Zhangsun Wuji

Zhangsun Wuji was a Chinese statesman of the early Tang dynasty, born in 594 and died in 659, who served as a leading chancellor first under Emperor Taizong and then under Emperor Gaozong. As Taizong's brother-in-law and a trusted advisor, he played a central role in the court politics that secured Taizong's throne and later helped secure the succession of Li Zhi, who became Emperor Gaozong, as crown prince. His most lasting legal contribution came through his leadership of two major revisions of the Tang dynasty's penal code: he assisted in a 637 revision of the inherited Sui-era penal laws that organized punishments into five hundred sections across twenty grades of severity, and then took charge himself of a further revision completed in 651 and promulgated by Emperor Gaozong, work that became the core of the Tang Code, the systematic law text that went on to shape the legal systems of China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam for centuries. Despite this record of service, Zhangsun Wuji fell from power late in his career when political rivals orchestrated false treason accusations against him, and he was forced to commit suicide in 659. His portrait was later ranked first among the Twenty-Four Meritorious Officials of Lingyan Pavilion, the Tang court's own commemorative list of its most important founding-era statesmen.