After being dressed as Wu Zetian's daughter, she was favored by the group

On the other side, there is the Hanliang Hall of the Daming Palace in Chang'an!

Early in the morning, Prince Li Hong, surrounded by several servants of the East Palace, hurried to Hanliang Hall where Empress Wu lived.

Grand Duke Yang Yi, who was guarding outside the palace, saw Li Hong's figure from a distance and hurriedly greeted him with a smile.

"Old slave, see the prince! What's the matter with the prince coming to the palace so early?"

"Get away!" Li Hong pushed Yang Yi away and rushed straight into the palace!
"Prince, you can't do that! Your Majesty is washing up. You are not allowed to enter without notification!"

Yang Yi quickly ran to Li Hong, extended his arms, and stopped Li Hong forcefully.

"You dog slave, you dare to be in my way! Get away!"

Li Hong shouted angrily, and regardless of the prince's etiquette, he raised his foot and kicked Yang Yi in the stomach.

Yang Yi said "Ouch" and kicked his head. When he got up, Li Hong had already walked outside the Hanliang Palace. Yang Yi's face changed with fright, and he immediately ordered to the eunuchs outside the palace:

"Quick! Stop the prince!"

The young eunuchs immediately formed a human wall to guard the gate of Hanliang Hall.

Li Hong became even more angry when he saw this. He rushed forward and punched these eunuchs:
"You bitches, if you don't get out of the way, I will kill you!"

"Prince, please calm down!" Yang Yi limped forward and apologized repeatedly: "Let me go in first and report to the empress. The prince will wait a moment!"

Without waiting for Li Hong's response, Yang Yi quickly entered the palace. After a while, he walked out of the palace door, waved his hands away, bowed and said, "Prince, I allow you to enter the palace!"

Li Hong snorted and strode into the palace. Yang Yi immediately closed the door and followed behind him cautiously.

Li Hong entered the main hall and found that Empress Wu was not here. He knew that what Yang Yi said was true, and then he walked sideways to the side hall next to him.

There was only a bead curtain between the main hall and the side hall. Li Hong just wanted to open the bead curtain, but he stretched out his hand halfway and immediately retracted it.

He took a step back, held up the bead curtain and greeted Empress Wu inside:
"My son-in-law pays respects to his mother!"

In the bedroom, Empress Wu was dressed in white and sitting in front of the dressing table. Cui Daizhao was combing her hair with a comb.

Hearing Li Hong's voice, Empress Wu was completely unmoved. She still sat in front of the dressing table, looking calm and composed, not even bothering to respond!
The anxious Li Hong had to raise his voice and kowtow to the bedroom again: "My son, I pay my respects to my mother!"

Empress Wu frowned. Seeing this, Cui Daizhao turned around and walked to the curtain and said coldly:

"Your Highness, your Majesty is dressing up, please wait in the main hall!"

Li Hong's blood surged, and he was no longer as polite to Cui Daizhao as before:

"I have something urgent to do and need to meet with my mother, so why don't you go and tell me about it!"

Cui Daizhao looked at Li Zhi and said unceremoniously: "I have brought you my words. If the prince wants to force his way in, please do so!"

After saying that, he ignored the manic Li Hong, walked back behind Empress Wu, and continued to comb her hair.

Li Hong clenched his fists tightly, neither advancing nor retreating. He stood there for a moment and could only sulk.

Yang Yi carefully raised his arm and said with a smile: "Prince, please follow me to the main hall and wait!" "Get out!" Li Hong shouted, pushed Yang Yi away, and returned to the main hall alone.

After half a stick of incense, Empress Wu, dressed in white plain clothes, finally arrived at the main hall with the support of Cui Daizhao.

Because of Yang's death, Empress Wu could not wear bright clothes, jewelry, or rouge for a year, so she still maintained simple makeup when traveling every day.

As soon as Li Hong saw Empress Wu, he could not sit still. He immediately stood up and went to the center of the hall. Before Empress Wu could sit down, he knelt down with a 'pop'.

"My son, please beg your mother to show mercy and spare someone from the sword!"

Empress Wu slowly sat down on the main seat, fiddled with her sleeves twice, and then asked pretending to be confused:

"I asked why the prince came to the harem so early in the morning. It turns out he came to plead for someone else. I'm curious, who has such a big face that the prince can personally come to my Hanliang Palace to plead for mercy!"

Li Hong suppressed his anger and bowed to Empress Wu: "My son heard the news from Dali Temple this morning. Xiao Yuanzhao, the minister of the Ministry of Rites, who has been dismissed from office and imprisoned, more than 20 ministers of the court, including Dai Youde, the minister of household affairs, and Li Song, the counselor of the political affairs council, are to be imprisoned. They will be taken to Dongshi and beheaded! May I ask my mother, what crime did they commit? My mother will kill them all!"

"Presumptuous!" Empress Wu slapped the table and reprimanded loudly:

"We, the Tang Dynasty, have our own laws. Even if they are civilians, let alone their ministers, how can I execute them at will? The Ministry of Punishment must have proven their guilt before they were questioned and executed in the street. As the prince, You have the nerve to come to me to plead for mercy despite the law, but don’t you even want to be the prince?!”

One sentence left Li Hong speechless.

Until now, Li Hong still didn't know that Empress Wu's words were high-sounding on the surface, but in fact everything was just a way for her to eliminate political opponents and suppress the forces in the East Palace!

The original plan to force Empress Wu to mourn failed. Under the instigation of these ministers, Li Hong quickly gathered forces in the court, hoping to fight against Empress Wu.

Unexpectedly, before her side could gain a firm foothold, Empress Wu quickly returned to Chang'an and launched a full-scale revenge against the Donggong camp with lightning speed. In less than a month, officials on the Donggong side were quickly demoted or imprisoned. .

Both mother and son knew this well, but they couldn't pierce that layer of window paper. Only in this way could they ignore the relationship between mother and son and let their subordinates criticize each other.Today I will have your people dismissed from office, and tomorrow you will have my people imprisoned. In the back and forth struggle, the East Palace was quickly defeated.

It is said that Li Zhi, as the emperor, should mediate the fight between mother and son, but instead of taking action, Li Zhi directly acted as a hands-off shopkeeper and chose to sit on the sidelines. This is what Li Hong couldn't understand the most.

Knowing that asking Li Zhi to plead for mercy was useless, Li Hong had no choice but to surrender and bow his head again:
"Mother! Even if Xiao Yuanzhao and others are guilty, their crimes will not lead to death. There must be injustice here. Please give me a lighter sentence!"

Empress Wu's face was grim, and she said with a deep smile: "Do you really think it is my intention to execute them? To tell you the truth, the decree came from your father. The Ministry of Punishment has found out that these people did not hesitate to bribe assassins in order to destroy the princess's observance of filial piety. , demolished Taoist temples, killed believers, and even your sister... was almost killed! After hearing the news, your father was furious, so he wanted to behead these rebellious officials and traitors in public, now it’s clear! "

Li Hong immediately retorted: "It's absolutely impossible. If the murderer is them, why would my father send an inspection envoy to Luoyang to investigate the case?"

Empress Wu said unhurriedly: "Do you have to force me to clarify my words? Who are they doing this for? And who benefits the most? You should know it very well!"

Li Hong's heart skipped a beat. If all this was true, then the only beneficiary would be him, the prince.

Looking at it this way, it is indeed not appropriate to talk about this matter openly, because once more people know the reason, they will only think that in order to gain power, the prince did not hesitate to kill his mother and his son, and instructed his ministers to kill the members of the Tiandao Sect. Persecuting his own sister, ignoring family affection and filial piety... In this way, he, the prince, was not worthy of his position, so Li Zhi would not hesitate to kill these ministers to preserve the prince's virtue.

Is that true?Doesn’t the Queen Mother have any selfish intentions?
Li Hong's thoughts became more and more confused. He didn't know whether to believe Empress Wu or to continue to plead!

Ever since he broke up with this mother, he gradually realized that no matter how hard he jumped, he could never escape from her clutches!

This has been the case since childhood, and it will be the same when growing up!