Author: Zhao Xinfang
There are really many outstanding female figures in feudal society, and recently I have looked at the history books and seen a figure who has not paid attention to it before, that is, the empress Cao Shi of Zhao Zhen of Song Renzong. Cao Shi was in the imperial palace for forty-five years, clean and virtuous, benevolent and loving, strictly abide by the "mother's ceremony" Qing rules, ruled the emperor of the three dynasties, was respected and loved by future generations, and was a generation of sages of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Cao's grandfather, Cao Bin, was the founding father of the Northern Song Dynasty, and was a rare talent.
She was born in such a family, from childhood by the good family style, adulthood has become an admirable woman, in the face of crisis can really be described as stable as Taishan, meticulous, quite a scarf does not let the eyebrows of the style.
Cao was the second empress of Song Renzong, and the two were not very close at the beginning, according to the current words, the relationship was general. One night in the leap month of 1048, Song Renzong stayed in Cao's harem, slept until midnight, and suddenly heard a chaotic sound outside the palace, which was mixed with the screams of the palace people.
Cao Shi thought that someone might take advantage of the night to force the palace, and immediately became vigilant. Has Song Renzong, who has lived in the palace since he was a child, experienced this kind of thing? Panicking, he jumped out of bed and was about to run outside. Cao Shi grabbed him, closed the door, and said: The emperor went out without guards, in case of a tragic poison, what should the people of the world do?
Song Renzong felt that Cao's words were reasonable, so he stayed in the palace in a disciplined manner, but he did not know how to dispatch troops to deal with this matter in the future. Cao Shi was as steady as Mount Tai, and after a little thought, he sent someone to summon a guard to escort him. The eunuch He Chengyong, fearing that the emperor would be frightened, falsely claimed that it was the cry of the nursing mother beating the little palace girl.
Cao Shi was angry after hearing this, and Zheng Se scolded: The anti-thief killed people in front of the palace, and the emperor was trying to run outside, do you dare to talk nonsense? At this time, the palace guards had not yet arrived, the situation was already very urgent, and the meticulous Cao Shi expected that the anti-thieves had not found the emperor and might set fire to it.
She immediately summoned the eunuchs and ordered them to carry buckets of water and follow them secretly. Some eunuchs were reluctant to go for fear of death. Cao Shi found scissors to cut the hair of the eunuch who was willing to contribute as the basis for the reward of merit, and immediately understood the fate of not going.
ay! It was such an excitement that everyone rushed to kill three assassins on the spot with the guards who came with them, and another assassin who fled to the north building of Miyagi Castle was captured alive and watered to extinguish the fire that burned to the drapery.
This assassination case in the Northern Song Palace is recorded in the history books, but the cause of the incident and the final result of the handling are confusing and will not be repeated in the limited space. Why can Cao Shi be so expected to be like a god? It turned out that in the first month of the lunar calendar that year, the garrison of Jiangning Province set fire to the disaster, which aroused the vigilance of the Cao clan. Just by virtue of a woman's fearlessness, it has resolved a crisis of changing hands in the country, and Cao Shi can be regarded as the first person. Afterwards, Song Renzong deeply admired Cao Shi and praised him.
During the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, Fan Zhongyan organized the implementation of the "New Deal for celebrating the calendar", although it caused some fluctuations in society, but without endangering the court, Cao Shi did not interfere, but took a series of operation methods of Song Renzong to heart, and became the source of her experience in planning and correcting the improprieties in Wang Anshi's change of law in the future.
According to historical records, after Emperor Shenzong of Song succeeded to the throne, he vigorously supported Wang Anshi's transformation of the law. Unfortunately, the ministers of change whom Song Shenzong and Wang Anshi relied on could be said to be none of them worthy of great responsibility, and even some of them were corrupt officials.
When Wang Anshi's reform of the law was difficult and did not achieve results, instead of summing up lessons and improving them, he put forward a more radical new policy for changing the law, which made Wang Anshi have a great momentum of arbitrariness and was quite suspected of forming a party for personal gain, and the evil consequences would cause the ministers to be unable to achieve checks and balances, and then endanger the imperial power. After Cao persuaded Emperor Shenzong of Song to be ineffective, he began to devote himself to personnel issues in order to maintain the balance of the government.
After Ouyang Xiu, Han Qi, Fu Bi and other famous courtiers were successively degraded for opposing the change of law, the Wutai poetry case that caused a sensation in the government and the opposition broke out. Su Shi's entry into his career coincided with Wang Anshi's transformation of the Fa. In the second year of Yuanfeng, Su Dongpo was transferred to Zhizhou, Huzhou, and in a routine thank you to the emperor, he wrote a complaint that "it is difficult to follow up with the new jin", and was seized by the "new party" who was in power at that time, and was arrested in prison for the crime of ridiculing the government and politics, and suffered all kinds of torture, and people said that su Shi would undoubtedly die this time.
Faced with such a situation, Cao Shi, despite his advanced age and serious illness and bedridden, invited Song Shenzong to the bedside and said: When Song Renzong got two brothers Su Shi and Su Rui during the scientific expedition, he happily told me that he had found two prime ministers for his descendants. Su Shi's imprisonment is likely to be an enemy slander, even if his poems are inappropriate, it is only a small fault, and it must not hurt the peaceful nature of the imperial court. Song Shenzong nodded and said yes, so he demoted him to the post of deputy envoy of the Huangzhou Regiment. Su Shi thus saved his life.
Wang Anshi's new policy touched the interests of the nobility, and when the failure of the reform was in danger, the Cao clan, who cherished talents, did not engage in the "wall down and everyone pushed" set, and repeatedly told Song Shenzong that Wang Anshi did have talent and learning, but unfortunately there were too many enemies, if you really cherished talents, let him temporarily leave Beijing for a foreign post. In terms of knowing people and doing good deeds, it can be seen that Cao Shi has extraordinary political talents.
In the Song Dynasty, there was often a situation in which there was no concubine and heir to inherit the unification, which was really a strange phenomenon. Emperor Renzong of Song brought his nephew Zhao Yun into the palace, intending to make him his heir and be raised by Cao himself. Coincidentally, Cao took his sister's daughter Gao Taotao as an adopted daughter. These two dolls were in the same year, under the careful education of Cao's family, and their feelings were very good. The people in the palace called the two "sons of the officials" and "queen daughters". After becoming an adult, Song Renzong and Cao Shi acted as matchmakers for men and women respectively, and married each other. "The son of heaven marries a woman, and the queen marries a daughter" was once rumored to be a beautiful talk.
One night in March of the eighth year of Jia's reign (1063), Emperor Renzong of Song suddenly fell critically ill and died.
In order to ensure a smooth transition of power in the imperial court, the Cao clan immediately made arrangements, closed the palace gates, blocked the news, and summoned Zhao Shu (that is, Zhao Yun before the name change) into the palace early the next morning to succeed to the throne. Zhao Shu shouted, "So-and-so does not dare to do anything", and turned around to go somewhere. If you let him go, something big will happen.
Cao Ordered Han Qi to hold Zhao Shu and arrange for someone to dress him in a royal robe and make him a new monarch for Emperor Yingzong of Song. Not long after Song Yingzong succeeded to the throne, perhaps due to the reasons of tension for many years, he suddenly became insane and could not see things normally, and the Cao clan hung curtains to govern on his behalf. After Song Yingzong recovered from her illness, she took the initiative to return to the emperor, and the ministers praised her for her extraordinary temperament and deep righteousness.
In the fourth year of Zhiping (1067), Song Yingzong, who had only been emperor for two years, died of illness, and was succeeded by his son Zhao Yan as Emperor Shenzong of Song.
The Cao clan did his best to assist Song Shenzong, and his relationship with him was extremely harmonious, more than the affection of his own grandchildren. One day, emperor Shenzong of song made a beautifully decorated rut for Cao. After Cao Shi sat down, Song Shenzong and his mother Empress Gao supported her. After Cao's death, Song Shenzong served her for three years and fulfilled his filial piety to the extreme.
Cao's is a model of self-discipline.
The Song Dynasty always worried about foreign relatives interfering in politics, and formulated many rules and precepts. Cao Shi began as an empress, until he became the empress dowager, and never crossed the courtesy for half a minute. After entering the palace, she never met with her mother's family alone, and even if she needed to meet, there must be outsiders present. Song Shenzong proposed several times to let Cao's elderly brother enter the palace to come to the palace and Qilala's family, it was difficult to find an opportunity for the sisters and brothers to meet, in order to facilitate the sisters and brothers to talk, after a while Song Shenzong got up and just left, Cao Immediately said to his brother, This is not the place where you stay for a long time. Ask your brother to leave the harem immediately.
Cao Shi is much taller than the famous strong women of ancient China, Lü Hou, Wu Zetian, and Empress Dowager Cixi. Her younger brother later became Cao Guo's uncle in the legend "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", which is also a kind of praise for Cao's family, right?
【About the author】Zhao Xinfang, pen name Zhao Shi, is a member of the Chongqing Miscellaneous Literature Association and the Chongqing Nan'an District Writers Association.
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