In 655, Emperor Gaozong of Tang suddenly announced that he would depose his original empress Dowager Wang and make Wu Zetian empress.
This is the famous 'deposed king And Liwu' incident in history.
The incident of deposing Wang Liwu was a landmark event in the early Tang Dynasty. Since then, Li Zhi has not only completely secured the throne, but also struck a blow to the authority of the Guanlong clique. More importantly, Wu Zetian was made empress and began to take power from then on.
However, what many people may not imagine is that just five years ago, Wu Zetian was still a nun in the Ganye Temple. In just five years, Wu Zetian went from a nun to an empress.
So, how did Wu Zetian go from a nun to an empress? In these five years, what did Wu Zetian experience? And what impact did these things have on Wu Zetian?
Many people know that Wu Zetian was originally a talented person of Tang Taizong Li Shimin. During Li Shimin's serious illness, wu Zetian had a slight ambiguity with the crown prince Li Zhi when he was serving Li Shimin. After Li Shimin's death, according to the regulations at that time, Wu Zetian had to become a nun. However, shortly after Wu Zetian had just left home, Li Zhi met Wu Zetian again during his visit to the temple to burn incense, and the two soon rekindled their old feelings and began to have a private affair.
After that, Li Zhi's empress Wang Shi, in order to attack the favored concubine Xiao Shufei in the palace, divided Xiao Shufei's favor, which took Wu Zetian back to the palace. The history of Wu Zetian's struggle also began at this time.
According to the analysis of historians, Wu Zetian was most likely pregnant before entering the palace! Therefore, soon after entering the palace, Wu Zetian gave birth to a son, which was the later crown prince Li Hong.
With children, plus Wu Zetian is more understanding and knows how to please Li Zhi. So it didn't take long for Li Zhi to become more and more fond of Wu Zetian. Even Xiao Shufei, who was originally favored, was overpowered by Wu Zetian.
However, Wu Zetian, who experienced ups and downs in his early years, was not satisfied with simply being a concubine. So next, she set her sights on the position of queen.
Of course, it is not so easy to be a queen.
The reigning empress Wang Shi at that time was Li Zhi's wife. As early as when Li Zhi was still the King of Jin, he was already married to Li Zhi. In addition, Empress Wang was from the Taiyuan Wang clan and had a prominent family. His uncle Liu Yi served as the prime minister in the middle of the dynasty, and his power was monstrous. Many ministers in the court also firmly supported Empress Wang. Judging from the situation at that time, it was almost impossible for Wu Zetian to overthrow Empress Wang and ascend to the throne of empress.
After entering the palace, in the first year, because of the birth of a son, Wu Zetian was soon worshipped as Erpin Zhaoyi. For more than a year, Wu Zetian also took the simple route of palace fighting, trying to slander Empress Wang and Concubine Xiao Shufei in front of Li Zhi. In the courtroom, Wu Zetian also wanted to do his best to make friends with those ministers who had real power. It turned out that people were not willing to pay attention to him at all.
After a year of hard work, Wu Zetian found that his efforts, instead of making Li Zhi like himself more, were a little disgusted with him.
It wasn't until Wu Zetian had been in the palace for a long time and had seen the situation clearly that he found the key to the struggle.
The seemingly invulnerable Queen Wang is actually not without weaknesses. If you want to be a queen, you may not have a chance.
Wu Zetian's chance was that Li Zhi did not like Empress Wang.
There were two fundamental reasons why Li Zhi did not like Empress Wang. First, Empress Wang herself had limited fertility, and although she had been married to Li Zhi for many years, she had never had children.
Not having children is undoubtedly the biggest taboo for a queen.
Second, in order to consolidate her position, Empress Wang made extensive friends with the old courtiers in the court, and through their support, she sat firmly in the position of empress. But this is exactly what Li Zhi does not want to see.
After Li Zhi ascended the throne, what he wanted to do most was to fight for power from the hands of his old ministers. In order to achieve this goal, Li Zhi will vigorously promote foreign relatives, hoping that foreign relatives and old ministers will compete for power in order to achieve his goal. However, after Empress Wang did this, the foreign relatives joined forces with the old courtiers. At this point, Empress Wang's position was stable, but Li Zhi's position was unstable.
Since this was the case, if Wu Zetian could give Li Zhi what he wanted, then Li Zhi would naturally give her the position of empress.
What does Li Zhi want?
Quite simply, supreme power!
As long as Wu Zetian can help Li Zhi fight those old ministers and consolidate power, Li Zhi will naturally be extremely happy, which is what Li Zhi needs most.
Just at this moment, a sudden rebellion case once again sent an assist to Wu Zetian.
Four years after Yonghui, Fang Yi'ai plotted against him. Fang Yi'ai was the second son of Fang Xuanling, the famous xiangxiang during the Zhenguan period, and married Li Shimin's younger daughter, Princess Gaoyang. Because of some accidents, Li Zhi accidentally found out that the two people had a plan to rebel. Since then, the eldest grandson in charge of investigating the case has been even more shuntened and implicated a large number of clan members.
Logically, li zhi should be happy to solve a coup that has not yet occurred. But in fact, after this case, the real power clan room in the court was almost cleaned up. The eldest grandson, who is in charge of investigating the case, is the leader of the Lao Chen's party. After this rebellion, there began to be a dominant trend.
At this point, Li Zhi couldn't stand it.
What Li Zhi needed was a balance in the court. As this balance was broken, Li Zhi also began to have headaches about how to deal with the problem of the old minister party. If he is not careful, whether he can continue to do it as an emperor is a big problem.
After seeing this situation, Wu Zetian began to exert his strength.
However, the choice made by Wu Zetian was somewhat unexpected. Instead of contacting the powerful old courtiers, she chose to make friends with the most inconspicuous officials in the court.
The situation of the Tang Dynasty is more special, because it is connected to the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty, so the strength of the family clan is very strong, and it accounts for the largest proportion in the court. But at the same time, because the Tang Dynasty began to implement the imperial examination system, many people from ordinary families could also enter the dynasty as officials. These officials are called cold door officials.
At the beginning of Li Zhi's ascension to the throne, the situation of the Hanmen officials was not good. Because the family lineage is not good, it is often suppressed by the family officials, and the official position is generally not too high. However, Wu Zetian took a fancy to these officials who were not too high in position, and tried his best to make friends with them.
Judging from the later historical development, Wu Zetian's move is absolutely quite clever.
If you want to take the simple palace fighting route, whether it is in the court or in the family lineage, Wu Zetian is not the opponent of Empress Wang. But Wu Zetian knew better what Li Zhi wanted. If Wu Zetian could unite these cold officials to form a new political force and compete with the old ministers for power, it would definitely be something that Li Zhi dreamed of.
For more than a year after that, Wu Zetian began to actively make friends with Hanmen officials. At the beginning, these cold officials did not dare to stand up for Wu Zetian, let alone fight against the old ministers for Wu Zetian. After all, the gap in strength between the two sides is really too big. However, as time passed day by day, more and more officials befriended Wu Zetian, and this situation began to gradually change.
All that Wu Zetian did did not hide from Li Zhi. As an emperor, Li Zhi, after learning about these things, was happy to see them. As the political forces behind Wu Zetian became stronger and stronger, Li Zhi's attitude towards Wu Zetian gradually changed.
What really made Li Zhi completely change his attitude was an incident in Yonghui's five years.
In this year, Wu Zetian gave birth to a daughter for Li Zhi and was crowned Princess Anding. However, just over a month after the birth of this little princess, Empress Wang came to visit. During this period, Wu Zetian went out for a trip, and when he returned, he found that this little princess was actually dead!
There has been controversy in historians about the death of Princess Anding. Many people speculate that perhaps this is Wu Zetian deliberately killing his own daughter in order to fight for power. But from Li Zhi's point of view at that time, Li Zhi was obviously more willing to believe that it was Empress Wang who killed her daughter.
This incident made Li Zhi completely begin to dislike Empress Wang and begin to sympathize with Wu Zetian. Add to that what Wu Zetian had done before, and the situation in the court. Li Zhi finally began to have the idea of abolishing the queen.
Of course, even if it is Li Zhi, it is very difficult to abolish the queen. After all, behind Empress Wang, there was a lot of support from old courtiers. In the case of the dynasty at that time, if Li Zhi wanted to abolish the queen and the old ministers did not agree, the old ministers could completely deny Li Zhi's decision-making. Once that situation arises, Li Zhi's authority will be wiped out.
Therefore, Li Zhi's original idea was to get the support of the old ministers and let the old ministers support himself to abolish the queen.
Shortly thereafter, Li Zhi took Wu Zetian with him and openly went to the palace of the eldest son Wujie as a guest. Not only did he bring generous gifts, but he also gave the three sons of the eldest son Wujie the rank of official and knight, hoping that the eldest son Wuji, the leader of the old minister party, would be able to support himself and depose the queen. However, the eldest grandson is not stupid, knowing that after the abolition, it will affect the core interests of the old minister party. Therefore, although the eldest son Wuji accepted the gift, he still opposed li Wu Zetian as empress.
By this time, whether or not Wu Zetian could be made empress had become the key to whether Li Zhi could take power. So what followed was a simple harem struggle that began to evolve into a war between the emperor and his ministers. In this war, Wu Zetian stood firmly behind Li Zhi. And that queen, in order to maintain her own position, could only stand on the side of the old minister party.
At this time, the queen of the king actually had no chance of winning.
In the following year, Li Zhi began to help Wu Zetian as emperor to allocate cronies and help her to recruit those cold officials. The political power behind Wu Zetian was further enhanced. Of course, at this time, the officials of the Cold Gate still did not dare to offend the eldest son for the sake of Wu Zetian, and even more did not dare to fight with the old ministers for power.
But this balance was completely broken on one night in the sixth year of Yonghui.
At that time, there was a middle-level official named Li Yifu, who was born in a cold door and was usually favored by Wu Zetian. It was precisely for this reason that later, when Li Yifu made a mistake in his work and offended the eldest son Wujie, the eldest son Wuji directly waved a large pen and wanted to exile Li Yifu to Sichuan as an official.
Faced with the biggest crisis in his life, Li Yifu finally decided to fight once. Therefore, Li Yifu wrote a sonata that night with his life's talent, supporting Li Zhili Wu Zetian as empress, and then presented it. When Li Zhi received this list, he was even more overjoyed, and directly used the authority of the emperor to keep Li Yifu behind. The next day, when Li Yifu recognized himself in the court and supported Li Zhi's abolition, everything was completed.
The so-called of a thousand miles was destroyed by the ant nest. A lot of things, as long as someone takes the lead, the next step is easy. When Li Yifu began to openly express support for Wu Zetian, Xu Jingzong, Cui Yixuan, and other ministers who were usually good friends with Wu Zetian also stepped forward one after another and openly expressed their support for Wu Zetian.
Since then, Li Zhi has vigorously promoted these cold officials. And when these people began to make great strides in promotion, more and more cold officials, for their own interests, began to gather wildly. In a very short period of time, a cold door clique was formed that was enough to compete with the old minister party.
By this time, Li Zhi already had enough people to support him. His orders can already be carried out. Therefore, in the sixth year of Yonghui, Li Zhi formally decreed that Empress Wang be deposed and Wu Zetian be made empress.
In this way, Wu Zetian took advantage of the special situation in the court at that time and spent six years to change from a nun in the Ganye Temple to an empress of the dynasty.
After becoming empress, Wu Zetian found that his position was still unstable. Because those old ministers were still there, they would still oppose Wu Zetian for their own power and status. For Li Zhi, these old ministers, as well as the Guan Long clique behind them, were also a threat. Therefore, in order to consolidate his position, Wu Zetian began to spare no effort to suppress the old ministers in the next many years. It is not only to help him fight for power, but also to help Li Zhi sit firmly on the throne.
In the next four years, Li Zhi continued to vigorously promote Hanmen officials, and the political force represented by Wu Zetian became stronger and stronger. Therefore, four years later, in 659 AD, Wu Zetian hinted at Xu Jingzong and others, falsely accusing Changsun Wuji and others of plotting rebellion. After that, under the covert intervention of Wu Zetian and Li Zhi, although no evidence was found, he still exiled the eldest son Wuji and other old ministers. After these old ministers were exiled, they were all killed by Wu Zetian and cut down the grass and roots.
At this point, the group of Hanmen officials represented by Wu Zetian began to gradually occupy a favorable position in the court. The Laochen clique, which used to threaten Wu Zetian, could no longer pose any threat to her. At the same time, when Wu Zetian was made empress, her eldest son Li Hong was also made crown prince.
By this time, Wu Zetian's position as empress was already extremely stable, and no one could shake it anymore.