What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Lai Junchen (651 – June 26, 697), a native of Yongzhou. A famous cool official during the reign of Wu Zetian. Because of the trust of Wu Zetian for informing, he successively served as a servant of Yushi, Zuotai Yushi Zhongcheng, and Si Shu Shaoqing, organized hundreds of rogues to inform, set up a court of justice, Daxing Prison, and wrote the "Luo Weaving Classic" with his henchmen Zhu Nanshan and others, manufactured all kinds of cruel torture devices, used methods such as extorting confessions, and arbitrarily fabricated crimes to cause death, and thousands of ministers and clans were killed by them.
From his youth, Lai Junchen was a devious, capricious, sinister and evil person. Originally a vagrant who did not produce, he later became a hooligan, did not produce, and finally one day was arrested and imprisoned for committing adultery and theft. Lai Junchen's biggest hobby in prison is "false whistle-blowing".
Lai Junchen was rewarded by Wu Zetian for falsely accusing Shi Wang. It is said that Wu Zetian made an exception to receive Lai Junchen. In an instant, Lai Junchen was worth a hundred times, and Wu Zetian "thought he was loyal, moved to serve the imperial history, and added a dynasty to the san dafu.". Later, when trying the cases assigned by Wu Zetian, anyone who did not meet his wishes was punished with a series of criminals, and the elder and young had to sit in their clans, and once they were killed, they were more than a thousand families.
Later, he formed a friendship with Hou Sizhi and Wang Hongyi, and finally even tried to frame the wu kings, princess Taiping, Zhang Yizhi, and other most trusted figures of Wu Zetian. He also tried to falsely accuse the imperial heir Li Dan and Li Xian, the king of Luling, of plotting against him, but was denounced by Wei Sui, and the kings of the Wu clan and princess Taiping took the opportunity to expose the various sins of Lai Junchen, and were finally executed by order of Wu Zetian. After Lai Junchen was executed, his cool officials were exiled to Lingnan, and the terrible "cool official politics" that lasted for fourteen years came to an end.
Why did Lai Junchen get the reuse of Wu Zetian? Why was he killed by Wu Zetian?
He was reused because he guessed Wu Zetian very thoroughly, and he was killed because he did not study Wu Zetian thoroughly.
First of all, Lai Junchen knew that Wu Zetian was originally a woman. In ancient times, the status of women was originally very low, and they actually became emperors, how could this matter not be opposed? Besides, Wu Zetian took Li Tang's Jiangshan, and how many people's interests were involved! Therefore, at that time, whether it was Li Tangzong's family, the chancellor of the DPRK, the son of Wu Zetian, or even the common people of the world, the resistance was very fierce. There are also some people who may not have anything to do with them, but they want to fish in muddy waters and get benefits, so they also rebel. With so many people rebelling, in order to sit firmly on the throne, Wu Zetian naturally had to crack down on them, and it was a severe crackdown. Only by striking at these people and eliminating these opposing forces can Wu Zetian's throne sit firmly.
In order to solve this problem, Wu Zetian was born. Because cool officials can extort confessions through torture, they use all kinds of torture to make people survive and not die. When these people can't survive and can't die, they may say that they have any sins, and they will accept it and sign it. In this way, Wu Zetian had a "legitimate" reason to get rid of these people. Lai Junchen was exactly the candidate for the cool official that Wu Zetian needed.
Secondly, on the surface, it was because Lai Junchen had played with fire, and he actually got the Princess Taiping and the family of Wu. In fact, in essence, the reason why Wu Zetian wanted to kill Junchen was because the "cool official politics" was temporary, and finally it had to return to the "imperial power politics". "Imperial politics" is to reflect the vastness of imperial grace. And killing these cool officials happened to be Wu Zetian's manifestation of the emperor's mighty grace. Because these cool officials brought disaster to the people of the world, and Wu Zetian killed these cool officials, the people of the world would support Wu Zetian and think that she was not a cruel king, but a saintly king. Those who used to disobey her will now be grateful to her in turn.
Therefore, Lai Junchen guessed thoroughly but did not study thoroughly, and it has to be said that it is a tragedy.