Wu Zetian's ancestral home was in Wenshui, Bingzhou, and his father samurai was a big timber merchant. Later, he rose up, joined the Ministry of Industry and Government, and was awarded the title of Won Gong, with rich farmland and food cities as rewards. Wu Zetian's biological mother is the second wife of the Warrior Regiment, the daughter of Yang Da, a scholar-bureaucrat and prime minister in Longyou.
Wu Zetian, who received strict education since childhood, has a good family atmosphere and is talented. She reads widely, knows everything by heart and is good at poetry and calligraphy. All these laid a solid foundation for his later political career.
When Wu Zetian 14 years old, she was called into the palace because of her beauty and was named a gifted scholar. Wu Zetian was loved by Emperor Taizong because of her understanding and charming appearance, so she was named Wu Mei and was called Mei Niang. Wu Zetian knew books and manners, and was soon transferred to the imperial study to wait on Wen Mo, and began to contact with various documents and laws to understand state affairs.
Wu Zetian's family was a timber merchant, whose social status was very low at that time. After entering the palace, although Wu Zetian was smart and capable, it was not easy to have a good knowledge in the hierarchical harem at that time, but she must also have a strong and courageous character. According to historical records, there was a fierce horse named Lion Qi, who was violent and unruly. One day, a group of military officials gathered in the courtyard of the palace. Taizong asked everyone: Who can manage? Everyone looked at each other, and no one dared to be right. I saw Wu Zetian pushing her way through the crowd, standing up and asking for horse training. When Emperor Taizong asked him about his training skills, she said: Men and women only need three things, one is iron whip, the other is a hammer and the other is a dagger. Whip with iron whip first; If you don't accept it, hit it on the head with a hammer; If you don't accept it again, stab it in the throat with a dagger Emperor Taizong couldn't help admiring.
In the twenty-third year of Zhenguan, Taizong died, and Prince Li Zhi acceded to the throne as Tang Gaozong. According to the system of the Tang Dynasty, Mei Niang and other concubines were forced to enter Ganye Temple to have their hair cut as nuns at the age of 25. Li Zhi met Zetian earlier and had a good impression on him, so he often went to Ganye Temple. At that time, the Queen Wang was competing with her and decided to use her beauty to transfer the emperor's favor to Xiao. So he let Mei Niang secretly grow her hair, and later recalled her to the palace, where she was promoted to Zhao Yi.
After Wu Zetian entered the palace again, she began to bow down and flatter the queen. The queen likes her very much and often praises her in front of Emperor Gaozong. Wu Zetian first joined the queen, and * * * vilified her, which made the emperor neglect Xiao. Shortly after Xiao's fall from power, Wu Zetian's own daughter died suddenly, and the queen of the king was framed for killing the little princess and abolished her position.
On the issue of establishing Wu Zetian, Tang Gaozong encountered many obstacles. The ministers of the DPRK, Chu Suiliang and Wuji, resolutely opposed it, arguing that Wu was born in a humble background and served the former Emperor Taizong, and should not be made a queen; Li Yifu, Xu and others want to take this opportunity to take credit for actively supporting Wu Zetian as queen. Finally, Li played a key role. When the emperor asked for his advice, he argued that it was the emperor's domestic affair and there was no need to ask for the advice of his liegeman. Because of Lee? In this year 10, the imperial edict was finally issued, and the queen was abolished, and Tian was officially canonized as the queen. From then on, all the power in the palace fell to Wu Zetian, who was 3 1 year old. Later, Wu Zetian gave birth to three sons and a daughter: Li Xian, Li Xian, Li Dan and Princess Taiping. It shows its status as a pet.
After Wu Zetian ascended the queen's throne, her son Li Hong was made the Crown Prince. She took advantage of the queen's position and the emperor's favor to take an active part in political affairs. Further support their own forces, crack down on opposition forces, and at the same time improve the status of officials who support themselves. First, she purged senior officials who held important positions. Prime Ministers Chu Suiliang, Wuji and Yuan were successively demoted or killed, some officials who opposed her were deposed, and Xu and others who supported her later establishment were also deposed. During the five years from the sixth year of Yonghui to the fourth year of Xianqing, Wu Zetian consolidated her power, expanded her influence, and gradually removed the obstacles on the road to political participation.
Wu Zetian celebrated for five years because she was smart and capable and had a good knowledge of literature and history. Because of the storm, Emperor Gaozong couldn't stand it, so he entrusted Wu Zetian to play the role of a hundred directors to assist in political affairs. Since then, Wu Zetian has gradually mastered the Datang regime. With the increase of Wu Zetian's power, Tang Gaozong felt constrained and wanted to regain power. In the first year of Linde, he colluded with Minister Shangguan Yi. However, Wu Zetian got the news immediately, and quickly took countermeasures and executed Shangguan Yi. From then on, whenever Emperor Gaozong was in charge of Korea, Wu Zetian fell behind and took part in politics. Inside and outside the court, Emperor Gaozong and Wuhou were called two saints.
As Gaozong's illness became more and more serious, he hoped that Zen would be located in Prince Li Hong. In the second year of Shang Yuan, Li Hong died suddenly, and it is said that she was poisoned by Wu Zetian. Emperor Gaozong appointed his second son, Li Xian, as the Crown Prince, which made Li Xian and Wu Zetian want to remain in power. Two years later, he made Li Xian a civilian. Gao's third son is a prince. In the first year of Hongdao, Emperor Gaozong died, Li Xian succeeded to the throne as Zhongzong, Empress Wu Zetian as the Empress Dowager, and the Empress Dowager was appointed by the court. Two months later, Wu Zetian abolished Zhongzong as King of Luling and made four sons, Li Dan and Zong Rui, emperors. Li Xian and Li Dan are both fatuous and cowardly. When they were in power, they were also the puppets of Wu Zetian, who held real power.
In the second year of Hongdao, Xu Jingye and others, who were demoted by Wu Zetian, started from Yangzhou under the pretext of abolishing Zhongzong, and gathered more than 65,438+10,000 people. A famous poet, one of the four outstanding poets in the early Tang Dynasty, wrote a special article "Begging for Martial Arts". It is said that Wu Zetian was not angry after reading it, but admired his literary talent very much and lamented that such talents were not used by her. Within the imperial court, Prime Minister Pei Yan took the opportunity to coerce Wu Zetian to give way to Zong Rui. In the case of internal troubles and foreign invasion, the 60-year-old Wu Zetian made a decisive decision. First, she appointed Li Xiaoyi as the general manager of Yangzhou Road, led 300,000 troops to the East, and quickly leveled Xu Jingye's 6.5438+10,000 troops, and then executed Pei Yan and others. Since then, after four years of hanging arch, Wang Lizhen, the imperial clan of the Tang Dynasty, and Wang Lichong, the father and son of Wang Lang, successively fought against Wu in Yuzhou and Bozhou in the name of Kuang Fu, in an attempt to unite all the imperial clan kings in Luoyang and seize power. Wu Zetian resolutely suppressed this, and these rebellions were quickly quelled.
In the second year of Tang Ruizong's reign, after years of preparation, Wu Zetian publicly expressed her opinion for the first time that Wuhou was the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha and the contemporary Tang Dynasty was the son of heaven. Later, under the persuasion of 60,000 subjects headed by Tang Ruizong, the 66-year-old Wu Zetian abolished Li Dan as the heir, became emperor on her own, changed Tang Dynasty to Zhou Dynasty, and became the holy god emperor, known as Wu Zhou in history. Change Luoyang, the eastern capital, into a god capital. From Empress Wu Zetian Yonghui's participation in politics for six years to her abdication in the first year of Shenlong, she participated in and mastered the supreme power for half a century.
During the reign of Wu Zetian, she attached importance to agricultural production. She once said: the foundation of the founding of the country must be in agriculture. She ordered the ban on buying and selling Kubanden, and inspected the land illegally occupied by some wealthy nobles, canceling and reducing some aristocratic fiefs and grain fiefs; Wu Zetian once vigorously built water conservancy projects and built water conservancy projects of different scales in many parts of the country. In order to encourage agricultural production, Wu Zetian put forward the idea of attaching importance to agriculture and mulberry, stipulating that local officials should be punished for reclaiming farmland in counties and cities under their jurisdiction, promoting their families with surplus grain, being harsh in politics and moving their household registration. She once edited an agricultural book for her career and ordered it to be distributed nationwide. All these played a positive role in the development of agriculture at that time. During her administration, agriculture and handicrafts have made great progress. With the increasing population, the ocean has become rich.