In 688, the Tang Dynasty hung down for four years. This year was the reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang and the reign of Emperor Wu Zetian as empress dowager.
In this year, a far-reaching rebellion broke out in the Tang Dynasty. It was the Princes of the Li Family who were the royal family members who launched this rebellion. The princes of the Li family, led by Li Zhen, the King of Yue, joined forces to launch a rebellion against Wu Zetian. This rebellion was seen as the Li family's last hope against Wu Zetian.
But as a result, less than a month after this rebellion, the kings of the Li family were suppressed one after another. Li Zhen, the king of Yue, as the leader, also committed suicide by poison after the defeat of the army. After this rebellion, the princes of the Li family who launched the rebellion were all killed. The last remaining part of the Li Family Sect's power was also completely wiped out.
Since then, there has been no longer any force that can stop Wu Zetian from seizing power. After this rebellion, just over a year later, in 690 AD, Wu Zetian snatched his son's throne in the unanimous praise of the whole country, and finally achieved his long-cherished wish and became an empress.
As the true royal family of the Tang Dynasty, only five years had passed since Li Zhi's death to the rebellion of the kings of the Li family. Why did the Li family clan decline to this point after only five years? Not even the strength to resist Wu Zetian a little?
If we want to clarify this issue, we may be able to take Li Zhen's life as the main line and see what really happened in the Tang Dynasty at that time.
In 627, Li Zhen was born in Chang'an. When Li Zhen was born, it was when his father Li Shimin had just ascended to the throne. A year before Li Zhen was born, the famous Xuanwumen Incident had just occurred in the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin stepped on his brother's corpse and snatched the throne from his father, Li Yuan.
After the Xuanwumen Incident, Li Shimin not only killed his eldest brother Li Jiancheng, but also his younger brother Li Yuanji. At the same time, in order to prevent their descendants from rebelling, Li Shimin also killed all the sons of these two people.
After the Xuanwumen Incident, within the Li Tang imperial family, there were directly two branches missing.
But fortunately, the founder of the Tang Dynasty, Comrade Li Yuan of Tang Gaozu, has strong fertility. Li Yuan had twenty-two sons in his lifetime, and the lack of two did not seem to have much impact.
However, we have to explain a little bit here.
Li Yuan and his original wife Dou Shi are both, the relationship is relatively good, for a long time, Li Yuan only has Dou Shi this one lady. Li Yuan and Dou gave birth to four sons, namely the eldest son Li Jiancheng, the second son Li Shimin, the third son Li Xuanba, and the fourth son Li Yuanji.
Among them, Li Xuanba died early, so there were only three sons left, namely the eldest, the second and the fourth.
Later, after the fourth eldest was born, Dou probably felt that Li Yuan had too few sons, so he let Li Yuan take a concubine. Soon after this, Li Yuan and a concubine gave birth to the fifth elder Li Zhiyun.
After giving birth to the fifth, Li Yuan was busy rebelling. A few years later, as Li Yuan formally rebelled, the fifth elder Li Zhiyun was arrested by Sui Dynasty officials because he was not with Li Yuan, and finally executed. Therefore, after Li Yuan raised an army, there were only three sons left.
After that, Li Yuan invaded Chang'an all the way and established the Tang Dynasty.
After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan, as emperor, only had three sons. Therefore, after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan began to frantically marry concubines and have children. From the sixth to the twenty-second, all were born after the establishment of the Tang Dynasty. This is also why Li Yuanming has many sons, but only the first three fight the most fiercely. Because at the time of the Xuanwumen Incident, only the brothers were slightly older. Except for the brothers, among all the remaining sons, the youngest and eldest sixth, who was only ten years old at the time, what to do with the eldest brother and the second brother to fight for the throne?
Therefore, after the Xuanwumen Incident, Li Yuan's concubines were only left with Li Shimin's four veins. The other three branches are dead. Of course, after Li Shimin ascended the throne, he was still good to other brothers who did not threaten. From the sixth to the twenty-second, all were crowned kings.
But at the same time, it is precisely for this reason that Li Yuan's son may be about the same age as Li Shimin's son, or even younger than Li Shimin's son.
It was in this situation that Li Zhen was born.
When Li Zhen was born, his father Li Shimin had already given birth to seven sons. Li Shimin is not inferior to Li Yuan in terms of giving birth to children. Li Shimin had fourteen sons and twenty-one daughters in his lifetime. According to the ancient Chinese idea of 'many children and many blessings', Li Yuan and Li Shimin, father and son, can be said to be quite blessed.
A few years after Li Zhen was born, Li Ming was born with Li Shimin's youngest son. At this point, Li Shimin had fourteen sons, plus seventeen younger brothers. In addition, because the Li family is a traditional Guanlong family, Li Shimin also has a large number of cousins.
At this time, there were dozens of princes in the Li Tang Sect Room alone, and if you added princesses, horses and other families, it would be even more. At this time, the strength of the Li Tang Sect Room was quite powerful.
After Li Zhen was born, because his mother was not an empress, he could only be regarded as a concubine. In ancient China, shuzi had no right to inherit. Li Shimin's concubines had a total of three sons, namely the eldest Li Chengqian, the fourth Li Tai, and the old ninth Li Zhi. There are these brothers in the front row, and Li Zhen is just an old eight. Therefore, from the day of birth, Li Zhen was doomed to have no connection with the throne, and was destined to be only an idle prince.
By the way, in addition to the identity of Li Tang's crown prince, Li Zhen actually has an identity. Judging from the relationship between her mother's side, her mother is actually Wu Zetian's aunt and cousin. Li Zhen's birth mother was Yan Defei, Yan Defei's maternal grandfather, and Wu Zetian's maternal grandfather, who were brothers.
This layer of relationship is relatively chaotic, but judging from the later historical development, it is precisely because of the existence of this layer of kinship that Li Zhen can live to the era when Wu Zetian was in power. If there is no such relationship, it is estimated that Li Zhen would have been cleaned up long ago.
It is precisely because of this identity that Li Zhen's youth is also relatively relaxed. When Li Zhen was five years old, Li Zhen was made the King of Han, at the age of seven he was made the governor of Xuzhou, at the age of ten he was renamed the original king, then changed his title to the king of Yue, and at the age of seventeen he was officially appointed as the Assassin of Xiangzhou... Those deceitful people in the court did not have much impact on Li Zhen, because he did not participate at all.
However, in the year when Li Zhen was seventeen years old, the second disaster of the Li family's clan still came.
This year, because Li Shimin really could not discipline the children, the control of the children was too strict, and finally forced the old five to rebel. After the rebellion of the fifth elder, he was quickly defeated and captured, and then given death. But during the investigation, the boss was involved again. When investigating the case, everyone found that Li Chengqian, as the crown prince, even wanted to rebel.
Later, Li Shimin had to depose Li Chengqian, and at the same time deposed Li Tai, the fourth elder who was vying for the position of crown prince, and made Li Zhi the crown prince.
At this point, among Li Shimin's fourteen sons, the eldest, the fourth and fifth, these three veins have been abolished.
Of course, this matter had no impact on Li Zhen. Because even if Li Chengqian was deposed, it would not be his turn to be the crown prince. In the years that followed, Li Zhen continued to be his idle prince, and Li Shimin grew older.
In 649, Li Shimin died, after which Li Zhi ascended the throne.
After Li Zhi ascended the throne, another four years passed, and when Li Zhen was 27 years old, the third disaster of the Li family's clan came. The name of this disaster is called the Fang Yi Ai Conspiracy Case.
Fang Yi loves to plot a counter-case, which is actually more complicated to say. To put it simply, before Li Shimin's death, in order for Li Zhi to be able to sit firmly on the throne, he arranged a lot of backhands, leaving many old ministers to check and balance each other. However, after Li Zhi ascended the throne, because these old ministers were too strong, they somewhat overshadowed Li Zhi.
After that, the old minister party, led by Li Zhi's uncle Changsun Wuji, began to want to absorb more power. At this time, some of the real power factions in the Li family's clan became a boulder in front of them. Therefore, in 653 AD, The Widow of the Horse Fang rebelled against Princess Gaoyang, and the eldest son Wuji implicated a large number of Li family's real power clans during the investigation of the case. For example, Li Yuan's sixth son, Li Shimin's third son, seven princesses, and seventeen princesses. There are also some powerful clans of the Li family, such as Li Daozong, the king of Jiangxia, and others. After this treason, it was all cleared out.
In short, after the end of the Fang Yi Ai conspiracy case, the real power faction within the Li family's clan was completely cleaned up. The rest are almost all idle princes like Li Zhen, who do not like to compete for power.
Of course, this matter should be happy for Li Zhi, who is the emperor. After all, an overly powerful clan would also threaten The security of Li Zhi's throne. After that, Li Zhi used the matter of "abolishing the queen" to suppress the LaoChen faction, seized power from the Laochen faction, and completely monopolized power.
However, after Li Zhi came to power, it was not long before he began to suffer from severe headaches. Because of the headache, Li Zhi did not have the energy to take care of the government. Therefore, at this time, Li Zhi needs to find a spokesman to help him handle the government. Before Li Zhi had a hard time suppressing the clan and the old ministers, it was naturally impossible to give them power again. Therefore, for Li Zhi at this time, Wu Zetian, as an empress, became the only choice.
From this time on, Wu Zetian began to take power.
In the following twenty years, the remaining princes of the Li family were still living a relatively stable life. After all, they don't like to compete for power and are no threat to Li Zhi, so Li Zhi will not move them. However, as the years passed, these clan princes also gradually grew old. Before Li Zhi's death, there were already a large number of Li family princes who died naturally.
After the death of these clan princes, according to the system of the Tang Dynasty, their descendants were to be demoted when they inherited their titles. To put it simply, if the father is the son of the emperor, then when the father is alive, he can be crowned prince by virtue of the identity of the prince or the emperor's brother. However, after death, the son inherited the throne, could not inherit the title of prince, and could only be reduced by one class and was made a duke.
Of course, if the son has made a great contribution to the country before inheriting the title, he also has the opportunity not to demote the knighthood. However, when Li Zhi and Wu Zetian came to power, they had been guarding against these Li family clans, and naturally they would not give them the opportunity to make meritorious achievements. So this possibility, almost none.
In this way, when those old princes gradually died, the strength of the Li family clan was further weakened. Coupled with wu Zetian's false accusations, there were not many people left in the Li family.
However, if it was a normal situation, the power of the clan would not actually decline particularly fiercely. Because Li Zhi was also an emperor, he also had a son. After his sons were crowned kings, they would also strengthen the power of the clan. But the problem is that Li Zhi's situation is a bit special.
Li Zhi had a total of eight sons, of whom, from the fifth to the eighth, were the sons of Wu Zetian. As for the first four, the eldest was instructed by Wu Zetian to instruct officials to frame and plot rebellion, and then he was given death; the second elder died early and died before he was twenty years old; the third and fourth elders were still alive, but these two brothers had been oppressed by Wu Zetian for many years and did not have the courage to rebel against Wu Zetian.
As a result, among Li Zhi's sons, basically no one dared to rebel against Wu Zetian. The only one who dared to resist was the old sixth Li Xian, or Wu Zetian's own son. However, when he wanted to fight for power with Wu Zetian as a crown prince, he was immediately falsely accused by Wu Zetian of rebellion, and finally deposed and imprisoned.
As time passed year by year, the strength of the Li family's clan became weaker and weaker. At the same time, Wu Zetian had been regent as an empress for many years, but his power in the court was getting stronger and stronger.
At the beginning, Li Zhi did not feel that there was any problem. After all, between the empress and the chancellor, it was naturally the empress who deserved his trust. If the empress is in power, even if he dies in the future, she will at most be a powerful empress. The emperor was her son again, so naturally there would be no problem. On the contrary, those clans, if they are in power, who will be after the throne, I am afraid it is unknown.
However, in the last years of Li Zhi's life, especially after Wu Zetian falsely accused his son and deposed his own son, Li Zhi began to worry.
At this time, Li Zhi also realized that Wu Zetian was a bit too powerful and needed someone to check and balance. Therefore, in the last few years of his life, Li Zhi finally relaxed some suppression a little, and began to pull some ministers of the Guanlong clique, or the Li family clan, into the center of the court, giving them a certain amount of power, hoping that they could balance Wu Zetian a little.
However, at this time, Li Zhi's remedies were already too late.
After decades of continuous suppression, Guanlong Group has a serious talent gap. The ministers who Li Zhi was quickly promoted to the center were indeed fierce, but they were all very old without exception. For example, Pei Xingjian, a famous Tang general who had attacked the Western Regions for decades, such as Liu Renluo, who had defeated Japan on the Korean Peninsula, such as Xue Yuanchao, an old minister who had assisted the crown prince for many years... These people are indeed fierce, but their age is really too big.
In the end, these people either died before Li Zhi died. Either he lived a few more years, but he could only lie in a hospital bed, and he simply could not afford to fight with Wu Zetian for power in the court.
In addition to the ministers, the situation in the Li family's clan office was actually the same.
After the case of the fang's widow's love plot, the remaining Li family clans were almost all princes who had no ambitions and only wanted to live idly. Coupled with the fact that Li Zhi had suppressed it for more than twenty years, there were few people who could be used on the side of the Li Family Sect.
In these only remaining Li family clan rooms, there was only Li Zhen and his tenth brother Li Shen, who was a camel in the flock and could barely be used.
In 683, Li Zhi died of illness. Before Li Zhi's death, he wantonly sealed the few remaining Li family clans, basically sealing the Crown Prince Taishi, The Crown Prince Taifu, or the Crown Prince Taibao. Among them, Li Zhen was given the title of Crown Prince Taifu. After Li Zhi's death, Wu Zetian also carried out this order because he wanted to temporarily appease the Li family's clan because he wanted to take over the imperial throne.
This is already Li Zhi's last check and balance.
But Li Zhi had forgotten that these Li family princes had been away from the court for many years, and there were no henchmen in the court at all! Although the official is very large, but there is no one below to support it, what is the use? Besides, these Li family princes, who have always been idle princes since they were young, have never experienced cruel political struggles, where are wu Zetian's opponents? Even if Wu Zetian gave these princes the title of officials according to his will, they could only be vain positions.
After Li Zhi's death, Li Xian, as the crown prince, successfully ascended the throne. However, after Li Xian ascended the throne, he just wanted to fight with Wu Zetian for power, and Wu Zetian immediately launched a coup d'état, deposing Li Xian and replacing him with the youngest Li Dan as emperor.
At this point, the power of the Tang Dynasty had all fallen into the hands of Wu Zetian.
After Li Xian's abolition, no one in the court dared to oppose Wu Zetian head-on. So next, Wu Zetian began to sprint towards the throne. In order to achieve this goal, Wu Zetian began to make the Wu family king and let the Wu family hold more power.
At this time, everyone could see Wu Zetian's purpose.
The remaining Li family clans began to secretly string together and wanted to rebel against Wu Zetian. Among these Li family clans, Li Zhen is undoubtedly the core figure. On the one hand, he is still slightly stronger and has certain organizational skills. On the other hand, he also had the official position of a prince and a prince, and he also had a certain influence in the fiefdom.
However, when Li Zhen began to connect the Li family's clan according to the line, Li Zhen sadly found that there was very little power left that he could rely on.
At this time, in the Li Family Sect Room, there were few people left with the ability to resist. In the generation of Li Yuan's sons, only the eleventh Old Li Yuanjia, the fourteenth Old Li Yuanji, and the nineteenth Old Li Lingkui remained. In the generation of Li Shimin's sons, only the old eight Li Zhen and the old ten Li Shen were left.
Speaking of which, many people may ask a question: Where are those princesses besides these princes? You know, Li Yuan gave birth to nineteen daughters, and Li Shimin also had twenty-one daughters. Can't these daughters help?
Not really.
Because in ancient China, it was a typical patriarchal society. If these princesses wanted to rebel, first of all their horses had to agree. But the question is, how could those horses, who also had their own families, be involved in such a thing? Even if Wu Zetian was overthrown, the throne could not fall on their heads, so why should they participate? Therefore, the vast majority of princesses did not participate in this rebellion.
Only one princess was the exception.
This princess was Li Yuan's nineteenth daughter, Princess Changle.
However, Princess Changle's participation in the rebellion was also for a reason. Because the daughter of Princess Changle was previously married to Li Xian, the son of Wu Zetian. However, because this daughter was disrespectful to Wu Zetian, she was later locked up by Wu Zetian and directly starved to death. For Princess Changle and her family, Wu Zetian also had a vendetta against their family for killing women, and it was impossible for the two sides to reconcile, so Princess Changle and the horse became the only family involved in the rebellion.
Several princes, plus a princess, this was all the power of the Li family at that time.
Then, when Li Zhen began to connect, Li Shen, as the tenth elder, did not agree to rebel. Because Li Shen knew very well that with their current strength, it was absolutely impossible to have any chance of winning.
Doesn't Li Zhen understand this truth?
Li Zhen naturally knew. But he knew even more that if he didn't resist at this time, he wouldn't even have the opportunity to resist in the future.
On September 16, 688, Li Zhen officially raised an army. After Li Zhen raised his army, a very ironic scene appeared. Except for him, none of the Li family princes who had promised to join him in the army had raised an army. This is not because they intend to sell their teammates, but because after years of suppression by Wu Zetian, they are really too afraid of Wu Zetian. In their view, the conditions are not yet ripe at this time, even if everyone raises an army, they may not be able to fight Wu Zetian, and it is better to continue to wait for the opportunity.
Years of stability have made these Li family princes completely lose the last trace of bloodiness. If Li Yuan and Li Shimin knew that their sons and brothers were so nestled, it was estimated that the coffin board would be so angry that they could not cover it.
In the end, the only people who really started the army were Li Zhen and his son Li Chong.
At this point, the so-called uprising against force has become a joke. After Li Zhen raised an army, he occupied a Shangcai County and then began to recruit troops on a large scale. In the end, Li Zhen smashed all the family funds into it, and raised more than 7,000 people. Moreover, these more than 7,000 people are basically ordinary people who have never fought before. Because of years of peace, these people did not want to fight at all. Even those officials were only held hostage, unwilling to support Li Zhen in their hearts.
On the other hand, on Wu Zetian's side, after learning that Li Zhen had raised an army, he easily sent 100,000 elites to come to requisition. After this large army arrived, the two sides had just made contact, and the army that Li Zhen had barely raised was scattered and fled.
Desperate, Li Zhen finally had to return to the official residence and commit suicide by taking poison.
After Li Zhen's death, none of the princes of the Li family, who thought they were smart, escaped, and all of them were cleaned up by Wu Zetian.
At this point, the last bit of strength of the Li family's clan was also removed by Wu Zetian. More than a year later, in 690 AD, Wu Zetian officially ascended the throne in Luoyang and became an empress.
Looking at the whole process, it is not difficult to find:
The reason why the Li family clan declined was not all Wu Zetian's means. More importantly, the Li family themselves are fighting among themselves. If there had been no years of suppression by Li Zhi, and if there had been no case of rebellion by the Li family, the power held by the Li family's clan would still be considerable.
Unfortunately, Li Zhi cleared too many obstacles for his imperial power. In the end, when Li Zhen raised his army, he found that he had no allies to rely on.
I have to say that this is a sadness of the Li family.