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. This is very similar to the story of the Empress Lu Zhi (l. 241-180 BCE) of the Han Dynasty who got rid of her rival Qizi in the same way (although Qizi was drowned in a pigsty and had her eyes gouged out as well). The Story Of Wu Zetian, China's First Female Emperor, The Demonization of Empress Wu by Mike Dash, The Karmic Retribution of Pei Huaigu by Kelly Carlton (University of Florida), Wu Zetian: China's One and Only Woman Emperor by Jim Down. Anyone she suspected of disloyalty, for any reason, was banished or executed. Empress Wu is the only female to have ever ruled in her own name in China. Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. She ruled China with complete authority and no one dared to challenge her when she was in control. Her giant stone memorial, placed at one side of the spirit road leading to her tomb, remains blank. (British Library, Shelfmark Or. Thank you for your help! unified China in 221 B.C. 23 Feb. 2023 . One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. Give me three tools to tame that wild horse. Encyclopedia.com. 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. Wu Zetian was one of the longest-lived monarchs (82 years old) in Chinese history. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. 290332. But 28 other consorts still stood between her and the throne. Mark, E. (2016, March 17). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. Long a supporter of Buddhism through her mother's devotion and her own refuge in the nunnery after her first husband Taizong's death, Wu Zetian counted on Buddhist ideology to legitimize her reign and her dynasty. Wu Zetian is believed to have been born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province around 624 CE. The Tang emperor Taizong was the first to promote Wu, whom he gave the nickname Fair Flatterera reference not to her personal qualities but to the lyrics of a popular song of the day. 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. 1, 1993, pp. Your Privacy Rights Chu Hsi (1130-1200) was one of the greatest Chinese scholars and philosophers. Historian Kelly Carlton writes: Wu had a petition box made, which originally contained four slots: one for men to recommend themselves as officials; one where citizens might openly and anonymously criticize court decisions; one to report the supernatural, strange omens, and secret plots, and one to file accusations and grievances. "Empress Wu and the Historians: A Tyrant and Saint of Classical China," in Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross, eds., Unspoken Worlds: Religious Lives of Women. Thank you! Her last two lovers were the young and handsome Zhang brothers who put on makeup and exploited the relationship by obtaining offices, honors, and gifts for themselves and their family. Wu Zetian established her dynasty - the Zhou dynasty. Missions from Japan, Korea, and Vietnam arrived at Xi'an bearing tribute and seeking education in Buddhism and Confucianism. Wu Zetian's tough character and good equestrian skills were perceived by observers even when she was a teenager. To reinforce her legitimacy, Wu Zetian also invented about a dozen characters with a new script. Her patronage of Buddhism also expanded to other temples and sects, and much work was done on the cave temples at Longmen on her orders. She did not hold that title but she was the power behind the office and took care of imperial business even when pregnant in 665 CE with her daughter Taiping. The empress even promoted what might loosely be termed womens rights, publishing (albeit as part of her own legitimation campaign)Biographies of Famous Women and requiring children to mourn both parents, rather than merely their father, as had been the practice hitherto. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. In death, as in life, then, Wu remains controversial. Political Propaganda and Ideology in China at the End of the Seventh Century. No-one knows what secrets it holds, for like many of the tombs of the most celebrated Chinese rulers, including that of the First Emperor himself, it has never been plundered or opened by archaeologists. At one point, to the horror of her generals, Wu proposed raising a military corps from among Chinas numerous eunuchs. 242289. After suppressing this revolt, the empress dowager began to purge her opponents at court. He refused to cooperate well with his mother and his wife, Lady Wei, assumed too much power. Our publication has been reviewed for educational use by Common Sense Education, Internet Scout (University of Wisconsin), Merlot (California State University), OER Commons and the School Library Journal. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine (He would camp out in the palace grounds, Clements notes, barbecuing sheep.) Cheng-qian was banished for attempted revolt, while a dissolute brother who had agreed to take part in the rebellionso long, Clements adds, as he was permitted sexual access to every musician and dancer in the palace, male or femalewas invited to commit suicide, and another of Taizongs sons was disgraced for his involvement in a different plot. The Shiji Her courtiers, however, hatched a plot and afterward forced her to abdicate in 705; she died later that year. Edward Schafer, The Divine Women: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in Tang Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). However, the date of retrieval is often important. Since candidates normally tried to win favor with an examiner prior to the tests, some could use their family connections to send samples of their verse in an effort to impress the men who held the keys to government positions. But if she is observed in the context of the sexuality of male rulers, then the number of her favorites is insignificant. 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. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. In 684 Li Jingye led a revolt of those northwestern families who had been disgraced and exiled to the Yangzi Valley. Under the older regimes, a suggestion or complaint had to go through a number of different offices before it ever reached anyone who could do something about it. The story of Wu's murder of her daughter and the framing of Lady Wang to gain power is the most infamous and most often repeated incident of her life but actually there is no way of knowing if it happened as the historians recorded it. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. Five Historical Plays. Nevertheless, court intrigues still greatly influenced the recruiting of civil servants. Her reign witnessed a healthy growth in the population; when she died in 705 her centralized bureaucracy regulated the social life and economic well-being of the 60 million people in the empire. In promoting Buddhism over Confucianism and Daoism as the favored state religion, the Empress countered strongly held Confucian beliefs against female rule. Jay, Jennifer W. "Vignettes of Chinese Women in Tang Xi'an (618906): Individualism in Wu Zetian, Yang Guifei, Yu Xuanji and Li Wa," in Chinese Culture. 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. Kumarajiva's influence on Chinese Buddhist thought was crucial. Wu was the daughter of Wu Jin, a commoner in Kaifeng. Princess Taiping put an end to her plans when she had Wei and her family murdered and put her brother Ruizong on the throne. 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. Empress Wu used the intelligence she gathered to pressure some high-ranking officials who were not performing well to resign; others she simply banished or had executed. She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother, the chronicles say. 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. Historians remain divided as to how far Wu benefited from the removal of these potential obstacles; what can be said is that her third son, who succeeded his father as Emperor Zhongzong in 684, lasted less than two months before being banished, at his mothers instigation, in favor of the more tractable fourth, Ruizong. The area around Changan could not produce the amount of food required to feed the court and garri-sons, and the transportation of grain up the Yellow River, traversing the Sanmen rapids, was exceptionally expensive. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. 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. You're hard-pressed to find any historical documents that don't have some sort of bias, especially when dealing with a controversial figure like Wu Zetian. The insurrections had received little popular support and in the years that she dominated politics as empress, empress dowager, and finally as emperor, there were no widespread military unrests. Even if she took full advantage, however, she must have possessed not only looks but remarkable intelligence and determination to emerge, as she did two decades later, as empress. The Turkic chieftain was insulted by the fact that the groom did not come from the Li-Tang imperial family but descended from what he perceived to be the inferior Wu clan, so he promptly imprisoned the unlucky groom and in 698 returned him to China. Some historians have viewed her as blazing the trail for the women who came after her, and indeed her daughter, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter aspired to emulate her success, but they failed and even died violently in the process. Founder of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuang-yin (927-976) ended the practice of frequent military coups, which had exhausted China for mor, https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705, Mandate from Heaven: The Tomb of Qin Shi Huang. Wu Zetian was born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province, in 624 CE to a wealthy family. Instead, it was left without any inscriptionthe only such example in more than 2,000 years of Chinese history. Yet Wu has had a pretty bad press. However they rose, though, it has always been harder for a woman to rule effectively than it was for a manmore so in the earlier periods of history, when monarchs were first and foremost military leaders, and power was often seized by force. Territorial Expansion. Setting up a new dynasty meant installing a new imperial family to replace the Li-Tang imperial house, from which she had married two emperors who were father and son, Taizong and Gaozong. She was also the most important early supporter of the alien religion of Buddhism, which during her rule surpassed the native Confucian and Daoist faiths in influence within the Tang realm. These monumental statues, like the one carved into the mountain at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, which was destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, alerted the populous to the dominance of Buddhism. Born: February 17, 624 Lizhou, China Died: December 16, 705 in Luoyang, China Reign: October 16, 690 to February 22, 705 Best known for: The only woman to be Emperor of China Biography: Empress Wu Zetian by Unknown [Public Domain] Growing Up Wu Zetian was born on February 17, 624 in Lizhou, China. She maintained a stable economy and a moderate taxation for the peasantry. Her name was Wu Zetian, and in the seventh century A.D. she became the only woman in more than 3,000 years of Chinese history to rule in her own right. Wu also reformed the military by mandating military exams for commanders to show competency, which were patterned on her imperial exams given to civil service workers. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. New Capital. But she changed the composition of the ruling class by removing the entrenched aristocrats from the court and gradually expanding the civil service examination to recruit men of merit to serve in the government. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. This opposition was formidable; the annals of the period contain numerous examples of criticisms leveled by civil servants mortified by the empresss innovations. 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. Although these characters were removed after her reign they still exist as a Chinese dialect in written form. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. When she was an infant dressed in boy's clothes, Wu Zetian's potential for emperorship was predicted by an official. Kannon embodies compassion, and when seen as female is venerated as a patron of motherhood and fertility. emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. Paul, Diana Y. Add to . Under Wus rule the government was expanded, and many of the new positions were filled through the examination system. Taizong forced the abdication of his own father and disposed of two older brothers in hand-to-hand combat before seizing the throne. After the latter died in 684, she took on four or five lovers, including a monk whom she ordered executed when weary of his greed and abuse of power. The Analects of Confucius Primary Source Activity - Google Drive - Print & Digital. Her overall rule, in spite of the change of dynasty, did not result in a radical break from Tang domestic prosperity and foreign prestige. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Examination System. Encyclopedia.com. Her daunting task was convincing the Confucian establishment about the legitimate succession of a woman who was the widow of the deceased emperor and the mother of the currently legitimate ruler. ." There must also be some doubt as to whether Wu really was guilty of some of the most monstrous crimes that history has charged her with. Mutsuhito Emily Mark studied history and philosophy at Tianjin University, China and English at SUNY New Paltz, NY. The famed imperial mosaics in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna depict the sixth-century Byzantine empress. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. Han Emperor Wen, r. 180-157 BCE . ." For centuries she was excoriated by Chinese historians as an offender against a way of life. After this event Wu became Empress and shared Imperial power equally with her emperor. Zhou Dynasty. By 655 she had consolidated her position after her son inherited the throne. published on 22 February 2016. On the Korean peninsula Empress Wu supported the unification movement under the state of Silla. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Most nations of note have had at least one great female leader. When Wu could no longer tolerate her daughter-in-law's antics and disrespect, and her son's refusal to discipline her and obey Wu's dictates, she had him charged with treason and banished along with his wife. Please support World History Encyclopedia. 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. When Gaozong died in 683, she became empress dowager and ruled on behalf of two adult sons, emperors Zhongzong (r. 684, 705710) and Ruizong (r. 685689, 710712). She appears in influential plays as a feminist and champion of the lower classes while her male rivals are shown to be aristocrats, landlords, and conservatives against the tide of history. The mute and limbless concubine was then tossed into a cesspit in the palace with the swine. Submitted by Emily Mark, published on 17 March 2016. Complete List of Included Worksheets Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document. "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) Princes and ministers loyal to the Tang Dynasty and princes suspected of rebellious motives against her were executed. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. The reversal of gender roles was nowhere more objectionable than Wu Zetian's sexuality, in the eyes of the traditional historians. "Empress Wu Zetian." It may be helpful to consider that there were in effect two empressesthe one who maintained a reign of terror over the innermost circle of government, and the one who ruled more benignly over 50 million Chinese commoners. How did she hold on to power? Character Overview This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. We are told that through cruel manipulations, including strangulating her own infant daughter to falsely implicate Gaozong's then current barren empress, Wu Zetian replaced her as empress in 657 and dominated the rest of Gaozong's reign. The Confucian dynastic system of government, based on the mandate of heaven, or the claim of heaven-sanctioned military conquest and benevolent rule, was first propounded by the Zhou Dynasty in 1045 bce and perpetuated by subsequent dynasties until 1911. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. However, when Li Zhi became emperor and took the name Gaozong, one of the first things he did was send for Wu and have her brought back to court as the first of his concubines, even though he had others and also a wife. The system of Neo-Confucianism of which Chu Hsi is regarded as the spo, Mutsuhito Guo, Moruo. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . Li Zhi was deeply in love with Wu but could not do anything about it because she belonged to his father and, besides, he was already married. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. We care about our planet! Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Wu placed her first son on the throne who took the royal title Zhongzong. World History Encyclopedia. These historians claim that Wu ordered Lady Wang and Lady Xiao murdered in a terrible way: she had their hands and feet cut off and they were then thrown into a vat of wine to drown. And while Chinas imperial chronicles were too rigidly run and too highly developed for Wus name to be simply wiped from their pages, the stern disapproval of the Confucian mandarins who compiled the records can still be read 1,500 years later. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. How did a woman with such limited expectations as Wu emerge triumphant in the cutthroat world of the Tang court? $1.99. Wu: the Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become A Living God. In spite of all of her reforms and the prosperity she brought to the country, Wu was remembered mainly for her crimes against friends and family members - especially the murder of her daughter - and people did not think she was worthy of an inscription. 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. She particularly supported Huayan Buddhism, which regarded Vairocana Buddha as the center of the world, much as Empress Wu wished to be the center of political power. This item is in the public domain, and can be used, copied, and modified without any restrictions. To further separate her Zhou Dynasty from the Tang, she created new characters for the Chinese writing system which are known today as Chinese Characters of Empress Wu or Zetian Characters. Alternate Names Abdication. In 683 CE, when Wu began manipulating events as a man would, one Confucian scholar wrote that nature had been reversed by the 'usurping woman' and "throughout the empire in every prefecture hens changed into roosters, or half changed" (Rothschild, 108). World History Encyclopedia, 17 Mar 2016. Favoring the power base in the Northeast, the royal family finally moved to Luoyang in 683. It is also generally accepted that Ruizongs wife, Empress Liu, and chief consort, Dou, were executed at Wus behest in 693 on trumped-up charges of witchcraft. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. The court followed Empress Wus example by creating an enormous statue of the Vairocana Buddha in gold and copper at the Todaiji monastery in Nara, Japans capital. Guisso, Richard W.L. Gaozong's wife, Lady Wang, and his former first concubine, Xiao Shufei, were jealous of each other but even more envious of the attention Gaozong paid to Wu. Vol. Barretts recent book even suggests (on no firm evidence) that the empress was the most important early promoter of printing in the world. An active imagination produced pornographic novels in the 16th century focusing on her alleged sexual practices. 3, no. 127148. Traditional historians grudgingly acknowledged that she surpassed her sons, the legitimate heirs, in both vision and statecraft. These women were rarely chosen by their people. It is the only known uncarved memorial tablet in more than 2,000 years of imperial history, its muteness chillingly reminiscent of the attempts made by Hatshepsuts successors toobliterate her namefrom the stone records of pharaonic Egypt. 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. Lady Wang had no children and Lady Xiao had a son and two daughters. 1 minutes de lecture . Gaozong divorced his wife, barred her mother from the palace, and exiled Lady Xiao. A woman in the most powerful position in government threatened the traditional patriarchy and the court counselors, ministers, and historians claimed Wu had upset the balance of nature by assuming a power which belonged to a man. Wei had her father appointed Chief Minister to her husband and tried to push through other measures favoring her family. Anticipating Wu Zetian's political ambitions, 60,000 flatterersincluding Confucian officials, imperial relatives, Buddhist clergy, tribal chieftains, and commonerssupported the petition to proclaim the Zhou Dynasty with herself as the founding emperor. Wu was forced to abdicate in favor of her exiled son Zhongzong and his wife Wei. Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. . The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. In the largest cave there is a statue called the Grand Vairocana Buddha. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. Sources about Wu Zetian's life are a hodgepodge, which some condemning her as the devil himself and others testifying she was an absolute angel. Cold, ruthless, and ambitious, the Han dynasty dowager murdered her rival,. License. Any historian who has written on Lady Wu has followed the story set down by the later Chinese historians without question, but these historians had their own agenda which did not include praising a woman who presumed to rule like a man. Economic considerations also played a role in this relocation.