Cui Xuanwei
In 705, Wu Zetian was overthrown in a coup, and Li Xian was restored to the throne (as Emperor Zhongzong). On account of Zhu Qinming's service to him, he promoted Zhu to be "Guozi Jijiu" (), the principal of the imperial university, and further gave him the designation "Tong Zhongshu Menxia Sanpin" (), making him a chancellor "de facto". He was soon made the minister of justice (刑部尚書, "Xingbu Shangshu") and then the minister of rites (禮部尚書, "Libu Shangshu"). He was also created the Duke of Lu and given the honorific title of "Yinqing Guanglu Daiful" (). The coup leaders Huan Yanfan, Cui Xuanwei, Yuan Shuji, and Jing Hui, themselves now powerful chancellors (although they would soon lose power due to the machinations of Emperor Zhongzong's powerful wife Empress Wei and her lover and Emperor Zhongzong's trusted cousin Wu Sansi), became his students in studying the "Rites of Zhou", and Zhu was well respected. He was put in charge of editing the imperial history. However, in 706, he would have a brief downfall—as he was indicted by the censor Xiao Zhizhong of having hidden a parent's death to avoid serving a mourning period, a severe breach of the Confucian requirements for filial piety—and was demoted to be the prefect of Shen Prefecture (申州, roughly modern Xinyang, Henan).