Wu Zetian is the Jingzhou governor Warrior daughter. When she was fourteen years old, she entered the harem and was a talented person in Tang Taizong . She was awarded the title " Wu Mei ". When Emperor Gaozong of Tang was granted Zhaoyi, he later became the queen, and was honored as "Queen of Heaven", and was called "Two Saints" together with Emperor Gaozong. After Emperor Gaozong's death, he became the empress dowager of the dynasty as the empress dowager of the Tang Zhongzong and the Tang Ruizong and was appointed as the ruler of the dynasty.
It can be said that Wu Zetian's life is dazzling, but there are also many dirty and absurd secrets hidden under her legendary experience. The idea of "equality between men and women" was very rebellious at that time, so after Wu Zetian ascended the throne, she naturally could not collect some handsome young men into the harem like a normal emperor.
However, after all, Wu Zetian has been struggling in the political arena for many years. She is exhausted both physically and mentally, so she must need some emotional support, so she summoned some "male favorites" into the palace under other names.
Feng Xiaobao was originally a drug seller in Luoyang City. He was favored by Empress Wu by chance, and since then he has been worth more than once. The process of entering the palace by a male favorite is naturally different from that of the concubines. In order to conceal people's eyes, Wu Zetian changed Feng Xiaobao's name to " Xue Huaiyi ", allowing him to ordain him as a monk. With the identity of a monk, Xue Huaiyi was able to enter and exit the harem freely and accompany Wu Zetian.
From the modern people's thinking, Xue Huaiyi should be a white-faced "young young man", but it is not. Xue Huaiyi was a powerful and powerful man from Kong Wu. He was appointed as the marching road chief by Wu Zetian and led the Tang army to expedition to the Turks and made great achievements. For the sake of his old lover Wu Zetian, Xue Huaiyi spared no effort among the people to carry out publicity work.
He sent people to spread rumors among the people that "the queen came to earth" to build momentum for Wu Zetian. Afterwards, after the hard work of the monk headed by Xue Huaiyi, he finally found a "Dayun Sutra" in the vast Buddhist scriptures, which records: "The heroine ruled the country and finally became a Buddha." This is the classic basis for Wu Zetian to become the emperor.
However, Xue Huaiyi's character is very bad. He is arrogant and domineering. He summoned a group of gangsters to be monks in Luoyang City , and accompanied these evil monks every day and was domineering. Because his identity is very special, most civil and military officials gave him three points of disrespect, and even the relatives of the Wu family respected Xue Huaiyi.
Of course, there are many upright people in the court, and they will not give Xue Huaiyi the clown, the jumping clown.
One time, Xue Huaiyi insulted the prime minister in the court Su Liangsi . How could Su Liangsi suffer such a great humiliation? Immediately pressed Xue Huaiyi to the ground and beat him up. Xue Huaiyi was beaten to the point of being blue and swollen, and ran to Wu Zetian to complain. At this time, Wu Zetian was very wise. She did not protect her lover, but instead told Xue Huaiyi to be a good person.
In order to prevent Xue Huaiyi from being domineering, Wu Zetian ordered people to arrest all the gangsters under him and beheaded Xue Huaiyi's wings. Because of this incident, Xue Huaiyi's image in Wu Zetian's mind was greatly reduced. In addition, Wu Zetian found a new love, so her feelings for Xue Huaiyi became increasingly cold. Xue Huaiyi was neglected and became angry, so he even lit a fire in the palace.
Originally, Wu Zetian wanted to "break up peacefully" with Xue Huaiyi based on the principle of "good gathering and separation". Now, the relationship between the two has dropped to freezing point, and Wu Zetian no longer cares about Xue Huaiyi. As for Xue Huaiyi's ending, one said that he died at the hands of Princess Taiping, and the other said that he was eliminated by Wu Sansi . In short, after the incident of "Xue Huaiyi burning Mingtang", this person has never appeared in historical materials again.
So, who is the male favorite who made Xue Huaiyi fall in love with and Wu Zetian?
He is the imperial physician Shen Nanmiao. Doctor Shen is cautious in his life, taking every step forward, and staying with the female emperor every day, for fear that it would cause trouble. Because Xue Huaiyi set fire in the palace, the timid imperial physician was frightened and lying in bed and returned to the west not long after. There are even fewer records of Shen Nanmiao in historical materials, only a few sentences, but later screenwriters like to add some scenes to Shen Nanmiao.
However, compared with the two brothers Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi and , Xue Huaiyi and Shen Yuyi can only be considered as pediatrics. Although Xue and Shen were favored, they never went to the foreign court to interfere in the government affairs. Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi were not the case. They relied on the queen's favor and sneaked into the political arena. One of the two brothers played the flute and the other danced with them. They made Wu Zetian happy after her sixties, and even agreed to participate in politics.
And, after these two brothers came to the outer court, the first thing they did was to clearly mark the price of their free official positions and earn a lot of money by selling official positions. Subsequently, the Zhang brothers also took advantage of their own convenient conditions to serve all civil and military officials. As long as the ministers were willing to take out the silver, the two brothers would definitely go through fire and water. It can be said that in terms of "taking money to do things", these two brothers have quite "professional ethics".
One time, a minister named Yang bribed the Zhang brothers, intending to climb up. However, the forgetful Zhang Yizhi forgot the name of this guy. In order not to violate the principle of "taking money to do things", Zhang Yizhi actually promoted all ministers surnamed Yang to the next level. The two brothers were in the limelight in the court, and even the two princes, Li Dan and Li Xian , wanted to gain benefits by currying against the Zhang brothers.
According to records, Li Dan and Li Xian ran to Wu Zetian and asked the empress to confer the title of king of the Zhang brothers. Later, Wu Zetian hangs with the two brothers all day long, and even doesn't go to the court. It was not until Wu Zetian was forced to abdicate and the Zhang brothers were killed that the brothers who were in trouble in Chaogang were finally brought to justice: Zhang Changzong, Zhang Yizhi, Zhang Changqi, and Zhang Tongxiu were all beheaded and displayed in public at Tianjin Bridge.
Therefore, it is generally believed in the historical community that the reason why the Wu family changed from diligent work to lazy politics was entirely because of the Zhang brothers. In fact, this is understandable. There have been frequent incidents of male emperors favoring beauty but not early courts. For the female emperor Wu Zetian, it is just a copy of this situation.
Reference materials:
["Old Book of Tang·Biography of Huan Yanfan", "Taiping Guangji·Bao Liu", "Chaoye Qianzai"]
