She carefully eliminated any potential enemies from the court and had Lady Wang and Lady Xiao killed after they had gone into exile. She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother, the chronicles say. World Eras. 7789. Unknown, . 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 ruled China with complete authority and no one dared to challenge her when she was in control. She was painted as a usurper who was both physically cruel and erotically wanton; she first came to prominence, it was hinted, because she was willing to gratify certain ofthe Taizong emperors more unusual sexual appetites. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. We care about our planet! Her experience reflected a reversal of the gender roles and restrictions her society and government constructed for her as appropriate to women. She improved the public education system by hiring dedicated teachers and reorganizing the bureaucracy and teaching methods. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. Map: Wikicommons. In 654 CE, Wu had a daughter who died soon after birth. Although she gave political clout to some women, such as her capable secretary, she did not go as far as challenging the Confucian tradition of excluding women from participating in the civil service examinations. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 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. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. | READ MORE. 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. Most nations of note have had at least one great female leader. 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. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Public Domain. No contemporary image of the empress exists. 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. Seen from this perspective, Wu did in fact fulfill the fundamental duties of a ruler of imperial China; Confucian philosophy held that, while an emperor should not be condemned for acts that would be crimes in a subject, he could be judged harshly for allowing the state to fall into anarchy. Mutsuhito She thus arranged marriages between her children and grandchildren with her brothers' sons and their grandchildren. After Mount Felicity appeared, and Wu claimed it as an omen favoring her, one of her ministers wrote: Your Majesty, a female ruler improperly has occupied a male position, which has inverted and altered the hard and soft, therefore the earth's emanations are obstructed and separated. 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. . The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. She not only created many different cultural and political policies, but she displayed what a women could do in government. According to almost all her biographers, she was extremely cruel in her personal life, murdering two sons, a daughter, sister, niece, grandchildren, and many Li and Wu princes and princesses who opposed her. 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. 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. 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. His rule covered a span of 63 years, a reign lo, Zhao Kuang-yin 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. 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. 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. The historians always portray Wu as ruthless, conniving, scheming, and bloodthirsty, and she may have been all of these things, she may have even murdered her daughter to gain the throne, but any of these claims should only be accepted after considering their source. . 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. Wu Zhao embarked on religious life as a nun in a convent after Li Shimins death in 649. They also functioned as powerful reminders of imperial power. $1.99. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Wu eliminated all the bureaucracy by establishing a direct line of communication between herself and the people. Mike Dash In 697 CE, Wu's hold on power began to slip when she became more paranoid and began spending more time with her young lovers than on ruling China. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. ." Vol. One reason, as we have already had cause to note in this blog, is the official nature and lack of diversity among the sources that survive for early Chinese history; another is that imperial history was written to provide lessons for future rulers, and as such tended to be weighted heavily against usurpers (which Wu was) and anyone who offended the Confucian sensibilities of the scholars who labored over them (which Wu did simply by being a woman). An official under the former Han dynasty, he took the Han throne and founded his own, CHARLEMAGNE 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. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. 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. 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. Wu Zetian's politics can be considered as feminist initiatives to reinforce the legitimacy of women in the political arena. Hauppauge : Nova Science Publishers, 2003; Richard Guisso, Wu Tse-Tien and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China. One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. She began her life at court as a concubine of the emperor Taizong. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. The reversal of gender roles was nowhere more objectionable than Wu Zetian's sexuality, in the eyes of the traditional historians. 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. Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished. 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. (108). Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. 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. Empress Wu was buried in a tomb in Qian County, Shanxi Province, alongside Gaozong. She ruled for 15 years during the Tang Dynasty and was one of China's most impactful and divisive emperors. 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. Vol. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705, "Wu Zetian (624705) 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. 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. 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. 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. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine "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. 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. Mark, Emily. Van Gulik, Robert. 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. Carlton further notes, "While ostensibly for her great concern over the condition of her people, the box mainly served the purpose of obtaining information on seditious subjects (3)." 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. World History Encyclopedia. speckle park bull sales 2021 847-461-9794; empress wu primary sources. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . Throughout 15 dismal years in exile, her sons consort had talked him out of committing suicide and kept him ready to return to power. "Wu Zetian." https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) To justify her rule, Wu used selected Buddhist scriptures and led the way in the creation of numerous visual representations of the Buddha. 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. Mutsuhito 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. (3). 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. In 690 C.E., Zetian forced Li Dan to abdicate the throne to her, and declared herself the founding empress of the Zhou dynasty. Empress Wu is one of the most controversial leaders in Chinese history for her method of rule and the means she likely used to rise to power. 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. World Eras. 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 began her life at court taking care of the royal laundry but one day dared to speak to the emperor when they were alone and talked about Chinese history. 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. Still, Xuanzong continued many of Wu's policies, including keeping her reforms in taxation, agriculture, and education. The system of Neo-Confucianism of which Chu Hsi is regarded as the spo, Mutsuhito 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. The empress responded with both diplomacy and force, concluding a marriage alliance with the Turks and defeating the Qidan in battle. The Shiji Add to . Favoring the power base in the Northeast, the royal family finally moved to Luoyang in 683. Anyone she suspected of disloyalty, for any reason, was banished or executed. Wu was forced to abdicate in favor of her exiled son Zhongzong and his wife Wei. One of these served as her new personal name, Zhao, which articulates the fundamental Buddhist notion of universal emptiness. Ho-shen (1750-1799) was a high Manchu official in the government of the Ch'ing dynasty in China and a close associate of Emperor Ch'ien-lung.. There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. The remaining Li-Tang family who survived the murders, including Wu Zetian's own son on whose behalf she was serving as empress dowager, begged to take the surname of Wu to replace their birth surnames of Li. Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China. Although modern historians, both east and west, have revised the ancient depiction of Wu Zetian as a scheming usurper, that view of her reign still persists in much that is written about her. When she saw she would not be able to control the court as her mother did, she killed herself and Xuanzong decreed that no member of Wu's family would be allowed to hold public office because of their ruthless scheming and underhanded politics. Chen, Jo-shui. https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. Instead, it was left without any inscriptionthe only such example in more than 2,000 years of Chinese history. Under Xuanzong's reign, China became the most affluent country in the world at the time. 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. 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. She replaced Zhongzong with her second son, who became Emperor Ruizong. 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. Functioning in a male-oriented patriarchy, Wu Zetian was painstakingly aware of the gender taboos she had to break in political ideology and social norm. Attaining that position first required Wu to engineer her escape from a nunnery after Taizongs deaththe concubines of all deceased emperors customarily had their heads shaved and were immured in convents for the rest of their lives, since it would have been an insult to the dead ruler had any other man sullied themand to return to the palace under Gaozongs protection before entrancing the new emperor, removing empress Wang and the Pure Concubine, promoting members of her own family to positions of power, and eventually establishing herself as fully her husbands equal. On a similar tone, she ordered that the mother of the Daoist sage Laozi (Lao Tzu, c. 600 bce) be honored. When he fell out of favor, he burned the building to the ground. Encyclopedia.com. Xin Tangshu [New history of the Tang]. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. Encyclopedia.com. Her usurpation marked a significant social revolution, the rise of a new class, which the empress tried to use in her struggle against the traditionalist, northwest nobility. Overall Wu Zetian was a decisive, capable ruler in the roles of empress, empress dowager, and emperor. Reign of Terror. Even though many at court congratulated her on being favored by the gods, many others did not. It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. What role, if any, the undeniably ambitious concubine played in the events of the early Tang period remains a matter of controversy. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism (625-705 C.E.) 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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. Wu Zetian came to the throne when she was 67, making her the oldest person ever be crowned. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. "Wu Zetian (624705) Chu Hsi (1130-1200) was one of the greatest Chinese scholars and philosophers. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. Territorial Expansion. Wu Zetian turned to the Buddhist establishment to rationalize her position. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. However, the date of retrieval is often important. After this event Wu became Empress and shared Imperial power equally with her emperor. 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. 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. To recruit a new class of administrators through competition, the examinations that had played only a secondary role in the recruitment and promotion of civil servants in Han times (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) World History Encyclopedia, 22 Feb 2016. Having been raised by her father to believe she was the equal of men, Wu saw no reason why women could not carry out the same practices and hold the same positions men could. When she died, she was laid to rest in an elaborate tomb in the countryside about 50 miles north of the then capital, Xian. Buddhists Support. 3rd Series. Wu Zhao (624-705), also known as Empress Wu Zetian, was the first and only woman emperor of China. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . Her courtiers, however, hatched a plot and afterward forced her to abdicate in 705; she died later that year. The most serious charges against Wu are handily summarized in Mary Andersons collection of imperial scuttlebutt, Hidden Power, which reports that she wiped out twelve collateral branches of the Tang clan and had the heads of two rebellious princes hacked off and brought to her in her palace. Guisso says, that empowered informers of any social class to travel at public expense. She also maintained an efficient secret police and instituted a reign of terror among the imperial bureaucracy. empress wu primary sources. False: In fact, the Roman Empire was in decline at this time. 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. On the question of succession after her death, Wu Zetian entertained notions of an heir from a Wu and Li marriage. 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). Her success in the campaigns against Korea inspired confidence in her generals and Wu's decisions on military defense or expeditions were never challenged. "Wu Zetian." 1996-2021 Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. Retrieved February 22, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao. Wu Zetian was in effect taking the unprecedented step of transforming her position from empress dowager to emperor. Lady Wang's uncle, the chancellor Liu Shi, was removed from his post which meant his son was cut off as Gaozong's heir. However, the date of retrieval is often important. As we know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. 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. T.H. 3, no. By the fourth century CE, the Roman Empire was at the apex of its power and strength. She was the daughter of a minor general called Duke Ding of Ying, and came to the palace as a concubine in about 636an honor that suggests that she was very beautiful, since, as Jonathan Clements remarks, admission to the ranks of palace concubines was equivalent to winning a beauty contest of the most gorgeous women in the medieval world. But mere beauty was not sufficient to elevate the poorly connected teenage Wu past the fifth rank of palace women, a menial position whose duties were those of a maid, not a temptress. A Japanese example: In the late 7th century, Japans Emperor Shomu and Empress Komyo both were involved in Buddhist buildings. Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating womens intellectual development and sexual freedom. McMullen, David. The earliest sources on Wu Zetian already contained rumors of sex scandals in her court. 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. She gave titles of royalty to her own Wu family: her brothers and nephews became princes while her sisters, aunts, and nieces became princesses. emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. C.P. Sign up for our free weekly email newsletter! Belmont: Wadsworth, 1989, pp. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1994. 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 ordered the executions of several hundred of these aristocrats and of many members of the imperial family of Li. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. Rothschild describes a confrontation which reflects the feelings of majority of those at court. Unknown, . Barrett. The only woman ever to rule as emperor of China, Wu Zhao (Wu ZeTian) was born in 624 C.E. Vol. Luoyang was favorably located on the last stop of the river routes from the South, which greatly reduced the cost of shipping grains from the Southeast to the imperial capital. 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. These criteria no doubt favored the aristocratic families. Pomacanthus imperator (emperor angelfish) See CHAETODONTIDAE. across from her husband, the emperor. Controversial ruler of Tang China who dominated Chinese politics for half a century, first as empress, then as empress-dowager, and finally as emperor of the Zhou Dynasty (690705) that she founded . Lyn Reese is the author of all the information on this website Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. 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. "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) Wu, characteristically, admired the virtuosity of Luos style and suggested he would be better employed at the imperial court. Wu Zetian is believed to have been born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province around 624 CE. 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. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. 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. Neither of these boys was a threat to Lady Wang or Lady Xiao because Gaozong had already chosen a successor; his chancellor Liu Shi was Lady Wang's uncle, and Gaozong appointed Liu Shi's son, Li Zhong, as heir. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. Two brothers, known as the Zhang Brothers, were her favorites and she spent most of her time in closed quarters with them. . The Empress Wu Zetian (690-704 CE) is the only female ruler in the history of China. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. 1, 1990, pp. ." World History Encyclopedia. Your Privacy Rights Traders from the Mediterranean and Persia also came from both the overland and maritime trade routes, where Buddhism and Central Asian culture, dress, and music reached China.
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