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Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. 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. Under the administration of Empress Wu, Tang territory expanded through constant fighting with other peoples, particularly the Tibetans. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Patronage of Buddhism. After his death, she married his son, Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE) and became empress consort but actually was the power behind the emperor. 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 . "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. Five Historical Plays. Barretts recent book even suggests (on no firm evidence) that the empress was the most important early promoter of printing in the world. https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. across from her husband, the emperor. 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. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. (2016, February 22). She replaced Zhongzong with her second son, who became Emperor Ruizong. Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. "Wu Zetian (624705) 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. She ordered farming manuals to be written and distributed. Thank you! 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. Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty (The Greenwood Press Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. 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. 04 Mar 2023. Please support World History Encyclopedia. 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. 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. 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. Thank you! C.P. Terms of Use 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. On the question of succession after her death, Wu Zetian entertained notions of an heir from a Wu and Li marriage. Han Emperor Wen, r. 180-157 BCE . Gaozongs third son succeeded to the throne in 683 after his death, but Empress Wu became the empress dowager in a few months, after forcing the young emperor to abdicate. On the Korean peninsula Empress Wu supported the unification movement under the state of Silla. (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). Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. Web. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. 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). Empress Dowager. 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. The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) Pomacanthus imperator (emperor angelfish) See CHAETODONTIDAE. Empress Wu Zetian. (3). From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . Fitzgeraldwho reminds us that Tang China emerged from 400 years of discord and civil warwrites, Without Wu there would have been no long enduring Tang dynasty and perhaps no lasting unity of China, while in a generally favorable portrayal, Guisso argues that Wu was not so different from most emperors: The empress was a woman of her times. empress wu primary sources. Two years later, in 712 CE, Ruizong abdicated after he saw a comet one night and, following the interpretation suggested by Taiping, took it as a sign his rule was over. She maintained a stable economy and a moderate taxation for the peasantry. World Eras. Alternate Names The political success of Wu Zetian indicates that the attributes needed in diplomacy and rulership were not restricted to men. 3rd Series. Edward Schafer, The Divine Women: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in Tang Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). Empress Wu rose to power through ruthless tactics to move her from the emperor's concubine, to the emperor's consort, and eventually to the position of empress of China. The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. 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. Thus Wu Zetian's experience might have caused some redefinition of gender in her time, but this direction has not translated into enduring gains in the society and political organization that she left behind. The 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. 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. Bellingham : EAS Press, 1978; Robert Van Gulik. She ruled China with complete authority and no one dared to challenge her when she was in control. 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. It is a challenge to recover real people from this morass of bias. 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. Liu, Xu. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. Princess Taiping put an end to her plans when she had Wei and her family murdered and put her brother Ruizong on the throne. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Gansu, and the Tibetans posed a threat to Chinese possessions in Central Asia. Modern popular novels and plays, in Chinese, Japanese, and English, also exaggerate the sexual aspect of her rule. Lyn Reese is the author of all the information on this website The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. . When he fell out of favor, he burned the building to the ground. The military exams were intended to measure intelligence and decision making and candidates were personally interviewed instead of just being appointed because of family connections or their family's name. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. 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. 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. 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. 31, no. Before Smithsonian.com, Dash authored the award-winning blog A Blast From the Past. Of all these female rulers, though, none has aroused so much controversy, or wielded such great power, as a monarch whose real achievements and characterremain obscured behind layers of obloquy. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. 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). Ouyang, Xiu. 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. Wu was given the privileged position of first concubine even though by law she should have been left in the temple as a nun. ." 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. 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. 04 Mar 2023. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. Missions from Japan, Korea, and Vietnam arrived at Xi'an bearing tribute and seeking education in Buddhism and Confucianism. . They are regarded as important by historians because they show how far Wu went in trying to create a new world in China under her reign: she even wanted to change the words they used. 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 Zhao (624-705), also known as Empress Wu Zetian, was the first and only woman emperor of China. 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. Wu was forced to abdicate in favor of her exiled son Zhongzong and his wife Wei. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty. Whether true or not, it is what people believed. Chen, Jo-shui. But 28 other consorts still stood between her and the throne. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. Born to a newly emerging merchant family in the Northeast, Wu Zhao had been a concubine of Li Shimin, or Taizong, founder of the Tang dynasty (618-907). As an effective woman ruler, she challenged the traditional patriarchical dominance of power, state, sovereignty, monarchy, and political ideology. Reign of Terror. 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. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. China during Wu Zetian's ReignIan Kiu (CC BY-SA). 242289. 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. An active imagination produced pornographic novels in the 16th century focusing on her alleged sexual practices. Emily Mark studied history and philosophy at Tianjin University, China and English at SUNY New Paltz, NY. First emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Quin Shi Huang-di (259 B.C.-210 B.C.) She not only created many different cultural and political policies, but she displayed what a women could do in government. There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1989, pp. 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 China that Wu Zetian was born in was the Tang Dynasty (618906), a strong and unified empire after four centuries of political discord and foreign interaction. womeninworldhistory.com. If it does not yield, I'll hit it with the iron hammer. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705. 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. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. 23 Feb. 2023 . 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. 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. 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. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Kannon embodies compassion, and when seen as female is venerated as a patron of motherhood and fertility. A huge stele was erected outside the tomb, as was customary, which later historians were supposed to inscribe with Empress Wu's great deeds but the marker remains blank. Princes and ministers loyal to the Tang Dynasty and princes suspected of rebellious motives against her were executed. We would much rather spend this money on producing more free history content for the world. Unknown, . Such killings were not uncommon among emperors before and after her. 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. It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. "The Reigns of the Empress Wu, Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung," in Denis Twitchett, ed., Cambridge History of China. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. No contemporary image of the empress exists. 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. 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). June 2, 2022 by by She was in very poor health anyway by this time and died a year later. 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). (108). Wu Zetian turned to the Buddhist establishment to rationalize her position. Mark, Emily. During her reign she ordered the erection of temples in every province to explain the Dayunjingy which predicted the emergence of a female world ruler seven hundred years after the passing of the Buddha. Your Majesty may take this as 'Mount Felicity', but your subject feels there is nothing to celebrate. Guisso, Richard W. Empress Wu Tse-t'ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T'ang China. Wu Zhao embarked on religious life as a nun in a convent after Li Shimins death in 649. 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. 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. 290332. 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. World History Encyclopedia. Wu's rise to power was ruthless and her reign no less so, as she continued to eliminate rivals and opponents using tactics that were sometimes brutal. They also functioned as powerful reminders of imperial power.