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Episode 91, Rain of terror.

When last we left our main narrative. Tong China was in a bit of a strange place.

From the outside in, it seemed a juggernaut, booming economy, peaceful populace, and a military

that in 684 had just finished completely wiping the floor with the Turks, the Koreans,

and even the Japanese, almost all simultaneously.

Yet from its centerpoint, the outlook seemed far less stable and uncertain.

Of you, held by many at the high echelons of government, and a feeling that they, and

of many historians since, could squarely point at a single person. The problem? Well that single person was the Empress, Wu

Jao, who had spent the decades since her initial rise to power, buying, bribing,

banishing, and even killing whoever it took to stay on top.

She had through her own force of will, and with a big assist, it should be said, from her husband's

almost total lack of it, risen from lowly consort

to co-equal ruler of the mightiest empire in the seventh century.

All that, however, had rather suddenly, though not altogether unexpectedly, been thrown into doubt with the death of the third Emperor of Tung, her husband Gao Zong, in late 683. Empress was power after all, had all was hidden itself behind the artifice of the Emperor's

will.

To it, she held no true formal power, and was still officially only recognized as the Empress Consort,

...