Li Baozhen
Meanwhile, it was said that Li Baozhen tried to gather talented people to his circuit by sending messengers throughout the realm to look for talented people and entice them with rewards, but that if those people thus retained had few suggestions for him, he would let them leave. As the realm was peaceful at the time, he constructed many pavilions and artificial lakes for his own amusement. He also engaged many alchemists in search of immortality. One of the alchemists that he engaged, Sun Jichang (), made golden pills for him and told him that consuming them would lead to immortality. Li Baozhen trusted Sun—so much so that he commented to his subordinates, "This is something that not even Qin Shi Huang or Emperor Wu of Han was able to have. I will soon be at the court of Shangdi and no longer be among you." As he then dreamed of riding on a flying crane, he made a wooden crane and practiced riding on it. Eventually, Li Baozhen took a total of 20,000 pills, and it was said that his belly became firm and he was unable to eat. A Taoist monk, Niu Dongxuan (), briefly cured him by giving him lard and laxatives. However, after Li Baozhen was healed, he again listened to Sun, who stated, "You have come close to immortality. Why abandon it now?" Li Baozhen thereafter took 3,000 more pills and died. Emperor Dezong mourned him for three days and gave him posthumous honors.