Di Renjie - During Emperor Ruizong's First Reign

During Emperor Ruizong's First Reign

As of 686, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong's son Emperor Ruizong, Di Renjie was serving as the prefect of Ning Prefecture (寧州, roughly modern Qingyang, Gansu). At that time, the censor Guo Han (郭翰) was commissioned to tour the prefectures in the area, and wherever he went, he found faults with the prefects and corrected them, but when he arrived at Ning Prefecture, it was said that the people had no complaints about Di and praised him greatly. Guo recommended Di to Emperor Ruizong's mother and regent Empress Dowager Wu (later known as Wu Zetian), and Di was recalled to Luoyang to serve as deputy minister of public works (冬官侍郎, Dongguan Shilang).

In 688, Di was touring the Jiangnan Circuit (江南道, the region south of the Yangtze River). He believed that the region had too many temples dedicated to unusual deities, and at his request, some 1,700 temples were destroyed; only four kinds of temples were allowed to remain—those dedicated to Yu the Great, Wu Taibo (吳太伯, the legendary founder of the Spring and Autumn Period kingdom Wu), Wu Jizha (吳季札, a well-regarded Wu prince and son of King Shoumeng of Wu), and Wu Zixu.

Later in 688, in the aftermath of a failed rebellion by Emperor Gaozong's brother Li Zhen the Prince of Yue, then the prefect of Yu Prefecture (豫州, roughly modern Zhumadian, Henan), against Empress Dowager Wu, she made Di, who was at that time Wenchang Zuo Cheng (文昌左丞), a secretary general at the executive bureau (which by that point had been renamed Wenchang Tai (文昌臺)), the prefect of Yu Prefecture to succeed Li Zhen. At that time, some 600 to 700 households were accused of being complicit in Li Zhen's rebellion and were forced to serve as servants. At Di's request, they were relieved from those obligations, but were exiled to Feng Prefecture (豐州, roughly modern Bayan Nur, Inner Mongolia). Meanwhile, the general that Empress Dowager Wu sent to suppress Li Zhen's rebellion, the chancellor Zhang Guangfu, was still in Yu Prefecture, and his officers and soldiers were demanding all kinds of supplies from the Yu prefectural government, requests that Di mostly turned down. This led to an argument with Zhang, and Zhang accused him of showing contempt; in turn, Di angrily stated that Zhang was killing alleged coconspirators of Li Zhen excessively and that if he had the authority to do so, he would have beheaded Zhang even if it meant his own death. Zhang was greatly offended and, upon return to Luoyang, accused Di of contempt, and Empress Dowager Wu demoted Di to be the prefect of Fu Prefecture (復州, in modern Hanzhong, Shaanxi). (This was considered a demotion as, while Di remained a prefect, Fu Prefecture was smaller and less important than Yu Prefecture.)