Wu Zetian has 4 sons, all of whom have been crown princes, and two of them have been emperors. One is the third son, Tang Zhongzong Li Xian.
This Tang Zhongzong was originally named Li Xian, and the outstanding one was later renamed Li Zhe , a philosophy of philosophy. For the sake of convenience, we all call him by his real name Li Xian.
Li Xian was once a crown prince and twice an emperor in his life.
The first time it was because his second brother Li Xian was suspected of treason, the prince was deposed and demoted to a civilian. The third son Li Xian inherited the crown prince in the throne. After Li Zhi's death, Li Xian inherited the throne and became Emperor Zhongzong of Tang.
The second time was when Wu Zetian abdicated and passed the throne to Li Xian.
Li Xian, who became emperor for the first time, was still full of ambitions and wanted to support Li Tang and take back the power from his mother Wu Zetian. It’s a pity that I have this ambition but not this ability. Even his two talented elder brothers and second brothers failed, not to mention that Li Xian, who has always been inferior to these two brothers, has never been as talented and arrogant as Li Xian.
After Li Zhi's death, 28-year-old Li Xian inherited the throne for the first time. However, his mind was a little turbulent at that time. When there was almost no political power in the court, he planned to compete with his mother, Wu Zetian, who had been in power for 20 or 30 years. And the approach is quite stupid.
He wants to promote his queen's father, Wei Xuanzhen to the Shizhong. What a great official is this "shi Zhong"? Tang Dynasty implemented the three provinces and six ministries system. The three provinces were the core institutions of the central government, and this "Shizhong" was the chief of the three provinces, and his official rank was the prime minister at that time.
Li Xian wanted to promote his father-in-law to prime minister, and officials from Wu Zetian's faction would definitely object. The prime minister at that time, Pei Yan, opposed it.
But we, Zhongzong Li Xian, didn't know whether to say he was stupid or honest, so he said to Pei Yan directly, "I can give Wei Xuanzhen all the world, do you still care about a Shizhong?" This sentence was so good. A dignified emperor actually said that he could give the Li family's world to a person named Wei. Didn’t this hit the gun by yourself? The Shizhong didn't succeed, but he changed from an emperor to a Luling King , or the one who was under house arrest.
Li Xian himself was afraid that the emperor's identity was so useless. Not only did he fall from the sky, but he also intimidated the family and suffered with him.
When Li Xian was demoted to the King of Luling, Empress Wei was pregnant and about to give birth. On their way, Empress Wei went through hardships and gave birth to a very beautiful princess. But their lives were so miserable at that time that when the child was born, even the quilt used to keep warm were clothes that Li Xian took off from his body. So, Li Xian named this little princess "Guoer". From this name, we can also see how miserable Li Xian's family, who fell from the clouds, lived. Fourteen years have passed.
Li Xian had already given up on himself and was not ready to make a comeback, but Wu Zetian decided to pass the throne to his son and pulled Li Xian back from the dead end.
After returning to Luoyang became the prince, Li Xian had a hard time. Wu Zetian was 75 years old at that time, and less than 7 years after she died at the age of 82. It can be said that Wu Zetian was plagued by illness at that time. Not only did she not have the energy she had in her original state, she also had the will to control the court but was unable to do so. Therefore, there is a situation where the man is favored so lawless that he is even controlled by the government.
The closest thing to Wu Zetian is the male favorites Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi . The two are brothers, and they are very beautiful and have a good face at a young age. They are all day long, making them fancy.
These two brothers also acted as the eyes and ears of the court for Wu Zetian, and by the way they did evil and covered the sky with only one hand in the court.It is normal for people like
to be held grudge, including Li Xian's son and daughter. One day, Li Xian's eldest son, Li Chongrun, , Li Chongrun, , Li Chongrun's sister and brother-in-law gathered together to discuss this matter. Since we talked about the two, we naturally had to mention their grandmother Wu Zetian. Unfortunately, these people are not very smart either. The situation is already difficult, and I don’t know how to say it out loud. I’m not sure if I can tell you. I’m listening to it. It was discovered by the two male favorites. These two male pets reported to Wu Zetian. Wu Zetian called Prince Li Xian and scolded him, and asked Li Xian to discipline them well.
Crown Prince Li Xian has been the King of Luling for 14 years. He is afraid that he will be killed by his mother's envoys almost every day. This time his children have caused such a big disaster. Li Xian doesn't know how much the discipline has been. In order to be on the safe side, he let his son and son-in-law commit suicide. The daughter of one of the parties involved is pregnant and is almost born. She can't stand the blow of her husband being forced to death. She has also gone with one corpse and two lives.
On such days, Li Xian was the prince for several more years. Finally, the prime minister at that time couldn't stand it, so he joined hands with several ministers to launch the Shenlong coup, killing two powerful male favorites, and forcing Wu Zetian on the sickbed to abdicate. Li Xian became emperor for the second time.
Although Li Xian has only been emperor for 5 years this time, he himself thinks he is very happy in the past 5 years.
For example, if he wanted to experience folk life, he opened a piece of land in the palace as a market, let the palace maids dress up as merchants, open shops, and let the officials in the court dress up as vendors, do business with them, and bargain. In order to highly restore urban life, we also use folk oral language to scold each other. Li Xian and Empress Wei were smiling and admiring.
There is also because Li Xian is particularly fond of sports, such as playing polo , tug of war, etc. Not only do he play by himself, but he also has to take the ministers to exercise with him, and even the prime minister has to accompany him. It was a pity that some ministers in their 80s had their bones broken apart, and they were even watched by the emperor and concubines.
These are just the tips of the iceberg in Li Xian’s absurd deeds. Li Xian joked about others, but was also laughed at by others. For example, the matter of wearing a cuckold.
The concubines in ancient times were lonely in the deep palace, and there were always people who wanted to pursue their partner. It was not uncommon for the emperor to be cuckolded. However, this Zhongzong can be said to be a unique and unique stranger among the emperors. He was not wearing a hat, but a green hat, or even with the emperor himself knowing it. Not only that, even the power of the court was willing to share with the concubines in the harem, such as the then empress Wei and Zhaoyi Shangguan Wan'er.
In fact, when Li Xian was the King of Luling, Empress Wei always stayed with each other and supported each other. Li Xian was very moved and promised that he would become rich one day, no matter what Queen Wei asked for, he would agree.
If you say this, Empress Wei is not polite. It is not an exaggeration to rule the country from behind the curtain.
Poor Prime Minister Zhang Jianzhi , finally launched the Shenlong coup, dragging Wu Zetian down, but the emperor who helped him demanded to live in the throne with the queen. A mouthful of old blood almost spurted out.
Shangguan Wan'er was Wu Zetian's female official before. She was also very talented by Wu Zetian and was also Wu Zetian's right-hand assistant. Seeing that she was pretty, Li Xian took her away when she ascended the throne and asked her to help her handle government affairs.
However, these two women he likes the most have cheated on Wu Zetian's nephew Wu Sansi . This incident has been well known to everyone in the court, including Li Xian, the Zhongzong. Li Xian was so generous that he was playing cards and betting money with Queen Wu Sansi and Empress Wei and the other two.
However, the concubines in the harem during the Li Xian period can be said to be very enjoyable. No matter how lonely the deep palace has anything to do with them. Especially the most favored concubines, they usually don’t live in the palace, and they have a private house outside the palace. Awesome.The concubines of other emperors were waiting for the emperor to turn over the signs to serve the bed at night, while the concubines of Li Xian’s family, such as Shangguan Wan'er, went out of the palace to find their other half at night. Of course, this other half is definitely not Li Xian. This is also a legend in the harem world.
There are more people who have a partner, so there are more favors, so naturally I have to give some gifts back to others. Therefore, selling official positions and titles was almost the norm for Li Xian's court.
Of course, there is another key figure who caused this situation, the Princess Anle named "Guoer".
This child suffered a lot since childhood. When Li Xian became emperor, he tried every means to compensate her. Whatever your daughter has, as long as she says it, it is nothing. After all, Li Xian is a very generous emperor who can share the world with his father-in-law and his wife.
So one of the things that Princess Anle likes to do the most is that the edict asked her father Li Xian to stamp it. Li Xian naturally smiled and stamped the seal without hesitation. So almost half of the court was recommended by Princess Anle.
Not only that, another thing this Princess Anle likes to do is show off her wealth. For example, a mansion that was even more gorgeous than a palace was built; a huge pool was dug to build a rockery waterfall, a road and a bridge were built; and a thoughtful way to build a skirt in history - a century-old feather group. It is said that this skirt is worth 100 million! Because of the sensation of this feather skirt of birds, the high-ranking officials and nobles rushed to imitate it, which also led to the endangered or even extinction of many birds cherished at that time. Of course, these are all under Li Xian's default. It was because he reported Princess Anle that Li Xian also argued for Princess Anle.
The father's attitude also made Princess Anle a little arrogant, and directly asked Li Xian to abolish the prince and change her to become the prince's daughter. Fortunately, Li Xian is not confused yet and has not agreed.
only in the end, Li Xian's women were too powerful in the court. Empress Wei wanted to be the emperor like Wu Zetian, and her daughter Princess Anle was like the crown princess. Li Xian took the advice of the ministers as the biggest obstacle to the two women. Li Xian was sent to the West by a piece of poisoned cake. He ended his five-year career as an emperor at the age of 55.
Li Xian has been emperor for 5 years, and his greatest contribution may be that he participated in the Shenlong coup and ended the dark era of Wu Zetian. In diplomacy, he sent his adopted daughter, Princess Jincheng, to , Tubo, and married the Tubo leader, , 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, It was different from the Princess Wencheng in Tibet during the Taizong period. During the Taizong period, Tubo took the initiative to ask for marriage, and Taizong agreed to exchange culture with them. Li Xian's marriage was at the gate of the city, and he could not defeat him, so he was forced to send his daughter to the marriage. Fortunately, the results of the marriage are good, which is a reliable incident among many absurd events!
