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Wu Zetian |
| Wu Zetian (624-705), personal name Wu Zhao, was the only woman in the history of China to assume the title of Emperor. Ruling China first through puppet emperors from 665 to 690, not unprecedented in Chinese history, she then broke all precedents when she founded her own dynasty in 690, the Zhou, and ruled personally under the name Emperor Shengshen from 690 to 705. |
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Her rise and reign has been criticized harshly by Confucian historians but has been viewed under a different light after the 1950.
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She Entered c harem most probably in 638 (other possible date 636), and was made a cairen, i.e. one of the nine concubines of the fifth rank.
Emperor Taizong gave her the name Mei, meaning “charming, beautiful”. Thus today Chinese people refer to her as Wu Meiniang when they write about her youth, whereas they refer to her as Wu Zetian or as Empress Wu when they write about her time in power. |
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| In 649, Taizong died, and, as was customary for concubines, Wu Meiniang had to leave the imperial palace and enter a Buddhist nunnery where she had her hair shaved. Not long afterwards, most probably in 651, she was reintegrated into the imperial palace by Emperor Gaozong, son of Taizong, who had been struck by her beauty while visiting and worshipping in the nunnery. By the early 650s Wu Zetian was a concubine of Emperor Gaozong, and she was titled zhaoyi, i.e. the highest ranking of the nine concubines of the second rank. Wu Zitian soon had the concubine Nee Xiao out of the way. The fact that the emperor had taken one of the concubines of his father as his own concubine, and what’s more a nun, if traditional history is to be believed, was found to be utterly shocking by Confucian moralists. |
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In the year 654, Wu Zetian’s baby daughter was killed. Empress Wang was suspected of killing the girl out of jealousy and was persecuted. Soon after that, she succeeded in having the emperor create for her the extraordinary title of chenfei, which ranked her above the four concubines of the first rank and immediately below the empress consort. Then eventually, in November 655, the empress Nee Wang was demoted and Wu Zetian was made empress consort.
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After Emperor Gaozong started to suffer from strokes from November 660 on, she began to govern China from behind the scenes. She was even more in absolute control of power after she had Shangguan Yi executed and the demoted crown prince Li Zhing was forced to commit suicide in January 665, and henceforth she sat behind the new silent emperor during court audiences and took decision.
She reigned in his name and then, after his death, in the name of subsequent puppet emperors, only assuming power herself in October 690, when she proclaimed the Zhou Dynasty, named after her father’s nominal posthumous fief as well as in reference to the illustrious Zhou Dynasty of ancient Chinese history from which she claimed the Wu family was descended. |
| In December 689, ten months before she officially ascended the throne, she had the government create the character Zhao, an entirely new invention, created along with 11 other characters in order to show her absolute power, and she chose this new character as her given name, which became her taboo name when she ascended the throne ten months later.
On ascending the throne, she proclaimed herself Emperor Shengshen, the first woman ever to use the title emperor which had been created 900 years before by the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang. |
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Indeed she was the only woman in the 210 years of imperial China ever to use the title emperor and to sit on the throne (instead of merely ruling from behind the throne), and this again utterly shocked Confucian elites.
Traditional Chinese political theory did not allow a woman to ascend the throne, and Empress Wu was determined to squash the opposition and promote loyal officials within the bureaucracy. Her regime was characterized by Machiavellian cleverness and brutal despotism. |
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During her reign, she formed her own Secret Police to deal with any opposition that might arise. She was also supported by her two lovers, the Zhang brothers. She gained popular support by advocating Buddhism but ruthlessly persecuted her opponents within the royal family and the nobility.
In October 695, after several additions of characters, her imperial name was definitely set as Emperor Tian Jinlun Shengshen, a name which did not undergo further changes until the end of her reign.On February 20, 750, her power ended that day, and she had to step down while Emperor Zhongzong was restored, allowing the Tang Dynasty to resume on March 3, 705. Empress Wu died nine months later, perhaps consoled by the fact that her nephew Wu Sansi, son of her half-brother and as ambitious and intriguing as she, had managed to become the real master behind the scenes, controlling the restored emperor through his empress consort with whom he was having an affair. |
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| Although short-lived, the Zhou dynasty, according to some historians, resulted in better equality between the sexes during the succeeding Tang Dynasty. Considering the events of her life, literary allusions to Empress Wu can carry several connotations: a woman who has inappropriately overstepped her bounds, the hypocrisy of preaching compassion while simultaneously engaging in a pattern of corrupt and vicious behavior, and ruling by pulling strings in the background. |
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