Speaking of Wu Zetian, everyone is very familiar with it, as the only orthodox female emperor in Chinese history, Wu Zetian is very famous and can be said to be highly respected. However, behind this admiration and envy, everyone is also quite controversial about Wu Zetian, some people think that Wu Zetian will stop at nothing to kill his own children for the sake of power, which is actually the ambition of the wolf; some people think that the tiger poison does not eat children, and Wu Zetian's claim that he killed his son is a rumor, so what is the truth?
There is an epitaph in Shaanxi that exposes the crime of Wu Zetian's beast and beast that killed his son before 1346, and the history books do not deceive us.
Wu Zetian and Li Hong
Li Hong was the eldest son of Wu Zetian and was deeply loved by Li Zhi of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, and as early as when Li Hong was 11 years old, Li Zhi let Li Hong go to supervise the country, which shows how much Li Zhi valued Li Hong. And Li Hong, this person, is indeed worthy of Li Zhi's trust and love, in terms of treating his father, he is very filial, often personally boiling herbs for Li Zhi, which is completely a picture of fatherly kindness and filial piety. And for the people, he is also very benevolent and loved by everyone. Such a benevolent and filial prince is naturally a blessing for the future of the Tang Dynasty, but Li Hong is also very unfortunate, because he has such a mother as Wu Zetian.
Traditional mothers treat their children very fondly, it can be said that the idea that their children are bigger than heaven is not exaggerated, but Wu Zetian is not this traditional woman, her desire for power is very strong, so that she covers her eyes and brings great danger to her children! Wu Zetian had 4 sons and 2 daughters in his lifetime, but it is said that the death of 2 sons and 1 daughter is related to Wu Zetian, which shows how dangerous it is to be a child of Wu Zetian.
It is reasonable to say that Li Hong was deeply loved by Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi, and no matter how he said that he was also the eldest son of Wu Zetian, he should not be poisoned, but this was not the case in reality. According to the Zizhi Tongjian and the New Book of Tang, Li Hong was killed by Wu Zetian in 675 AD, and there were two main reasons why Wu Zetian did such a heartbreaking thing.
1. Emperor Gaozong of Tang intended to zen in Li Hong
Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi, although he was a man of great talent, his body was not very strong, so that in the later period of his reign, he had already entrusted most of the affairs to Wu Zetian. At that time, Li Zhi made such a move, and the courtiers were still very opposed, after all, since ancient times, women's political affairs were relatively few, which was easy to cause chaos in the imperial power, but everyone saw that Li Zhi's health was so poor, and they did not think of a better way, only temporarily.
Wu Zetian this person, originally the desire for power is extremely strong, after taking over the government, the desire for power became more terrible, and slowly there was the idea of weighing, if Li Zhi gave up the imperial throne to Li Hong, it was bound to affect Wu Zetian's grand plan, so Wu Zetian was very worried about it. Some people have said that Li Hong is the eldest son of Wu Zetian, and Wu Zetian can completely use the identity of his mother to set up Li Hong, there is no need to kill his son, which has to talk about the second point.
Second, Li Hong and Wu Zetian have different political views
Wu Zetian is a man known for his harshness, while Li Hong is famous for his benevolence, so the two will definitely be very different in their future administrations, and it is easy to have contradictions. And before that, what Li Hong had done had already made Wu Zetian feel threatened. Without Wu Zetian's permission, Li Hong applied to Li Zhi to release Xiao Shufei's daughter, who was an enemy of Wu Zetian before, which was tantamount to punching Wu Zetian in the face and making Wu Zetian very unhappy. Later, in various government decrees, Li Hong did not obey Wu Zetian, which made Wu Zetian very angry.
"Zizhi Tongjian": "After the heavens, the prince plays please, counts the wills, and is lost in love with the queen of heaven ..."
Li Zhi deliberately zen in Li Hong, and Li Hong did not listen to Wu Zetian's words, which made Wu Zetian very angry, and in order to achieve his goal of exclusive power, Wu Zetian finally made the decision to kill his son. However, many people think that this view is not true, because there are also some history books that say that Li Hong died naturally, but with the excavation of Yan Zhuang's epitaph, the truth was finally revealed.
Yan Zhuang was the crown prince's family order, and he died 5 months after Li Hong's death, but his epitaph has such a sentence, which is very shocking.
Epitaph: Do you want to be ignorant and blessed. The accumulation of crusts invaded Russia, entangled in the ant bed and ruined; the floating light was exhausted, and it passed away with the crane version.
In the epitaph, "ant bed" refers to the spirit bed, and "crane version" refers to the coffin. That is to say, Yan Zhuang died with the "ant bed" and "crane version", which does not imply that Yan Zhuang died because he was implicated by the prince? This spirit bed and coffin were obviously the original prince Li Hong's. Li Hongdu died for 5 months, and Yan Zhuang also died because of this incident, which can only show that the crown prince Li Hong at that time may not have died naturally, but was killed by Wu Zetian's conspiracy, and Yan Zhuang probably knew a lot of insider information and was eventually killed. If we analyze it this way, the truth is too shocking, it seems that the statements in the New Book of Tang and the Zizhi Tongjian are true, and Li Hong was killed, not a natural death!
epilogue
There are different accounts in the history books about the death of crown prince Li Hong, some believe that he died naturally, and some believe that he was killed by Wu Zetian, and the truth of the matter has been debated endlessly. However, with the excavation of Yan Zhuang's epitaph, the crime of Wu Zetian's killing of his son in 1346 years ago has been revealed (from 675 AD to 2021, a total of 1346 years).
(This article mainly refers to the New Book of Tang and the Zizhi Tongjian)