Speaking of Chinese female emperors, everyone will think of Wu Zetian first, in fact, in history, there are more than one woman who is called emperor, such as the daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei and Pan Chonghua, who was disguised as a baby boy and became emperor for fifty days at birth; Yelü Pusu of the Liao State was also called emperor.
Although these people also nominally became emperors, they were not recognized by the society of the time. Wu Zetian was very different from them, she was the first recognized emperor in the history of zhengyi, which can be said to be officially certified.
If you talk about the right emperor, there must be only Wu Zetian, but if you want to talk about the first person to be called emperor, it is not Wu Zetian, but a woman named Chen Shuozhen. And she and Wu Zetian also have a wonderful fate.
Teenagers are poor
Chen Shuozhen was born in the Qingxi area of Zhejiang during the Tang Dynasty, a place with dense rivers and green mountains and forests, which is a place with extremely rich products. With its excellent terrain, Qingxi's per capita GDP was also much higher than that of other places, so the imperial court's taxes were also heavier.
Even if the income is higher, people's lives are still miserable under the harsh taxes. After the death of Chen Shuozhen's parents, they took their sister to live together, the two were too young to work, so they were always hungry and full, and later after their sister was adopted, life was a little better.
Chen Shuozhen grew up in such a difficult life, and then was introduced to an official eunuch's house in the township to help. A year ago, Qingxi suffered a huge flood, and there was no harvest in the fields, and the imperial court not only did not open warehouses for disaster relief, but also continued to collect high taxes, resulting in the people's livelihood.
At that time, there were many people selling children and women, and these situations of the villagers were sad and indignant in Chen Shuozhen's eyes. Then, in order to help these refugees, she privately opened the owner's granary and distributed the grain to the poor people.
The consequence was that she was beaten and injured by the owner and locked up in the firewood room, and the villagers thanked her for her kindness, and organized the villagers to rush into the firewood house that night to rescue her, and then the families raised some coils for her to use on the way to escape.
Chen Shuozhen walked all the way for many days and finally escaped from Qingxi County, and one day she came to a place called Tiewei Mountain, which is surrounded by stone walls and iron walls, and ten natural stone gates. Chen Shuozhen felt that the environment here was quiet, so he stayed down and recuperated by the way.
During the convalescence period, her mind always flashed to the people of Li min who were overwhelmed by the various taxes of the imperial court, and an unprecedented idea arose in her mind, that is, to overthrow the current imperial court and become the emperor herself.
Call the road to the emperor
With the goal to see how to achieve it, Chen Shuozhen in order to reserve the strength of the uprising, so he used Taoism to develop his own followers. He also spread the news that he had met Taishang Laojun and had learned various spells from his true transmission, and was about to feather the Immortals.
Such a rumor soon spread among the people, but it also aroused the vigilance of the government, and the government subsequently arrested her and imprisoned her for plotting against her. But fortunately, the villagers took out money to dredge her and was acquitted.
Subsequently, in order not to expose more information, she took the initiative to settle down, during which she practiced a high-strength martial art through the guidance of a master. At the age of 19, her compatriot Zhang Shuyin killed the local rich man and was arrested by the government, and Chen Shuozhen disguised himself as a man to rescue him.
In order to avoid being pursued and killed by the government, Chen Shuozhen fled to Yangzhou alone to find his uncle for refuge, but he did not expect that his uncle's family had already gone north to Chang'an. In desperation, she had to go north in full dress, and a month later she finally met her uncle who was kind and charitable.
My uncle was very happy to see that she was extraordinary and strong in martial arts. But Chen Shuozhen still had a case, so her uncle asked her to go to the Ganye Temple in anonymity to bring her hair to practice. Later, with the help of his uncle, Chen Shuozhen's rebel forces were able to grow.
Her uncle knew that she had great talent and did not lose to the boy, and volunteered to go to tell her, going south and north to meet various heroes. In addition, my uncle has also made friends with Sifang Haojie in business over the years, so this matter has been handled very smoothly.
Later, Chen Shuozhen also contacted Zhang Shuyin, who was in charge of propaganda work in Qingxi. The main thing was to spread the news that Chen Shuozhen had traveled from heaven to Qingxi, and said that she had boundless mana and could control ghosts and gods. As a result, her former followers responded and joined her rebel army.
Chen Shuozhen was called "Huini" when she was in Ganye Temple, where she also had a relationship with Wu Zetian. At that time, tang taizong had just died, and Wu Zetian was summoned to the Ganye Temple to cut his hair as a nun. One day in the first year of Yonghui, the disciples in the capital went to the Ganye Temple.
In the temple, when they saw the talented Wu Zetian, they became interested and wanted to tease this charming little nun. Just when Wu Zetian didn't know how to get out, Chen Shuozhen rushed out with a firewood stick, and three times five divided by two knocked out the group of rogues.
In this way, the two people met under such a source, one was erudite and the other was a martial artist, and the two felt sorry for each other and called each other sisters in this temple.
Soon after, Wu Zetian was taken back to the palace by Emperor Gaozong of Tang, and when he was parting, Chen Shuozhen took her hand and said, "When the war starts two years later, I hope you can help me when the time comes."
Called the Emperor's Uprising
In the fourth year of Yonghui, Zhang Shuyin and Tong Yibao went to The Ganye Temple to find Chen Shuozhen and explained to her in detail the various preparations they had made for the uprising in the past three years. They all thought that the time was ripe, so they asked Chen Shuozhen to go south to launch an uprising.
Chen Shuozhen rushed to Tianzhuang after arranging the internal line in Chang'an, and one day in early October, with Chen Shuozhen's order, he launched a peasant uprising against Tang. She proclaimed herself "Emperor Wenjia", appointed Zhang Shuyin as a servant and Tong Yibao as a general, and established a political power modeled on the Tang official system.
After the uprising began, Chen Shuozhen and they received responses from all sides, and in a short period of time, they grew to thousands of people. Subsequently, Chen Shuozhen and Zhang Shuyin's soldiers went to conquer the Muzhou area and Tonglu in two ways, and the local people supported them, and the rebel army immediately grew to tens of thousands.
Not long after, all the small and large counties in the Muzhou area were taken into chen Shuozhen's pockets, and at this time, the government and the opposition were shaken, and they quickly adopted a policy of population control to prevent the people from joining the ranks of the rebel army. Chen Shuozhen had already turned his horse's head and rushed to Shexian County, Anhui, but shexian was heavily defended and difficult to conquer for a while.
Therefore, Chen Shuozhen withdrew from SheXian county and changed the way of concentrating forces to attacking in a decentralized manner. She ordered Tong Yibao to lead 4,000 people to sneak into Wuzhou, and after successfully entering Wuzhou, she began a strong attack. Wuzhou Assassin Shi Cui Yixuan heard the news and immediately organized civilian officials and military generals to send troops to resist.
Subsequently, Chen Shuozhen also led a large army to Wuzhou to support Tong Yibao, Cui Yixuan was experienced in hundreds of battles and brave and strategic, not so easy to deal with. Moreover, most of the rebels were from peasant families, did not undergo strict military training, and did not have the weapons to attack the city.
But the Tang army was different, they all had sophisticated weapons and equipment, and the officers and men were well trained. Although there were many rebel soldiers, it was still a bit difficult to really fight with the Tang Army. Soon the two armies were in a stalemate.
One night a meteor in the sky slid down, just in the direction of Chen Shuozhen's tent. Cui Yixuan immediately released a rumor saying that "Chen Shuozhen will fall from the stars and will be doomed to a catastrophe." Sure enough, the morale of the rebel army began to decline, and then in the battle of Xiahuai, the Tang army beheaded hundreds of rebels and surrendered tens of thousands of people.
Chen Shuozhen was defeated in this battle, and then she and Zhang Shuyin were arrested and heroically rebelled. Before her death, she still pinned her hopes on Wu Zetian in Chang'an City, but at this time, Wu Zetian understood better than anyone that such an uprising could not succeed, and she could not help outsiders to rebel against her husband.
Chen Shuozhen's time from the rise of the emperor to the defeat of the army was short and small, but he showed the spirit of fearlessness and courage to fight. Therefore, she was also rated by history as "the first person to call herself a female emperor", although it cannot be included in the canonical history, but people still recognize her bravery.