In the first year of Shenlong (705), the final year of Wu Zetian's reign—the founding sovereign of Wu Zhou, who had replaced Tang and was also the only legitimate female emperor in Shenzhou's history.
She was also one of the oldest emperors to ascend the throne, at sixty-seven, and one of the longest-lived, dying at eighty-two. Together with Empress Lü of the Han Dynasty, she was known as "Lü and Wu."
That year, the eighty-two-year-old Wu Zetian fell gravely ill.
In the first month, Chancellor Zhang Jianzhi, Right Feathered Forest Grand General Li Duozuo, Left Mighty Guard General Xue Sixing, and others launched the Shenlong Coup. They led more than five hundred Feathered Forest troops in a sudden assault through Xuanwu Gate and killed Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong in Yingxian Palace.
That day, Prince of Xiang Li Dan also led the imperial guards of the Southern Office in strengthening the defenses and coordinating the operation. Left with no choice, Wu Zetian first ordered the Crown Prince to oversee the state, then abdicated the following day. Two days later, Li Xian was restored to the throne and proclaimed emperor, granting a general amnesty throughout the realm.
During Li Xian's reign, he restored the old Tang Dynasty institutions, exempted taxes and levies, established inspection commissioners for the ten circuits, appointed scholars to Xiuwen Hall, expanded economic and cultural exchanges with Tubo, and pursued a marriage-alliance policy. He married Princess Jincheng to Tride Tsuktsen, the Tsanpo of Tubo, ensuring stability along the borderlands.
Yet... Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, Li Xian, ruled twice, but his combined reign lasted only five and a half years. On the renwu day of the sixth month in the fourth year of Jinglong (710), he was poisoned to death at the age of fifty-five. His posthumous title was