Wu Zetian was in effect taking the unprecedented step of transforming her position from empress dowager to emperor. 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. She began her life at court as a concubine of the emperor Taizong. ." Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 77116. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. His son Li Longji succeeded him, ruling as Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE). What role, if any, the undeniably ambitious concubine played in the events of the early Tang period remains a matter of controversy. Although these characters were removed after her reign they still exist as a Chinese dialect in written form. had been organized in a systematic way by the year 669. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 127148. Thank you for your help! . Her Buddhist supporters interpreted the Madamegha (Great Cloud) sutra to predict a maitreya Buddha (Buddha-to-come) in female form, presumably Wu Zetian herself, who would embody the concept of the cakravartin (wheel-turner, universal emperor, or the ideal man who is king). Please support World History Encyclopedia. $1.99. In preparing for the legitimacy of her emperorship, she claimed the Zhou Dynasty (1045256 bce) and its founders among her own ancestors. For example, at the statues eye opening ceremony which dedicated the monument, the ruler was ritualistically seen to have been given the right to rule through the divine mandate of the Buddha icon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Their antagonism toward a female ruler eventually would find its way into the histories which recorded her reign and become the 'facts' which future generations would accept as truth. Wu Zetian's collected writings include official edicts, essays, and poetry, in addition to a treatise to instruct her subjects on moral statecraft. Wu Zetian was born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province, in 624 CE to a wealthy family. In 710 CE Zhongzong died after being poisoned by Wei who hid his body and concealed his death until her son Chong Mao could be made emperor. However, despite establishing an autocratic and centralised state, Emperor Wu adopted the principles of Confucianism as the state philosophy and code of ethics for his empire and started a school to teach future administrators the Confucian classics. 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. 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. It seems possible that the fate ascribed to Wang and the Pure Concubine was a chroniclers invention, intended to link Wu to the worst monster in Chinas history. She was also assured that her sons would rule the country after the death of her husband. Gaozong had caught a disease which affected his eyes (possibly a stroke) and needed to have reports read to him. Original image by Unknown. Still, Xuanzong continued many of Wu's policies, including keeping her reforms in taxation, agriculture, and education. The other statues (still seen in the Longmen Grottoes) were also made to elevate her status as a divine ruler who knew what was best for the people and was divinely appointed to apply whatever laws or policies she saw fit. A 17th-century Chinese depiction of Wu, from Empress Wu of the Zhou, published c.1690. 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. She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother, the chronicles say. He refused to cooperate well with his mother and his wife, Lady Wei, assumed too much power. Wu Zetian established her dynasty - the Zhou dynasty. 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. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. . Your Majesty may take this as 'Mount Felicity', but your subject feels there is nothing to celebrate. 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. After Wu's death, Zhongzong reigned but only in name; real power was held by Lady Wei who used Wu Zetian as a role model to manipulate her husband and the court. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. 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. (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. Empress Wu (died September or October 245), [a] personal name Wu Xian ( Chinese: ), formally known as Empress Mu (literally "the Just Empress"), was an empress of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. Although the function of the concubine in China is almost always associated with sex, a woman in this position could have a number of non-sexual responsibilities, from daily tasks like taking care of the laundry to more specialized skills like conversation, poetry reading, and playing music. 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. Name variations: Wu Ze-tian; Wu Chao, Wu Hou, or Wu Zhao; Wu Mei or Wu Meiliang; Wu Tse-t'ien, Wo Tsetien, or Wu Tso Tien; Wu of Hwang Ho or Huang He; Empress Wu, Lady Wu. By the fourth century CE, the Roman Empire was at the apex of its power and strength. ." Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China. Wu also took back lands which had been invaded by the Goturks under the reign of Taizong and distributed them so that they were not all held by the aristocrats. While functioning and surviving in the male-ruled and power-focused domain, she exhibited strengths traditionally attributed to men, including political ambition, long-range vision, skillful diplomacy, power drive, decisive resolve, shrewd observation, talented organization, hard work, and firm dispensal of cruelty. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. Thereafter the empress favored Confucianism. The woman who believed she was as capable as any man to lead the country continues to be vilified, even if writers now qualify their criticisms, but there is no arguing with the fact that, under Wu Zetian, China experienced an affluence and stability it had never known before. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. Wu Zetian. Already in 674 she had drafted 12 policy directives ranging from encouraging agriculture to formulating social rules of conduct. 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. Omens were extremely important to the people of ancient China and played a significant role in Tang politics. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984. Wu Zetian's tough character and good equestrian skills were perceived by observers even when she was a teenager. Wu was now raised to the position of first wife of Gaozong and empress of China. 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. Whether true or not, it is what people believed. The Analects of Confucius Primary Source Activity - Google Drive - Print & Digital. 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. Her spy network and secret police stopped rebellions before they had a chance to start and the military campaigns she sent out enlarged and secured the borders of the country. June 2, 2022 by by 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. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. 21/11/2022. The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. Web. She could not become an emperor under the Tang Dynasty because of the long tradition of male succession and the fact that she was not a member of the imperial family by birth. Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) was king of the franks from 768 to 814, king of the lombards from 774 to 814, and emperor from 800 to, FOUNDED: c. 1050256 b.c.e. Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca.1500 BC till 1644 AD. Wu was the daughter of Wu Jin, a commoner in Kaifeng. She graduated from SUNY Delhi in 2018. 3, no. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. 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. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. "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. 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. 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. She has published historical essays and poetry. Most historians believe Wu became intimate with the future Gaozong emperor before his fathers deatha scandalous breach of etiquette that could have cost her her head, but which in fact saved her from life in a Buddhist nunnery. At these pilgrimage sites, rituals were performed which established a link between the standing Buddha and the ruler. Patronage of Buddhism. disadvantages of food transportation. Unlike most young girls in China at this time, Wu was encouraged by her father to read and write and develop the intellectual skills which were traditionally reserved for males. (Issued by the Empress Dowager Cixi, 1835-1908) The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Emperor Gaozong had nothing to do with either of these events, although his name would have been attached to the campaigns against Korea. 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. Mutsuhito Traditional historians grudgingly acknowledged that she surpassed her sons, the legitimate heirs, in both vision and statecraft. 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'. 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. One critic, the poet Luo Binwang, portrayed Wu as little short of an enchantressAll fell before her moth brows. This was a common practice after the death of the emperor. 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. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. 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. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Still, this did not mean the women were not jealous of the favor the emperor showed Wu now that she had given birth to two sons in a row. 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. Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. Naples: Institute Universitario Orientale, 1976. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. Gaozong divorced his wife, barred her mother from the palace, and exiled Lady Xiao. With her exceptional intelligence, extraordinary competence in politics, and inordinate ambition, she ruled as the "Holy and Divine Emperor" of the Second Zhou Dynasty (690-705) for fifteen years. The Empress Wu Zetian (690-704 CE) is the only female ruler in the history of China. Empress and emperor appear at the center of each scene, larger than the other figures to show their importance, bedecked in imperial purple, and sporting . Swedens fascinating Queen Christina was nearly as infamous for eschewing her sidesaddle and riding in breeches as she was for the more momentous decision that she took to convert to Catholicismwhile mustering her troops in 1588 as the Spanish Armada sailed up the Channel, even Elizabeth I felt constrained to begin a morale-boosting address with a denial of her sex: I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too.. 1, 1990, pp. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Public Domain. However, the date of retrieval is often important. Download Full Size Image. 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. If so, their hopes were in vain; Empress Wu Zetian is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers in China's history. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating women's intellectual development and sexual freedom. Why should you weep for me?" In their place, she appointed intellectuals and talented bureaucrats without regard to family status or connections. Unknown, . She ruled for 15 years during the Tang Dynasty and was one of China's most impactful and divisive emperors. 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. Encyclopedia.com. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. By 666, the annals state, Wu was permitted to make offerings to the gods beside Gaozong and even to sit in audience with himbehind a screen, admittedly, but on a throne that was equal in elevation to his own. 242289. It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. Wu is said to have potentially killed her own. The empress responded with both diplomacy and force, concluding a marriage alliance with the Turks and defeating the Qidan in battle. In 654 CE, Wu had a daughter who died soon after birth. Wu (she is always known by her surname) has every claim to be considered a great empress. It could also be, like it was in Egypt after Queen Hatshepsut's reign, that no one in power wanted to record the reign of a woman and hoped that Empress Wu would be forgotten. The critical Anderson concedes that, under Wu, military expenses were reduced, taxes cut, salaries of deserving officials raised, retirees given a viable pension, and vast royal lands near the capital turned over to husbandry.. But if she is observed in the context of the sexuality of male rulers, then the number of her favorites is insignificant. Encyclopedia.com. Wu Zetian argued that since mothers were indispensable to the birth and nourishment of infants, the three years when the infant totally depended on the mother as caregiver should be requited with three years of mourning her death. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. How to evaluate such an unprecedented figure today? The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. Empress Wu proved to be a wise monarch, and in her reign of twenty years she continued many policies and practices of her predecessors. When he fell out of favor, he burned the building to the ground. Click for Author Information. In the largest cave there is a statue called the Grand Vairocana Buddha. To entrench her biological family as the imperial house, she bestowed imperial honors to her ancestors through posthumous enthronement and constructed seven temples for imperial sacrifices. On the question of succession after her death, Wu Zetian entertained notions of an heir from a Wu and Li marriage. 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. An active imagination produced pornographic novels in the 16th century focusing on her alleged sexual practices. On a similar tone, she ordered that the mother of the Daoist sage Laozi (Lao Tzu, c. 600 bce) be honored. I always think that's the most interesting things about primary sources - the bias. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism (625-705 C.E.) For centuries she was excoriated by Chinese historians as an offender against a way of life. Cold, ruthless, and ambitious, the Han dynasty dowager murdered her rival,. Chapter 2 SOURCES FOR THE LIFE AND CAREER OF WU TSE-T'IEN The chief primary sources for the life of the Empress Wu are her annals in the two dynastic histories of the T'ang, her biography in the New T'ang History, and the numerous references to her in Ssu-ma Kuang's Comprehensive Mirror.^ In some of the large official compilations of later ages, How did a woman with such limited expectations as Wu emerge triumphant in the cutthroat world of the Tang court? Her one mistake had been to marry this boy to a concubine nearly as ruthless and ambitious as herself. 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. Her giant stone memorial, placed at one side of the spirit road leading to her tomb, remains blank. And does she deserve the harsh verdict that history has passed on her? Examination System. If Wu Zetian is judged by the traditional female virtues of chastity and modesty, then she falls short of expectations. Palace ladies of the Tang dynasty, from a contemporary wall painting in an imperial tomb in Shaanxi. 3, no. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. McMullen, David. She whispered slander from behind her sleeves, and swayed her master with vixen flirting and insisted that she was the arch manipulator of an unprecedented series of scandals that, over two reigns and many years, cleared her path to the throne. Shanghai: Sibu congkan ed., 1929. At age 14 she became a concubine of Emperor TaiZong of the Tang Dynasty and was given the title of CaiRren (Guardian Immortal) and a new name, Wu Mei. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. 04 Mar 2023. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. 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. 3rd Series. Yet Wu has had a pretty bad press. But is the empress unfairly maligned? This institution became a political weapon in the hands of Empress Wu when she usurped the throne in 690. 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. In 705, Wu Zetian's grandson, the later Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712756), slaughtered the Zhang brothers in spite of Wu Zetian's protest and forced her to return the Li-Tang imperial family to power. Mark, Emily. 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. Not the United States, of course, but one thinks readily enough of Hatshepsut of ancient Egypt, Russias astonishing Catherine the Great, or Trung Tracof Vietnam. 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 did not ask any man's permission to lead these women to Mount Tai; she felt she knew what was best and did it. Not until 705, when she was more than 80 years old, was Wu finally overthrown by yet another sonone whom she had banished years before. Mutsuhito (also known as Meiji Tenno; 1852-1912) was a Japanese emperor, who became the symbol for, and encouraged, the dramatic, Chien-lung