From 697 onward she found it so diffi-cult to win support that she attempted to return the throne to her son Zhongzong. Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished. Wu, characteristically, admired the virtuosity of Luos style and suggested he would be better employed at the imperial court. Overall Wu Zetian was a decisive, capable ruler in the roles of empress, empress dowager, and emperor. 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. So much for the supposed facts; what about the interpretation? 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. 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. How did a woman with such limited expectations as Wu emerge triumphant in the cutthroat world of the Tang court? These monumental statues, like the one carved into the mountain at Bamiyan, Afghanistan, which was destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, alerted the populous to the dominance of Buddhism. Twitchett, Denis, and Howard J. Wechsler. World History Encyclopedia, 17 Mar 2016. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. Our latest articles delivered to your inbox, once a week: Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. 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. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism (625-705 C.E.) 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. 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. Original image by Unknown. 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. The earliest sources on Wu Zetian already contained rumors of sex scandals in her court. Ancient China: Empress Wu Zetian Biography - Ducksters How did Empress Wu Zetian come to rule China, as a woman? 1, 1990, pp. The Shiji For example, at the statues eye opening ceremony which dedicated the monument, the ruler was ritualistically seen to have been given the right to rule through the divine mandate of the Buddha icon. 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). Quin Shi Huang-Di 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. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Replacing the dynasty and imperial house through Confucian ideology still could not legitimize a woman on the throne. 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. Van Gulik, Robert. 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. Yet Wu has had a pretty bad press. 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). 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 . McMullen, David. Jennifer W. Jay , Professor of History and Classics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. 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. She was in very poor health anyway by this time and died a year later. It was customary, when a dynasty changed, to re-set history. One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Mutsuhito (also known as Meiji Tenno; 1852-1912) was a Japanese emperor, who became the symbol for, and encouraged, the dramatic, Quin Shi Huang-Di 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. World History Encyclopedia. She particularly supported Huayan Buddhism, which regarded Vairocana Buddha as the center of the world, much as Empress Wu wished to be the center of political power. 127148. How did she hold on to power? "Wu Zetian." Nevertheless, court intrigues still greatly influenced the recruiting of civil servants. There must also be some doubt as to whether Wu really was guilty of some of the most monstrous crimes that history has charged her with. 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. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Her courtiers, however, hatched a plot and afterward forced her to abdicate in 705; she died later that year. R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-ten and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1978). https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) When she was an infant dressed in boy's clothes, Wu Zetian's potential for emperorship was predicted by an official. Sima, Guang. There was a sense of trying to keep up with ones rivals by building something bigger than they had. Her giant stone memorial, placed at one side of the spirit road leading to her tomb, remains blank. 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. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. 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. These characters were supposed to replace between 10 and 30 of the older characters and were Wu's attempt to change the way her people thought and wrote. Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) was king of the franks from 768 to 814, king of the lombards from 774 to 814, and emperor from 800 to, FOUNDED: c. 1050256 b.c.e. New Haven: YUP, 2008; Jonathan Clements. Wu also accused Lady Wang and her mother of practicing witchcraft and implicated Lady Xiao; Lady Wang was found guilty of all the charges and so were the others. 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). is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. 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. Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Chen, Jo-shui. The Analects of Confucius Primary Source Activity - Google Drive - Print & Digital. Gaozong divorced his wife, barred her mother from the palace, and exiled Lady Xiao. 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. Wu is said to have potentially killed her own. (February 23, 2023). 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. True, Taizongan old warrior-ruler so conscientious that he had official documents pasted onto his bedroom walls so that he would have something to work on if he woke in the nighthad lost his empress shortly before Wu entered the palace. Empress Wu (Zhaolie) - Wikipedia Determining the truth about this welter of innuendo is all but impossible, and matters are complicated by the fact that little is known of Wus earliest years. The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. Justinian. 04 Mar 2023. 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 respond properly to Heaven's censure, it is suitable that you lead the quiet life of a widow and cultivate virtue, otherwise I fear further disasters will befall us. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. Just how accurate this picture of Wu is remains a matter of debate. . Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the Tang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise ofTang, a Preliminary Survey (New York: Octagon, 1975). What role, if any, the undeniably ambitious concubine played in the events of the early Tang period remains a matter of controversy. At the end of this spirit road, the tomb itself lies in a remarkably inaccessible spot, set into a mountain at the end of a winding forest path. (Issued by the Empress Dowager Cixi, 1835-1908) Vol. Shanghai: Sibu congkan ed., 1929. By the fourth century CE, the Roman Empire was at the apex of its power and strength. across from her husband, the emperor. Cookie Settings, I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England too., as we have already had cause to note in this blog, Kids Start Forgetting Early Childhood Around Age 7, Archaeologists Discover Wooden Spikes Described by Julius Caesar, Artificial Sweetener Tied to Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke, Study Finds, 5,000-Year-Old Tavern With Food Still Inside Discovered in Iraq, The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars. Character Overview 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. One of these served as her new personal name, Zhao, which articulates the fundamental Buddhist notion of universal emptiness. Reign of Terror. Wu decreed that the workmen sculpt the face of the largest of these statues to resemble her and also persuaded the monks of the sanctuary at Luoyang to forge the Big Cloud Book to substantiate her claim as Maitreya. disadvantages of food transportation. This was considered scandalous because of her advanced age and how young the Zhang brothers were but would not have even been commented on if Wu had been a man sleeping with much younger women. Wu Zetian's politics can be considered as feminist initiatives to reinforce the legitimacy of women in the political arena. 1, Sui and T'ang, pp. This was a common practice after the death of the emperor. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Bellingham, WA: Center for Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978. 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. No area of Chinese life was untouched by Empress Wu and her reforms were so popular because the suggestions came from the people. ." 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. Lady Wang had no children and Lady Xiao had a son and two daughters. Historical Significance: Empress Wu was very significant in the Tang Dynasty. Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. 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. At these pilgrimage sites, rituals were performed which established a link between the standing Buddha and the ruler. Guisso, Richard W. Empress Wu Tse-t'ien and the Politics of Legitimation in T'ang China. Naples: Institute Universitario Orientale, 1976. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. 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. 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. Favoring the power base in the Northeast, the royal family finally moved to Luoyang in 683. In 690, she declared herself emperor after deposing her sons and founding her own dynastyZhou. Empress Wu was buried in a tomb in Qian County, Shanxi Province, alongside Gaozong. Encyclopedia.com. Shortly after she took the throne there was an earthquake which was interpreted as a bad omen. 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. "Wu Zetian." World History Encyclopedia. Empress Wu Zetian - Naked History She herself would thus be seen as a restorationist of the Zhou Dynasty, with the Wu family replacing the Li-Tang family. 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. published on 22 February 2016. The mute and limbless concubine was then tossed into a cesspit in the palace with the swine. In promoting Buddhism over Confucianism and Daoism as the favored state religion, the Empress countered strongly held Confucian beliefs against female rule. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. Zhou Dynasty. World Eras. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . She was the daughter of Wu Shihuo, a chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca.1500 BC till 1644 AD. "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. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. 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. They also functioned as powerful reminders of imperial power. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. 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. Her paranoia resulted in a purge of her administration. Cold, ruthless, and ambitious, the Han dynasty dowager murdered her rival,. To ensure imperial male progeny, the Chinese emperor's harem was an elaborate organization of eunuchs who attended to hundreds of concubines, of whom one was appointed empress, the principal wife of the emperor. Territorial Expansion. "Wu Zetian (624705) This mountain, so born of the sudden convulsion of earth, represents a calamity. Five Historical Plays. Emperor Gaozong had nothing to do with either of these events, although his name would have been attached to the campaigns against Korea. RELIGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF WORLD POPULATION: 0.1 percent Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Wu placed her first son on the throne who took the royal title Zhongzong. Your Privacy Rights There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. It is not likely Wu was involved in the disgrace of Taizongs unpleasant eldest son, Cheng-qian, whose teenage rebellion against his father had taken the form of the ostentatious embrace of life as lived by Mongol nomads. 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. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. She ruled China with complete authority and no one dared to challenge her when she was in control. Examination System. Wu eliminated all the bureaucracy by establishing a direct line of communication between herself and the people.
empress wu primary sources