Wu Ze Tian — Was She A Killer At Heart or A Woman Longing For Love?
The pivotal relationship that changed the Tang dynasty forever
As an Asian Chinese, I grew up watching stories of Chinese dynasties, folklore, and pugilists. I secretly admired the grace, strength, and talents of female characters. Perhaps it was because they defied the odds of a patriarchal society with strong Confucian practices about how women should be obedient, quiet, and ladylike in decorum and appearance.
But there is only one woman in more than 3000 years of history of China who often piqued my interest.
She was and still is the only female that ever rose to power. She single-handedly ran a dynasty with a population as big as 50 million people during an era touted as one of China’s Golden Age. She was well-known for her ruthless, authoritative, manipulative ways. She meted harsh punishments. She killed her own daughter and half-brothers.
This lady was none other than Empress Wu Ze Tian (武则天).
Wu Ze Tian had a better-than-average upbringing.
Wu Zhao 武曌, Wu Ze Tian’s birth name, was a well-educated woman.
Her father was a lumber merchant who quickly became close friends with Tang Dynasty founder Li Yuan (566–635 AD) as he displayed exceptional military strategies against the preceding Sui dynasty.
When the Tang dynasty was formed, Father Wu entered the aristocratic world as a governor-general. During his time, he married royalty from the Sui dynasty and gave birth to Wu Zhao in 624 A.D.
Wu grew up with an all-rounded education, not just in literature, music, and arts, but was also well-versed with politics and military strategies including horse-riding.
At the age of 14, Wu became a fifth-rank concubine (cai ren 才人 / Lady of Talent) of Emperor Tai Zong (reigned 626–649AD), son of Li Yuan.
Although Wu had not had much power, with 120 other concubines between herself and the Emperor, her spirited intelligence was quickly noticed by Tai Zong.
The Horsebreaker Wu Zhao
One day, Tai Zong had trouble taming his wild horse which no one could master. He sought advice from his women.
Lady Wu stood up and said these words —
“I can control the horse, but I need three things: 1st, an iron whip; 2nd, an iron hammer; 3rd, a dagger. I will use the iron whip first and if that does not bring him to obedience, I will use the iron hammer. And if he still does not listen, I will use the dagger and cut his throat.”
Talking about brutality and ruthlessness for a woman during a time when men ruled all parts of society!
If you thought Tai Zong was intimidated, the exact opposite happened.
Tai Zong was impressed with Wu and decided to employ her as his personal secretary for the next decade. During the next decade, Wu quickly learned about court state affairs. Even though she was intimate with Tai Zong, she bore him no child.
Not the most favorite concubine to the Emperor, she had to constantly fight with the other women to gain the favor of the Emperor, which was common amongst the emperor’s women during Imperial China.
Undoubtedly, lives were extremely lonely and empty for concubines. Though they did not have to lay a finger on menial house chores, their main day-to-day duties mainly involved being a wallflower for the Emperor by appearing in grand court affairs and being cooped in their palaces only to hope and wait that the Emperor would spend the night with them.
On top of that, they were dispensable commodities. Concubines were sent away to build good relations with other royalties or enemies, as in the case of Wang Zhao Jun (王昭君).
Most concubines hoped to bear a son for the ruler, as that meant she stood a higher chance to be the favorite Concubine of the Emperor, or that her son would be the next heir to the throne.
The stepmom-stepson affair that changed the dynasty forever
While Tai Zong was in reign, he bore a son, Gao Zong, to his Empress Wende. Years later, Gao Zong fell in love with Lady Wu, who were both married at that time.
In other words, Wu was having an affair with her step-son!
It was not clearly documented if this was a sly move by Wu or was there genuine love between both. But one thing is for sure, Gao Zong was mesmerized by Wu’s beauty and wit which Wu used to her advantage as she quickly grasped his character and weaknesses.
In 649AD, when Emperor Tai Zong passed away, Wu was sent away with many of the other concubines to temples as Buddhist nuns as they did not bear sons for the Emperor. This was customary in Imperial China.
Gao Zong now became the next emperor in line.
The return of manipulative Wu
During one of his visits to pay respects at the temple, he met Wu again and was reminded of her beauty. He couldn’t forget their times together during his father’s reign.
In addition, Emperor Gao Zong’s relationship with his Empress Wang was getting cold as she did not bore him a son. Gao Zong started spending more time with Lady Xiao, one of his concubines, who bore him a son and two daughters.
Empress Wang, being jealous and afraid that she would lose her power, encouraged the now-widowed Wu in the temple, to stop shaving her head to attract Gao Zong’s attention.
Little did Wang realize her plan succeeded beyond her expectations.
Emperor Gao Zong called for Wu to return to the Palace. He conferred her the title “second-rank” Imperial Concubine (zhao yi 昭儀 Lady of Bright Deportment) in 655 AD. This is where the story becomes really interesting.
Even though Gao Zong was the Emperor by title, he was often ill and not heavily involved in many court affairs. Instead, it was Wu “behind the scenes” reigning and calling the shots.
The rise of the ambitious Wu
However, this did not satisfy the ambitious Wu as she plotted her way to become the most powerful woman among all the of the emperor’s women.
1 — She bore Gao Zong four sons: Li Hong at 652AD, Li Xian at 653AD, another Li Xian at 655AD, and Li Dan at 662AD.
Li Hong became the Crown Prince at age of 4, thus increasing her power and position as the mother of the future ruler of China. This also quickly elevated her status as Gao Zong’s favorite concubine, surpassing Lady Xiao.
2 — Wu was cunning and knew how to play politics at an early stage.
In addition to pleasing the Emperor, she also gained favor with Empress Wang and many of the Imperial court servants and attendants with her friendliness and generosity. They would often report to her on all trivial events happening in the court.
3 — Wu gave birth to a daughter with Gao Zong in 654 A.D.
The infant daughter’s life was a tragic story as she died of deliberate strangulation.
Some historians speculated it was Wu who killed her own daughter to frame Empress Wang for killing her daughter out of jealousy.
Others believed that the baby girl died due to poor ventilation and it was an easy excuse for Wu to accuse Empress Wang of murder. This further strained the relationship between the Empress and Emperor whom the latter wanted to replace with Wu, but he wanted support from his government officials first.
Following the next year, there were splitting opinions about replacing Empress Wang with the ambitious Lady Wu. Some objected vehemently while others kept silent. Finally, the Emperor took matters into his own hand, promoted Wu as Empress, and arrested both Wang and Xiao.
But Wu still did not stop there. She wanted to eradicate any possible threats. As soon as she rose to power as Empress, she ordered the murders of Wang and Xiao.
4 — Wu was shrewd in removing any threats within the Imperial Palace that could threaten her way to the top.
To keep abreast of every nook and cranny in the Imperial Palaces was no easy feat.
Wu quickly solved this by establishing an informer system as her eyes and ears around the walls of palaces. She appointed ruthless officials to exile, execute, and forced suicide of any officials and members of the Tang clans who showed any signs of a threat to her position and rise to power.
I call this a total extermination at the root cause!
In 660AD, Emperor Gao Zong suffered a massive stroke that he left all state affairs to Empress Wu. Wu Ze Tian was practically the ruler from that year until 683AD when Gao Zong officially passed away.
The reign of the tiger mom
In Imperial China, when the Emperor passed away, the throne is succeeded by the Crown Prince. But since the Crown Prince Li-Hong passed away at 23 (675AD), Wu’s second son, Li Xian ascended the throne as Emperor Zhong Zhong. Subsequently, Wu has conferred the title “empress-regent”. However, Zhong Zhong’s reign was short-lived.
In less than a year, Wu banished Zhong Zhong and replaced him with her youngest son, Li Dan, now known as Emperor Rui Zong. These further embolden Wu’s power as Rui Zong was too young to govern, allowing Wu to continue controlling the court.
In 690AD, frustrated with how the government was constantly revolting against her, despite yielding a track record of successes for the country, Wu decided to defy all conventions and conferred herself the title “the Holy and Divine Emperor”.
Wu Ze Tian was 66 years old when she officially ruled China. She renamed the dynasty as “Zhou dynasty” (which is not the same as the ancient Zhou dynasty) with the capital at Luoyang city.
Over the next 15 years till her deathbed at 705A.D., all her sons became emperors at some point but their mother did not give up her power easily.
Unfortunately, at 80 years old, she was so old and tired to play politics. She turned her attention to love affairs with the Zhang brothers and lost focus on state affairs. The courts’ officials made use of this change and forced her to abdicate her throne. She also had to reaccept the Tang dynasty line and her son Zhong Zhong’s return to be the heir apparent.
She died alone in her palace.
Wu was a controversial woman when alive, yet when she died, she left nothing behind on her tombstone.
Her tombstone remained in Qianling Mausoleum in Xi’an with her second husband. What was different is that Wu’s tombstone has a clean wordless tablet. This was uncommon for deceased monarchs of China where tombstones were carved with their achievements and lineages.
Historians speculated that Wu Ze-Tian wanted her tombstone to be unmarked for two main reasons —
1. She knew that the men in that time would not accept a woman in power and she didn’t want to create further controversies.
2. She knew her achievements as the first Chinese female empress was far beyond what some of her male counterparts could have or had done.
Perhaps she was so self-assured of her accomplishments that she didn’t need to have achievements carved. She believed that living people would remember her legacy as some historians wrote,
“Empress Wu had a will: “My achievements and errors must be evaluated by later generations, therefore carve no characters on my stele.”
Wu’s accomplishments surpassed herself
They say never mess with a lady when she gets her bun up and this was certainly true for Wu Ze Tian.
It is not surprising to learn of all her tactics for her rise and maintenance in power, after all, it was the 7th century when men ruled and dominated much of society and government.
Yet despite all that, she had accomplished so much over the combined 50 years in one way or another.
She lowered taxes for peasants, promoted meritocracy in the selection of government officials, and pushed for women’s rights in many sectors of society. She also promoted Buddhism teachings, as Confucian teachings did not recognize women in power and leadership. Outside of China, her military prowess was also recognized as she expanded the Tang territorial boundaries to Central Asia and now-South Korea.
She was very much beloved by the common people as a result of the peace, prosperity, and stability under her rulership.
Even though her methods were up for debate, it was undeniable that under her reign, ancient China prospered tremendously. Yet without a figure like Wu, I highly doubt we would really get to know the real impact when powerful women are enthroned.
Can society ever accept a woman who breaks the glass ceiling?
Even in the 21st century, how many females have truly risen to the highest power of society and governance and not had controversies surrounding them? How many of them had to break the glass ceiling of women being in leadership? How many of them had to crush the naysayers, gossipers, and haters who would attempt to bring a woman down as she rose to power?
I am sitting here pondering — Are all ambitious and capable women ruthless, promiscuous, and cunning then?
I know each time I hear the name “Wu Ze Tian”, I would conjure up this image of a ruthless, manipulative, autocratic woman with an acid tongue but also highly effective, self-assured, and confident.
References
* https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/wu-zhao-ruler-of-tang-dynasty-china/
* http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/traditionaleastasia/exhibits/show/badass-female-rulers/empress-wu
* https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1234&context=history-in-the-making
* https://www.chinaxiantour.com/xian-travel-blog/empress-wu-zetian-and-her-wordless-tomb-stele.html
