Chapter 34 7. How are villains made?

We can be sure that the heartless Li Xiaoyi provided Wu Zetian with a solution to the problem—since she can use the power of the Li family to cut off the rebels, she can also use another opposing force to wipe out the Li family. Remnants of the royal family. Taking advantage of the conflicts between the court officials and letting them fall into each other's games to cut off the opponents, Wu Zetian has already used it very skillfully when he assisted Li Zhi to break down the constraints of the civil service system. Now, what Wu Zetian needs are cruel officials! The cruel officials in Wu Zetian's era are a strange landscape in Chinese history.

When the Great Zhou Dynasty took Li Tang Tianxia and replaced it, the cruel officials could be said to be surging, and their representatives included Suo Yuanli, Zhou Xing, Lai Junchen and others.The most violent of these is Suo Yuanli. When he was in charge of Dali Temple, he put up a notice outside the gate, saying: All the people who were created were wronged. The royal family of the Li family, who were taken into prison, said that they were wronged, but they cut off his head with a single knife, and they will never hear any disagreements from him... Suo Yuanli made super fun game rules for the Li royal family and their supporters. If you unfortunately fall into his hands, if you dare not to do so, you will definitely be tortured to death.If he confessed out of fear of torture, he would be tortured to death after confessing.

What if someone is tortured to death but still not recruited? This has nothing to do with Suo Yuanli, whether you like to recruit or not, if you recruit, you write the confession yourself; if you don’t recruit, he has already written the confession for you, and you don’t even need your signature - some cases More serious, Wu Zetian expressed great concern about the interrogation process, so Suo Yuanli treated the defendant with torture first, and after the defendant signed the signature, suddenly the imperial court sent an envoy to inquire about the case, so the defendant shouted for grievances, and the envoy asked in detail about the torture process, etc. After asking clearly, the envoy suddenly burst out laughing, it turned out that Suo Yuanli's men faked it.So the person who retracted his confession was beaten even more brutally on the spot.

While fighting, the court's envoy came again, and the defendant retracted his confession again, but unexpectedly, the envoy was still false, so the defendant was tortured again in retaliation.Since then, the defendant has developed a fear of the envoy, and when he heard that the imperial court had an envoy, he confessed desperately.Even if the court sent a real envoy, what they heard was the defendant's confession. Therefore, Suo Yuanli's case detection rate remained high.Basically, no one can escape the trap of the cruel officials. But Liang Guogong Di Renjie was an exception. He was reported anonymously and sent to prison. He confessed immediately after entering.According to Suo Yuanli's old rules, after making a confession, it is still a torture. If you don't beat you half to death, there is no basis for a common dialogue between the two parties.

So Di Renjie was beaten to death, and he was desperately calling his mother when he suddenly reported that Wu Zetian had sent an envoy. Everyone thought that Di Renjie would definitely retract his confession.Unexpectedly, when Di Renjie saw the envoy, he burst into tears and made a fuss, desperately admitting his numerous crimes against the imperial court and the people.It turned out that Di Renjie had known for a long time that the messenger was a fake, so he resolutely pleaded guilty.Let him make such a spoof, but let Suo Yuanli know what to do. Just when Suo Yuanli was undecided whether he should be tortured again, Wu Zetian sent an envoy to take the criminal Di Renjie into the palace. After seeing him, he asked: "Old Di, you obviously did not rebel, why did you confess blindly?"

Di Renjie replied: There is no way, because I want to see His Majesty alive, so I have to close my eyes and do it blindly. In short, this is Di Renjie's tactic. Since it fell into the hands of the cruel officials, he should close his eyes and do it blindly. The more serious the consequences, the better. The more serious the consequences, the more Wu Zetian will take them seriously.This kind of emphasis is probably something you have to personally ask about, and after this inquiry, your vitality will come. Di Renjie is a rare wise man throughout the ages. He confessed blindly to the torture and escaped his life by chance, but the Li royal family was not so lucky.The fate of the Li royal family is that if you recruit, you will die, and if you don't recruit, you will die. Regardless of whether you recruit or not, death is inevitable.So Wu Zetian was asked to do a lot of spoofing, basically killing all the royal family of the Li family, until only her two sons, Li Zhe and Li Dan, were left.

The two sons were terrified, and they dared not sleep in the middle of the night, for fear that their mother would send someone to pick off their heads. Historians believe that Wu Zetian cut off the Li family to clear the way for himself to become emperor. In fact, the Li family After being driven to extinction, Wu Zetian really ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor. Moreover, she quietly destroyed the Tang Empire and established her own Great Zhou Empire. But then again, did Wu Zetian cut off the Li family really to make herself enthroned? You must know that the social game rules of the imperial power system completely negate human abilities. This social system depends on the possibility of extremely low probability, and success or failure is determined entirely by the social status of a person—no matter how incompetent and mediocre A person, as long as he is on the throne, he can use the mutual involvement of courtiers and the people to firmly grasp the power from then on.The balance of this social system depends entirely on the consciousness of the people. Once the various administrative and economic units of the society to which the imperial power belongs recognize the current system, then even if you have great abilities, you will not be able to change the dynasty—so the Chinese people It is said that the times make heroes. This sentence means that once the current imperial power falls apart, all the monsters and ghosts will jump out at that time, and they will appear on the stage one by one to fool the common people to recognize him.Whoever gets the most approval from the people, or whoever is the most vicious and kills the most swiftly, will use violence to gain the legitimacy of the regime.

Precisely because authoritarian power is established by the acquiescence of the people, the most worry-free and cheapest way to overthrow the current violent regime throughout the ages is a palace coup. The reason why Wu Zetian reused cruel officials and eliminated the Li family was not to ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor.Her final ascension to the throne was just a logical consequence.And we say this with sufficient historical evidence: The first one is the son of Emperor Zhongzong Li Xian (that is, the third son Li Zhe)—that is, Li Chongrun, the grandson of Empress Wu Zetian, his granddaughter Princess Yongtai, and the husband of Princess Yongtai. The three sat together and muttered, Discuss Wu Zetian's two male favorites, Zhang Zongchang and Zhang Yizhi, which handsome guy is more handsome, which handsome boy is more fun... As a result, Zhang Yizhi found out about this matter, so he went to cry and tell Wu Zetian, Qi Zou Your Majesty, your grandchildren want to play I...Wu Zetian was not polite, and immediately ordered his grandson, granddaughter and grandson-in-law to commit suicide to seek justice for their little lover—Princess Yongtai was still pregnant with her child when she was forced to drink the poison.

Judging from this matter, Wu Zetian didn't pick and choose when killing people. It wasn't that the Li family wanted to kill. His own grandchildren, who should be killed, would never be soft-hearted. The second incident is that the son of Ruizong Li Dan, the future Tang Minghuang Li Longji, when he was 7 years old, in the court, in front of Wu Zetian, yelled at Wu Sansi: This is our old man. The world of the Li family, get the fuck out of here!Wu Zetian did not blame Li Longji for this, let alone kill him. It can be seen from this that Wu Zetian's murder is not limited to the Li family, let alone anyone who insists on the Li family must be killed.There is only one reason why Wu Zetian killed people:

She only kills bad guys. So what is a bad guy? As I said before, it is the person who does not make her happy.It doesn't matter if your surname is Li or not, and it doesn't matter whose womb you came from, as long as you don't get in the way of her business, Wu Zetian can play whatever she wants, and whoever she wants, then she won't follow her. You care about. Conversely, if you prevent her from being happy, then no matter how many good things you have done, and no matter how many people think you are a good person, she will recognize you as a bad person anyway and must kill her.