At the age of 13, an ordinary person is still in junior high school, what is Shangguan Wan'er doing? She had been chosen by Wu Zetian and taken to Wu Zetian's side to become one of her advisers. When Wu Zetian became emperor, Shangguan Wan'er was the most powerful political assistant around Empress Wu Zetian and her chief secretary.
Shangguan Wan'er worked as a secretary around Wu Zetian for more than 20 years, from a young girl in her 10s to a young girl in her 30s, and has been following Wu Zetian.
In 710, after the Shenlong coup, Wu Zetian abdicated, and Wu Zetian's third son Li Xian succeeded to the throne, known as Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. Shangguan Wan'er became a concubine of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, and it is said that this was also arranged by Wu Zetian, so that a woman like Shangguan Wan'er could stay in the imperial court and continue to participate in the adjudication of military affairs.
The most beautiful stage of Shangguan Wan'er's life was during the Tang Zhongzong period, known as the "Prime Minister".
Throughout the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Shangguan Wan'er was in charge of power, and she was responsible for approving the various localities and drafting imperial edicts. A series of initiatives for the advancement of women had also been undertaken, which were historically progressive. Shangguan Wan'er was indeed worthy of being called the "Prime Minister", she was the core figure in the imperial court at that time, very powerful, and deeply trusted by Tang Zhongzong.
At the beginning, Wu Zetian had always cultivated Shangguan Wan'er as his successor, hoping that after his death, Shangguan Wan'er would be able to continue her political life and political ideals.
Shangguan Wan'er is indeed very similar to Wu Zetian, for example, she has always supported "women in power".
After the Shenlong coup, Wu Zetian stepped down and Tang Zhongzong succeeded to the throne, and Tang Zhongzong's empress Dowager Wei and daughter Princess Anle were also very ambitious women, both of whom were admirers of Wu Zetian, and both mother and son wanted to emulate Wu Zetian and wanted to ascend the throne as empress.
Unconsciously, perhaps the smell was similar, or the three views were the same, Shangguan Wan'er came together with Empress Wei and Princess Anle.
Empress Wei was the empress of the Tang Zhongzong dynasty, and Empress Wei greatly admired Wu Zetian and had ambitions to become an empress herself.
Princess Anle, the daughter born to Emperor Zhongzong of Tang and Empress Wei, was deeply loved, and Princess Anle was also very ambitious, hoping that her father could make herself an "imperial consort" and wanted to be an empress in the future.
Coupled with Shangguan Wan'er, who supports "women in power", three women in one play, Empress Wei, Princess Anle, and Shangguan Wan'er came together.
But it is not enough, and now it can only be regarded as one of the three, because this small group will also add another person - Wu Sansi.
Wu Sansi was Wu Zetian's nephew, and after the Shenlong coup, Wu Zetian stepped down and overthrew Wu Zetian's five ministers, led by Zhang Kamzhi, all of whom demanded that Tang Zhongzong execute Wu Sansi.
Wu Sansi is not only Wu Zetian's nephew, he also has an identity, is Shangguan Wan'er's lover. As early as the Wu Zetian period, Wu Sansi and Shangguan Wan'er had already had an affair.
Now that Wu Sansi was in trouble, Shangguan Wan'er made a surprising move in order to protect her lover, wu Sansi, who was also Wu Zetian's nephew.
How to keep Wu Sansi, Shangguan Wan'er came up with the solution, was to introduce Wu Sansi to Empress Wei, let Empress Wei and Wu Sansi also develop a lover relationship, and then Empress Wei said good things in front of Tang Zhongzong, thus saving Wu Sansi.
As a result, Wu Sansi relied on this method to save his life.
In other words, this Wu Sansi was protected by the joint efforts of the two women, Shangguan Wan'er and Empress Wei.
In this way, the four people were together, and Shangguan Wan'er stood on the same front as Empress Wei, Princess Anle, and Wu Sansi. When the personnel arrive, then a power struggle begins.
At that time, there were two factions in the imperial court: one faction was Li Dan the Prince of Xiang and Princess Taiping, including Li Dan's third son Li Longji, and the other faction was Empress Wei, Princess Anle, Wu Sansi, and Shangguan Wan'er.
Shangguan Wan'er initially sided with Empress Wei and Wu Sansi, but this was not necessarily a good thing for Shangguan Wan'er, because she was about to face a life-and-death test.
Because soon after, the crown prince Li Chongjun launched a rebellion.
Li Chongjun was the third son of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang and was made crown prince in 706, but he was not Empress Wei's biological son, and was attacked by Empress Wei, Princess Anle, Wu Sansi, and others, and his position as crown prince was threatened.
Li Chongjun led his only 300 men to rebel and kill Wu Sansi, but the next plan to assassinate Empress Wei and Princess Anle failed, and eventually the crown prince Li Chongjun's coup ended in failure and was killed by his subordinates.
Although this time Shangguan Wan'er escaped by chance and saved a life, but this incident had a great impact on Shangguan Wan'er, and she realized that if she continued to mix with Empress Wei and Princess Anle, she might also lose her life. So she found a good way out for herself.
This retreat is that Shangguan Wan'er intends to contact the opposite camp, so as to "step on two boats" and "and thin mud".
Shangguan Wan'er's approach was: on the one hand, she did not break with Empress Wei and Princess Anle and remained in the Wei clique; on the other hand, she wanted to get in touch with the opposite, that is, with Li Dan, Princess Taiping, and Li Longji.
At this time, Shangguan Wan'er found a person in the opposite camp, she was Princess Taiping.
Princess Taiping was the younger daughter of Wu Zetian, and it is said that her appearance, personality, and talents were like Wu Zetian, and she was very popular with Wu Zetian and often consulted with Wu Zetian on political affairs. After Emperor Zhongzong of Tang's reign and Li Xian's restoration, Princess Taiping was also actively involved in politics and was highly respected by Emperor Zhongzong.
So what is the relationship between Princess Taiping and Shangguan Wan'er?
The two of them were small, grew up together in the palace, had a good relationship, and Shangguan Wan'er made contact with the opposite through Princess Taiping.
In short, Shangguan Wan'er's wishful thinking is that neither side can be guilty, "stepping on two boats", and "peace and thin mud" between Empress Wei and Princess Anle, and Li Dan, Princess Taiping, and Li Longji.
In this way, Shangguan Wan'er wants to make herself invincible, no matter which side wins, she has merit and will not lose her life. However, her biggest mistake was not to understand Li Dan's third son, Li Longji.
Li Longji had a bottom line and did not want the Tang Dynasty to have a second Wu Zetian.
Li Longji felt that whether it was Empress Wei, Princess Anle, Shangguan Wan'er, or his aunt Princess Taiping, they were all the objects he would fight in the future.
The reason why Li Longji had such an idea was related to his experience. Li Longji's mother, Dou Shi, died at the hands of Wu Zetian.
When Li Longji was 8 years old, her mother Dou Shi falsely accused her of practicing witchcraft at home and cursing Wu Zetian because of a slave named Tuan'er, saying that she was engaged in witchcraft at home and cursed Wu Zetian, and as a result, Wu Zetian was angry and recruited the two concubines of Li Dan, who were then the king of Xiang, into the palace, and then killed them, and the two concubines were thrown into the mass grave, and even the bodies were not found. Li Longji's mother, Dou Shi, died tragically at the hands of Wu Zetian. This matter had a great impact on him, so he resented women in power all his life.
In the first half of Li Longji's life, the targets of political struggle were women, Empress Wei, Princess Anle, Shangguan Wan'er, and Princess Taiping, including her own empress.
Later, Li Longji's favored Concubine Wu Hui and Yang Guifei were also concubines and never made an empress again, and one of the important reasons was to prevent the emergence of a second Wu Zetian.
Therefore, Li Longji is very disgusted with women in power, and Shangguan Wan'er does not know enough about Li Longji.
At this time, another great thing happened, Tang Zhongzong was poisoned by Empress Wei and Princess Anle. There is a theory that Princess Anle poisoned Tang Zhongzong's food, and as a result poisoned Tang Zhongzong.
After the death of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, contradictions broke out between the two groups, and Shangguan Wan'er was initially entrusted by Empress Wei to draft a will, but the first draft drafted by Shangguan Wan'er made Empress Wei extremely dissatisfied.
In her last will, Shangguan Wan'er proposed that Li Chongmao, the fourth son of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, be made crown prince, and then let Empress Wei know about political affairs, and Li Dan the Prince of Xiang should jointly assist in political affairs, with Empress Wei and Li Dan jointly assisting the government, trying to strike a balance between the two.
However, Empress Wei's wishful thinking was to appoint a young emperor, to listen to the government as the empress dowager, and then when the time was ripe, to depose the young emperor and establish Princess Anle as emperor. As a result, Ruyi's abacus was broken, so Empress Wei made an excuse and said that she and her uncle Li Dan listened to the government together, and men and women could not be kissed.
Then, using this excuse to negate the first draft, Empress Wei had her cronies Zong Chuke, Wei Wen, and others draft the second draft, changing Li Dan to prince Taishi, and emptying Li Dan, breaking this balance.
However, Shangguan Wan'er secretly left the first draft behind, thinking of using this as a life-saving straw in the future.
In 710, Li Longji led the forbidden army and launched the Tang Long coup, killing Princess Anle and Empress Wei, and then making trouble with the disposal of Shangguan Wan'er. According to Princess Taiping's meaning, it is absolutely impossible to kill Shangguan Wan'er, and Princess Taiping said that Shangguan Wan'er was her own person. But Li Longji did not think so, Li Longji ordered his subordinates to execute Shangguan Wan'er, at that time Shangguan Wan'er even showed him a draft of the will, he was not moved, because he understood that the future target of the struggle was his aunt Princess Taiping, if another powerful helper Shangguan Wan'er was added to his side, then his difficulty would be greatly increased, so Li Longji was strong first and killed Shangguan Wan'er.
In this way, a generation of "prime ministers" Shangguan Wan'er Xiang died.
Many years later, the political situation had long been stable, Li Longji had already defeated Princess Taiping, and his father Li Dan had already given up the throne, and Li Longji sat on the emperor's seat, known as Tang Xuanzong.
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji, asked the chancellor Zhang Shu to collect Shangguan Wan'er's poems and compile them into a collection of Zhaorong Anthology, and he personally wrote the preface, comparing it to Ban Jieyu and Zuo Fen. It can be seen that in his heart, although he killed Shangguan Wan'er because of the power struggle, he still admired her talent and admired Shangguan Wan'er as a person.
So what kind of person is Shangguan Wan'er? She is a "disobedient" person, an uncompromising person who has been tossing and turning. In 798, more than 80 years after Shangguan Wan'er's death, a man named Cui Renliang bought a copy of the Book of The Study of the Gods at the Luoyang South Bookstore and found Shangguan Wan'er's autograph at the crack of the book. Cui Renliang told his friend Lu Wen about this. Lü Wen was a famous poet at that time, and after hearing about this incident, he couldn't help but sigh and wrote a "Song of Shangguan Zhaorong Shulou", which contained four sentences:
Han Jia Jie Yu Tang Zhaorong, Gong poetry can give a thousand years of the same.
Self-proclaimed talent is naïve, and does not obey the husband to win the woman.
"Disobeying the husband is better than the woman", not obeying the man, not willing to be a traditional husband and godson. Shangguan Wan'er's life has been active and enterprising, leading the crowd in the literary world, and also playing a pivotal role in the political arena, even if she finally dies under the knife, which may be Shangguan Wan'er's philosophy of life.
Some people call the era in which Shangguan Wan'er lived "the red makeup era", because a group of outstanding women emerged in the literary and political circles at that time, all of whom were very talented and politically ambitious, and Shangguan Wan'er seized the opportunity given by this era to stand out and become a trendster of the times.