Chapter 14 another suspicious case

After returning to the capital from Mount Tai, Gaozong's new favorite Mrs. Wei Guo died of poisoning suddenly. The symptoms were the same as when her mother Mrs. Han died.This is another unsolved mystery.Mrs. Han's cousins ​​Wei Yang and Hua Yun were charged with murder, and I don't have to defend them.They are from the Wu family.Later generations will know that these two young men were accused of murdering Mrs. Wei Guo and sentenced to death, but they were actually innocent.Mrs. Wei Guo is my aunt, maybe my late father's sister. I spent a lot of time collecting information and investigating the truth about Mrs. Han and Mrs. Wei Guo's mother and daughter being poisoned.The mother and daughter had the same symptoms when they died, so it would be too coincidental to say it was a coincidence.The two of them also have a common characteristic, that is, Gaozong is willing to be with them.

This is the case.When Empress Wu first came to power, she relegated her two older half-brothers, Yuan Qing and Yuan Shuang, and finally died in a foreign land.In this way, Empress Wu's mother, Yang, took revenge for the arrogance and rudeness of the two younger sons.Probably at this time, Empress Wu's cousins ​​Weiliang and Huaiyun were also relegated to other counties and demoted to county magistrates, and one was relegated to Shandong. This is enough to show that Empress Wu was also selfless to her people.The two of them also went to participate in this mountain closure ceremony, and returned to the capital with Mrs. Wei after the event.Mrs. Wei Guo relied on the emperor's favor, and she may have been rude to her aunt Empress Wu.Empress Wu harbored resentment in her heart, and on the surface deliberately pretended to love her very much.Moreover, Mrs. Wei Guo and Empress Wu's cousins ​​kept talking about what happened back then.Mrs. Wei Guo knew too much about the death of her mother and the fate of Yuan Qing and Yuan Shuang.Empress Wu discovered this situation.The young and beautiful Mrs. Wei Guo knew too much, and so did the two cousins ​​of Empress Wu.This is the only reason why Mrs. Wei Guo was murdered. These two cousins ​​definitely had no motive to murder their niece.

One day, Weiliang Huaiyun went to the palace for a banquet.Because Empress Wu signaled, the two brought some delicacies from outside, and Gaozong also wanted to go there for that meal.Everyone was waiting to taste something new, a maid handed it to Mrs. Wei Guo to taste a little, and suddenly felt severe pain, her face turned pale, and her body was like a fire.So I had to leave the restaurant and go back to bed and lie down.The feast was over, and naturally no one else was poisoned. When Emperor Gaozong came, he was terrified when he heard that something had happened.He saw Madam Wei convulsing in pain.Obviously, his mental and physical strength was not as good as that of a while, and he didn't care to hide his love and concern, he couldn't hide his sadness.He couldn't help but think of the death of her mother, Mrs. Han. Although the supervision in the kitchen was very strict, the circumstances of the mother and daughter's death were exactly the same.

That night, the young and beautiful Mrs. Wei Guo passed by.Such a beautiful girl, so young to die!Gaozong's heart was really broken.So daring, so viciously jealous, so inconsiderate of him!Mrs. Wei Guo was his only comfort, his only joy.Going to Mount Tai to worship the heavens and the earth to worship the ancestors, in order to make their hearts holy and benevolent, but the vicious heart of Empress Wu, like the heart of tigers and wolves, was not moved at all.Empress Wu is no longer young, it is the age of women's physiological changes.Although this did not harm her energy, the lonely and desolate Emperor Gaozong who suffered from rheumatic joint pain was bound to share the bed with such a wolf-like woman.Such a future is indeed bleak and gloomy.

At that time Weiliang and Huaiyun brothers were also terrified.Empress Wu burst into tears, crying and shouting: "Poor niece! Your mother is my own sister, and I can't keep the little flesh and blood left by her..." She shouted angrily again, "These murderers Wow...they planned to murder His Majesty, I know, she happened to eat it first. My poor niece!" Things seem to make sense on the surface. But if you investigate carefully, how long is the time between bringing delicious food from the outside and serving it on the table, and then carefully investigate who handled it in the middle?Might not be able to find some clues.But in this case, at first glance, it seems very clear who the murderer is, and Empress Wu is the witness.What is more difficult to explain is why others are not poisoned, and Empress Wu and the Wu brothers are not poisoned either.It can be said that only one piece of the delicious food contained deadly poison. The point is not who brought the whole package of food into the palace, but who gave the poisonous piece of food to Mrs. Wei Guo.How did the Wu brothers know that they must pass the poisonous piece to Madam Wei Guo to eat?Now, however, we are merely trying to establish who is to blame—a futile attempt, of course.At that time, the Wu brothers were executed immediately.Some people may ask a question: Why did the Wu family try to protect and promote her nephews in the future?In fact, if Empress Wu wanted to poison her own son, she would not hesitate.She hates others who disobey her, whether it is Li or Wu, those she hates will be eliminated.There is no doubt that Empress Wu was the murderer of her niece.

These three people who Empress Wu didn't like, these three people who would talk a lot about Empress Wu's insidiousness, were dealt with so easily under Empress Wu's ingenious plan. I mention this case in particular to make it easier for readers to understand what happened later, and because countless people in the royal family were murdered, the method of murder gradually became stereotyped.First, anyone who hinders Empress Wu will be killed.Second, the women in the close relatives deal with them secretly in the palace: they are killed by poison, such as the mother and daughter of Mrs. Han and Mrs. Wei; or they are tortured, such as Queen Wang

and Concubine Xiao Shu; with hunger, such as the wife of King Ze Shangjin; or without a trace of death, such as the first two wives of Wang Zidan. The case is presented in Chapters 21 and 38.Third, the princes and high officials and nobles were all falsely accused of treason, and the method of conviction was not very gentle. They were interrogated by bribed judges and tortured to extract confessions. They were finally punished according to the law, or gradually aggravated, or exiled in stages, such as Chu Suiliang and Yan Wangzhong; or public execution, such as the poet Shangguanyi.In the future, the methods of purging dissidents will be nothing more than the above.According to the so-called legal meaning in Empress Wu's heart, she killed people with legal grounds.Fourth, Empress Wu was quite persevering.Many people's lifespans had already been decided in her heart, but after the initial exile, she cleaned them up one by one, and it took several years.Empress Wu has a very clever method in this regard, able to choose the right time to divide and rule those who died.In the back of her mind, there must have been some place for a murder table, carefully arranged so that those killed had a fixed order and relationship to one another, so that the execution of one necessarily involved the conviction of the other.

Empress Wu is the calmest person I know.It can be proved by her patience with Changsun Wuji and calling Mrs. Wei Guo her little heart.This is her scariest aspect and explains why she succeeds.She is like an outstanding swordsman, never willing to waste her energy.It's about dodging, fighting carefully, and never using poisonous hands if there is no chance.She will wait for years.Then with a deftly employed fine net, a fine net that stretches far and wide, to the fringes, the corners, of the earth known to civilized man, to search out her victim, in that man's sleep, with A sharp ax smashed his head into pieces (see Chapter 33, Chapter 34) for judgment and purge.But at home, in the center of the capital, she monopolized the power, enjoyed the glory and wealth, and pushed the responsibility for the murder away.As soon as a leader is used up, he is put to death, and another person is used.Not everyone who sinned was put to death, but "everyone who was put to death sinned."In this way, the murder becomes reasonable and legal.All in all, Empress Wu is the founder of the elaboration system and the originator of using the nerve fatigue method to extract confessions.This situation will be discussed later (see Chapter 29).His late father, Prince Zhanghuai, was also trapped in a conspiracy and was forced to commit suicide.Because the case is related to Mrs. Korea, the story will be described later in this book.