Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. She installed a series of copper boxes in the capital in which citizens could post anonymous denunciations of one another, and passed legislation, R.W.L. In 683 CE, when Wu began manipulating events as a man would, one Confucian scholar wrote that nature had been reversed by the 'usurping woman' and "throughout the empire in every prefecture hens changed into roosters, or half changed" (Rothschild, 108). Liu, Xu. "Empress Wu Zetian." World History Encyclopedia. In the reign of Empress Wu, persons who entered government through the examinations were able for the first time to occupy the highest positions, even that of chief minister. (February 23, 2023). 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. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. 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. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. They came to power, mostly, by default or stealth; a king had no sons, or an intelligent queen usurped the powers of her useless husband. Her giant stone memorial, placed at one side of the spirit road leading to her tomb, remains blank. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. First, I'll beat it with the iron whip. No contemporary image of the empress exists. It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. 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. The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. While serving as his concubine, she risked a death penalty in engaging in an incestuous affair with the crown prince and her stepson, the later Emperor Gaozong (r. 649683). Appears In Wu Zetian's first two sexual partners were emperors and related to each other as father and son. 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 these characters were removed after her reign they still exist as a Chinese dialect in written form. Instead, it was left without any inscriptionthe only such example in more than 2,000 years of Chinese history. "Wu Zetian." For Wu Zetian, the rise to power and consolidation involved manipulations, murders, and support of the intellectual and religious establishments. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Although Wu's account claims that Lady Wang murdered her daughter, later Chinese historians all agree that Wu was the murderer and she killed her child to frame Lady Wang. She worked against the Confucian dictum that women must restrict their activities to the home and in the wildest imagination could not become emperors. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. (February 22, 2023). . Last modified February 22, 2016. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. The Turkic chieftain was insulted by the fact that the groom did not come from the Li-Tang imperial family but descended from what he perceived to be the inferior Wu clan, so he promptly imprisoned the unlucky groom and in 698 returned him to China. Wu Zetian was in effect taking the unprecedented step of transforming her position from empress dowager to emperor. On the Korean peninsula Empress Wu supported the unification movement under the state of Silla. Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705. 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. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. and turned the, Wang Mang (45 B.C.-A.D. 23) was a Chinese statesman and emperor. Why should you weep for me?" Carved in limestone, the colossal statue is reputed to have been carved in Wus own likeness. This mountain, so born of the sudden convulsion of earth, represents a calamity. 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. Wu disposed of her enemies, first the former empress and then the high-ranking officials, who had strongly opposed her rise. ." had been organized in a systematic way by the year 669. (British Library, Shelfmark Or. 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. Zhou Dynasty. In the largest cave there is a statue called the Grand Vairocana Buddha. 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. Vol. 290332. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. She reformed the structure of the government and got rid of anyone she felt was not carrying out their duties and so reduced government spending and increased efficiency. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. 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. Wu Zetian's SteleI, (GJGY.com) (CC BY-SA). She ordered farming manuals to be written and distributed. 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. She ruled for 15 years during the Tang Dynasty and was one of China's most impactful and divisive emperors. Add to . emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. Empress Wu is the only female to have ever ruled in her own name in China. Changing the dynasty was the easier task and was accomplished by securing the approval of the Confucian establishment. She thus arranged marriages between her children and grandchildren with her brothers' sons and their grandchildren. . In her new position, she was constantly involved in affairs of state at the highest level and must have performed her duties well because she became a favorite of Taizong. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Edward Schafer, The Divine Women: Dragon Ladies and Rain Maidens in Tang Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). Gaozong's wife, Lady Wang, and his former first concubine, Xiao Shufei, were jealous of each other but even more envious of the attention Gaozong paid to Wu. To reinforce her legitimacy, Wu Zetian also invented about a dozen characters with a new script. Thus the Wu family was now elevated to the imperial house. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. New Haven: YUP, 2008; Jonathan Clements. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Traditional historians grudgingly acknowledged that she surpassed her sons, the legitimate heirs, in both vision and statecraft. 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. Empress Wu proved to be a wise monarch, and in her reign of twenty years she continued many policies and practices of her predecessors. We care about our planet! The scholar N. Henry Rothschild writes, "The message was clear: A woman in a position of paramount power was an abomination, an aberration of natural and human order" (108). Hailing from the Tang dynasty, Empress Wu made some great positive strives for the Tang dynasty, but also got caught up in scandals - a couple even involving murder! World History Encyclopedia, 22 Feb 2016. The reversal of gender roles was nowhere more objectionable than Wu Zetian's sexuality, in the eyes of the traditional historians. 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. I always think that's the most interesting things about primary sources - the bias. 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. The story of Wu's murder of her daughter and the framing of Lady Wang to gain power is the most infamous and most often repeated incident of her life but actually there is no way of knowing if it happened as the historians recorded it. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. . Rise to Power. 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. 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. In sum, within the social and political context of her time, Wu Zetian was a leader who went beyond the traditional roles of submissive wife and home-bound mother to emerge as ruler, lawmaker, and head of state and society while her second husband, lovers, and sons were relegated to less powerful positions than traditionally expected. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. 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. 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. According to the histories of the period, Wu smothered her own week-old daughter by Gaozong and blamed the babys death on Wang, who was the last person to have held her. 3, no. 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. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. 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. Wu Zetian established her dynasty - the Zhou dynasty. Mary Anderson. Wu also learned to play music, write poetry, and speak well in public. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the Tang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise ofTang, a Preliminary Survey (New York: Octagon, 1975). Five Historical Plays. June 2, 2022 by by Last modified March 17, 2016. After his death, she married his son, Gaozong (r. 649-683 CE) and became empress consort but actually was the power behind the emperor. 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. In 674 CE, Gaozong took the title Tian Huang (Emperor of Heaven) and Wu changed her own to Tian Hou (Empress of Heaven). Thank you! Taizong forced the abdication of his own father and disposed of two older brothers in hand-to-hand combat before seizing the throne. Wu Zhao listened to her minister and considered his argument and then, Rothschild writes, "Wu Zhao, with no intention whatsoever of 'leading the quiet life of a widow', rejected this interpretation and promptly exiled the man to the swampy, disease-ridden, Southland" (109). Creating overpowering statues, like the one at Longmen, was important. Wu Zhao viewed the situation differently: she claimed the mountain was a good omen which reflected the Buddhist mountain of paradise, Sumeru. Omens were extremely important to the people of ancient China and played a significant role in Tang politics. This is very similar to the story of the Empress Lu Zhi (l. 241-180 BCE) of the Han Dynasty who got rid of her rival Qizi in the same way (although Qizi was drowned in a pigsty and had her eyes gouged out as well). So much for the supposed facts; what about the interpretation? Wu Zetian is believed to have been born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province around 624 CE. Each dynasty was considered a new beginning and when Wu changed the name from Tang to Zhou she was following this tradition but went further to make it clear that she was the beginning of a completely new era by calling her reign Tianzhou ('granted by heaven'). She herself would thus be seen as a restorationist of the Zhou Dynasty, with the Wu family replacing the Li-Tang family. One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating womens intellectual development and sexual freedom. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. (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. 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. A Japanese example: In the late 7th century, Japans Emperor Shomu and Empress Komyo both were involved in Buddhist buildings. "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) It is a challenge to recover real people from this morass of bias. If so, their hopes were in vain; Empress Wu Zetian is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers in China's history. Your Privacy Rights Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Her one mistake had been to marry this boy to a concubine nearly as ruthless and ambitious as herself. Tang China during the 7th century was a period of military strength and cultural attainments, its empire stretching into Central Asia and Southwest Asia and ruled by the Li-Tang imperial family from the capital city of Xi'an (Xian), Shanxi province. There was a sense of trying to keep up with ones rivals by building something bigger than they had. Her last name, "Wu" is associated with the words for 'weapon' and 'military force' and she chose the name 'Zeitan' which means 'Ruler of the Heavens'. One of the brothers, she declared, had a face as beautiful as a lotus flower, while it is said she valued the other for his talents in the bedchamber. Her reforms and policies lay the foundation for the success of Xuanzong as emperor under whose reign China became the most prosperous country in the world. 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. Books Theodora. 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.. Guisso, Richard W.L. If Wu Zetian is judged by the traditional female virtues of chastity and modesty, then she falls short of expectations. Economic considerations also played a role in this relocation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. In the last three decades, Marxist historiography on Wu Zetian in Mainland China has yielded a positive but unreliable and ideologically charged reappraisal. Wu (she is always known by her surname) has every claim to be considered a great empress. . 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. Shanghai: Sibu congkan ed., 1929. Wang was the last person seen in the room and had no alibi. Barretts recent book even suggests (on no firm evidence) that the empress was the most important early promoter of printing in the world. You're hard-pressed to find any historical documents that don't have some sort of bias, especially when dealing with a controversial figure like Wu Zetian. She was the daughter of Wu Shihuo, a chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. If it does not yield, I'll hit it with the iron hammer. 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. across from her husband, the emperor. 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 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. 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. 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, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Rothschild describes a confrontation which reflects the feelings of majority of those at court. 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. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. These women were rarely chosen by their people. 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. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. The poet Luo Binwangone of the Four Greats of Early Tang and best known for his Ode to the Gooselaunched a virulent attack on the empress. 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. 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). The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. 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. Wu Zhao (624-705), also known as Empress Wu Zetian, was the first and only woman emperor of China. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Gansu, and the Tibetans posed a threat to Chinese possessions in Central Asia. McMullen, David. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 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. They ruled as divine monarchs until Gaozong's death in 683 CE. In their place, she appointed intellectuals and talented bureaucrats without regard to family status or connections. 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. Mutsuhito (also known as Meiji Tenno; 1852-1912) was a Japanese emperor, who became the symbol for, and encouraged, the dramatic, Chien-lung 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. 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). All in all, Wus policies seem less scandalous to us than they did to contemporaries, and her reputation has improved considerably in recent decades. The empress responded with both diplomacy and force, concluding a marriage alliance with the Turks and defeating the Qidan in battle. 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. "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. 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! How to evaluate such an unprecedented figure today? (Issued by the Empress Dowager Cixi, 1835-1908) Shortly after she took the throne there was an earthquake which was interpreted as a bad omen. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. Lineage Quin Shi Huang-Di A history known as the Comprehensive Mirror records that, during the 690s, 36 senior bureaucrats were executed or forced to commit suicide, and a thousand members of their families enslaved. Empresas ICA Sociedad Controladora, S.A. de C.V. Empresa Brasileira de Aeronutica S.A. (Embraer), Emporia State University: Narrative Description, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao. 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. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. In defiance of convention Emperor Gaozong started an affair with her, and she bore him a son in 652. The story of Wu's murder of her daughter and the framing of Lady Wang to gain power is the most infamous and most often repeated incident of her life but actually there is no way of knowing if it happened as the historians recorded it.