Chapter 58
The TV series "Empress Wu Zetian" has come to an end, leaving viewers both happy and reluctant to say goodbye.
Mo Yun is the same.
As a novel enthusiast, she hadn't been so engrossed in a TV series in a long time. She had poured so much passion into this show that she felt a sense of emptiness after the daily episodes suddenly stopped.
"Sigh, I wish it could be streamed continuously. I really want to keep watching!"
Mo Yun casually opened TK short video. Since the TV series ended, she has been relying on various video editing bloggers to keep going.
Even though she watched the entire series of "Empress Wu Zetian" from beginning to end, and even though she knew which episode these bloggers' edited materials came from, she still couldn't resist stopping and watching until the very end every time she came across it.
"Men are heaven, women are earth; only when heaven and earth unite can there be heaven and earth..."
Mo Yun swiped her finger, and the next video played. The Martial Emperor's domineering words immediately reached her ears.
Aaaaaaahhhhh!
She couldn't help but scream in her bedroom. She could never get tired of hearing those words. Empress Wu was simply a role model for us all.
Mo Yun became completely absorbed in the various edited videos until she came across one of Lao Mao's videos, titled "Let's expose the man behind Wu Zetian (Part 3)".
?
What's this.
Mo Yun frowned and clicked on it. She noticed the capital '3' at the end of the video, which seemed to be a series of videos, and the one she was watching was the third episode.
She tapped on the old cat's homepage, and sure enough, the first two videos were neatly arranged. Without hesitation, she clicked on the first one to watch.
Mo Yun strongly disagreed with the video's title.
She was a fervent admirer of Wu Zetian, believing that Wu Zetian's rise to the throne was due to both the pressures of the environment and the positive results of her intelligence and wisdom.
What man behind Wu Zetian?!
She wanted to see what kind of nonsense this old cat could come up with.
"HELLO everyone, this is Old Cat. We meet again. This time I've decided to make a slightly special video."
Everyone's seen the hit drama "Empress Wu Zetian," right? What kind of person is the female lead, Wu Zetian, in your mind? Is she domineering, decisive, or ruthless...?
She has so many facets, and so many bloggers have talked about her.
Today, I'm going to take you through a different perspective and show you the man behind Wu Zetian, and how she gradually rose to the position of emperor under his guidance.
So, who exactly was the man behind Wu Zetian?
That's right, that person was Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi.
When Li Zhi is mentioned, I find that the comments section is filled with words like "benevolent but weak," "indecisive," and so on. Many people even agree with the view that he became emperor purely by chance.
If you think that way, you are very wrong!
Today, Old Cat will take you through a detailed analysis of Emperor Gaozong, who sat firmly on the throne for thirty-four years until his death, when Wu Zetian finally dared to ascend the throne and declare herself Empress. What kind of person was he?
Mo Yun raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.
Old Cat's dramatic and eloquent speech really piqued her interest. She decided to let him see what kind of nonsense Old Cat could spew out.
"To talk about Li Zhi, we can't just look at 'Wu Zetian'; we also need to consider another novel by screenwriter Er Yuetian, 'The Great Tang Female Painter'."
The story of how Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi ascended to the throne in "Wu Zetian" is too brief, which may lead to biased analysis. Combining it with the analysis of "The Great Tang Female Painter" can make up for this.
Take a look, everyone. This is Lao Mao's subscription and donation record. Lao Mao has even ventured into the female-oriented video genre to make videos.
As Lao Mao spoke in the video, a screenshot of the full subscription to "The Female Painter of the Tang Dynasty" appeared, and at the same time, countless "hahahahaha" comments flashed by in the video's bullet screen.
Mo Yun paused and glanced at it. It was indeed a genuine subscription screenshot. As a seasoned bookworm, she could tell at a glance whether a picture was fake or not.
Hmm, not bad.
She was quite meticulous in making the video, and because of that, her goodwill towards the old cat improved a little.
"First of all, in 'The Great Tang Female Painter,' Li Zhi is the ninth prince. He has two older brothers who share the same father and mother. One of these brothers is the crown prince, and the other is the Prince of Wei. These two brothers are strong contenders for the throne."
Therefore, I believe that during this period, Li Zhi may have truly been gentle and benevolent.
However, later on, after his brothers fought each other to the point of exhaustion and were all forced to step down, he was pushed into the position of crown prince by his uncle Changsun Wuji and others. At that time, he still gave people the impression of being kind, weak, and filial, which was somewhat of a deliberate act.
Li Zhi was a very cautious and careful person.
He had already experienced the cruelty of court struggles from his two older brothers, so restraint, forbearance, and using gentleness to overcome strength became his way of surviving in politics.
This is why his aging father did not see him as a threat; on the contrary, he was always worried about him, not only arranging regents for him but also deciding to launch a campaign to retake neighboring countries.
Hiss~
No wonder the emperor in "The Great Tang Female Painter" was so determined to go on the expedition; it turns out there was another reason behind it. Mo Yun suddenly understood.
Actually, what Lao Mao said was all content mentioned in the novel, but the plot in the novel was scattered, and she hadn't really thought about it carefully before Lao Mao connected everything together.
This blogger is really something!
The old cat's voice continued in the video.
"Li Zhi's success and failure can both be attributed to his benevolence and weakness."
The image he cultivated for himself was so deeply ingrained in people's minds that after he ascended the throne, the regents didn't take him seriously at all. His uncle, Changsun Wuji, became the de facto ruler of the court, and he was hampered in whatever he wanted to do.
"If you were the emperor, would you be satisfied?"
Of course she was dissatisfied; Mo Yun knew this obvious truth.
"So, at this time, Wu Zetian appeared."
It has to be said that Wu Zetian appeared at just the right time. An ambitious and capable woman was exactly what Emperor Gaozong needed at the time... How to put it? You could say she was a pawn, or you could say she was the outward manifestation of Emperor Gaozong's ambition.
She could say what Emperor Gaozong couldn't say and do what he couldn't do.
On the surface, Emperor Gaozong supported Wu Zetian as empress, but as everyone has seen, the result was that Empress Wang was deposed, and the aristocratic power represented by Changsun Wuji suffered a severe blow.
Here, Old Cat would like to add a side note.
When I say that Emperor Gaozong used Wu Zetian as a pawn, it doesn't mean that he didn't love her. I still believe that the two of them truly loved each other.
Speaking of this, we have to mention the screenwriter, Eryuetian.
February Sky really portrays the characters very skillfully.
Think about it: wouldn't a person who is timid and indecisive be naturally attracted to a person who is heroic and decisive?
Therefore, in my opinion, it was a very natural thing for Emperor Gaozong to fall in love with Wu Zetian.
Of course, this point is also clearly explained in the side stories of "The Great Tang Female Painter," which interested readers can subscribe to...
Then comes some concluding remarks.
This concludes the first episode. After watching it, Mo Yun felt like she had gained a brain.
I never expected that the emperor played by Du Jing, who seemed honest, actually had so many cunning thoughts. No wonder she sometimes felt that his eyes were a little strange when watching TV.
She thought it was a problem with his acting skills.
Now it seems she misunderstood them. They were clearly acting that way on purpose. It's just that she was too dense and couldn't see through any of the tricks. She only saw the superficial fun.
Mo Yun couldn't resist opening 'Let's expose the man behind Wu Zetian (Part 2)' again.
This video is really addictive!
She initially felt indifferent towards Li Zhi while watching the drama, thinking the emperor was utterly incompetent. However, after listening to the blogger's analysis, she inexplicably found the character quite appealing.
She absolutely loves the scheming, cunning character trope.
In the second episode, Lao Mao captured many scenes from the TV series, explaining Li Zhi's scheming and plotting from various perspectives.
"......
In my opinion, the "deposing of the king and establishing Wu" was a very important turning point in the change of their relationship.
In the early period, Li Zhi and Wu Zetian were political allies because they shared a common enemy—the Guanlong Group. During this time, their relationship appeared exceptionally strong.
So why did their relationship gradually become more distant and guarded after Wu Zetian became empress and there were no more obstacles between them?
Is all of this just a simple emotional issue?
Of course not. The deeper reason is that the two have transformed from political allies into power rivals.
In the drama, after becoming empress, Wu Zetian worked to cultivate her power and eliminate dissidents. She planted spies in the court and the palace, so much so that when Emperor Li Zhi realized something was wrong, he couldn't depose her.
Li Zhi was so eager to depose the empress because he realized the imbalance of power.
This actually reveals Li Zhi's true character. If he had been decisive enough, perhaps Wu Zetian wouldn't have had a chance later on.
However, it was precisely because he lacked decisiveness that the story of Wu Zetian becoming empress came about. It was also because he lacked decisiveness that he was attracted to Wu Zetian, who was completely opposite to him, at the beginning of the story.
Hey, that makes sense now!
So the old saying is true: character really does determine destiny.
Here, I have to praise our screenwriter, Eryuetian, again. Eryuetian is truly amazing! The characters are so well-developed. If these two had different personalities, the entire storyline wouldn't have been possible..."
As Lao Mao talked, the video almost turned into a screenwriter praise session, which amused netizens watching the video, who then teased him in the comments section:
- Confirmed to be an absolute die-hard fan of February Band.
-I'm reporting someone here who's abusing their position for personal gain, using video creation to promote their own idol [doge emoji].
-Get a compliment every day!
Old Cat, I advise you to stop now, or I might use my connections to send the video to February Sky.
-Then the old cat must be even happier [winking].
Mo Yun smiled and listened to the entire video with great pleasure.
Haha, her favorite author was praised to the skies by a blogger with millions of followers. To be honest, she was incredibly proud!
She was even happier when she opened the comments section and saw the netizens' good-natured teasing.
- Praise what you love to hear.
After leaving her own review, Mo Yun forwarded the video to her friend Yang Hui, because such a good thing shouldn't be kept to herself.
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Author's Note: Revised
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