan Cheng, held that Li Biao was arrogant and rude, and so arrested him and memorialized his crimes; the memorial was written in Li Chong's own hand, unknown to his household, and its language was so fierce and blunt that Li Chong also made confession of his own faults. Emperor Xiaowen read it and sighed for a long time, then said that "Li Biao may be called utterly reckless, but Li Chong's conduct too goes too far." At the time Li Chong was in a great rage, again and again recounting Li Biao's faults, glaring and shouting, smashing the table, seizing the censors and making them kowtow, their hands bound behind them, abusing them as he pleased. Li Chong had always been mild in temper, but this rage brought on a sudden illness: his thoughts were disordered, his spirit unhinged and his speech incoherent, and he wrung his wrists and cursed, calling Li Biao a petty man; medicine did nothing, and a physician diagnosed the liver as wounded and ruptured. He died some ten days later at the age of forty-nine, and the court posthumously made him minister of works with the posthumous name Wenmu and buried him on Fuzhou Mountain. Emperor Xiaowen held a mourning rite for him at Xuanhu and wept aloud, issuing an edict that Li Chong "was by nature firm and gentle, cultivated himself in virtue and righteousness, received teaching in the household and showed moral conduct in affairs of state," that in the early Taichu years when the emperor was still young he had long since entrusted him with secret and weighty matters, which Li Chong handled well, and that after the move to Luoyang, when the court chose officials for pure and important posts, Li Chong's rank rose to the head of the secretariat and he managed what was issued and received; loyal and reverent, gentle and wise, fit to be a model of understanding, and kind, respectful, trustworthy and generous in winning the people's hearts, he could be called a worthy minister of the state and a pattern to the court, and the emperor had meant to raise his office again and reward his merit in requital of an old servant when he suddenly died, to the emperor's deep grief. In the first month of 499 Emperor Xiaowen returned from Ye to Luoyang and passed Li Chong's grave; the attendants told him of it, and the emperor, then ill in bed, gazed at the tomb from afar and covered his face and wept for a long time, and afterwards issued an edict sacrificing to Li Chong with the grand sacrifice of ox, sheep and pig; and when he came back to the capital he would always speak of Li Chong's death whenever he met other officials, and tears would come at the first words. Long before, hearing that Li Chong was gravely ill, he had told the general of the right guard, Song Bian, that Li Chong held an important office and managed all affairs, was honest and frugal, and had long been relied upon; that it was precisely because he was kindly and wise, loyal and refined, that the emperor had entrusted him with the government and could campaign abroad without worry at home; and that his sudden grave illness and death grieved him beyond measure.