Early Tang: Forging Ahead

I particularly dislike Li Zhi. Without him, there would have been no Wu Zetian to usurp the Tang throne. He failed to manage his wife and raise his sons well, almost causing the downfall of the Tang Dynasty after three generations. He is a sinner. Those so-called achievements were mostly due to the many capable ministers and generals of the Tang Dynasty. Perhaps other sons of Li Shimin could have done the same if they had ascended the throne.

The author should just quit. His previous book was quite good, but this one is a complete disaster (I didn't read a single one; the reviews say it's all about the emperor). As a time traveler with a head start in life, I completely don't understand why someone would be so subservient to an ancient person.

So, for the next few decades, the protagonist will have to cling to Wu Zetian's coattails, right? Emperor Gaozong (Li Zhi) and Empress Wu Zetian together could probably outlive a large number of people. The protagonist will face a series of events, including the fall of Goguryeo, the abandonment of Qinghai, the disastrous defeat at Dafeichuan, the Luo Binwang uprising, and the rebellion of the…

A mere country scholar is engaged to Consort Xiao's sister? Even if she's from a concubine's family, she's still someone you can't possibly aspire to.

Sigh, the author is getting too sentimental. With the author's writing skills, the results shouldn't be this bad. It would have been so much better to write about the An Lushan Rebellion and the path of rebelling and becoming emperor. The previous book was clearly very good, but instead, the author has returned to the path of a subject.

The supporting character is a complete clown; no further explanation is needed, and attempts to defend him are futile.

Was Wu Zetian during the early Tang Dynasty? Forgive me for not having studied history, but I genuinely can't understand this.

If you don't write about rebelling and becoming emperor, your grades won't be good. It feels like you're getting arrogant and acting like a pretentious intellectual. Your last book was about rebellion during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. If you're going to write about the Tang Dynasty in this book, you should choose the An Lushan Rebellion period.

I bought and read the Tang and Song histories of the Twenty-Four Histories, but I found virtually nothing about Wu Zetian's achievements. The New and Old Books of Tang also didn't cover her much; they only mentioned policies she implemented to reduce the burden on farmers and strengthened the advantages of the imperial examination system.

Every book is like this: do protagonists who value their country and people more than themselves really exist? I certainly can't relate to them.