Even today, Wu remains infamous for the spectacularly ruthless way in which she supposedly disposed of Gaozongs first wife, the empress Wang, and a senior and more favored consort known as the Pure Concubine. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . According to Wu's own account, they conspired against her but, according to other historians, Wu started and finished the problems she had with them. Guisso, Richard W. Empress Wu Tse-t'ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T'ang China. She was in very poor health anyway by this time and died a year later. When Empress Wu was the empress of the Tang Dynasty, she created a system of secret police to watch her opponents and killed or put anyone in . In her new position, she was constantly involved in affairs of state at the highest level and must have performed her duties well because she became a favorite of Taizong. Historians have documented Wu Zetian's resort to slander, torture, and murders to reinforce the propaganda of omens. She later volunteered to tame Taizong's wild horse with an iron whip, hammer, and knife. Lyn Reese is the author of all the information on this website | READ MORE. Changing the dynasty was the easier task and was accomplished by securing the approval of the Confucian establishment. But if she is observed in the context of the sexuality of male rulers, then the number of her favorites is insignificant. Again, it is hard to tell what is true and what is slander being that Wu Zeitan's story is so long ago and the sources are sketchy. It was approached via a mile-long causeway running between two low hills topped with watchtowers, known today as the nipple hills because Chinese tradition holds that the spot was selected because the hills reminded Gaozong of the young Wus breasts. The scholar N. Henry Rothschild writes, "The message was clear: A woman in a position of paramount power was an abomination, an aberration of natural and human order" (108). Empress Dowager. Empress Wu: Part XV of the Great Patron Series - Khyentse Foundation To reinforce her legitimacy, Wu Zetian also invented about a dozen characters with a new script. The practice of an emperor having young women as concubines was customary but when an empress decided to entertain herself with young men it was suddenly scandalous. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. World Eras. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. In sum, within the social and political context of her time, Wu Zetian was a leader who went beyond the traditional roles of submissive wife and home-bound mother to emerge as ruler, lawmaker, and head of state and society while her second husband, lovers, and sons were relegated to less powerful positions than traditionally expected. Her significance as an emperor and founder of a new dynasty lies in her redefining of the gender-specific concepts of the emperorship and the Confucian state. She was very beautiful and was selected by emperor Taizong (r. 626 - 649 CE) as one of his concubines when she was 14 years old. Cookie Policy Encyclopedia.com. "Empress Wu and Proto-Feminist Sentiments in T'ang China," in Frederick P. Brandauer and Chn-chieh Huang, eds., Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China. A third problem is that the empress, who was well aware of both these biases, was not averse to tampering with the record herself; a fourth is that some other accounts of her reign were written by relatives who had good cause to loathe her. They came to power, mostly, by default or stealth; a king had no sons, or an intelligent queen usurped the powers of her useless husband. Empress Wu (Zhaolie) - Wikipedia "The Reigns of the Empress Wu, Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung," in Denis Twitchett, ed., Cambridge History of China. Twitchett, Denis, and Howard J. Wechsler. But is the empress unfairly maligned? One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Removing the legitimate heir, she took the name of Emperor Zetian and founded the Zhou dynasty in 690, becoming the first and only female emperor in Chinese history. Wus memorial tablet, which stands near her tomb, was erected during her years as empress in the expectation that her successors would compose a magnificent epitaph for it. True, Taizongan old warrior-ruler so conscientious that he had official documents pasted onto his bedroom walls so that he would have something to work on if he woke in the nighthad lost his empress shortly before Wu entered the palace. There was a sense of trying to keep up with ones rivals by building something bigger than they had. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. This opposition was formidable; the annals of the period contain numerous examples of criticisms leveled by civil servants mortified by the empresss innovations. Gaozong fell for it and the Empress Wang was put to death. The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. "Wu Zetian (624705) Your Majesty may take this as 'Mount Felicity', but your subject feels there is nothing to celebrate. Web. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. World History Encyclopedia. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. In their place, she appointed intellectuals and talented bureaucrats without regard to family status or connections. Even though there were many important and influential women throughout China's history, only one ever became the most powerful political figure in the country. Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. Encyclopedia.com. These began in 666 with the death by poison of a teenage niece who had attracted Gaozongs admiring gaze, and continued in 674 with the suspicious demise of Wus able eldest son, crown prince Li Hong, and the discovery of several hundred suits of armor in the stables of a second son, who was promptly demoted to the rank of commoner on suspicion of treason. Favoring the power base in the Northeast, the royal family finally moved to Luoyang in 683. Wu Zetian's SteleI, (GJGY.com) (CC BY-SA). Cambridge History of China. To respond properly to Heaven's censure, it is suitable that you lead the quiet life of a widow and cultivate virtue, otherwise I fear further disasters will befall us. Empress Wu Zetian (Empress Consort Wu, Wu Hou, Wu Mei Niang, Mei-Niang, and Wu Zhao, l. 624-705 CE, r. 690-704 CE) was the only female emperor of Imperial China. She began her life at court as a concubine of the emperor Taizong. Bellingham : EAS Press, 1978; Robert Van Gulik. Books If it does not yield, I'll hit it with the iron hammer. In her last years Wu lost influence, although she remained energetic and cruel. She did not ask any man's permission to lead these women to Mount Tai; she felt she knew what was best and did it. She worked against the Confucian dictum that women must restrict their activities to the home and in the wildest imagination could not become emperors. In the reign of Empress Wu, persons who entered government through the examinations were able for the first time to occupy the highest positions, even that of chief minister. Cite This Work How did she hold on to power? 3, no. Thus Wu Zetian's experience might have caused some redefinition of gender in her time, but this direction has not translated into enduring gains in the society and political organization that she left behind. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. "Wu Zetian." 3, no. Having risen to be empress in Wangs stead, Wu ordered that both womens hands and feet be lopped off and had their mutilated bodies tossed into a vat of wine, leaving them to drown with the comment: Now these two witches can get drunk to their bones., As if infanticide, torture and murder were not scandalous enough, Wu was also believed to have ended her reign by enjoying a succession of erotic encounters which the historians of the day portrayed as all the more shocking for being the indulgences of a woman of advanced age. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. Wu Zetian's collected writings include official edicts, essays, and poetry, in addition to a treatise to instruct her subjects on moral statecraft. Character Overview Wu Zetian: China's Only Female Emperor - ThoughtCo disadvantages of food transportation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Wu's rise to power was ruthless and her reign no less so, as she continued to eliminate rivals and opponents using tactics that were sometimes brutal. Empress Wu Zetian (Empress Consort Wu, Wu Hou, Wu Mei Niang, Mei-Niang, and Wu Zhao, l. 624-705 CE, r. 690-704 CE) was the only female emperor of Imperial China. Empress Wu rose to power through ruthless tactics to move her from the emperor's concubine, to the emperor's consort, and eventually to the position of empress of China. In 690, she declared herself emperor after deposing her sons and founding her own dynastyZhou. Not only do we pay for our servers, but also for related services such as our content delivery network, Google Workspace, email, and much more. Taizong was so impressed at her intellectual abilities, he took her out of the laundry and made her his secretary. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism - Women In World History Wu Zetian Biography, Facts & Quotes | Who was Empress Wu? | Study.com The primary and secondary sources on Wu Zetian are abundant and problematic, reflecting an almost exclusively male authorship that has portrayed her as a beautiful, calculating, brutal woman who ruled China as the only woman emperor in name and in fact. In 690 C.E., Zetian forced Li Dan to abdicate the throne to her, and declared herself the founding empress of the Zhou dynasty. Privacy Statement Empress Theodora. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705, "Wu Zetian (624705) The Demonization of Empress Wu - Smithsonian Magazine This particular minister was silenced but that did not silence the rest; they just were more careful not to speak their mind in front of her. Wu Zetian - World History Encyclopedia Wu was forced to abdicate in favor of her exiled son Zhongzong and his wife Wei. At one point, to the horror of her generals, Wu proposed raising a military corps from among Chinas numerous eunuchs. Taizong was surprised that his latest concubine could read and write and became fascinated by her beauty and wit in conversation. By transferring the normal seat of the court from Changan to Luoyang, she was able to escape the control of the great families of the northwestern aristocracy, which played an important role in the rise of the Tang dynasty. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Gansu, and the Tibetans posed a threat to Chinese possessions in Central Asia. In her seventies, Wu showered special favor on two smooth-cheeked brothers, the Zhang brothers, former boy singers, the nature of whose private relationship with their imperial mistress has never been precisely determined. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Ouyang, Xiu. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. To enhance her position as a woman, in 688 she constructed a "hall of light" in the eastern capital of Luoyang to serve as a cosmic magnet to symbolize the harmony of heaven and earth and the balance of male (yang) and female (yin) forces. At the time of the murder, it was Lady Wu's word against Lady Wang's, and later historians decided to side with Lady Wang against Wu; but this does not mean they chose the right side. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. This mountain, so born of the sudden convulsion of earth, represents a calamity. New Capital. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. One explanation for Wus success is that she listened. Wu either read him whatever she felt like and then made her own decisions or read him the real reports and then still acted on her own. She thus arranged marriages between her children and grandchildren with her brothers' sons and their grandchildren. Among a raft of other allegations are the suggestions that she ordered the suicides of a grandson and granddaughter who had dared to criticize her and later poisoned her husband, whovery unusually for a Chinese emperordied unobserved and alone, even though tradition held that the entire family should assemble around the imperial death bed to attest to any last words. Such killings were not uncommon among emperors before and after her. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Public Domain. Wu Zetian came to the throne when she was 67, making her the oldest person ever be crowned. But in 705, when she was 81 years old, the combined forces of the Li-Tang family took advantage of her weakening grip on the state and removed her from power. Wu was given the privileged position of first concubine even though by law she should have been left in the temple as a nun. Click for Author Information. correct answers: the roman empire constructed significantly more roads and developed inland economic resources more extensively than its predecessors the roman empire integrated many Greek and Phoenician trade routes, regional products and trade cities into its own economic system Illustration. One of the brothers, she declared, had a face as beautiful as a lotus flower, while it is said she valued the other for his talents in the bedchamber. (British Library, Shelfmark Or. Born to a newly emerging merchant family in the Northeast, Wu Zhao had been a concubine of Li Shimin, or Taizong, founder of the Tang dynasty (618-907). First, I'll beat it with the iron whip. Examination System. When her mother was distressed about losing her to an uncertain life fraught with intrigues in the emperor's harem, she firmly reassured her: "Isn't it a fortune to attend the emperor! Wu Zetian established her dynasty - the Zhou dynasty. Reign of Terror. The Chinese TV series Women of the Tang Dynasty (2013) featured the actress Hui Yinghong as Wu Zetian and was very popular, attesting to the continued interest in China's first and only female ruler. Yet Wu has had a pretty bad press. . A 17th-century Chinese depiction of Wu, from Empress Wu of the Zhou, published c.1690. She replaced Zhongzong with her second son, who became Emperor Ruizong. Bellingham, WA: Center for Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978. The emperor believed her story, and Wang was demoted and imprisoned in a distant part of the palace, soon to be joined by the Pure Concubine.

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