Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2007; Dora Shu-Fang Dien, Empress Wu Zetian in Fiction and in History: Female Defiance in Confucian China. By 655 she had consolidated her position after her son inherited the throne. If so, their hopes were in vain; Empress Wu Zetian is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers in China's history. 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. Her mother ne Yang was of aristocratic birth with mixed Chinese and Turkic blood, the result of generations of intermarriage when five nomadic tribes overran north China and founded dynasties in the 4th to 6th centuries. Although this system opened government positions to a wider group than ever before, in the final stages of the process candidates continued to be judged on their appearance and speech. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. 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. This spy system served her well in giving her early warning of any plots in the making and enabled her to take care of threats to her reign before they became actual problems. 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. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. Such killings were not uncommon among emperors before and after her. World History Encyclopedia, 22 Feb 2016. The emperor's concubines could not be passed on to be used by others but were forced to end their time at court and start a new life of chastity in a religious order. The cambridge history has a fascinating take on this period - the author of the chapter on Wu's reign keeps reminding the reader that the imperium was peaceful; the economy was booming; government was rational, efficient and effective; and a parade of highly qualified top officials presided. Vol. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Mark, Emily. Map: Wikicommons. Wu, characteristically, admired the virtuosity of Luos style and suggested he would be better employed at the imperial court. "The Real Judge Dee: Ti Jen-chieh and the T'ang Restoration of 705," in Asia Major. When she was an infant dressed in boy's clothes, Wu Zetian's potential for emperorship was predicted by an official. The Shiji and to pray for permanent world peace. Lyn Reese is the author of all the information on this website 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! 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 ruled China with complete authority and no one dared to challenge her when she was in control. 127148. But several years later, she returned to the palace as Gaozong's concubine and gave birth to sons. If it does not yield, I'll hit it with the iron hammer. Wu also learned to play music, write poetry, and speak well in public. 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. With a heart like a serpent and a nature like that of a wolf, one contemporary summed up, she favored evil sycophants and destroyed good and loyal officials. A small sampling of the empresss other crimes followed: She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother. When Gaozong died in 683 CE, Wu took control of the government as empress dowager, placing two of her sons on the throne and removing them almost as quickly. So queens and empresses regnant were forced to rule like men, and yet roundly criticized when they did so. 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. To ensure the security of her new reign she had any members of the Tang Dynasty royal family imprisoned (including the future emperor Xuanzong) and proclaimed herself an incarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, calling herself Empress Shengsen which means 'Holy Spirit'. We would much rather spend this money on producing more free history content for the world. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Under the administration of Empress Wu, Tang territory expanded through constant fighting with other peoples, particularly the Tibetans. As we know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. During her Tang Dynasty reign, the practice of Chinese Buddhism is known to have reached its height and influence. An official under the former Han dynasty, he took the Han throne and founded his own, CHARLEMAGNE Before coming to power, she was presented with three petitions containing sixty thousand names and urging her to ascend to the throne, which suggested that she had some popular support. Nationality/Culture 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. 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. Shanghai: Sibu congkan ed., 1929. Wu Zetian's tough character and good equestrian skills were perceived by observers even when she was a teenager. 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. (British Library, Shelfmark Or. Unknown, . Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. At one point, to the horror of her generals, Wu proposed raising a military corps from among Chinas numerous eunuchs. Mutsuhito Zizhi tongjian [Comprehensive mirror as guide to history]. 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. 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. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). Advertising Notice Cold, ruthless, and ambitious, the Han dynasty dowager murdered her rival,. In her last years Wu lost influence, although she remained energetic and cruel. Terms of Use Shortly after she took the throne there was an earthquake which was interpreted as a bad omen. She began her life at court as a concubine of the emperor Taizong. The political success of Wu Zetian indicates that the attributes needed in diplomacy and rulership were not restricted to men. Empress Wu Zetian ruled as Chinas only female emperor. Wu probably did dispose of several members of her own family, and she ordered the deaths of a number of probably innocent ministers and bureaucrats. 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. If Wu Zetian is judged by the traditional female virtues of chastity and modesty, then she falls short of expectations. Lady Wang's uncle, the chancellor Liu Shi, was removed from his post which meant his son was cut off as Gaozong's heir. Her upright Confucian minister, Di Renjie (d. 700, the protagonist of Robert van Gulik's popular Judge Dee detective novels), convinced her to bring back her son, the deposed emperor Zhongzong, to be appointed as her successor. Lu Zhi was an instantly recognizable villain to the people of China, and linking Wu with her through the murders worked to destroy Wu's reputation. 2231). Mark, Emily. 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. In preparing for the legitimacy of her emperorship, she claimed the Zhou Dynasty (1045256 bce) and its founders among her own ancestors. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977. She thus arranged marriages between her children and grandchildren with her brothers' sons and their grandchildren. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. How did she hold on to power? (It was common for poor Chinese boys to voluntarily undergo emasculation in the hope of obtaining a prestigious and well-remunerated post in the imperial service). Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating womens intellectual development and sexual freedom. Wu decreed that the workmen sculpt the face of the largest of these statues to resemble her and also persuaded the monks of the sanctuary at Luoyang to forge the Big Cloud Book to substantiate her claim as Maitreya. Your Majesty may take this as 'Mount Felicity', but your subject feels there is nothing to celebrate. 1, 1993, pp. She organized teams to survey the land and build irrigation ditches to help grow crops and redistributed the land so that everyone had an equal share to farm. World History Encyclopedia. 1996-2021 04 Mar 2023. 04 Mar 2023. 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. After suppressing this revolt, the empress dowager began to purge her opponents at court. It is not likely Wu was involved in the disgrace of Taizongs unpleasant eldest son, Cheng-qian, whose teenage rebellion against his father had taken the form of the ostentatious embrace of life as lived by Mongol nomads. . Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 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 Please support World History Encyclopedia. So much for the supposed facts; what about the interpretation? She changed the compulsory mourning period for mothers who predeceased fathers from the traditional one year to three yearsthe same length as the mourning for fathers who predeceased mothers. Wu Zetian's collected writings include official edicts, essays, and poetry, in addition to a treatise to instruct her subjects on moral statecraft. After Gaozongs death, in 683, she remained the power behind the throne as dowager empress, manipulating a succession of her sons before, in 690, ordering the last of them to abdicate and taking power herself. The founding emperor of a dynasty and his descendants constituted the imperial family, which through male succession produced emperors who were normally the eldest son born to the empress. 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. 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. 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. These characters were supposed to replace between 10 and 30 of the older characters and were Wu's attempt to change the way her people thought and wrote. This was a common practice after the death of the emperor. "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 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. womeninworldhistory.com. 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. Privacy Statement Leiden: EJ Brill, 1974. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705, "Wu Zetian (624705) 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. But already in 666 when Wu Zetian was empress to the reigning Gaozong, she had prepared for her imperial ambitions by defying tradition and mockery as she led the unprecedented procession of imperial ladies to sacrifice to earth, believed to be a female deity. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . Her social, economic and judicial views could hardly be termed advanced, and her politics differed from those of her predecessors chiefly in their greater pragmatism and ruthlessness. Even the terror of the 680s, in this view, was a logical response to entrenched bureaucratic opposition to Wus rule. Pomacanthus imperator (emperor angelfish) See CHAETODONTIDAE. Although Carlton's observation is accurate, the box also did provide Wu with a number of ideas for reform which came directly from the people, not government officials who would have profited from them, and which Wu implemented efficiently. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. 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. She shocked the Chinese officialdom by arranging to send male grooms to the daughters and aunts of the tribal chieftains at the empire's borders, although it was customary to send female brides. Empress Wu Zetian. Nevertheless, the legitimation was not without problems, and there was continued resistance from among the high officials who collaborated with the Li-Tang crown princes, princes, and princesses to get her dismissed as empress in 674 and dethroned as de facto ruler in 684, but both events failed. Character Overview In defiance of convention Emperor Gaozong started an affair with her, and she bore him a son in 652. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. 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. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. Moreover, Wu exhibited one important characteristic that suggests that, whatever her faults, she was no despot: She acknowledged and often acted on the criticisms of loyal ministers, one of whom dared to suggest, in 701, that it was time for her to abdicate. 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. When Gaozong suffered a stroke in 660, the empress made herself the ruler. "The Reigns of the Empress Wu, Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung," in Denis Twitchett, ed., Cambridge History of China. Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. Replacing the dynasty and imperial house through Confucian ideology still could not legitimize a woman on the throne. To justify her rule, Wu used selected Buddhist scriptures and led the way in the creation of numerous visual representations of the Buddha. Ouyang, Xiu. Whether true or not, it is what people believed. "Wu Zetian." Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. Guisso, Richard W.L. They also functioned as powerful reminders of imperial power. It was Taizong who called her 'Mei-Niang' meaning 'beautiful girl' (one of the names commonly, and wrongly, attributed to her as her birth name). She, like Lady Wei, had paid careful attention to the reign of Wu Zetian and thought she would be able to manipulate Xuanzong as her mother had Gaozong. These women were rarely chosen by their people. The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Ruizong was also a disappointment to her and so she forced him to abdicate in 690 CE and proclaimed herself Emperor Zeitan, ruler of China, the first and only woman to sit on the Dragon Throne and reign in her own name and by her own authority. 145154. World Eras. Born ne Wu (first name at birth not known) in 624 in Taiyuan, Shanxi province; died in 705 in Luoyang, Henan province; daughter of a high-ranking official, Wu Shihuo, and his aristocratic wife; married Emperor Taizong (r. 626649), in 640 (died 649); married Emperor Gaozong (r. 650683), in 654; children: (second marriage) Crown Prince Li Hong; Crown Prince Li Xian; Emperor Zhongzong; Emperor Ruizong; Princess Taiping ; another daughter (died in infancy). Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. Her 50-year rule was marked by a successful foreign policy that saw only a few, victorious, wars but the considerable expansion of the influence of the Chinese state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Bellingham, WA: Center for Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978. In 605 the Qidan, who lived in Manchuria in the marginal areas between the open steppe and settled areas, invaded the Tang empire and gained a dramatic victory over Wus armies near the site of modern Beijing. When he fell out of favor, he burned the building to the ground. I always think that's the most interesting things about primary sources - the bias. 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. How to evaluate such an unprecedented figure today? The reversal of gender roles was nowhere more objectionable than Wu Zetian's sexuality, in the eyes of the traditional historians. across from her husband, the emperor. Thank you! Explaining why the empress was so reviled, then, means acknowledging the double standard that existedand still existswhen it comes to assessing male and female rulers.