(Full text 2500 words, reading takes 5 minutes)
Friends who have watched court dramas may have heard such a sentence: the harem is not allowed to interfere in politics. This sentence actually has no practical effect, because in our Chinese history, the phenomenon of women participating in the politics of the dynasty has always existed, and there have been outstanding women in all dynasties who have supported and interfered in the operation of the entire dynasty in front of and behind the scenes, and their identities are mostly the wives of the emperor. However, in the ancient concepts of "family world" and "husband and wife", many times their power is only to borrow the emperor, which is equivalent to the extension of imperial power.
In the long river of Chinese history, only the Zhou Dynasty founded by Wu Cao, although only a short life span of fifteen years (October 16, 690 - February 21, 705), but it has made the power of Chinese women reach its peak, the impact on the entire history of China can be described as ancient and modern, today we will talk about the Wuzhou period, those who once shone in the political arena of the female leaders.
Speaking of the Tang Dynasty, the most heard of is Tang Taizong Li Shimin, who opened the "rule of Zhenguan", Zhenguan twenty-three years, Li Shimin died, all the harem concubines were going to fall, at this time the famous WuCao was among them, as Li Shimin's "talented person" in the Ganye Temple as a nun.
Li Shimin's son Li Zhi had always been fond of Wu Cao when he was crown prince, so after succeeding to the throne as Emperor Gaozong of Tang, he summoned Wu Cao from The Ganye Temple to the palace, deposed his original empress, and made Wu Cao the new empress.
Of course, there was also a purpose for changing Wu Cao's title to empress: Li Zhi's original empress Wang Clan, whose mother's family was the Taiyuan Wang clan of the Guanlong aristocratic military clique. In the Tang Dynasty, imperial power was always influenced by the GuanLong family.
When Li Zhi ascended the throne, he was relatively young and his seniority was relatively shallow, and some of the old families within the Guanlong Group began to try to compete for power. After Li Zhi ascended the throne, he first changed his wife, so that when he was in administration in the future, he would not be too much constrained by the Guanlong family, which could not only squeeze the living space of the Guanlong clique, but also further consolidate the imperial power. From this point of view, Wu Cao can even be seen as a representative of the official party in the world.
In the beginning, Li Zhi himself was able to be diligent in political affairs, and he had a leadership team left by his father Li Shimin, so he once governed the country very well, and history called this period "the rule of Yonghui".
But after a long time, there was a problem, Li Zhi's body was not very good, often had a headache and brain fever or something, once the attack occurred, it was easy to delay state affairs, so Li Zhi thought of a trick: let his empress, Wu Cao's classmates act as his own administrative affairs, when he went to the dynasty, let Wu Cao sit next to him, and when he encountered something, the two of them discussed it together, which is the famous "Second Holy Dynasty".
Later, Li Zhi often fell ill, and for a long time it was Wu Cao himself who decided on major state affairs, that is, during this period, Wu Cao co-opted his loyal courtiers, raised the power of his own family, and suppressed other forces opposed to him, and the power in his hands became greater and greater.
After Li Zhi's death, the crown prince Li Xian succeeded to the throne and became "Emperor Zhongzong of Tang", li Xian, the emperor was very magical and had an extremely profound impact on the historical development of the Tang Dynasty, but mainly because of several women around him.
Li Xian was the son of Li Zhi and Wu Cao, representing the orthodox Li Tang royal family, and when he succeeded to the throne, he was in the hands of his mother Wu Cao, so after Li Xian succeeded to the throne, he wanted to reorganize his own forces so that he could take back the power in his wife's hands.
Li Xian's wife was Empress Wei, who was born from the jingzhao Wei clan, which was very prominent at that time. Li Xian, bent on escaping his mother's control, desperately reused his empress's mother's family, and once wanted to promote Empress Wei's father Wei Xuanzhen to be a servant (in the position of prime minister), but some officials resolutely disagreed, Li Xian was furious, and said a famous sentence in the annals of history: "Even if I give the whole world to Wei Xuanzhen, why can't I?" Is it still stingy to be a servant? ”
After this matter was known to Wu Cao, it was not good, what kind of strong woman was Wu Cao? That's how he came to power, and now his son wants to go back to his old ways and let his daughter-in-law replace him? This cannot be tolerated. So he quickly got Li Xian down, not only abolished his throne, but also kicked him out of the center, Li Xian took his wife Wei Shi to Fangzhou together, on the way to Fangzhou, Wei Shi, who was pregnant with Liujia, gave birth to a baby girl on the way, Li Xian took off his clothes to wrap her, so he named the baby girl Li Shu'er (remember this name).
After Wu Cao deposed Li Xian, he replaced his other son Li Dan as emperor, "Tang Ruizong". Of course, the power is still in their own hands. Li Dan was placed under house arrest in the imperial palace, and not only could he not enter and leave the palace at will, but even in the palace he could not move freely, let alone foresee political affairs, and thus began the life of a puppet emperor.
Wu Cao did this, of course, there will be opposing ministers, such as the British Gong Xu Jingye, who directly raised troops against her in Yangzhou. The chancellor Pei Yan asked Wu Cao to take the opportunity to ask Wu Cao to return the government to Li Dan, and as a result, he was beheaded on charges of treason. Wu Cao directly sent 300,000 troops to suppress the Yangzhou rebellion, and Xu Jingye was defeated and killed.
With these examples, there were no more people in the DPRK who dared to oppose Wu Cao. After the power in Wu Cao's hands was further expanded, she listened to the words of her nephews Wu Sansi and Wu Chengsi and began to purge the Li Tang imperial family. Li Chong, the king of Langya, and Li Zhen, the king of Yue, rebelled against Wu Zetian, and as a result, they were both defeated and killed. Li Yuanjia the King of Han, Li Lingkui the King of Lu, Li Yuanlu the King of Huo, Li Shen the King of Ji, Li Xu the Prince of Jiangdu, Li Zhuo the Duke of Huangguo, Li Rong of Dongguan County, and Princess Changle were either forced to commit suicide, or beheaded Cao, or died in exile. Li Tangzong's chamber was almost slaughtered.
As emperor, Li Dan not only could not stop it, but also accompanied Wu Zetian to Luoshui to participate in his mother's "Bailuo Receiving Map" ceremony. And because he is both the emperor and the surname of Li, he is afraid and uneasy all the time, and every once in a while he has to take a fold on the wucao, to the effect that the son cannot govern the country, these military and state affairs still depend on the mother and father of you, you see that or you will abolish your son, if you are not at ease, the son can change his surname, and then he will be with your surname "Wu", all of them are family.
In 690, various forces: officials and people, Zong qi, Siyi chieftains, Shamen, and Daoist priests requested Wu Zetian to change the name of the country to Zhou, and the group of ministers called "Fengji Shangyang Palace, Chi que see the court", and Wu Caofang zhun asked him to climb the Zetianmen Tower on September 9, amnesty the world, change Tang to Zhou, and change Yuan Tianzhi. The capital luoyang (神都), with Chang'an as the capital, "took the emperor (Li Dan) as the imperial heir and gave the surname Wu".
In this way, the 67-year-old Wu Cao officially became emperor, established the Wuzhou Dynasty, stood at the peak of power in ancient China, and became the only orthodox female emperor in Chinese history.
End
The greater significance of Wu Cao's long reign and eventual becoming emperor is that it inspired people's imagination of women pre-government, becoming bureaucrats, and holding political power. It turned out that the emperor was not the exclusive title of a man, and it turned out that a woman could also become the head of state.
Of course, this is not to encourage everyone to learn Wu Cao, but to tell everyone that no matter what decision is made, it is necessary to act according to one's ability, and the matter of Wu Cao calling himself emperor is only a process in itself, behind which is Wu Cao's indestructible force in the DPRK, if Wu Cao himself does not have the support of this strength, where is her turn to be called emperor? He had already been drowned by the chancellor of the DPRK with spitting stars (of course, this did happen).
The blogger is a native of Luoyang, and Wucao has left too many marks on the daily life of the city of Luoyang: peony mythology, Longmen Grottoes, Heaven Mingtang, etc., there is a Wu Zetian Grand Theater in Gushui, and even now Wucao's stage plays will be staged from time to time. Whenever I see this, I can't help but sigh, no matter how history evaluates Wu Cao, there is a fact that what she left to future generations is still a beautiful country with all nations coming to the dynasty, rich and strong.
(End of the full text, thank you for watching, the picture is from the network)