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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. 1, 1990, pp. 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 On a similar tone, she ordered that the mother of the Daoist sage Laozi (Lao Tzu, c. 600 bce) be honored. 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! Her success in the campaigns against Korea inspired confidence in her generals and Wu's decisions on military defense or expeditions were never challenged. The first thing she did was change the name of the state from Tang to Zhou (actually Tianzhou or Tiansou). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984. The most serious charges against Wu are handily summarized in Mary Andersons collection of imperial scuttlebutt, Hidden Power, which reports that she wiped out twelve collateral branches of the Tang clan and had the heads of two rebellious princes hacked off and brought to her in her palace. 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. 6, no. Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China. It could also be, like it was in Egypt after Queen Hatshepsut's reign, that no one in power wanted to record the reign of a woman and hoped that Empress Wu would be forgotten. . To reinforce her legitimacy, Wu Zetian also invented about a dozen characters with a new script. The Woman Who Discovered Printing. 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. Ancient China: Empress Wu Zetian Biography - Ducksters Wu was given the privileged position of first concubine even though by law she should have been left in the temple as a nun. (3). "Wu Zetian (624705) She carefully eliminated any potential enemies from the court and had Lady Wang and Lady Xiao killed after they had gone into exile. When the Turkic ruler asked for a marriage arrangement, she sent her nephew's son to become the groom to the chieftain's daughter. Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty (The Greenwood Press Wu: The Chinese Empress who schemed, seduced and murdered her way to Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Gaozong divorced his wife, barred her mother from the palace, and exiled Lady Xiao. To further separate her Zhou Dynasty from the Tang, she created new characters for the Chinese writing system which are known today as Chinese Characters of Empress Wu or Zetian Characters. 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). In Chinese mythology , Huang-Di (pronounced hoo-arng-DEE), also k, Ho-shen But several years later, she returned to the palace as Gaozong's concubine and gave birth to sons. One example of her clout was in 666 CE when she led a group of women to Mount Tai (an ancient ceremonial center), where they conducted rituals which traditionally were performed only by men. Wu began an affair with Li Zhi, who was married at the time, while still attached to Taizong as concubine. It is the only known uncarved memorial tablet in more than 2,000 years of imperial history, its muteness chillingly reminiscent of the attempts made by Hatshepsuts successors toobliterate her namefrom the stone records of pharaonic Egypt. 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. Overall Wu Zetian was a decisive, capable ruler in the roles of empress, empress dowager, and emperor. "The Reigns of the Empress Wu, Chung-tsung and Jui-tsung," in Denis Twitchett, ed., Cambridge History of China. Explaining why the empress was so reviled, then, means acknowledging the double standard that existedand still existswhen it comes to assessing male and female rulers. 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'. In her last years Wu lost influence, although she remained energetic and cruel. There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. Just how accurate this picture of Wu is remains a matter of debate. How did a woman with such limited expectations as Wu emerge triumphant in the cutthroat world of the Tang court? 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. 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 is hated by gods and men alike.. Wu Zetian was in effect taking the unprecedented step of transforming her position from empress dowager to emperor. And does she deserve the harsh verdict that history has passed on her? Traditionally, only the emperor, as the son-of-heaven, could communicate with heaven and carry out sacrifices to heaven and earth. Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the Tang Dynasty: The Fall of Sui and Rise ofTang, a Preliminary Survey (New York: Octagon, 1975). She appears in influential plays as a feminist and champion of the lower classes while her male rivals are shown to be aristocrats, landlords, and conservatives against the tide of history. 31, no. Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. June 2, 2022 by by womeninworldhistory.com. 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. She also dealt ruthlessly with a succession of rivals, promoted members of her own family to high office, succumbed repeatedly to favoritism, and, in her old age, maintained what amounted to a harem of virile young men. After Wu's death, Zhongzong reigned but only in name; real power was held by Lady Wei who used Wu Zetian as a role model to manipulate her husband and the court. 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) . Wu placed her first son on the throne who took the royal title Zhongzong. 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. Uploaded by Ibolya Horvath, published on 22 February 2016. 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. She worked against the Confucian dictum that women must restrict their activities to the home and in the wildest imagination could not become emperors. When she was an infant dressed in boy's clothes, Wu Zetian's potential for emperorship was predicted by an official. The spirit road causeway to Wus still-unopened tomb lies between two low rises, tipped by watchtowers, known as the nipple hills.. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization. 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. 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. We contribute a share of our revenue to remove carbon from the atmosphere and we offset our team's carbon footprint. Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. 145154. 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. 181. 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. For Wu Zetian, the rise to power and consolidation involved manipulations, murders, and support of the intellectual and religious establishments. We care about our planet! Naples: Institute Universitario Orientale, 1976. Empress Wu was buried in a tomb in Qian County, Shanxi Province, alongside Gaozong. Carlton further notes, "While ostensibly for her great concern over the condition of her people, the box mainly served the purpose of obtaining information on seditious subjects (3)." World History Encyclopedia. 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. 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. across from her husband, the emperor. "Wu Zetian." In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. Bellingham : EAS Press, 1978; Robert Van Gulik. Wu Zetian's politics can be considered as feminist initiatives to reinforce the legitimacy of women in the political arena. 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. Wu Zetian was born in Wenshi County, Shanxi Province, in 624 CE to a wealthy family. World History Publishing is a non-profit company registered in the United Kingdom. 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). We care about our planet! Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. 1, Sui and T'ang, pp. 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. emperor angelfish (Pomecanthus imperator) See CHAETODONTIDAE. Still, this did not mean the women were not jealous of the favor the emperor showed Wu now that she had given birth to two sons in a row. Even her gravesite is remarkable. 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. When Taizong died, Gaozong became emperor, and Wu Zetian joined a Buddhist nunnery, as required of concubines of deceased emperors. Empress Wu Zetian ruled as Chinas only female emperor. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. 1, 1993, pp. Setting up a new dynasty meant installing a new imperial family to replace the Li-Tang imperial house, from which she had married two emperors who were father and son, Taizong and Gaozong. 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. Before coming to power, she was presented with three petitions containing sixty thousand names and urging her to ascend to the throne, which suggested that she had some popular support. Complete List of Included Worksheets Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document. As we know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Lady Wang's uncle, the chancellor Liu Shi, was removed from his post which meant his son was cut off as Gaozong's heir. 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. Long a supporter of Buddhism through her mother's devotion and her own refuge in the nunnery after her first husband Taizong's death, Wu Zetian counted on Buddhist ideology to legitimize her reign and her dynasty. When Empress Wu was the empress of the Tang Dynasty, she created a system of secret police to watch her opponents and killed or put anyone in . "Wu Zetian (624705) Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. Empress Theodora, rhetoric, and Byzantine primary sources 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. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. At age 14 she became a concubine of Emperor TaiZong of the Tang Dynasty and was given the title of CaiRren (Guardian Immortal) and a new name, Wu Mei. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. 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. Cookie Policy These historians claim that Wu ordered Lady Wang and Lady Xiao murdered in a terrible way: she had their hands and feet cut off and they were then thrown into a vat of wine to drown. C.P. In death, as in life, then, Wu remains controversial. 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. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Wu Zhao viewed the situation differently: she claimed the mountain was a good omen which reflected the Buddhist mountain of paradise, Sumeru. The political success of Wu Zetian indicates that the attributes needed in diplomacy and rulership were not restricted to men. 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. . The famed imperial mosaics in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna depict the sixth-century Byzantine empress. 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. Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. ." 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. Still, Xuanzong continued many of Wu's policies, including keeping her reforms in taxation, agriculture, and education. 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. 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. The China that Wu Zetian was born in was the Tang Dynasty (618906), a strong and unified empire after four centuries of political discord and foreign interaction. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Zhou Dynasty. World History Encyclopedia. Although she was not able to control the newly unified state, relations continued to be friendly during her reign. 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. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. An official under the former Han dynasty, he took the Han throne and founded his own, CHARLEMAGNE Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) 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. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Anyone she suspected of disloyalty, for any reason, was banished or executed. After rising to power, Wu tried to remove from power the representatives of the northwestern aristocracy, who had controlled the government from the beginning of the dynasty through the medium of the imperial chancellery. 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. She was in very poor health anyway by this time and died a year later. She kept Ruizong under a kind of house arrest confining him to the Inner Palace. Seen from this perspective, Wu did in fact fulfill the fundamental duties of a ruler of imperial China; Confucian philosophy held that, while an emperor should not be condemned for acts that would be crimes in a subject, he could be judged harshly for allowing the state to fall into anarchy. Replacing the dynasty and imperial house through Confucian ideology still could not legitimize a woman on the throne. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 17 Mar 2016. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. 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. Mutsuhito Empress Wu Zetian (Illustration) - World History Encyclopedia 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. Paul, Diana Y. Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. Belmont: Wadsworth, 1989, pp. (February 23, 2023). Wu was forced to abdicate in favor of her exiled son Zhongzong and his wife Wei. In 652 CE, Wu gave birth to a son, Li Hong, and in 653 CE had another son, Li Xian. Jiu Tangshu [Old history of the Tang]. Primary Sources with DBQsCHINA 4000 - 1000 BCE Ancestral Rites and Divination . Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating womens intellectual development and sexual freedom. In 690, she declared herself emperor after deposing her sons and founding her own dynastyZhou. This was a common practice after the death of the emperor. Wu Zetian - World History Encyclopedia Map: Wikicommons. Theodora. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. Her giant stone memorial, placed at one side of the spirit road leading to her tomb, remains blank. Wu Zetian's collected writings include official edicts, essays, and poetry, in addition to a treatise to instruct her subjects on moral statecraft. A brother or a clan grandson at times ascended the throne during usurpation or when the emperor died without issue, but female succession through descent from a daughter was never permitted. This institution became a political weapon in the hands of Empress Wu when she usurped the throne in 690. Her paranoia resulted in a purge of her administration. Recent revisionist reappraisals have focused on the feminist slant of her rule and her record as an emperor rather than a woman, but no new primary sources have appeared to resolve conflicting information and gaps in her biography. Character Overview Some historians have viewed her as blazing the trail for the women who came after her, and indeed her daughter, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter aspired to emulate her success, but they failed and even died violently in the process. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. 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. 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. Already in 674 she had drafted 12 policy directives ranging from encouraging agriculture to formulating social rules of conduct. 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. Nevertheless, court intrigues still greatly influenced the recruiting of civil servants. History 100 Flashcards | Quizlet If Wu Zetian is judged by the traditional female virtues of chastity and modesty, then she falls short of expectations. 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. The area around Changan could not produce the amount of food required to feed the court and garri-sons, and the transportation of grain up the Yellow River, traversing the Sanmen rapids, was exceptionally expensive. We would much rather spend this money on producing more free history content for the world. Empress Wu Zetian and the Spread of Buddhism (625-705 C.E.) Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705. "Empress Wu and the Historians: A Tyrant and Saint of Classical China," in Nancy Auer Falk and Rita M. Gross, eds., Unspoken Worlds: Religious Lives of Women. Sima, Guang. Sources about Wu Zetian's life are a hodgepodge, which some condemning her as the devil himself and others testifying she was an absolute angel. Unknown, . She was also assured that her sons would rule the country after the death of her husband. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. "The Real Judge Dee: Ti Jen-chieh and the T'ang Restoration of 705," in Asia Major. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. Wu, characteristically, admired the virtuosity of Luos style and suggested he would be better employed at the imperial court. Cite This Work Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. This mountain, so born of the sudden convulsion of earth, represents a calamity. 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. 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. Advertising Notice 1, Sui and T'ang, pp. She improved the public education system by hiring dedicated teachers and reorganizing the bureaucracy and teaching methods. 127148. As an effective woman ruler, she challenged the traditional patriarchical dominance of power, state, sovereignty, monarchy, and political ideology. Examination System. 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. Bellingham, WA: Center for Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978. Instead, it was left without any inscriptionthe only such example in more than 2,000 years of Chinese history. Hauppauge : Nova Science Publishers, 2003; Richard Guisso, Wu Tse-Tien and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China. ." 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. Empress Wu: Hero or Villain - Amped Up Learning Name variations: Wu Ze-tian; Wu Chao, Wu Hou, or Wu Zhao; Wu Mei or Wu Meiliang; Wu Tse-t'ien, Wo Tsetien, or Wu Tso Tien; Wu of Hwang Ho or Huang He; Empress Wu, Lady Wu. 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. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. Lady Wu played the role of the shy, respectable emperor's wife well in public but, behind the scenes, she was the actual power. Favoring the power base in the Northeast, the royal family finally moved to Luoyang in 683. 4.16: Links to Primary Sources - Humanities LibreTexts The cambridge history has a fascinating take on this period - the author of the chapter on Wu's reign keeps reminding the reader that the imperium was peaceful; the economy was booming; government was rational, efficient and effective; and a parade of highly qualified top officials presided. Wu also reformed the military by mandating military exams for commanders to show competency, which were patterned on her imperial exams given to civil service workers.
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