Ancient times was a patriarchal society, so the emperors on the throne were almost all men, but despite this, there are still many women who have been handed down to this day, such as a generation of empress Wu Zetian, as well as a strong woman series of Lü Hou, Xiaozhuang, Cixi and other people, today I want to talk about this is a generation of talented female Shangguan Wan'er, then she as a red person in front of Wu Zetian, who eventually died at the hands of whom?
Shangguan Wan'er, a famous female official and poet of the Tang Dynasty, was a grandfather of Shangguan Yi. During Emperor Gaozong's reign, Wu Zetian was ambitious and gradually controlled the government, which made Emperor Gaozong have the idea of abolishing the empress, and he also took action, and the powerful minister At that time, Shangguan Yi, was responsible for drafting the edict of the abolition. But things did not succeed, as we all know, Wu Zetian finally had great power, Shangguan Yi naturally did not have a good end, in 664 AD, he and his son, that is, Shangguan Wan'er's father was killed.
Shangguan Wan'er stills
The young Shangguan Wan'er was enslaved to the court together with her mother Xu Shi, although the environment was harsh, but Xu Shi did not give up, she carefully cultivated her daughter since childhood, so when she grew up, Shangguan Wan'er was familiar with poetry, could sing and chant, knew the affairs of officials, and was very smart. Later, when she was 14 years old, Wu Zetian summoned her and tested her on the spot, only to find that her writing was smooth and her voice was beautiful between the lines, and Wu Zetian was very satisfied, so he let her take charge of the palace edicts.
Wu Zetian stills
In 705, Zhang Kamzhi and others launched a coup d'état to force the empress to abdicate, at the same time, Li Xian ascended the throne, at this time there were probably four forces in the former dynasty, the first was naturally the emperor Li Xian, the second was empress Wei Shi and her daughter Princess Anle Li Shu'er, the third was Li Longji, and the fourth was the princess Taiping, who once held great power. And Shangguan Wan'er, according to records, before Li Xian's death, served the faction of Princess Anle of Weihou, and it is recorded in the Old Book of Tang that Shi Zhaorong's Shangguan clan often advised Hou Xing Zetian to tell the story, that is, at that time, Shangguan Wan'er often advised Wei Hou to learn Wu Zetian. It is also recorded in the Zizhi Tongjian that after recommending three thoughts to Wei, the introduction of forbidden, Shangsui and Sansitu discussed political affairs, and Zhang Kamzhi and so on were subject to three thoughts.
It can be seen that before 710 BC, Shangguan Wan'er and Wei Hou both fell into power together with the opposition. After the rise of princess Taiping and her power, Shangguan Wan'er was attached to Princess Taiping. In 710, Li Xian died, And Wei Hou felt that the opportunity had come, and she began to control the government, but the result did not go as she wished, because on July 21 of that year, Li Longji and his aunt Princess Taiping launched a coup d'état, Li Longji led troops to attack the palace, killing Wei Houjin and princess Li Shu'er, in Li Longji's eyes, Shangguan Wan'er was also an "accomplice", so it was logical to say that he had a murderous intention for Shangguan Wan'er.
However, the excavated Epitaph of Shangguan Wan'er indicates that Shangguan Wan'er and Wei Hou are inseparable. Because at that time, Princess Anle was bent on becoming the imperial concubine, if Shangguan Wan'er was in the same party with them, she would naturally support Princess Anle, but the epitaph recorded, "On it, please prostrate (referring to exposing hidden bad things) and be reasonable, and you can't follow it; in the middle, please resign and retreat, and make a promise; secondly, please fall out of the hair and slash the sword; next, please drink and die, almost to the point of falling."
That is to say, in order to prevent Princess Anle, Shangguan Wan'er once played 4 times, first exposed, then resigned, and then continued to work hard to become a nun, and finally even directly drank medicine to kill herself, but in the end she was rescued. It can be seen from this that Shangguan Wan'er and them are not together, Li Longji cannot be unaware, why does he still insist on killing her?
According to records, Shangguan Wan'er first married Li Xian at the age of 42 and was given the title of Zhaorong, which made everyone very confused. But the epitaph provides the truth for everyone, in fact, as early as the age of 13, she was first named Li Zhi's talent, that is to say, marrying Li Xian is a second marriage. From this point of view, everything about her is very similar to Wu Zetian, the same cleverness, the same ambition, the same marriage, her experience caused Li Longji to be jealous, he was afraid that the Tang Dynasty would once again appear "Wu Zetian", so he resolutely got rid of Shangguan.
What's more, when Shangguan Wan'er had not defected to Princess Taiping before, she did not belong to Wei Hou's party, she was a faction of her own, and she was in a state of flux in the middle of the dynasty, while recommending Wu Sansi to Wei Hou, while using them to face the crown prince Li Chongjun, it can be said that she was like a fish in the middle of the country. Until finally, he defected to Princess Taiping for better development, such an ambitious and extremely intelligent woman, which made Li Longji jealous, he seemed to see the shadow of Wu Zetian, so Li Longji finally took the opportunity to get rid of her at all costs.
It is worth mentioning that after the tomb of the talented woman Shangguan clan was excavated, a group of historians went to repair it, but they found that the burial chamber had long been seriously damaged, and even the bones were missing. As for who did it, many people suspected that it was Li Longji, after all, when Li Longji killed Princess Taiping, he had ordered the destruction of the tomb of her horse, and perhaps Shangguan Wan'er had also suffered the same thing.
Reference: Old Book of Tang