empress wu primary sources empress wu primary sources

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. They ruled as divine monarchs until Gaozong's death in 683 CE. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Luoyang was favorably located on the last stop of the river routes from the South, which greatly reduced the cost of shipping grains from the Southeast to the imperial capital. Van Gulik, Robert. The World History Encyclopedia logo is a registered trademark. "Wu Zetian." 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. 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. On the Korean peninsula Empress Wu supported the unification movement under the state of Silla. Ho-shen (1750-1799) was a high Manchu official in the government of the Ch'ing dynasty in China and a close associate of Emperor Ch'ien-lung.. Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. The earliest sources on Wu Zetian already contained rumors of sex scandals in her court. 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. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. 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). "Empress Wu Zetian." 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. (Issued by the Empress Dowager Cixi, 1835-1908) Thank you! No area of Chinese life was untouched by Empress Wu and her reforms were so popular because the suggestions came from the people. 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. In 654 CE, Wu had a daughter who died soon after birth. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. Alternate Names Emperor Gaozong had nothing to do with either of these events, although his name would have been attached to the campaigns against Korea. Unlike her predecessors she was fond of the Buddhist community, which led her to build at great expense the Mingtang, or Hall of Light. (February 23, 2023). McMullen, David. China during Wu Zetian's ReignIan Kiu (CC BY-SA). 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. Her experience reflected a reversal of the gender roles and restrictions her society and government constructed for her as appropriate to women. World History Encyclopedia, 22 Feb 2016. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1994. 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. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. Mike Dash is a contributing writer in history for Smithsonian.com. Even though many at court congratulated her on being favored by the gods, many others did not. Lady Wu played the role of the shy, respectable emperor's wife well in public but, behind the scenes, she was the actual power. R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-ten and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1978). 145154. "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) This item is in the public domain, and can be used, copied, and modified without any restrictions. 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! 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. Appears In Just how accurate this picture of Wu is remains a matter of debate. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1989, pp. Wei had her father appointed Chief Minister to her husband and tried to push through other measures favoring her family. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the Tang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise ofTang, a Preliminary Survey (New York: Octagon, 1975). 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. . 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. These women were rarely chosen by their people. She was in very poor health anyway by this time and died a year later. 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. Taizong forced the abdication of his own father and disposed of two older brothers in hand-to-hand combat before seizing the throne. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. Shanghai: Sibu congkan ed., 1929. The Story Of Wu Zetian, China's First Female Emperor, The Demonization of Empress Wu by Mike Dash, The Karmic Retribution of Pei Huaigu by Kelly Carlton (University of Florida), Wu Zetian: China's One and Only Woman Emperor by Jim Down. Wu began an affair with Li Zhi, who was married at the time, while still attached to Taizong as concubine. The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. The first thing she did was change the name of the state from Tang to Zhou (actually Tianzhou or Tiansou). provided her with a string of virile lovers such as one lusty, big-limbed lout of a peddler, whom she allowed to frequent her private apartments. 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. 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. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. Lyn Reese is the author of all the information on this website 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. 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. Changing the dynasty was the easier task and was accomplished by securing the approval of the Confucian establishment. "Empress Wu Zetian." Wu either read him whatever she felt like and then made her own decisions or read him the real reports and then still acted on her own. Jiu Tangshu [Old history of the Tang]. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . It is easier to take seriously the suggestion that Wu arranged a series of murders within her own family. Bellingham : EAS Press, 1978; Robert Van Gulik. Swedens fascinating Queen Christina was nearly as infamous for eschewing her sidesaddle and riding in breeches as she was for the more momentous decision that she took to convert to Catholicismwhile mustering her troops in 1588 as the Spanish Armada sailed up the Channel, even Elizabeth I felt constrained to begin a morale-boosting address with a denial of her sex: 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.. Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. Submitted by Emily Mark, published on 17 March 2016. 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). Thank you! In her seventies, Wu showered special favor on two smooth-cheeked brothers, the Zhang brothers, former boy singers, the nature of whose private relationship with their imperial mistress has never been precisely determined. 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. The Tang emperor Taizong was the first to promote Wu, whom he gave the nickname Fair Flatterera reference not to her personal qualities but to the lyrics of a popular song of the day. Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. Lu Zhi was an instantly recognizable villain to the people of China, and linking Wu with her through the murders worked to destroy Wu's reputation. Her supposed method, moreoveramputating her victims hands and feet and leaving them to drownsuspiciously resembles that adopted by her most notorious predecessor, the Han-era empress Lu Zhia woman portrayed by Chinese historians as the epitome of all that was evil. Her Buddhist supporters interpreted the Madamegha (Great Cloud) sutra to predict a maitreya Buddha (Buddha-to-come) in female form, presumably Wu Zetian herself, who would embody the concept of the cakravartin (wheel-turner, universal emperor, or the ideal man who is king). Liu, Xu. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. 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. She founded a secret police and conducted a reign of terror, justifying the mass executions on the grounds that discrimination against a womans open exercise of power forced her to use terror to defend her authority. She first entered the imperial harem at the age of 13 as a lowly ranked concubine to Emperor Taizong (r. 626649), who has been praised as the most capable ruler of the Tang period and hailed as the "heavenly khan" by Central Asian states. 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. Her extravagant construction projects and expensive frontier campaigns had exhausted the treasury, which led to a financial crisis. Palace ladies of the Tang dynasty, from a contemporary wall painting in an imperial tomb in Shaanxi. Wang was the last person seen in the room and had no alibi. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother, the chronicles say. Mutsuhito (also known as Meiji Tenno; 1852-1912) was a Japanese emperor, who became the symbol for, and encouraged, the dramatic, Chien-lung ." World History Encyclopedia. Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China. He refused to cooperate well with his mother and his wife, Lady Wei, assumed too much power. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Public Domain. When Gaozong died in 683, she became empress dowager and ruled on behalf of two adult sons, emperors Zhongzong (r. 684, 705710) and Ruizong (r. 685689, 710712). Wu is said to have potentially killed her own. 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. The Shiji She has published historical essays and poetry. 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 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. Han Emperor Wen, r. 180-157 BCE . 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. 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) . Became concubine to Emperor Taizong (640); entered Buddhist nunnery (649); returned to the palace as concubine (654), then as empress (657) to Taizong's son Emperor Gaozong; became empress dowager and regent to her two sons (68489); founded a dynasty (Zhou, 690705) and ruled as emperor for 15 years. Mark, Emily. Attaining that position first required Wu to engineer her escape from a nunnery after Taizongs deaththe concubines of all deceased emperors customarily had their heads shaved and were immured in convents for the rest of their lives, since it would have been an insult to the dead ruler had any other man sullied themand to return to the palace under Gaozongs protection before entrancing the new emperor, removing empress Wang and the Pure Concubine, promoting members of her own family to positions of power, and eventually establishing herself as fully her husbands equal. . Cite This Work She was the last wife and the only empress of Liu Bei, the founding emperor of Shu Han, and a younger sister of Wu Yi . She replaced Zhongzong with her second son, who became Emperor Ruizong. Web. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984. June 2, 2022 by by Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. New Capital. Empress Wu Zetian ruled as Chinas only female emperor. the empress, greatly weakened by infirmity and old age, would allow no one but the Zhang brothers by her side. Again, it is hard to tell what is true and what is slander being that Wu Zeitan's story is so long ago and the sources are sketchy. Books World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. Jay, Jennifer W. "Vignettes of Chinese Women in Tang Xi'an (618906): Individualism in Wu Zetian, Yang Guifei, Yu Xuanji and Li Wa," in Chinese Culture. However they rose, though, it has always been harder for a woman to rule effectively than it was for a manmore so in the earlier periods of history, when monarchs were first and foremost military leaders, and power was often seized by force. But already in 666 when Wu Zetian was empress to the reigning Gaozong, she had prepared for her imperial ambitions by defying tradition and mockery as she led the unprecedented procession of imperial ladies to sacrifice to earth, believed to be a female deity. Amherst : Prometheus Books, 1990; T.H. The system of Neo-Confucianism of which Chu Hsi is regarded as the spo, Mutsuhito By the fourth century CE, the Roman Empire was at the apex of its power and strength. (February 22, 2023). Cambridge History of China. 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. The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. And does she deserve the harsh verdict that history has passed on her? Kumarajiva's influence on Chinese Buddhist thought was crucial. Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) Her one mistake had been to marry this boy to a concubine nearly as ruthless and ambitious as herself. 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. 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). Xin Tangshu [New history of the Tang]. Click for Author Information. If it still won't be tamed, I'll cut its throat with the knife. World History Encyclopedia. False: In fact, the Roman Empire was in decline at this time. Picking through the bias to try to get to the real story is always fascinating and - in my mind - fun. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Privacy Statement Encyclopedia.com. It may be helpful to consider that there were in effect two empressesthe one who maintained a reign of terror over the innermost circle of government, and the one who ruled more benignly over 50 million Chinese commoners. 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. Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. 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). Omens were extremely important to the people of ancient China and played a significant role in Tang politics. She later volunteered to tame Taizong's wild horse with an iron whip, hammer, and knife. . The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. ." 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. (2016, February 22). 1, Sui and T'ang, pp. His rule covered a span of 63 years, a reign lo, Zhao Kuang-yin She was the daughter of Wu Shihuo, a chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. 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. Hauppauge : Nova Science Publishers, 2003; Richard Guisso, Wu Tse-Tien and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China. If so, their hopes were in vain; Empress Wu Zetian is remembered today as one of the greatest rulers in China's history. 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. She also organized military campaigns against Korea in 668 CE which were so effective that they reduced Korea to the status of a vassal state. The baby was strangled in her crib and Wu claimed that Lady Wang had killed her because she was jealous. 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. Vol. 127148. 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. 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. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . 1996-2021 https://www.worldhistory.org/image/4558/empress-wu-zetian/. Kannon embodies compassion, and when seen as female is venerated as a patron of motherhood and fertility. 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. 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. Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating women's intellectual development and sexual freedom. Her courtiers, however, hatched a plot and afterward forced her to abdicate in 705; she died later that year. She whispered slander from behind her sleeves, and swayed her master with vixen flirting and insisted that she was the arch manipulator of an unprecedented series of scandals that, over two reigns and many years, cleared her path to the throne. 04 Mar 2023. Even if she took full advantage, however, she must have possessed not only looks but remarkable intelligence and determination to emerge, as she did two decades later, as empress.