. 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. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. No contemporary image of the empress exists. The odds that a girl of this low rank would ever come to an emperors attention were slim. She was also able to re-open the Silk Road, which had been closed because of the plague of 682 CE and later raids by nomads. Buddhists Support. "Wu Zetian (624705) Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. Lady Wang's uncle, the chancellor Liu Shi, was removed from his post which meant his son was cut off as Gaozong's heir. His son Li Longji succeeded him, ruling as Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE). 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. 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. Jennifer W. Jay , Professor of History and Classics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. When a mountain seemed to appear following the earthquake, this was also interpreted as nature itself revolting against the reign of Wu. 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. 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. 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). Wu Zetian. Palace ladies of the Tang dynasty, from a contemporary wall painting in an imperial tomb in Shaanxi. While Confucian historians condemned her usurpation, extravagance, and scandal, Wu Zhao has been credited for providing strong leadership and ruling during an age of relative peace and prosperity. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. 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. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. At one point, to the horror of her generals, Wu proposed raising a military corps from among Chinas numerous eunuchs. The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. She worked against the Confucian dictum that women must restrict their activities to the home and in the wildest imagination could not become emperors. empress wu primary sources. False: In fact, the Roman Empire was in decline at this time. But in 705, when she was 81 years old, the combined forces of the Li-Tang family took advantage of her weakening grip on the state and removed her from power. We care about our planet! It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1994, pp. 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. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. 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. 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. 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.) Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. If so, their hopes were in vain; Empress Wu Zetian is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers in China's history. 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. Web. 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. The first thing she did was change the name of the state from Tang to Zhou (actually Tianzhou or Tiansou). 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. World History Encyclopedia. In 684 Li Jingye led a revolt of those northwestern families who had been disgraced and exiled to the Yangzi Valley. She contended with petitions against female dominance which argued that her unnatural position as emperor had caused several earthquakes to occur and reports being filed of hens turning into roosters. (February 22, 2023). Rothschild describes a confrontation which reflects the feelings of majority of those at court. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/4558/empress-wu-zetian/. It was Lu Zhi who, in 194 B.C., wreaked revenge on a rival by gouging out her eyes, amputating her arms and legs, and forcing her to drink acid that destroyed her vocal chords. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. When Gaozong suffered a stroke in 660, the empress made herself the ruler. 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. Emily Mark studied history and philosophy at Tianjin University, China and English at SUNY New Paltz, NY. 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 efficiency of her court declined as she spent more and more time with the Zhang brothers and became addicted to different kinds of aphrodisiacs. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Gansu, and the Tibetans posed a threat to Chinese possessions in Central Asia. During her Tang Dynasty reign, the practice of Chinese Buddhism is known to have reached its height and influence. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism (625-705 C.E.) She attracted the attention of many of the young men at court and one of these was the Prince Li Zhi, son of Taizong, who would become the next emperor, Gaozong. The Fall of Kaifeng [ edit] In 1126, Emperor Huizong abdicated in favor of his son, Emperor Qinzong, the elder brother of Gaozong. Wu: the Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become A Living God. Han Emperor Wen, r. 180-157 BCE . 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. 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. This page titled 4.16: Links to Primary Sources is shared under a CC BY-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by George Israel (University System of Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials) . Hauppauge : Nova Science Publishers, 2003; Richard Guisso, Wu Tse-Tien and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China. What role, if any, the undeniably ambitious concubine played in the events of the early Tang period remains a matter of controversy. Wang was the last person seen in the room and had no alibi. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. Five Historical Plays. souls of those who died in the atomic bomb attacks, "The Real Judge Dee: Ti Jen-chieh and the T'ang Restoration of 705," in Asia Major. Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating womens intellectual development and sexual freedom. 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. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1994. 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. An official under the former Han dynasty, he took the Han throne and founded his own, CHARLEMAGNE . In 690, she declared herself emperor after deposing her sons and founding her own dynastyZhou. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. This opposition was formidable; the annals of the period contain numerous examples of criticisms leveled by civil servants mortified by the empresss innovations. Most nations of note have had at least one great female leader. (3). In their place, she appointed intellectuals and talented bureaucrats without regard to family status or connections. The Chinese TV series Women of the Tang Dynasty (2013) featured the actress Hui Yinghong as Wu Zetian and was very popular, attesting to the continued interest in China's first and only female ruler. She also reformed the department of agriculture and the system of taxation by rewarding officials who produced the greatest amount of crops and taxed their people the least. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Wei had her father appointed Chief Minister to her husband and tried to push through other measures favoring her family. 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. 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. 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. Books T.H. Ouyang, Xiu. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. Taizong was surprised that his latest concubine could read and write and became fascinated by her beauty and wit in conversation. Mutsuhito Mutsuhito It is a challenge to recover real people from this morass of bias. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . Given Tang Chinas rich history of inter-regional connections and communications with its East Asian neighbors, it is not surprising that Wus sponsorship of Buddhism resulted in a flurry of scholarly exchanges, and the construction of many new pilgrimage Buddhist sites. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. 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. This institution became a political weapon in the hands of Empress Wu when she usurped the throne in 690. The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. The horrible deaths of empress Wang and the Pure Concubine, for example, are nowhere mentioned in Luo Binwangs fearless contemporary denunciation, which suggests that Wu was not blamed for them during her lifetime.