A national leader who sacrificed women
Even emperors could be criticised
Mawei Slope, Death Place of Yang Guifei Zheng Tian [Chen Shubao, the famously lecherous last emperor of Chen, knew that the end was coming when the soldiers of Sui entered entered his Jingyang palace. He kept his favourite wives with him as he hid in a well, but the soldiers found them, and the kingdom was lost. The Emperor Xuanzong would make a very different choice when his concubine Yang Guifei was seized by soldiers.] His favourite was dead. The horse turned, and the emperor rode away. The sun and moon shone down afresh; His mind burned with the memory of the clouds and rain he made with her. Her end— Was inspired, correct, a stroke of imperial statecraft. And who would dwell On a couple in Jingyang well, in a lost empire’s last gasp? 郑畋 马嵬坡 玄宗回马杨妃死，云雨难忘日月新。 终是圣明天子事，景阳宫井又何人。
It was not easy to comment directly on rulers of the country, back in the Tang. But some incidents were so infamous that poets could safely approach them, and the end of Xuanzong was one such opportunity.
The Emperor Xuanzong had a long and successful reign until 756, when court favourite An Lushan rebelled, and defeated the Tang armies, forcing the emperor to flee the capital, Chang’an. His army blamed the premier, Yang Guozhong, so as they marched out of Chang’an, the emperor’s bodyguard stopped, killed Yang, and demanded that his family be executed as well. This included Xuanzong’s favourite concubine, de facto queen of the realm, Yang Guifei, who was a cousin of the premier.
Xuanzong acquiesced.
In this poem, Zheng Tian (820s-880s) contrasts Xuanzong unfavourably with Chen Shubao. This was a bold choice! Chen was usually held up as a figure of ridicule. But Zheng suggests that even an old reprobate like Chen showed more love towards the palace women than the desperate Xuanzong.
Here’s Cinix with the reconstructed reading: