In November, Gaozong issued a decree claiming that, despite their long records of deep enmity, Empress Wang and Xiao Liangdi had been caught plotting against the throne and had planned to poison him. Accordingly, they were stripped of their ranks and former status, and their entire families were to be similarly demoted and punitively shipped to the far south to live out their lives in exile.20 The two women were kept under house arrest, barricaded inside a single pavilion, with only a small opening in the doorway for their meals to be slipped to them. Cunning, poetic insult was added to injury
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