The long river of history is running endlessly, there are calm waves, there are also waves, let Xiaobian take you into history and understand history.
On May 26, 2003, Li Shimin, the lord of the tang dynasty, suffered from a serious illness and was ineffective in his treatment, and died in the Cuiwei Palace hanfeng hall, dying at the age of fifty-two. When Li Shimin was dying, he appointed the ministers Sun Wuji and Chu Suiliang as auxiliary ministers, and he called the crown prince Li Zhi and the crown princess Wang Shi to the hospital bed, and said to the eldest son Wuji and Chu Suifu Yuliang: "This good child and good wife are entrusted to the Qing family", and let them take good care of Li Zhi and his wife with all their loyalty and wisdom.
This Wang clan was the empress dowager of the later Tang Gaozong Zhenggong. Empress Wang was born from the Taiyuan Wang clan, a powerful clan at that time, and the family had been an official eunuch for generations, and the crown was like a cloud. Empress Wang is not only beautiful and moving, but also gentle and virtuous, and is a typical virtuous wife and mother. Originally, her life seemed to have a splendid future, who knew that she had a bad year, and met another woman, Wu Zetian, who made her life reversed.
Although Wu Zetian is a female stream, he has ambition and boldness that ordinary men cannot reach. Her identity at that time was only a zhaoyi of ordinary status, and she was not even qualified to sit down when she saw empress wang. However, Wu Zetian had a desire for power that was difficult for ordinary people to reach, and empress Wang's position as the lord of the six palaces became the first target of her coveting. After a fierce battle, the meek Empress Wang and the spicy Concubine Xiao Shu eventually became her subordinates, and the jade died and Wu Zetian became the Empress of the Tang Dynasty as she wished.
Wu Zetian became empress, and since then she has officially sided with the Imperial Power System of the Tang Dynasty, with the qualifications and opportunities to interfere in the government of the Dynasty, and is one step closer to her ultimate goal of dominating the world. However, on Wu Zetian's road to becoming emperor, the biggest obstacle was not Empress Wang, but the sons of Emperor Gaozong of Tang.
Because according to the custom of the transfer of imperial power, after a hundred years of Li Zhi, he would select one of his princes as the new emperor of the Tang Dynasty. In this way, Wu Zetian could only be an empress dowager at best, which was obviously far from satisfying Wu Zetian's ambitions. Her goal was not only to take the imperial power in her arms, but also to be a female emperor in a proper and dignified manner.
In order to get to this point, Li Zhi's princes became an obstacle that she had to remove. Li Zhi had eight sons, four of whom were born to Wu Zetian. The other four, Crown Prince Li Zhong, Emperor's second son Li Xiao, Emperor's third son Li Shangjin, and Emperor's fourth son Li Sujie, were all born to other concubines.
Among the several princes who were not born to Wu Zetian, the emperor's second son, Li Xiao, died early and escaped a disaster. Crown Prince Li Zhong was deposed by Emperor Gaozong of Tang at the instigation of Wu Zetian in the first year of Xianqing, and was sent to Qianzhou, where he was killed in 664 for treason. In 690, Wu Zetian instructed his confidant Wu Chengsi to falsely accuse the emperor's third son Li Shangjin and fourth son Li Sujie of rebellion, and as a result, Li Sujie was given death and Li Shangjin committed suicide.
The temptation of imperial power caused Wu Zetian to fall into a state of madness, not even sparing his own flesh and bones. Several of her own sons have also become thorns in her eye, and they will be removed quickly. In the first year of Xianqing, Li Hong, the eldest son of Wu Zetian, was made crown prince. In April of the second year of the first century, Li Hong, while accompanying his parents on an inspection tour, was poisoned to death by Wu Zetian with duck wine in Luoyang, at the age of 23.
In the second year of the First Century, Wu Zetian's second son, Li Xian, was made crown prince. Li Xian was clever and alert, and immediately realized that the crisis was coming, and he was panicked from then on. In the fourth year of Yi Feng, Li Xian was deposed by Wu Zetian for the crime of rebellion, and Yongchun was sent to the deserted Bazhou in the second year. According to the usual methods of Wu Zetian's whole people, prisoners are often assassinated by various means after arriving at the penal colony.
Li Xian, who had become a prisoner, knew that his death was approaching, and wrote a poignant and moving poem "Huangtai Gua Ci": "Under the yellow stage of planting melons, the melons are ripe and departed." One pick makes the melon good, and then picks the melon thin. Three picks are still acceptable, four picks are hugging the vines." This poem is only 30 words, using metaphorical brushwork, alluding to Wu Zetian for the sake of imperial power at the expense of killing his own flesh and bones, destroying human nature, exposing her murderous and tyrannical inner world, and also permanently recording Wu Zetian's journey of killing his parents and children for imperial power. Soon after Li Xian arrived in Bazhou, he was forced to commit suicide by Wu Zetian's confidant Qiu Shenji.
This poem was widely circulated at that time, and perhaps Wu Zetian also saw it, and was touched to stop the pace of killing his own flesh and bones. In the first year of guangzhai, Wu Zetian's third son Li Xian, who had been emperor for a few days, was given Fangzhou, and in the first year of the heavenly mandate, the fourth son, Li Dan, was deposed and placed under house arrest in the palace after being emperor for a few days, but they were all able to save their lives in the end. Under the aura of ancient imperial power, there are many shocking sins and darkness hidden.
Well, today's sharing ends here, and we'll see you next time