Today is April 1st, for many fans and fans, this is a special day, is their eternal pain, because today, 18 years later, it is the day when his brother Zhang Guorong died.
The image comes from the Internet
In fact, from a historical point of view, April 1 is also a relatively special day.
More than a thousand years ago, the first female emperor in Chinese history ascended the throne on April 1.
However, this empress was not Wu Zetian, but a Yuan girl of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Unlike Wu Zetian, this Yuan girl was still a baby in her infancy when she ascended the throne, and she was naturally a puppet.
The actual ruler of the Northern Wei Dynasty at that time was her grandmother Empress Dowager Ling.
This Grandmother Hu made her granddaughter emperor and made a great April Fool's Day joke with the world of that era.
01
Bizarre origins
This incident is just a small episode in Empress Hu's constantly tossing and turning life, and she is notorious for not leaving a name in the annals of history.
According to historical records, when Empress Hu Ling was born, there was a vision in her home, "red light and four illuminations", beautiful and sacred.
In the face of this vision, the Northern Wei minister Hu Guozhen was also very confused, so he found Zhao Hu, who was "good at buxiang", and showed his newborn daughter a picture.
This Zhao Hu didn't know if it was a swindling product, or if he really had two brushes, and he praised this baby girl, saying that her face was very expensive, "Fang is the mother of heaven and earth, and the lord of heaven and earth is born."
That is to say, this baby girl will be the mother of the country in the future, and the child born will be the emperor.
At the end, this god stick also told him: Don't let the third person know about this!
After Hu became an adult, his father Hu Guozhen used all available resources to pave the way for his daughter and tried every means to marry her daughter to the emperor.
Therefore, Hu's aunt, who was a nun, took advantage of the opportunity to enter the palace to preach and repeatedly boasted to others about her niece Hu's beautiful appearance and good conduct.
After coming and going, Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei also heard these rumors and summoned Hu shi into the palace as his concubine.
02
I'd rather die than have a son
In many costume films and televisions, you can see such a scene:
The concubines of all walks of life competed for the sake of Bo Tianzi's smile. This is not only to gain the favor of the emperor, but also to give birth to the emperor as a capital to consolidate his position through the spring breeze with the emperor.
If you are lucky, maybe the prince will be lucky enough to become the future emperor, and then he and his family will naturally have unlimited scenery.
However, in the Northern Wei Dynasty in which the Hu clan lived, concubines preferred to have daughters rather than sons.
The reason why such an anomalous phenomenon occurs is because of a cruel and perverted system: the killing of mothers and children.
This system was abused during the reign of Emperor Liu Che of the Western Han Dynasty. In his later years, Emperor Wu of Han made his youngest son Liu Fuling crown prince, and at the same time issued an edict to kill Liu Fuling's birth mother, Lady Hook Yi.
Besides, Tuoba Jue, the founder of the Northern Wei Dynasty, once tied up his maternal grandfather and gave it to Former Qin Jianjian. How old Tuoba Jue was at that time, and being able to do such a thing was most likely the masterpiece of Tuoba Jue's mother.
(Tuoba Jue's father died early, Tuoba Jue's maternal grandfather was still powerful, and married Tuoba Jue's mother, which counted as father-daughter incest)
With this psychological shadow, Tuoba Jue made "killing a mother and a son" an ancestral precept.
In the Northern Wei Dynasty, having a son was no longer an honor, but rather a lifeline. If the son of a certain concubine is made crown prince, it means that she herself is not far from the time of death.
Therefore, in the Northern Wei Palace at that time, when the empress dowager was pregnant, she would be worried and run to pray to the heavens, "All wish to give birth to kings and princesses, and do not want to give birth to princes." Even in order to survive, some people will secretly have abortions.
Hu Shi was worthy of being a woman who was prophesied by the god stick to be the mother of the country, and did not take the usual path, and when the harem sisters expressed their unwillingness to bear a son for the emperor, she said a sentence in awe, "How can the Son of Heaven have no son alone, why is he afraid of the death of his body and make the royal infertile? ”。
Hu's fearless spirit of sacrifice touched Xuanwu Yuanke. Soon, she became pregnant.
The harem sisters once again moved out of the old system of the Northern Wei Dynasty and advised her to make plans early and not to die in vain for the sake of giving birth to a son. Hu Shi not only did not listen, but also secretly swore in the middle of the night, "But the man he conceives is a man, and the second son is the eldest son, and the son is born and dies, so he will not quit."
Pregnant in October, Hu did give birth to a baby boy. This child was the future Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei.
03
The empress dowager who twice came to the court to listen to the government
In October of the first year of Yanchang (512), Yuan Xue, who was only three years old, was made crown prince.
Xu was a believer in Buddhism and could not bear to kill, and Xu was moved by hu's dedication, and Xuanwu Emperor Yuan Ke finally abolished the cruel system of "killing mothers and children".
Hu escaped the disaster.
However, Yuan Ke did not expect that one of his acts of kindness would lay the foundation for the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Three years later, Yuan Ke died, and the power of the imperial government fell into the hands of Empress Gao Ying and the powerful minister Gao Zhao.
Gao Ying originally wanted to execute Yuan Xue's biological mother, Hu Shi, but the eunuch Liu Teng colluded with the ministers Hou Gang, Cui Guang, and Yu Zhong to save Hu Shi.
Under their operation, Hu Shi once again escaped from death, but was sent out of the palace and strictly guarded.
Because Gao Zhao's authoritarian power had offended many people, the Northern Wei emperor Gaoyang Wang Yuanyong and Qinghe Wang Yuanyi colluded with the chancellor Yu Zhong and others to launch a coup d'état and kill Gao Zhao.
With the fall of the Gao family, the Hu clan came and went, not only jumping from a prisoner to an imperial concubine, but also driving empress dowager Gao Ying to Yaoguang Temple as a nun, and then officially promoted to empress dowager.
The prophecy of Zhao Hu has finally become a reality.
Due to the young age of his son, the Hu clan followed the example of the civilized empress Feng and began the career of the female protagonist to listen to the government.
However, Hu Shi did more than the Civilized Empress, because she not only openly transgressed in her behavior and acted on behalf of the emperor, but also "changed the order and called the edict", so that the courtiers called her "Your Majesty" in the letter, and she herself called herself "Yuan". This is almost indistinguishable from the emperor, only a name is missing.
For a lonely young woman in the deep palace, of course, it is not enough to have power, but also to have a beautiful male paper to soothe her lonely and empty heart.
"Wake up to the power of the world, drunkenly lying on the knees of beautiful men", what a pleasant life.
As a result, Empress Dowager Hu and Yuanyi, the King of Qinghe, began a life of cohabitation without shame and boredom, although the other was her little uncle and the father-in-law of her brother Hu Xiang.
Empress Dowager Hu's "promiscuity and wanton affairs," her life was extravagant, she blindly appointed private henchmen, and corrupted the imperial program, which aroused the disgust of the people of the world.
In the first year of Zhengguang (520), Empress Dowager Hu's brother-in-law Yuan Qi and the eunuch Liu Teng, because of their feud with Yuan Yi, launched a coup d'état, killed Yuan Yi the Prince of Qinghe, and imprisoned Empress Hu in the Northern Palace.
Yuan Qi was not a good thing, and his evil deeds were even worse than those of Empress Hu. His unjust killing of Yuan Yi has already aroused widespread dissatisfaction among the government and the public, and he has also acted as a blessing in disguise, embezzled bribes, and made the imperial court a miasma of smoke and anger.
In the sixth year of Zhengguang, Empress Dowager Hu and Emperor Xiaoming conspired with Yuanyong the Prince of Gaoyang to relieve Yuan Yong of his military powers, and then gave Yuan Qi and his brother Yuan Yao to death at home on the charge of "treason".
Empress Dowager Hu thus began her second career as a ruler.
I have to say that this woman is hard-wired!
04
Son vs Power
After regaining power, Empress Dowager Hu not only did not learn the lessons of the past, but completely released herself.
If she still exercised some restraint when she first came to the DPRK to listen to the government, and could listen to some good words, then now she is becoming more and more wanton.
Zheng Yu, Li Shenluo, Xu Qi, and the like were all talentless and unscrupulous goods, but the Israeli waiters, pleasing Empress Hu, quickly soared and soared, "the power of the sea".
Hu Shengjing once took advantage of the opportunity of his relatives to enter the palace to gather, and bitterly advised his aunt Empress Hu to restrain her slightly, but she was disliked because of this.
While Empress Dowager Hu hugged her left and right and let go of herself, her son Emperor Xiaoming watched all this coldly.
Yuan Xue was almost twenty years old, no longer the little child who didn't know anything.
As a son, he was ashamed that he had such a lascivious mother; as an emperor, he could no longer bear to be just a puppet of Empress Dowager Hu, and his power was sidelined.
A new round of competition is about to begin between this mother and son.
Empress Dowager Hu was naturally unwilling to relinquish power, so she planted private parties in the palace and monitored all the actions of Emperor Xiaoming, trying to firmly control her son in her own hands.
Moreover, whenever she found out who Yuan Xue was closer to, Empress Dowager Hu "harmed her with many things" and successively found an excuse to kill several of Emperor Xiaoming's close associates.
"Between mother and child, the gap between the gap is repeated", and the relationship is becoming more and more tense.
In order to regain power, Emperor Xiaoming ordered his men to secretly send a letter to one of his old father-in-law, Erzhu Rong, ordering him to bring troops into Beijing and coercing Empress Dowager Hu to hand over power.
I have to say, this is a real bad idea. Eighty percent of the people who came up with this idea have not read the Book of the Later Han Dynasty.
Dong Zhuo's example is not far away, friendly reminder, people who do not study history well are going to suffer losses!
The news leaked out, and the little white-faced Zheng Yu and others were worried that a catastrophe was imminent, so they simply did not stop doing two things and advised Empress Hu to act first.
Therefore, Empress Dowager Hu, at the instigation of the male favorites, first falsely called the daughter of Emperor Xiaoming's concubine Pan Concubine as the crown prince, "fu yin and poison", and poisoned her own son Yuan Xue.
On the 26th day of the second lunar month of the first year of Wu Tai (528), Empress Dowager Hu proclaimed Concubine Pan's daughter Yuanniang (元姑娘) emperor. The first female emperor in Chinese history was officially released.
According to the Gregorian calendar, this day happens to be April Fool's Day in the West, which seems to indicate that all this will eventually become a joke.
What makes people speechless is that after a few days, Empress Dowager Hu "saw that the people's hearts were at ease", and then claimed that Pan Concubine gave birth to a daughter, not a prince, and carefully selected a three-year-old child Yuan Zhao as emperor in the clan room, so that she could "fly higher".
At the same time as Empress Dowager Hu was dying, Erzhu Rong had already sharpened his sword and led his troops across the river to the Capital Division.
Empress Dowager Hu was cornered, so she had to shave her hair and become a nun, intending to avoid trouble.
Unexpectedly, Erzhu Rong did not eat this set at all, and ordered people to seize her and the young lord Yuan Zhao, and directly sank into the rolling Yellow River, which is known in history as the "change of Heyin".
Empress Dowager Hu thus ended her sinful life, but the Pandora's box opened by her hand was still eroding the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Due to Empress Dowager Hu's wanton behavior, the "Rebellion of the Six Towns" broke out, shaking the entire Northern Wei Dynasty. The royal majesty was lost, and the local warlords gradually rose to prominence.
Eventually, the Northern Wei Split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei, the northern part of China began to stage the double meeting of Gao Huan and Yuwen Tai, and the ancestors of the Sui and Tang Empires, such as Yang Zhong and Li Hu, stepped onto the stage of history.
Although the absurd behavior of a woman opened up the magnificent bloody era of Chinese history, it was inevitable that the life of the people would hang upside down and the lives would be ruined.
As an ordinary citizen, I still hope that such April Fool's Day jokes will be less open.