[Lightscreen]
[Only at this point do the many oddities within the seemingly ordinary Shenlong Coup finally make sense.
Before being summoned back by Wu Zetian to be named heir, Li Xian had been banished to Fangzhou for over a decade.
Returning to Luoyang after fifteen long years away, speaking of factions or personal networks was pure fantasy. In truth, the only person Li Xian could rely on was the mother who supported his ascension to the throne.
Thus, he was exceedingly obedient to Wu Zetian. At her command, he ordered his own son to be executed. He entered into large-scale marriage alliances with the Wu clan. And as he watched his mother grow gravely ill, with death seemingly close at hand, the throne was already within reach.
Then, at that very moment, his younger brother suddenly arrived with troops to stage a coup. Even his own son-in-law was persuaded to switch sides and physically hoist him onto a horse.
Mounted on that horse, Li Xian personally witnessed his brother joining forces with his sister to seize control of the palace, force their mother into retirement, and then press him firmly onto the throne.
Seen from this perspective, the five ministers may not have been heroes of the coup at all. They could just as well be viewed as accomplices. And Wu Sansi may not have been an enemy, but rather an ally bound by solid marital ties.
Fifteen years of exile in Fangzhou left Li Xian with no personal power base whatsoever. After ascending the throne, he did exactly what every insecure emperor does:
"In the Shenlong era, more than three thousand eunuchs were appointed, with over a thousand receiving supernumerary posts of seventh rank or above."
This marked the first time in Tang history that eunuchs formally entered the court. Later, whether befriending Wu Sansi or delegating authority to Empress Wei, the root cause was the same. Li Xian was desperately trying to stack political chips in his favor.
Li Dan, however, was entirely different. From 684, when Wu Zetian deposed Li Xian and installed Li Dan as emperor, to 690, when Li Dan, under pressure, urged his mother to assume the throne and even requested the Wu surname, and then to 699, when he was restored as Prince of Xiang and participated in the Bright Hall oath ceremony, the so-called "Mr. Six-Dihuang Pill" lived at the eye of the storm the entire time.
Even after changing his surname and enduring humiliation, he steadfastly refused any marriage alliance with Wu Zhou. This was precisely why he was so favored by the old Li-Tang ministers.
In the first month of 705, the coup occurred. In the second month, Wu Zetian moved to Shangyang Palace. Later, Li Xian went to pay a formal visit, as ritual demanded, and found his mother greatly emaciated.
On her deathbed, Wu Zetian displayed the ruthless precision of a lifelong politician. She wept to Li Xian:
"I worked so hard to bring you back from Fangling, all to hand the realm over to you. And yet those five villains, greedy for merit, have harmed me to this extent!"
This single sentence was practically a textbook on defining friends and enemies.
"I" rescued you from Fangling and gave you the empire. If that is not a friend, what is?
"The five villains" spouted lofty rhetoric about the state while seeking only merit. If they are not enemies, what are they?
Before him was a pitiful, devastated mother. Outside the hall were aggressive ministers. Staring up at the roof beams of Shangyang Palace, Li Xian had very few choices left. The Wu clan, which should have been sacrificed to consecrate the reborn Tang, successfully extended its life instead.
Li Dan, who had struggled against his mother his entire life, likely never imagined he would be outplayed by her at the very end.
Yet on reflection, the Shenlong Coup was almost too peaceful. It hardly matched the stormy fifteen years of Wu Zhou rule.
There is a saying among foreigners: violent delights have violent ends.
The aftershocks of Wu Zhou were far from over.]
"Disorder has already revealed itself."
Li Shimin watched everything in silence, then suddenly delivered his verdict.
The others nodded in agreement.
They might not possess the future generations' detailed knowledge of what was to come, but by now they all clearly saw one thing:
The Son of Heaven had lost his authority.
No—Wei Zheng shook his head in anguish. It was already worse than that. Judging by later generations' jokes about Wu Sansi and the empress, the matter had practically become common knowledge.
When the emperor damages his own dignity, when imperial commands fail to carry weight, the state itself ceases to be a state.
At this moment, Wei Zheng had to admit something begrudgingly. Under Wu Zhou, chaotic and wasteful though it was, that female emperor still suppressed all sides from above.
Now, with the reins loosened and power slipping away, petty villains would inevitably start glancing about and making moves. As for Li Xian… would he even survive? Wei Zheng was deeply skeptical.
What position had Wu Sansi been striving for during Wu Zhou?
Before granting power to the empress, did you ever think about why the female emperor intervened in governance in the first place?
Are you truly ignoring every lesson written in blood by your predecessors?
Trusting two external relatives at once, and even dragging eunuchs back into the picture—are you afraid the mess isn't big enough?
Wei Zheng had already lost the energy to care.
As for the emperor and Wu Sansi being "kindred spirits," Wei Zheng first found it an insult to decency, and second found it utterly incomprehensible.
After sighing over the plainly visible chaos, Li Shimin turned back to the empress's final words and could not help raising an eyebrow.
"If this was not embellished by later historians, then this mother and son were truly coldhearted."
The deeper meaning of the statement struck him immediately. Not a word about ordering Li Chongrun's execution. No mention of guarding against the Eastern Palace. Not even a hint of seizing the throne from her sons during Wu Zhou.
With one light sentence, a mother and son who should have been sworn enemies were transformed into a benevolent parent and a son indebted beyond measure—while the five ministers were pushed cleanly to the opposite side.
An eighty-year-old minister purging the court is greed for merit, but an eighty-two-year-old empress clinging to power is not greed for authority?
The irony was hard to miss. Wu Zetian could not possibly have failed to understand whom her son could rely upon.
Throughout Wu Zhou, the Wu clan had merely been tools. Yet with a single sentence, she dragged them back from the gates of hell.
After much thought, Li Shimin could only conclude that even as a fellow ruler, he still could not fathom this empress's mind—especially not that of a dying female Supreme Emperor.
As for Li Dan, now exposed after layers of analysis, Li Shimin was not particularly surprised. His earlier impression of the Shenlong Coup matched what later generations said: everything seemed reasonable on the surface, yet nothing truly followed convention upon closer inspection.
"That foreign proverb is rather interesting," Du Ruhui said, reading it aloud twice with clear interest. "When arranged in parallel prose, it even has a certain rhythm."
Zhangsun Wuji, who had dealt with foreign merchants many times, laughed.
"What Kemin admires is likely the translator's skill."
"And in Chang'an today, there are folk sayings with much the same meaning."
Du Ruhui nodded, agreeing, then asked, "And what would that be?"
Zhangsun Wuji looked at the image on the light screen—the aged empress, the emperor with a vacant expression—and said quietly,
"Evil not accumulated is insufficient to destroy oneself."
Even through the simple narration of later generations, he could faintly sense it.
Though the Tang state name had been restored, the spirit of Zhenguan was gone. The undercurrents in the court had only grown more turbulent.
…
"First fighting your own mother for the throne, then fighting your siblings for it."
At this point, Zhang Fei had finally grasped what later generations meant by the joke about "Six-Dihuang Pills."
Fathers and brothers both being emperors was rare but not unheard of. But having your mother also be an emperor? That might truly be unique in all of history.
And Princess Taiping had already been mentioned earlier as dying for plotting rebellion and seizing power. That meant that among all the people discussed, perhaps only one or two would survive in the end. Zhang Yide could not help but sigh:
"Heh. The Li-Tang family sure is neatly complete down in the underworld."