this novel is healthy

Chapter 1593 The Queen Mother Has Always Been the Most Reliable
However, Li Zhi was greedy for power and had psychological trauma caused by Zhangsun Wuji, so he dared not hand over power to the prime minister. But he himself could not approve these memorials, so after thinking about it, he found that Wu Meiniang was very capable in handling various memorials, so he directly handed over the power to Wu Meiniang.

As the emperor's power gradually fell into the hands of Wu Meiniang, many rights, including personnel appointments and dismissals in the court, deployment of the army, and guards of the palace, fell into Wu Meiniang's hands one by one.

As a result, Wu Meiniang became more and more unscrupulous on the road to power, which made Li Zhi very wary. He once discussed with Shangguan Yi to depose Queen Wu Meiniang together, but the secret was leaked. Wu Meiniang directly rode on Li Zhi to question him, forcing Li Zhi to put all the blame on Shangguan Yi and execute Shangguan Yi and his entire family, but leaving behind his granddaughter Shangguan Wan'er, who became the most famous female official around Wu Meiniang.

After Shangguan Yi, Li Zhi lost a lot of authority, and even all the nominal rights were directly handed over to Wu Meiniang. Later, Li Zhi was going to Mount Tai to offer sacrifices to the gods. According to the procedure, the emperor should make the first offering, and the ministers should make the second offering. As a result, Wu Meiniang was forcibly changed to the empress's second offering, and she became the only woman to participate in the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai.

What happened next is the well-known story of the two saints attending court. Wu Zetian attended court with her husband, and her position was just slightly behind Li Zhi... Men and women attending court together has been a fact since ancient times, but those were always the empress dowager and the little emperor. It was absolutely unique for a couple to attend court together.

When Li Zhi was about to die, he even directly expressed his hope to abdicate the throne to the queen and ordered his ministers to discuss it... What's even more outrageous is that the ministers actually started discussing it, and about half of them even approved of this decision.

If the prime minister at the time had not advised against it and refused to carry it out, Wu Zetian would probably have become emperor by then.

Therefore, the power in Wu Meiniang's hands was actually handed over to her by Li Zhi himself, and he handed it over very straightforwardly and decisively, even leaving no way out, so that in the end even Li Zhi himself was forced by Wu Meiniang.

Then why did Li Zhi trust Wu Meiniang so much at the beginning and was willing to hand over power to her?

The reason is very simple, because Wu Meiniang is not only his wife, but also the mother of four biological sons. Moreover, both his sons Li Hong and Li Xian are very talented and are good materials to be emperors.

Since Li Zhi himself was no longer able to handle state affairs, what was the point of handing power over to Wu Meiniang? Wu Meiniang was a dictator for a while, and even ruled the country with him. In the end, she became the empress dowager who ruled the country and was more powerful than Empress Lü and Empress Dowager Dou.
Won't she die?
After her death, shouldn't she pass on her rights to her son?

Isn’t her son Li Zhi’s biological child?
Could Wu Meiniang really kill all her sons?

To put it bluntly, Li Zhi believed that if he gave power to Wu Meiniang, the power would naturally be returned to his own son in the end. This is a mother's nature and inevitability, so Li Zhi acquiesced in the fact that Wu Meiniang killed his other four sons.

This was to exchange his other four sons for Wu Meiniang's peace of mind.

After all, before Li Zhi, all the women in power in the dynasties eventually handed over power to their own bloodline smoothly. Unless there was a treacherous minister in power who took the opportunity to seize power, power could be passed on very smoothly, even for a strong woman like Lu Zhi.

But Lu Zhi never wanted to kill her own son.

Since ancient times, when power was passed down from generation to generation, the empress dowager was always the most reliable carrier.

However, Li Zhi never expected that Wu Meiniang's desire for power reached an unimaginable level. She was unwilling to be a queen mother, but wanted to be the emperor. Then her two outstanding sons became a huge obstacle on her road to power. Li Hong had been the crown prince for 18 years and had great power inside and outside the court. At that time, Li Zhi had already wanted to take the power of the court away from Wu Meiniang and give it all to Li Hong.

If this thing really happened, Wu Meiniang would become an expired white glove and would be useless.

So Li Hong must die. If he doesn’t die, Wu Meiniang’s power will be gone.

The second son, Li Xian, behaved even more excessively than Li Hong, and he often expressed his dissatisfaction with many of his mother's behaviors. At the same time, he was resolute and resolute, quite like Emperor Taizong of Tang.

If Li Zhi died and Li Xian succeeded to the throne legitimately, then with Li Xian's means, it would not take long for him to take away all of Wu Meiniang's power. After all, Li Xian had already reached adulthood and had his own followers.

So when Li Zhi's health was completely failing and he was about to die, Wu Meiniang couldn't wait to imprison Li Xian... In order not to make Li Zhi feel disheartened, Wu Meiniang did not kill Li Xian.

But after Li Zhi's death, and the fact that Wu Meiniang deposed Emperor Li Xian, the court was shaken inside and outside, and members of the Li Tang royal family in various places rebelled. So Wu Meiniang couldn't wait to kill Li Xian.

After all, other members of the Li Tang royal family had no right to rebel, but if Li Xian rebelled, Wu Meiniang really would not be able to withstand it.

So to sum up, Wu Meiniang is a complete power machine. She has given up all good things for the sake of power. Just to be able to hold on to power tightly, she killed not only her sister and niece, but even her two own sons.

If Li Xian and Li Dan were not such useless people, they would have been killed. Anyway, she still had her grandson, and if things didn't work out, she still had the blood of the Wu family, so she wasn't afraid of not having an heir!
Li Zhi never dreamed that by handing power over to Wu Meiniang, he could safely guarantee that power would be transferred to his own son, and the world would still belong to the Li family.

As a result, Wu Meiniang gave up everything to become the emperor, and in the end the throne almost fell into the hands of the Wu family, or even the Wei family. It can be said that she was too stupid and trusted even the slightest light in human nature.

Since he could kill such a close relative of his, then there would naturally be no problem killing others as well.

Especially since Wu Meiniang was a woman becoming an emperor, this was completely against the will of heaven in the entire Chinese history. Men would never allow it, and the aristocratic families would not allow it either. So Wu Meiniang mobilized Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing, two cruel officials, to clean the entire hall of the court more than a dozen times.

There were 93 people who were directly ordered to be executed by Wu Zetian, and more than 93 people were implicated and killed by these 4 people. In this respect, the only one who could be compared with Wu Zetian was the beggar emperor in later generations.

(End of this chapter)