The Empire Collapsed After I Was Stripped of My Office, and the Empress Wept

On this day, the heads of the five surnames and seven great clans, representatives of the most powerful aristocratic families in the land, gathered at Fengluan Hall. The Qinghe Cui clan, Longxi Li clan, Zhaojun Li clan, Boling Cui clan, Fanyang Lu clan, Xingyang Zheng clan, and Taiyuan Wang clan had come for one reason: to persuade Empress Wu Zetian to dismiss Prime Minister Li Qi’an! Li Qi’an was born into a humble family. Through diligence and hard work, he passed the imperial examination at fourteen and became prime minister at sixteen. Over the next twenty years, he helped the Great Wu dynasty annex the Great Han, Great Qin, Great Tang, Great Song, Great Yuan, Great Ming, and Great Qing, turning it into the most powerful empire in the world. Its might shook all corners of the earth, and every foreign tribe came to pay tribute and submit. The late emperor even bestowed on him the title Duke of Shenwu. Just as Li Qi’an was brimming with ambition and preparing to unite this unprecedentedly vast empire, the empress’s order to dismiss him suddenly arrived! Without Li Qi’an to keep it in check, the Great Wu dynasty quickly fell apart! The empress wept!