A man can use copper as a mirror to straighten his clothes and crown; Using history as a mirror, we can understand the rise and fall; Using people as mirrors can reveal gains and losses. What kind of story does our protagonist Wu Zetian have?
The Life of Legendary Empress Wu Zetian
When it comes to Empress Wu Zetian, everyone’s feeling should be that she was the first and only female emperor to ascend to the throne in Chinese history. The image presented in one’s heart should be one of elegance and grace, with the harem exuding elegance and grace. In recent years, many TV dramas have depicted this eternal empress, with the more recent being “The Legend of Wu Meiniang” starring Fan Bingbing. Earlier, there were also some clips in “Detective Dee Renjie” to describe this only empress in history.
However, as a form of entertainment, TV dramas still have some differences from real history. Today, we will talk about how Wu Zetian became an emperor from a feudal male dominated society as a woman, and how she gradually moved towards the center of power in feudal society.
Wu Zetian’s background
There are three folk beliefs about the birthplace of Wu Zetian:
The first type: said to have been born in Bingzhou, which is now in the Wenshui area of Shanxi Province;
The second type is in Lizhou, generally near Guangyuan, Sichuan;
The third type is born in Chang’an, which is now Xi’an in Shaanxi province.
At that time, there was a legend circulating in Lizhou that Empress Wu Zetian’s mother became pregnant after feeling the dragon, which means that Empress Wu Zetian’s father was not an ordinary person but a dragon, so Empress Wu Zetian could later become a real dragon. In fact, this is nonsense. It is a folk myth with mythological colors after Empress Wu Zetian ascended to the throne. But in fact, the three places mentioned above are all closely related to Wu Zetian, and Bingzhou is her ancestral home; Lizhou was the place where she lived in her childhood, and only Chang’an was actually the true birthplace of Wu Zetian.
In fact, when it comes to Wu Zetian’s background, it is necessary to mention her father. Wu Zetian’s father’s name was Samurai De, pronounced as the fourth tone of (YUE). Wu Zetian’s selection to enter the palace as a talented person by Emperor Taizong of Tang was actually closely related to her father. During the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the warrior Wu was promoted to the position of Minister of Works and was considered a third rank official at the central level. He first joined forces with Emperor Gaozu Li Yuan to conquer the world, and during his reign, he also wielded a heavy army. It can be said that he was loyal to Li Yuan.
But later on, the Xuanwu Gate Incident occurred, where Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, staged a rebellion and ousted his father from power. As a result, the samurai gradually moved away from the center of power in his later political career. Although he later became a third rank official, it was very different from when Emperor Gaozu was in power.
At this point, many people may ask, since Wu Zetian’s father has moved away from the center of power, what does it have to do with Wu Zetian being selected by Emperor Taizong of Tang to enter the palace?
Wu Zetian entered the palace for the first time
In the 11th year of the Zhenguan reign, Tang Gaozu Li Yuan passed away. On the day of his death, various provinces and counties in Chang’an held a collective mourning equivalent to what we have today. As we mentioned earlier, this warrior, Wei, as a general who joined forces with Li Yuan, showed extraordinary loyalty to Li Yuan. He died of excessive grief and illness during the mourning ceremony, which was a major event for both the officialdom and the people during the Zhenguan period. Public opinion suddenly pushed Emperor Taizong to the center.
Of course, Li Shimin was also thinking that in the years since he took office, he might have been unfair to the old officials who had followed the late emperor to conquer the world. Therefore, he came up with a solution to give the court and the people an explanation. The solution here was to recruit Wu Zetian, the daughter of the warrior Wu, into the palace as a talented person. There are many theories that Tang Taizong recruited Wu Zetian into the palace because he was attracted to her beauty. However, this is not the case. The accurate explanation for inviting her into the palace should be a political choice made by Tang Taizong, that is, to give an account to the public opinion.
But this event was a crucial turning point in Wu Zetian’s life.
After entering the palace, Wu Zetian did not have the expected smooth sailing. Instead, she was ostracized everywhere because she did not receive the love of Emperor Taizong of Tang. In Li Shimin’s heart, she always loved Empress Changsun, so Wu Zetian never gave birth to a child for Li Shimin. Later, Li Shimin fell seriously ill and passed away. At that time, talented concubines who had not given birth to children for the emperor had to become nuns at the Gan Ye Temple. The ancient saying was to continue guarding the emperor in this place.
One year after Li Shimin’s death, Tang Gaozong Li Zhi, who succeeded to the throne, came to the Gan Ye Temple to pay his respects and saw Wu Zetian, who had already become a nun at that time, deeply moved in her heart! The two of them embraced and wept at the Gan Ye Temple, which many officials who accompanied Li Zhi to worship witnessed firsthand. In fact, the two had already recovered when Emperor Taizong was seriously ill earlier. At that time, the person Li Shimin was taking care of was Wu Zetian, and Li Zhi, as the Crown Prince, often came to visit. The two of them, who were about the same age (Wu Zetian was 4 years older than Li Zhi), had already developed feelings for each other secretly.
Wu Zetian’s Second Visit to the Palace
Later, Empress Wu Zetian came out of the Gan Ye Temple (at that time, the harem was a competition between Empress Wang and Consort Xiao for favor. Empress Wang had already understood Li Zhi’s friendship for Empress Wu Zetian and wanted to win her over to balance Consort Xiao. Therefore, she secretly asked Empress Wu Zetian to leave her hair in the Gan Ye Temple and actively persuaded Li Zhi to bring her back. Li Zhi naturally brought her back). Afterwards, he was conferred the title of Zhaoyi by Li Zhi, which is considered a second rank! At this time, Empress Wu Zetian had experienced more than ten years of palace struggles and was no longer the simple talent she had when she first entered the palace. Gradually, she had revealed her sharp claws.
In 651 AD, Empress Wu Zetian became pregnant, around the time when Li Zhi offered incense at the Gan Ye Temple. It’s quite touching to think about this time. As we mentioned earlier, at this time, Wu Zetian was no longer the little lamb that was easily slaughtered. Imagine how terrifying it would be for someone like her to be reborn after so many years of hard work by Emperor Taizong’s side, without any return, and even being a nun in a temple, which was considered as having died once?
This desire drives her to tightly grasp her current power and climb up at all costs, using any means necessary. She was so infatuated with Li Zhi that she felt dizzy and disoriented, while still playing as a pawn for Empress Wang to defeat Xiao Shufei. While Empress Wang was still feeling proud of finally defeating her competitors, she did not know that Empress Wu Zetian had quietly started to rebel. After Empress Wang visited her, she personally strangled her own child and blamed Empress Wang. As the ancient saying goes, even if a tiger poison does not eat its own offspring, Empress Wu Zetian would do anything to gain power. The innocent girl would never return. Under Li Zhi’s insistence, Empress Wu Zetian was later taken into her possession, and in 655 AD, Empress Wu Zetian was officially crowned as Empress.
In fact, Wu Zetian still had an unattainable distance from becoming a female emperor in history when she reached this point, because it also involved human relationships, temples, and the most feared people. It was so difficult to overcome these challenges! But Wu Zetian successfully achieved all of this in accordance with the times. So how did she do it?
Wu Zetian: ‘Little White Rabbit’ can also grow minions, the legendary Empress Dowager’s path of growth is also destiny
According to later research, Tang emperors were likely to have inherited cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and Li Zhi was one of them. This also meant that he was unable to cope with heavy work, so he had to choose an agent to lead him on the front line. This person was actually easy to choose, only Wu Zetian, because they had a high level of tacit understanding in fighting together. The Crown Prince or their children, no matter what, would have the surname Li in this world. Li Zhi also believed that Wu Zetian was a woman after all, and it was impossible for her to threaten his imperial power. Therefore, as an agent, handling political affairs naturally fell on Wu Zetian.
As a talented person who once served Li Shimin, Wu Zetian’s level of handling government affairs was even more skilled than Li Zhi’s. Therefore, starting from 660 AD, at the age of 37, Wu Zetian continued to handle the affairs of the current dynasty for Li Zhi until his death, a total of 24 years. Imagine how much personal lineage and resources did Wu Zetian accumulate during her 24 years of rule? After Li Zhi’s death, Wu Zetian was basically in a position of great power, but at this time she had not yet taken the throne because she had a legitimate heir, Crown Prince Li Xian.
In fact, before Li Zhi’s death, he did some things for Li Xian. He asked the prime minister Pei Yan to assist the court and told Li Xian that if there were any national affairs that could not be handled, he should ask Wu Zetian more. The general idea is to encourage children to listen more to their mothers, thus forming a triangular power structure of the emperor, empress dowager, and prime minister that mutually constrain each other. However, Li Xian is really incompetent and cannot stand up to the wall. It’s better to say that the new official has three fires when he takes office. What did he do?
Unexpectedly, he wanted to elevate his father-in-law to the position of a palace attendant (i.e. a candidate for the position of prime minister) and even said that even if he gave the world to his father-in-law, it would be nothing but a palace attendant. As the prime minister, Pei Yan was naturally unhappy. He caught the emperor’s nonsense and went to the palace to discuss with Wu Zetian. The two immediately agreed and deposed the emperor Li Xian, replacing Li Dan as the new emperor. At this point, Wu Zetian should have truly stepped from behind the scenes to the front stage.
There is a sentence in the “Zizhi Tongjian” that records: political affairs are decided by the Empress Dowager, and Emperor Ruizong resides in another hall without any prior notice. Shortly after establishing such a foundation, Wu Zetian dismissed Prime Minister Pei Yan from his position. In this way, the power to support the emperor and appoint prime ministers was fully centralized in the hands of Empress Wu Zetian, marking the official beginning of the era of empress dowager. The subsequent coronation was only a natural occurrence.
Actually, let’s take a closer look at the history of Wu Zetian’s rise to power, and there aren’t too many twists and turns. Everything is natural, and in the process of history, one cannot do without personal efforts and struggles. Both are indispensable, and it can be said that time is also fortunate.
In her personal struggle and historical process, although Wu Zetian was also skilled in scheming, how could it be a little white rabbit who could have lived to reach this position? Perhaps some people may criticize her for personally strangling her own child for the sake of power, but in that era, indecision only reduced her to being a fish on the board that could be slaughtered. Instead, she became a ruthless and ruthless empress who has become an eternal empress.
