The eldest grandson Wujie, the first meritorious servant of the Lingyange pavilion in the Tang Dynasty, the entrusted minister of Tang Taizong Li Shimin, was awarded the title of Tai Wei (太尉) and Tong Zhongshu Menxia Sanpin (同中書門下三品) after Emperor Gaozong of Tang ascended the throne, which can be described as one person under ten thousand people. However, in 659, ten years after Li Zhi succeeded to the throne, he was exiled to Qianzhou (黔州, in modern Pengshui County, Chongqing) and eventually hanged himself. Behind the lamentable ending is the trade-off between the forces of the Hanmen and Guanlong military cliques.
I. A Powerful "Uncle of the Nation"
In the fifth year of Yonghui (654), Li Zhi planned to depose Empress Wang and establish Wu Zhaoyi (Wu Zetian) as empress, in ancient times, the abolition was a major event, which was undoubtedly very difficult for Li Zhi, who had recently succeeded to the throne, and moreover, The empress Wang's status was prominent, and she must be opposed by the ministers, and the attitude of the head of the courtiers, Sun Wujie, was very important.
Therefore, Li Zhi and Wu Zetian took the initiative to visit the home of the eldest grandson Wuji, rewarded Jin Baojin With Ten Cars during the feast, and appointed his three sons as chaosan masters, and implied that the empress was childless. However, the eldest grandson Wu Ji pretended not to understand Li Zhi's meaning, and gu was talking about him. Li Zhi could only return home, and later, Wu Zetian's mother Yang Shi repeatedly went to the home of the eldest grandson Wuji to request it, and Xu Jingzong, the rebbe shangshu, also persuaded him, but all of them were rejected by Wuji Zhengse. Why did the emperor condescend to take the initiative to show favor to the minister?
Because Changsun Wuji is not a person, but represents a very powerful force for more than a hundred years- the Guan Long Group. This group included the Yuwen clan who founded northern Zhou, the Yang clan who founded the Sui Dynasty, the Li clan who founded the Tang Dynasty, as well as the Dugu clan and the incomparably powerful Changsun clan who had produced six empresses (Changsun Wuji's father, Sun Sheng, was a northern Zhou general, and his sister Empress Changsun was Li Shimin's wife and Li Zhi's biological mother), so the Guanlong clique was a community of interests, and the group had long intermarried with each other, intertwined, and controlled the power for a long time.
The empress Wang that Li Zhi wanted to depose was from the Taiyuan Wang clan, a famous northern dynasty, a prominent position, not only was a descendant of western Wei heavy subjects, and her parents were also in-laws of the Tang dynasty royal family, belonging to the military group of Guanlong nobles. Therefore, Li Zhi and Wu Zetian faced not only a powerful eldest grandson, but a powerful clique force.
Let's take a look at the eldest son Wujie, the eldest son Wujie is the head of the twenty-four heroes of Lingyange, is Li Shimin's most trusted confidant, from Li Shimin's cavalry to the change of Xuanwumen, the eldest son Wuji has always followed around, belongs to the entrepreneurial elder level, after Li Shimin's death became the first assistant chancellor of the dynasty, plus the identity of Li Zhi's uncle, in the words of the courtier Xu Jingzong at that time: shaking Mount Tai is easy, shaking the uncle of the country is difficult.
Wu Zetian was the representative of the Han gate forces, and had been suppressed by the eldest son Wuji, a family of door valves, which affected his way of ascending. In the face of the powerful gate valve military nobles, the cold door represented by Wu Zetian combined with the imperial power to prepare to overthrow the monopoly of the Military Nobles of Guan Long.
Second, the counterattack of Hanmen Zhaoyi
Although Uncle Guo was strong, he faced an even more powerful opponent, Wu Zetian. After the failure of the co-optation, Wu Zetian began the first step: to divide the relationship between the eldest son and the emperor, often saying bad things about the eldest son in front of Li Zhi, saying that the eldest son had no scruples to despise the imperial power, and Li Zhi, with the encouragement of Wu Zetian, decided to cut off with the eldest son, no longer "only the uncle is the head of the horse".
The second step was to gather the forces of the Han Dynasty, first to co-opt the Rebbe Shangshu Xu Jingzong, who had become the vanguard of support for Wu Zetian, and then to Li Yifu, who was a zhongshu she, who had been caught by his eldest grandson Wujie and demoted to Sima of Bizhou. Wu Zetian hurriedly told Li Yifu the news, suggesting that Li Yifu supported his establishment, so Li Yifu wrote a proposal overnight that Li Zhaoyi be the successor and asked to see Emperor Gaozong. The result of Emperor Gaozong's summons to the Yifu was that he had revoked his edict to move to the left and remained in his current post. Another doudou was given to the pearl jade. The next day, Wu Zhaoyi sent a secret envoy to the Yifu Mansion to offer condolences and encouragement.
At the same time, under the operation of Wu Zetian, Li Zhi transferred back an old qualified minister, Du Zhenglun. Du Zhenglun was also a confidant of Li Shimin, because the affairs of the crown prince Li Chengqian were implicated. Now Li Zhi also got Du Zhenglun back to be the prime minister, and this time Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi's waist rod suddenly hardened.
The third step was to split the power of the elders and heavy ministers, and as Wu Zetian's side gradually encircled the eldest son Wuji, a group of korean and Chinese officials who supported Li Wu Zhaoyi as the successor gathered, including the heavy minister Li Ji, and when Li Zhi asked for his opinion, he actually said that this was a private matter of the emperor's family, and there was no need to ask others, which was equivalent to the support and acquiescence after the confrontation. At this time, the eldest grandson was powerless.
In the sixth year of Yonghui, Wu Zhaoyi finally won the victory in the difficult and difficult struggle and was made empress, which marked the victory in the first round of the game between the Hanmen forces and the Guanlong military clique.
Third, the eldest grandson is not afraid to go out
At this time, Wu Zetian was no longer the weak Wu Zhaoyi, she was rapidly rising as the representative of the Cold Gate Forces, preparing to overthrow the GuanLong military clique at the peak of power.
Wu Zetian's style of play is to first cut off its wings and then uproot them. First, he continued to belittled Chu Xuliang,who had already been degraded (when Emperor Gaozong asked him for the advice of Li Wu Zhaoyi, he not only disagreed, but also broke his head on the ground in front of Emperor Gaozong, and was degraded with disrespect for blood), first moving his left to Guizhou (present-day Guilin) in Lingnan as the governor of Guizhou (present-day Guilin), and soon after, moving him left to Aizhou (present-day Thanh Hoa, Vietnam). He then sent a powerful figure of the Wu Jie faction in the middle of the dynasty to stab the history of Zhenzhou (present-day the southernmost tip of Hainan), and Zhongshu ordered Laiji to move to Taizhou (present-day Linhai County, Zhejiang) to stab the history. In this way, in the center, all the unscrupulous siblings were cut off.
At the same time, he was also the first meritorious servant of the post, Li Yifu, to the position of prime minister, and later concurrently served as the right son of the crown prince. In March, Li Yifu was also appointed zhongshu ling and inspector of the imperial history, making Li Yifu a veritable figure of real power. Together with Xu Jingzong, who was first listed as prime minister, he formed the Wuhou faction's death party.
At this time, Wu Zetian decided to make a complete showdown, and secretly ordered Xu Jingzong to look for an opportunity to attack Wujie. In 659, Xu Jingzong and others secretly played Li Zhi, saying that the inspector Yushi Li Chao had colluded with Changsun Wujie and was very likely to rebel, and advised Li Zhi to arrest Changsun Wujie as soon as possible. Li Zhi also did not confront the eldest son Wujie, so he issued an edict to strip him of his official position and fiefdom, and exiled to Qianzhou. The eldest grandson Wu Ji's sons were all deposed and exiled to Lingnan.
The eldest grandson of the quan dynasty was taken down in this way, but this was not the final outcome, and Wu Zetian generally would not leave the regret of "spring wind blowing and growing again"! Less than half a year later, Emperor Gaozong of Tang asked Li Ji and Xu Jingzong to review the case of Changsun Wujie's conspiracy, and Xu Jingzong received a secret order from Wu Zetian, so he sent Yuan Gongyu, a Zhongshu sherman, to Qianzhou to interrogate Wu Ji for the crime of conspiracy, and Yuan Gongyu forced the eldest son to hang himself.
After the brutal political game between the two sides, it ended with the defeat of the Changsun Wuji and Guan Long military cliques. After killing the eldest son Wu Ji, Wu Zetian fully demonstrated his superb political skills. After cutting off the Changsun clan, Wu Zetian's target became the Li clan, and Li Shimin's descendants were almost killed. In the end, Wu Zetian ascended to the throne and became the only empress!