Later, Tang Xuanzong favored Yang Guifei, neglected state affairs, and placed his trust in treacherous ministers such as Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong. Coupled with policy failures and the promotion of sycophants like An Lushan, this led to the eight-year An-Shi Rebellion, setting the once-mighty Great Tang Dynasty upon the road to decline.
In the fourth year of Tianyou (907), Zhu Wen forced the Tang Dynasty's last emperor, Tang Aidi Li Zhu, to abdicate. He changed the state's name to Liang, became Liang Taizu, and established the capital at Kaifeng. The Tang Dynasty thus perished after a total of 290 years.
After the Tang Dynasty's fall came another great age of division—the period of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. It lasted more than sixty years, until the Song Dynasty finally achieved unification.
After learning this history, Wu Zetian's feelings were rather complicated. Originally, she had intended to grant death to Wei Xianger and her several daughters, as well as women like Yang Yuhuan, whose beauty could bring calamity upon a nation and ruin its people. Keeping them alive would only invite disaster, so she had planned to eliminate them all together.
But then she thought of Zhao Fu, and of Wu Zhou. Thus, Wu Zetian gave them to Zhao Fu as gifts. Though they were her daughters-in-law and granddaughters, Wu Zetian had not the slightest desire to keep those who had done what they did.
Especially after learning that Wei Xianger might later commit adultery with another man—not only placing a green hat upon her son's head, but perhaps even poisoning him to death.
Among the six women, Zhao Fu looked at Yang Yuhuan and Li Guo'er. Both women were truly peerlessly beautiful. Yang Yuhuan, the future Yang Guifei, had yet to fully mature, but she already possessed