In 684 AD, just after the first lunar month of the Tang Dynasty's first year, a shocking news came out from Chang'an City: Emperor Li Xian, who had just ascended the throne for 55 days, was deposed by Empress Wu Zetian!
After the news came out, the world was in an uproar.
You know, in ancient Chinese history, the matter of deposing the emperor has always been the most sensitive event. Except for a very few times, it is almost equivalent to a change of dynasty. The abolition of the Tang Dynasty is an unprecedented special case. The person who deposed the emperor was not a courtier who was preparing to usurp the throne, but the emperor and his mother!
The abolition of emperor Wu Zetian is undoubtedly a landmark event in the history of the Tang Dynasty. The occurrence of this incident not only meant that Wu Zetian began to take full power, but also laid the groundwork for Wu Zetian to become emperor a few years later.
In this process, the existence of the Tang Dynasty general Cheng Wuting undoubtedly played an extremely important role. It was precisely because he brought troops into the palace and fully supported Wu Zetian on behalf of the military that Wu Zetian was able to depose the emperor smoothly. Later historians generally recognized that without the support of this Tang Dynasty general, Wu Zetian would have wanted to successfully depose the emperor at that time, which was probably absolutely impossible.
However, what is strange is that Cheng Wuting made great contributions in this storm of deposing the emperor, but only a year later, Cheng Wuting was executed by Wu Zetian, and he was beheaded.
As a great hero of Wu Zetian's successful deposing of the emperor, why was Cheng Wuting killed by Wu Zetian? What kind of person is Cheng Wuting? Why are they qualified to represent the military and support Wu Zetian? What is the detailed story of the whole incident?
If we want to clarify these problems, we have to start with Cheng Wuting.
Cheng Wuting, a native of Quzhou County, Hebei Province. When many people see the name Cheng Wuting, they will definitely associate it with Cheng Yaojin, the founding hero of the early Tang Dynasty, for the first time. But in fact, Cheng Wuting had nothing to do with Cheng Biting Jin and Half a Dime, and his father was another general in the early Tang Dynasty, named Cheng Mingzhen. Although both are surnamed Cheng, the two families have no relationship.
Compared with Cheng Biting Jin, the name Cheng Mingzhen, many people may not be familiar with it. But in fact, this person is also very powerful in the right history. Cheng Mingzhen was born at the bottom, but he was a rare scholar and martial artist, and in his early years he followed Dou Jiande, the late Sui emperor, and served as a county commander under Dou Jiande. During his tenure as a county commander, his political achievements were outstanding. Later, after Dou Jiande was captured alive by Li Shimin at Tiger Prison Pass, Cheng Mingzhen also surrendered to the Tang Dynasty with his territory.
Later, shortly after Cheng Mingzhen surrendered, Dou Jiande's general Liu Heimin rebelled again. After that, Cheng Mingzhen fought with Liu Heimin as a general of the Tang Dynasty, and achieved great success. In order to get revenge on Cheng Mingzhen, Liu Heimin killed Cheng Mingzhen's mother and wife. After Liu Heimin was defeated and captured, Cheng Mingzhen also personally killed Liu Heimin.
Relying on this military merit, although Cheng Mingzhen was late in descending to Tang and was not a concubine of Li Shimin, he was still awarded the high-ranking official Houlu. Later, Cheng Mingzhen was made the Duke of Dongping Commandery and served as the governor of Yingzhou. After Li Shimin ascended the throne, Cheng Mingzhen was transferred to the post of Assassin of Puzhou.
Because before Cheng Mingzhen's entire family, they had all been killed by Liu Heimin. Therefore, after the surrender of Tang Dynasty, Cheng Mingzhen married a woman of the Li clan of Zhao County as a wife and gave birth to a child.
This child was Cheng Wuting, who later assisted Wu Zetian in deposing Emperor Wu Zetian.
The history books do not record the time of Cheng Wuting's birth, but judging from his life experience, Cheng Wuting should have been born during the Zhenguan years, that is, after Li Shimin ascended the throne. After Cheng Wuting was born, his father Cheng Mingzhen's career began to become smooth sailing, step by step. In the eighteenth year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin personally conquered Goguryeo, and Cheng Mingzhen served as the commander-in-chief of the Pyongyang Province. In the war against Goguryeo, Cheng Mingzhen made great contributions many times and gradually became a famous general in the Tang army.
Later, in the era of Li Zhi, Cheng Mingzhen served as the protector of Dongyi, and together with the famous general Su Dingfang, participated in the Tang Dynasty's war against Goguryeo, and achieved outstanding military achievements. However, before the Tang Dynasty could gradually weaken Goguryeo and completely destroy Goguryeo, Cheng Mingzhen died.
The Cheng family's family lineage is more or less like this. Such a special family lineage also led to Cheng Wuting's juvenile age, which was particularly different from others. Because he had a son again after his family was destroyed, after Cheng Wuting was born, his father was very strict with his education. When he was a teenager, he took him with him on the expedition.
Because of his father's reasons, Cheng Wuting successfully entered the military after becoming an adult. After that, relying on the military strategy given to him by his father, coupled with his own bravery and superiority, Cheng Wuting's promotion in the army was relatively smooth, and finally promoted to the right leader Wei Zhonglang.
In the military system of the Tang Dynasty, the right leader Wei Zhonglang general, the official position is actually not particularly high, but it is a bit special. Because of this official position, he commanded the Forbidden Army and was responsible for the defense of the imperial city.
It was this position that completely changed Cheng Wuting's life.
When Cheng Wuting was promoted to the position of the right leader Wei Zhonglang, it was the most sensitive period in the upper echelons of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, Li Zhi was still in power, but because he suffered from a serious headache, he could only let Empress Wu Zetian help him handle the government. In the process, Wu Zetian began to promote Hanmen disciples on a large scale, forming a so-called 'post-party'.
In order to compete for more power, Wu Zetian even did not hesitate to attack his son. Li Xian, who was originally made crown prince by Li Zhi, was the second son of Wu Zetian. However, it is rumored that Li Xian was the sister of Li Zhi and Wu Zetian, born of a secret affair, and later passed on to Wu Zetian. After Li Xian grew up, he also heard this rumor, so he and Wu Zetian began to fight for power. Soon thereafter, however, Li Xian was denounced for rebellion, and hundreds of armor bodies were found in Li Xian's mansion.
After this, Li Zhi also had to depose Li Xian and replace his third son, Li Xian, with the title of crown prince.
When Cheng Wuting took over as the commander of the Janissaries, it was when the crown prince Li Xian was preparing to fight with Wu Zetian for power, and he had not yet been deposed.
Although there is no detailed record in the history books, according to the analysis of later historians, it should be at this time that Cheng Wuting defected to Wu Zetian and became a person of Wu Zetian. Cheng Wuting's surrender is actually not surprising. After all, at that time, Wu Zetian was the most powerful in the dynasty, and even Li Zhi, who was the emperor, was often influenced by Wu Zetian.
After Cheng Wuting surrendered to Wu Zetian, Cheng Wuting's career path was naturally smoother. As the son of a famous general, Cheng Wuting's own military talent was very high, and he was quite prestigious in the military. Coupled with the full support of Wu Zetian, Cheng Wuting took power in the army, which became a natural thing.
In the less than ten years since then, Cheng Wuting began to be rapidly promoted and gradually became a big man in the military.
In 679 AD, the Eastern Turks in the north rebelled again. After that, the Tang Dynasty, with the famous general Pei Xingjian as the commander, conquered the Eastern Turk rebels. At the same time, Cheng Wuting was appointed Pei Xingjian's deputy. Judging from the current situation at that time, Cheng Wuting held this official position, and there was a very profound political meaning behind it. On the one hand, Cheng Wuting did have high military talent, and Wu Zetian let him take this position, which did not mean to let him brush military merit. After all, with the military strength of the Tang Dynasty at that time, coupled with the ability of the commander Pei Xingjian, this battle can almost be said to be victorious. Letting Cheng Wuting serve as his deputy was almost equivalent to sending military merit to his head, and then it was convenient to continue to promote him.
On the other hand, Cheng Wuting served as his deputy, and he did not have the intention of spying on Pei Xingjian. Because Pei Xingjian was almost the premier gangster within the military of the Tang Dynasty at that time. However, this big man opposed Wu Zetian's assumption of power and was considered a political enemy of Wu Zetian. Therefore, Wu Zetian was also worried at that time that after Pei Xingjian grasped the military power, he would be unfavorable to himself. And Cheng Wuting, as Wu Zetian's confidant in the military, went to monitor Pei Xingjian, which was naturally beyond reproach.
After that, as judged by the Tang dynasty's top brass, the Tang army quickly defeated the Turkic rebels, with almost no suspense. In this war, Cheng Wuting did play a great role, personally leading the army to defeat part of the main force of the Turkic rebels. After the war, relying on the relationship between the top level, Cheng Wuting was able to occupy more credit. Pei Yan, the prime minister, even claimed that the Turks were pacified, mainly due to Cheng Wuting.
Finally, with this military merit, Cheng Wuting was smoothly promoted to the rank of General of the Right Wu Wei.
Shortly after the end of the war in the north, it coincided with another Rebellion by the Hu people in northern Shaanxi, and Cheng Wuting once again led his troops to encircle and suppress it. This time the Hu people rebelled, the momentum was very great, and later he directly claimed the title of emperor. However, its scale was actually not very large, and it could not resist the Tang Army at all. After Cheng Wuting arrived, he quickly suppressed the rebels.
Relying on this merit of suppressing the rebellion, Cheng Wuting was promoted again to the rank of Grand General of Zuo Xiaowei and inspected the Zuo Yu Lin Army. Note that after this promotion, Cheng Wuting was actually equivalent to the supreme leader of the Janissaries in the capital. Most of the defense work in Beijing fell into his hands. This also laid the groundwork for the coup d'état that followed in the near future.
Not long after Cheng Wuting's promotion this time, Li Zhi, as the emperor, was completely out of health. In 683, the remnants of the Northern Turks once again rebelled against the Tang. In November, Cheng Wuting was appointed as shan Yudao's ambassador to appease the north, with full responsibility for the military affairs of the north. But less than a month after Cheng Wuting received his appointment, Emperor Gaozong of Tang died.
Because of Li Zhi's death, Cheng Wuting did not go to the north for the time being, but stayed in the capital and was responsible for the defense of the capital.
After Li Zhi's death, Li Xian, as the crown prince, successfully ascended the throne and became the fourth emperor of the Tang Dynasty. However, at this time, Li Xian did not have any real power.
Before Li Zhi's death, he had the chancellor Pei Yan assist Li Xian. And this Pei Yan happened to be Wu Zetian's person. In this way, Wu Zetian in the palace had the final say, and several important courtiers in the court, including Pei Yan, were all Wu Zetian's people. Cheng Wuting, who was in charge of guarding the capital, was still pulled up by Wu Zetian. By this time, the entire capital had fallen under the control of Wu Zetian.
In this regard, Li Xian was naturally not reconciled. When he was a prince before, Li Xian did not dare to fight with his mother for power. After all, before him, the abolition of his second brother Li Xian was still vividly remembered. However, now that Li Xian has become emperor, he naturally dares to fight for power. After that, Li Xian vigorously supported empress Wei's mother's family, hoping to create a foreign relative party to compete with Wu Zetian for power.
However, in front of Wu Zetian, Li Xian's means still seemed too tender.
Li Xian wanted to support the Wei family to ascend to the throne, and after the order arrived in Zhongshu Province, it was not carried out at all. Li Xian had ordered his elder brother-in-law Wei Xuanzhen to be appointed as a servant, but he was directly pushed back by the chancellor Pei Yan. In a fit of rage, Li Xian, in front of several important courtiers, openly declared, 'The whole world is mine!' Even if I give the whole world to Wei Xuanzhen, it is not impossible, is there still a waiter? ’
After Li Xian said this, Pei Yan immediately ran to Wu Zetian's side and went to make a small report. At this moment, Wu Zetian couldn't bear it.
In fact, Wu Zetian had already seen that Li Xian wanted to promote foreign relatives in order to compete with himself for power. Li Xian's words made Wu Zetian make up his mind to depose the emperor. Wu Zetian knew very well that if he did not depose the emperor again and let Li Xian play, it would probably be a matter of time before he lost power.
In February 684, at the behest of Wu Zetian, Cheng Wuting brought troops into the palace and completely controlled the palace. At the same time, Wu Zetian summoned hundreds of officials at the Qianyuan Palace and formally announced the deposing of Li Xian's position as emperor and the appointment of Li Dan as emperor.
In this coup, the existence of Cheng Wuting is undoubtedly the real top priority. As the supreme controller of the defense of the capital, Cheng Wuting's attitude directly determined whether Wu Zetian could successfully depose the emperor. If Cheng Wuting chose to support Li Xian, with the military power he had at the time, he would even be independent enough to launch a coup d'état and push Wu Zetian out of power!
But obviously, Cheng Wuting would never be able to do this.
In addition, because of the experience of extroverts in previous years, cheng Wuting today can indeed represent the Tang Dynasty military. I should say more here, in fact, in the novel, the descendants of the founding warriors of the Tang Dynasty actually do not exist. For example, Cheng Yaojin, Wei Chigong, Li Jing, Li Ji, Xue Rengui and others, they have descendants, but their descendants are actually not very high. And like Cheng Wuting, Lao Tzu was very cattle at that time, and his son's generation was still very cattle, looking at the entire Tang Dynasty, in fact, there were very few. In addition, before Cheng Wuting was transferred to the north, there were also many of Cheng Wuting's henchmen among the elite Tang army in the north.
Therefore, when Cheng Wuting stood on the court, controlled the entire imperial palace, and expressed his explicit support for Wu Zetian's abolition of the emperor. In fact, there is no suspense in this storm of abolishing the emperor.
On this day, Li Xian was officially deposed, and then he was renamed the King of Luling and exiled to Hubei. Li Dan, who then came to power, was a pure puppet and no longer dared to fight with Wu Zetian for power. At this point, the power of the Tang Dynasty had all fallen into the hands of Wu Zetian.
After the coup d'état was over, as the capital completely stabilized, Cheng Wuting also took the time to go to the north and clean up the Turks. I have to say that Cheng Wuting was indeed very capable of fighting, and after arriving in the north, the Turkic rebel party heard that Cheng Wuting had come, and directly fled with the wind, and did not dare to fight with the Tang army at all. In this way, the problem of the north was quickly solved by Cheng Wuting.
However, just as Cheng Wuting had just solved the northern Turkic rebels and returned to the capital, problems began to arise within the Tang Dynasty. With Wu Zetian officially deposing Li Xian, those Li family clans and Li Tang's former ministers stopped working and began to raise troops against Wu Zetian. Among them, especially the rise of Xu Jingye in Yangzhou, the most powerful.
After Xu Jingye raised an army, Wu Zetian asked Pei Yan, the prime minister, what pei Yan should do next. This time, however, Pei Huan did not support Wu Zetian anymore, but instead proposed that Wu Zetian return the government to Emperor Li Dan. Not only that, but several important central officials who had previously supported Wu Zetian's deposed emperor also sided with Pei Yan, hoping that Wu Zetian would return to Li Dan.
Before it was obviously a front, why did these central ministers relax after Xu Jingye raised his troops and support Li Dan instead? Could it be that these people are really so loyal to the Li family? Or are you really afraid of Xu Jingye?
Of course not!
In fact, the reason why these central ministers at this time would change to support Li Dan was actually not complicated. Before Pei Yan, they supported Wu Zetian because the interests of both sides were the same. The Empress and the Prime Minister joined forces, and the status of the two sides was almost equal. Pei Yan and Wu Zetian joined forces, also for higher status and power. However, with Wu Zetian in full power, Pei Yan did not grasp more power, but instead became a vassal of Wu Zetian!
Therefore, at this time, Pei Yan wanted to get more power, and the best choice was to support Li Dan instead. As long as Li Dan is in power, Pei Yan and other central important ministers can get more power and become real power subjects.
In the final analysis, it was actually because these central officials underestimated Wu Zetian's ambitions. After all, according to the past practice, it is already the ultimate for a woman to become the empress dowager in power. And the empress dowager who was able to depose the emperor independently was even more unprecedented. But Pei Yan couldn't imagine anything, Wu Zetian's ambitions were actually even greater, and what she wanted to do was a generation of empresses!
In this process, Cheng Wuting, as a military representative, has always been ambiguous. On the one hand, he was a person promoted by Wu Zetian, and it was inconvenient to face Wu Zetian hard.) On the other hand, Cheng Wuting was also a heavy minister and hoped to get more power, so he would naturally stand on Pei Yan's side.
However, these so-called central ministers would not have thought that Wu Zetian would not only be cruel to his own son, but even more cruel to these so-called allies! When these important courtiers discovered that Wu Zetian had greater ambitions, it was not that they did not think of resisting. For example, Pei Yan, the prime minister, once thought of directly launching a coup d'état and holding Wu Zetian hostage, but the matter was leaked and arrested. After that, Cheng Wuting wrote a letter to intercede for Pei Yan, and Wu Zetian directly put a hat of collusion and rebellion on him, sent someone to the military camp to arrest Cheng Wuting, and directly beheaded Cheng Wuting, connecting the whole family!
Several important ministers who had previously supported Wu Zetian's deposing of the emperor were all cleaned up by Wu Zetian without exception. After these important ministers were cleared out, Wu Zetian quickly replaced himself with his true confidants, and at the same time began to vigorously support the Wu family to take power and make every effort to clean up the Li family's clan. Relying on some thunderous means, Wu Zetian finally took complete control of the power.
If Cheng Wu Tingquan knew, he didn't know if he would regret it, and he shouldn't help Wu Zetian seize power.
Looking back at Cheng Wuting's life, it is not difficult for us to find that the biggest success of Cheng Wuting's life is actually to surrender to Wu Zetian's door, so he will be able to prosper in official fortune. But at the same time, it is precisely for this reason that he will eventually die and plague the door.
History proves that the matter of taking sides has never been absolutely correct. Taking the right side may reap greater benefits. But once you stand in the wrong position, you may bury yourself.
Sometimes, not taking sides and not being biased may be the best choice.