In the Tang Dynasty, the open and graceful social atmosphere gave birth to many advanced ideas. At that time, domestic and foreign trade flourished, and Arabia and Southeast Asia brought many exotic cultures, which were integrated with the Culture of the Central Plains and formed the unique cultural characteristics of that period. At the same time, the status of women during the Tang Dynasty was very high, and the appearance of empresses later completely changed the cultural ecology of the Tang Dynasty.
Feminist ideas were prevalent at this time, so there were many women around Wu Zetian who became their own forces and acted alone, such as Wei Hou, Princess Anle, and later the powerful Princess Taiping. Among them, there is a female "minister", which has to be mentioned, that is, Shangguan Wan'er. She traveled freely between the major powers, and finally gained the reputation of "Prime Minister".
Shangguan Wan'er was plucked by the empress, and her status rose step by step, and later she grew into the empress's chief secretary. However, the Empress was also her exterminator. Her grandfather, who was chancellor during the reign of Emperor Gaozong, offended the empress because he had written an edict deposing Wu Zetian for the emperor, so he was killed by the empress, and her father was also in an important position in the imperial court at that time, and was also implicated and killed. Because of her mother's identity, Shangguan Wan'er was lucky enough to escape the disaster, but the two were reduced to slaves and served in the court.
Her mother came from a famous family and did not want her daughter to be enslaved forever, so she patiently taught Shangguan Wan'er, not only teaching her the scriptures, but also making her deeply familiar with the way of the officialdom. And Shangguan Wan'er also lived up to expectations, and grew into a talented and beautiful woman at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Later, Wu Zetian summoned her, marveled at her poetic talent, and left her to do things.
Wu Zetian was his father's enemy, so did Shangguan Wan'er ever try to assassinate the empress? Legend has it that Shangguan Wan'er assassinated Wu Zetian several times, but all of them ended in failure, but in the end they were all forgiven by the empress, and the most serious one was only punished with a face. It's just that this kind of legend is not very reliable, even if Wu Zetian is very sorry for talent, he will definitely not put a time bomb around.
Regarding the punishment of the face, there are different theories in the history books. One theory is that at that time, Wu Zetian deposed Li Xian and wanted to become emperor himself, and Sima of Yangzhou led an army of 100,000 people to come to the crusade, at this time, the folk talent Luo Bin Wang, in order to boost morale, wrote a poem full of satire on Wu Zetian's arguments. One day, Shangguan Wan'er talked about this matter in front of Wu Zetian and advised the empress to cherish talents, so she angered the empress and was punished with embarrassment. Another theory is that Shangguan Wan'er and the empress dowager flirted with the male pet eyebrows, and the empress was angry and sentenced to be appeased.
Shangguan Wan'er was able to serve at the empress's side for a long time, indicating that she had never moved the heart of revenge, otherwise according to Wu Zetian's brutality, she could not have left the whole corpse. So why didn't she take revenge? Privately, she thought that she knew that her strength was limited, and the power in her hands was also given by Wu Zetian, blindly moths to make up for fire can only be buried in the sea of fire, Shangguan Wan'er is a smart person, of course, will not do this.