Chapter 45 Prisoners in Heaven Prison Become Emperor's Bodyguards

Over the years, Gaozong Lizhi felt that his life became more and more like a nightmare. The first is the long-term torture of various diseases, the second is the death of the two princes, and the last is the repeated setbacks of the empire's foreign military... All these are enough to make him feel full of pain and powerlessness. In the seventh month of the first year of Kaiyao (681 A.D.), Emperor Gaozong's condition deteriorated further, and he had to follow the old path of Emperor Taizong—starting to take the elixir of life (or should it be called the life-saving pill?). Just like Taizong Li Shimin, Gaozong Li Zhi also laughed at Qin Huang and Hanwu who wished for longevity before suffering from wind disease. many.Although a lot of pills of various colors were made, Gao Zong never dared to take them lightly because of the remonstrance of his ministers.Only this time, Gaozong may have been tortured too much by the disease, so he made up his mind to treat a dead horse as a living horse doctor.

But the result of swallowing the elixir is of course the same as Taizong's back then - not only did the condition not improve, but it became more serious. Seeing that Gaozong's time was running out, Empress Wu naturally had to seriously consider what happened to her husband. To be precise, Empress Wu must ensure that she can still firmly control the political situation of the empire at the moment of Gaozong Bintian. For this reason, she decided to find a way to get Gaozong to leave Chang'an and go east to Luoyang. Because Chang'an is the birthplace of the Guanlong Group and the home of Li and Tang's entangled old forces, here, Empress Wu will inevitably be constrained and unable to let go.But Luoyang, the eastern capital, is different, that is the base where she has been operating for many years, only there, Empress Wu can control everything freely!

However, at this time when Emperor Gaozong was already dying of illness, what kind of reasons should be used to persuade him to leave Chang'an, the hometown where he was born and grew up in Si? The reason Empress Wu first thought of was—Feng Chan. Yes, there is no more valid reason than that. Empress Wu persuaded Gaozong to say that since there are five mountains in the world, one should not just be satisfied with enshrining Zen and Taishan.Next, you should go to Luoyang, the eastern capital, and prepare to enshrine Songshan Mountain, and finally enshrine the Five Sacred Mountains one by one.

Fengchan Five Sacred Mountains? What an exciting proposition!Although Gaozong's body was already weak, he was still moved by the unprecedented proposal of Empress Wu. However, heartbeat does not equal action.The deteriorating condition really did not allow him to travel long distances, so Gaozong inevitably hesitated. Just when Empress Wu was in trouble for this and felt helpless, God suddenly gave her a big favor. In April of the first year of Yongchun (AD 682), Guanzhong suffered a severe famine. The price of a bucket of rice rose to 300 yuan, and the problem of food was embarrassingly placed in front of the court again.Because Luoyang has the convenience of water transport and stores a large amount of grain transported from the Jianghuai River, since the Sui Dynasty, whenever there was a famine in Guanzhong, the imperial court would go to Luoyang to eat, which has become a practice.That being the case, no matter how ill Gao Zong was, he had to announce that Luoyang was lucky to the east.

Empress Wu smiled. This is called "time comes, heaven and earth all work together!" At critical moments, God always seems to be on her side. The matter of Dongxing Luoyang was settled like this, but Empress Wu still faced a thorny problem. That is, who will escort the emperor along the way? The emperor's tours have always been escorted by the army, which was not a problem.But the key point is that Empress Wu does not want the army to go to Luoyang now.Because her control over the military is still relatively weak, and the de facto supreme leader of the military is her old political enemy Pei Xingjian (in early April of the first year of Yongchun, Pei Xingjian has not yet passed away), so Empress Wu naturally has to be strict with the military. If precautions are taken, it is absolutely impossible to transfer the army to Luoyang.In other words, she didn't want Pei Xingjian, who held military power, to stab her in the back when Emperor Gaozong died.

However, it is necessary to ensure the safety of the emperor along the way without using the army, how to solve this problem? Empress Wu didn't want to bother about it, so she directly threw the problem to Wei Yuanzhong, the new supervisory censor, and asked him to think of a way. This Wei Yuanzhong will be the famous prime minister of the Wu Zhou and Zhongzong dynasties in the future, and also one of the important figures in Li Tang's restoration of the country in the future.However, right now, he is just an eighth-rank civil servant who has just debuted, and he doesn't even have half a soldier under him. How do you ask him to ensure the safety of the emperor along the way?

God knows what Empress Wu was thinking, that she would throw this almost impossible task to Wei Yuanzhong, a humble official.Could it be that she thought he was a talent, so she deliberately took this tricky question to test his ability? We don't know that. But no matter what the purpose of Empress Wu is, anyway, Wei Yuanzhong has been hurt badly. For several days in a row, he didn't think about food and drink, thought hard, almost broke his head, and finally came up with a solution that was not a solution.A few days later, Wei Yuanzhong took advantage of the only authority in his hand to go to the prisons in Chang'an County and Wannian County, and ordered the guards to open the cells one by one, take a look here and there, and almost saw all the prisoners inside. After searching over and over again, he finally found the person he was looking for - a person who behaved like a boss in his expressions and words.

Wei Yuanzhong observed carefully for a long time, and finally made up his mind - it was him! He hurriedly ordered someone to uncuff the boss's handcuffs and shackles, entertained him with good wine and good food, and then explained the purpose of his visit, saying that the emperor was going to visit the eastern capital, and he was afraid of thieves making trouble along the way, so he asked him to accompany him. The old man was delighted to hear it.I didn't expect that after so many years in the arena, I accidentally became the emperor's bodyguard. This is a good thing that I can't even dream of!After finishing this errand, who would dare not give him face as the emperor's bodyguard when he walks in the rivers and lakes?

So the boss patted his chest: Don't say anything, just leave it to your brother! Wei Yuanzhong was overjoyed, and hurriedly changed him into an official robe, and then let him accompany Luanjia to Luoyang.Along the way, the thieves along the way heard that there was a certain boss of the rivers and lakes escorting the emperor, so they didn't dare to act rashly.As a result, the mighty emperor's team of more than 10,000 people, without the escort of the army, arrived in Dongdu safely and without incident. The majestic emperor went on a tour, and was escorted by the boss of the underworld. This is really an anecdote!Such an anecdote is probably the only one in the thousands of years of Chinese history.

Wei Yuanzhong's performance made Empress Wu very satisfied.In the future, his success in the Wu Zhou Dynasty and his official residence as Zaifu may be closely related to this special performance of quick wit. After successfully getting Gaozong to Luoyang, the next thing Empress Wu has to do is to reorganize the prime minister's team as quickly as possible. Before Li Xian was abolished, the members of the Prime Minister's Group were: Liu Rengui, Hao Chujun, Li Yiyan, Cui Zhiwen, Pei Yan, Xue Yuanchao, Wang Dezhen, and Zhang Daan.Among them, Zhang Daan was relegated because Li Xian was abolished. Soon, Wang Dezhen and Hao Chujun also resigned. Among the remaining five prime ministers, Liu Rengui and Li Yiyan were ironclad anti-military factions. Cui Zhiwen's position was not clear. But obviously they were not from Empress Wu either; only Pei Yan and Xue Yuanchao were trusted aides of Empress Wu.Obviously, Empress Wu's approval rate in the prime minister's team is still low, so in the past few years, Empress Wu has long intended to build a prime minister's team that is completely obedient to her.

Now, Liu Rengui, Pei Yan, and Xue Yuanchao, the three prime ministers, are all ordered by Emperor Gaozong to stay in Chang'an to assist Prince Li Zhe, who is in charge of the country; and Li Yiyan's current position is the prince's right concubine, so naturally he must stay with the prince.Therefore, the only one who followed Gaozong to Dongdu this time was the elderly and frail Cui Zhiwen, which of course provided an excellent excuse and opportunity for Empress Wu to reorganize the prime minister team! On April 22, Gaozong and Empress Wu had just arrived in Luoyang; on the 24th, Empress Wu promoted four officials to the prime minister at lightning speed.They are: Guo Daiju, the servant of the Huangmen, Cen Changqian, the servant of the Ministry of War, Guo Zhengyi, the servant of the school secretary, and Wei Xuantong, the servant of the Ministry of officials. According to the Tang system, only third-rank officials could be admitted to the prime minister, but Empress Wu repeatedly broke this system—whether it was Pei Yan and Xue Yuanchao who were promoted earlier, or the four people promoted this time, they only had ranks of fourth-rank officials before worshiping the prime minister. .Moreover, the qualifications of these four people are even much lower than those of Pei and Xue back then.In order not to arouse the dissatisfaction of those senior prime ministers by making their appearance too abrupt, Empress Wu tried every means to throw out a new official title—the same as Zhongshumenxia, ​​to show that it is the same as the previous prime minister's official title. The three grades under the door are different. (In the eighth year of Zhenguan, Li Jing, who was the right servant at the time, asked to be resigned due to illness, but Taizong issued an edict to retain him, and authorized him to "go to the door every three or two days, and Zhongshu Pingzhang's political affairs." This should be Tong Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhang The origin of the matter, but this title was officially established as the title of prime minister, or from Empress Wu.) Since then, the new official title of Tongzhongshumenxiapingzhangshi has become a common title for young, junior, and low-rank officials to worship their prime ministers. In the end, it even replaced Tongzhongshumenxia Sanpin and became the only prime minister in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. title. Empress Wu was so troubled, how did Gaozong feel at this time? He doesn't object. Not only did he not object, but he was also helping the army to make up for the stage—in order to prevent the old prime ministers from having too strong resistance to this unexpected political move, Gaozong specially explained to Cui Zhiwen: "The seniority of waiting for the election is still young. And let the premonition of political affairs not have the same name as Qing." (Volume 203) In fact, the reason why Gaozong acquiesced to what Empress Wu did, and even helped her make up the stage, was not because he was ill and confused, but because Gaozong knew that once he drove west, the only person who could stabilize the overall situation was the only one who could The only person who can guarantee that the empire will not be turbulent during the transfer of power is Empress Wu! Therefore, he can only trust Empress Wu. If any one of Li Hong and Li Xian is still the prince now, Gaozong will definitely curb the power of Empress Wu to a certain extent, and at the same time strengthen the proportion of power on the prince's side.It's a pity that the current crown prince of the empire is neither Li Hong nor Li Xian, but Li Zhe, who has always disappointed him deeply. As early as during the period of taking the elixir, Gaozong ordered the prince Li Zhe to supervise the country for the first time.Before leaving Chang'an, Emperor Gaozong specially arranged for three prime ministers to assist him in the administration, and made a solemn request to one of them, Xue Yuanchao (who was also the prince Zuo Shuzi at the time): "My son is not busy with general affairs, and the affairs of Kansai are entrusted to you." Qing. The message is so deep that I have to say it!" ("Old Tang Book Biography of Xue Shou") Just as he spared no effort to train Li Hong and Li Xian back then, Gaozong now hopes to train Li Zhe to be a qualified heir apparent in the shortest possible time. However, to Gaozong's great disappointment, Li Zhe was no match for his elder brother and second elder brother! Since he was a child, Li Zhe has been addicted to cockfights and horses, shooting, hunting and feasting. He has neither outstanding character nor extraordinary talent and learning. He belongs to the typical dude in the royal family.In fact, for an ordinary prince, this was beyond reproach.Because no one could have expected that Gaozong and Empress Wu would eventually change the crown prince three times, and put the crown of crown prince on Li Zhe's head.Therefore, Li Zhe, who had never received a strict prince education since he was a child, would inevitably have a stronger dandyism. But no matter what happened before, at least after he became the prince, Li Zhe should realize that his identity is no longer what it used to be.If you want to become a qualified prince, you must take the initiative to reduce some fun and learn more experience in governing the country. Unfortunately, this is not the case. During the time when Gaozong and Empress Wu were traveling to Luoyang, the prince Li Zhe who stayed behind in the capital was still flying eagles, horses, shooting, hunting and feasting.Xue Yuanchao, who was deeply entrusted by Emperor Gaozong, repeatedly advised him, but Li Zhe remained the same.In the end, Xue Yuanchao had no choice but to sue Dongdu, and Emperor Gaozong hurriedly sent envoys to comfort Xue Yuanchao. Li Zhe's morality that cannot be supported by mud, naturally made Gaozong extremely disappointed. Under such circumstances, Gaozong can only hope that after his Bintian, Empress Wu can continue to grasp the overall situation and assist the prince with all his strength. Although this is a helpless choice, but other than that, what choice can Gaozong make?