The dragon empress
Peaceful reformer or scheming murderer, the true nature of the only woman to rule China in her own right is shrouded in mystery
The life of Empress Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China in her own right
The Guanzhong Plain in Shanxi province is China’s own Valley of the Kings, scattered with 20 mausoleums to Tang dynasty rulers. However, one of the tombs at Qianling Mausoleum is quite different from the others. Normally, the huge stone slab that sits outside a tomb lists the great deeds of the dead, but this one’s tablet is blank. Known as the Wordless Stele, it marks the tomb of the only woman to rule China in her own right as an empress in the country’s 2,000 years of history.
On the one hand, Empress Wu Zetian’s blank slate suggests she did nothing memorable. Others will tell you it hints at a life of murder, betrayals and scheming — acts not worthy of inscription. What you would never assume is that it belongs a woman who ruled over one of the most peaceful and prosperous periods of China’s history, and even gave the lower orders of Chinese society their first ever voice in how they were governed.
This is because the historians who were expected to recount her great deeds upon the tablet were men who hated her. The blank stone, much like Wu herself, presents two possibilities
— a woman so indescribably evil that a single good deed cannot be etched upon it, or a country so unwilling to upset the status quo that a blank stone is better than the truth that challenges it.
Wu was born in 624 to a wealthy family that had made its money in the timber business. While most young girls were instructed in what would make them a good wife, Wu’s father allowed her to follow her own interests. An intelligent girl, she was actively encouraged to widen her education, to read books and learn about politics, government, writing, literature and music. As most girls did needlework, Wu was learning the skills that one would day help her rule a nation. Because of her father’s support, she was encouraged to step beyond what was expected of her gender from a very early age.
Wu’s quick mind, coupled with her good looks, attracted the attention of the Emperor Taizong of Tang and she was selected to become one of his concubines. Aged just 14 years old, Wu was spirited away to the ruler’s court, a palace of schemes, plots and power plays, likely a terrifying place for a young girl to be thrust into — but she was a quick learner.
Sources vary as to the emperor’s feelings towards Wu, with some claiming she became a quick favourite and others the opposite. What we do know is that she was hardly a timid, kneeling, submissive mistress because while still assigned to the aging emperor, she began an affair with his son, Prince Li Zhi.
Li Zhi’s feelings for Wu are in no debate — he was completely in love with her. When Taizong died, all of his concubines, as tradition dictated, had their heads shaved and were sent to live out the rest of their days at a Buddhist convent. When Li Zhi became emperor in 649, taking the name of Gaozong, he broke with tradition and demanded Wu to be returned to court as his own concubine. Surprisingly, Gaozong’s wife, Empress Wang, had actually encouraged the return. Wang had hoped that Wu might divert attention from one of the ruler’s other concubines, Xiao Shufei. Wang was right, but she would rue the day.
“Wu was learning the skills that would one day help her rule a nation”
Wu had two sons with Gaozong but that fact alone would not have worried Wang and Xiao.
The emperor had already chosen a successor — his chancellor was his wife’s uncle, and he had named his son, Li Zhong, as his current heir. However, Wu had another baby in 654, a girl, who was found dead in her crib just days after being born.
This is where the historical narratives split. For Wu, the culprit was clear — Wang had been jealous of her husband’s affections for her and of her ability to bear him children for some time, and she had taken it out on her newborn baby. Wang was the last person seen in the room and had no alibi. Wu claimed that Wang had strangled her child and was also practicing witchcraft, along with
Xiao. The charges were taken very seriously and the emperor sided with Wu over his wife. Wang and Xiao were exiled from the palace, Li Zhong stripped of his position as heir and Wu given the role of first wife.
Wu’s account of events is not impossible and there is no real reason not to believe them. However, they did conveniently make her the most powerful woman in China and some Chinese historians view the reality as very different. It is a common belief that Wu killed her own child in order to implicate Wang and eliminate her as a rival. The idea of a mother smothering a child she had only just birthed is a horrifying one, and a tale that paints Wu as an ambitious, devilish woman willing to do anything to grasp power, but the men writing these depictions were not exactly keen to portray a female stepping above her station in the best light.
This story was the beginning of a common portrayal of Wu as a conniving, ruthless, bloodthirsty temptress, but it was told by men who were convinced a woman entering a position of power would upset the balance of nature.
So although the tale quickly entered Chinese folklore, the actual evidence of it being true is nonexistent — it is far more likely that neither woman was responsible for the death and that the child died of asphyxiation due to poor ventilation in the palace. Wu then exploited the situation to her advantage.
Whatever the truth, Wu had found herself in the position of first wife and it was one she did not intend to give up easily. When her husband showed signs of considering the release of the two exiled women, Wu ordered their deaths. Another particularly grisly tale is that she tortured them, chopping up their limbs and putting them into wine jars, saying, “Let these two witches be drunk to their bones!” It’s a claim that seems more like a line from a Disney villain than a real-life person and is very difficult to believe.
The two women did end up dead, however, and it is likely that Wu was simply ensuring the survival of herself and her sons, not at all uncommon actions for a man of the era, but viewed with scorn when carried out by a woman. She was almost certainly ambitious but this was the cutthroat Chinese court of the 7th century, where not being ambitious would see you trodden on, destitute and crushed beneath the shoes of your competitors. Wu needed ambition to survive.
Within five years of their marriage, the emperor suffered a debilitating stroke and Wu took over administrative duties of the court, effectively giving herself her husband’s power. There were many who didn’t approve of this and Wu knew it but rather than simply letting her enemies plot against her, Wu decided to hit back.
Over one brutal and bloody year, she set about eliminating her enemies and all possible claimants to the throne — 15 family lines were destroyed through executions, accusations of treason and forced suicides. A secret police force was created to spy on her opposition and Wu was extremely effective at taking out anyone who threatened her authority. Wu really didn’t like people telling her what to do and to the male-dominated world of the Chinese court she was a terrifying concept — a woman who didn’t know her place.
After her husband’s death in 683, Wu’s son Li Zhe was placed on the throne, taking the name Zhongzong. But when the boy refused to comply with her orders, she quickly had him and his wife banished for treason. Her next son, Emperor Ruizong, was equally as much of a disappointment. Weak and unable to rule as she saw fit, she persuaded him to abdicate and declared herself Emperor Zetian, the first female ruler of China.
Of course, Wu had been ruling for years before, but now it was official and the men of court did not like it one bit. We can see how uncomfortable
they were with the concept of bowing to a female ruler when one scholar claimed that “throughout the empire… hens changed into roosters.”
After her accession, an earthquake shook the land — a bad omen proving that a woman ruling as a man had upset the very balance of nature itself. When a mountain was seen to ‘appear’ afterwards, Wu claimed it was a sign of heavens blessing her reign but many of her ministers disagreed.
One implored her that she should lead “the quiet life of a widow” else “further disasters will befall us.” He was promptly exiled to a southern swamp land and other ministers who did not favour her decided to keep their opinions quiet. Instead, their disdain found its way into the histories of her reign as opinions and fears that would eventually be accepted as truths.
Wu didn’t really care about the opinions of men — she wanted to make it very clear that her reign was the beginning of something new, and her name, Zetian, meant ‘ruler of the heavens’. When she changed the name of the state from Tang to Tianzhou, meaning ‘granted by heaven’, it was almost as if she was mocking the men who claimed her position was unnatural for a woman by deeming it blessed by the heavens themselves.
Wu bookended the Tang dynasty by making sure that all of the royal family were imprisoned. This may seem cruel in retrospect, but she was simply acting as any man of the time would have.
She ensured her grip on the throne would go unchallenged, and this was even more pertinent given that she knew there was a bull’s-eye on her back. Wu’s time had come and she did not intend to lose it easily.
One of her most brazen actions was to create new characters for the Chinese writing system. Intended to replace 10 to 30 of the older ones, this was Wu’s way to change not only how China was operating, but the way in which people thought and wrote. It was no mere grasp for power — Wu wanted to change everything about the country, even the words spoken by her people. This, combined with the horrors she had wrought at court, would lead one to assume she was widely despised but the majority of lay-people actually adored her. Wu had shaken things up.
Her spying at court had rooted out institutional corruption and she also opened up the civil examinations to a wider group of people so that more variety was present in local and regional governments. She also created petition boxes, which allowed people to disclose their issues and grievances against court officials. Although she did use these complaints to gain information against rebellious subjects, Wu used the comments to enact reforms that she knew her people wanted — an act that led many of her subjects to believe that they were finally being listened to after being silenced for centuries.
The public education system was also revised, with new teachers hired and an overhaul of teaching methods and the curriculum. Agricultural production was almost entirely rebuilt with
officials who produced the most crops and taxed their people the least being rewarded. These changes were highly successful and agricultural production reached an all-time high.
The military began to be filled with competent soldiers instead of those with family ties and this paid off in the wars in Korea. Wu’s reforms helped create a capable and deadly military force that had belief in its commanders. Her military systems were so admired and produced such good results that they were never challenged. China’s borders were more secure than ever and Wu’s spy network worked hard to squash any sniff of rebellion before it started. Thanks to her solid leadership, she ruled over a prosperous and stable country and her reign was one of the most peaceful that China had ever seen.
However, a lifetime of plotting and dodging her enemies’ blades had made the empress paranoid. Historians would later claim that she was haunted by the corpses of Wang and Xiao, their bloody curses echoing in the dark. But
Wu herself was
distracted by a different kind of visitor entirely: handsome young men.
Far into her 60s and beyond, there is evidence that Wu did indeed take many young, handsome men as her lovers. Her old age and the youth of ther lovers caused scandal but, of course, this type of thing had been going on for centuries — it was unacceptable because of her gender. Two lovers in particular, the Zhang brothers, irritated the court. Flamboyant and possibly gay, they held raucous parties with drugs. By 705, the court officials had enough and, with Wu in her 80s, they finally found themselves daring enough to go against her — the Zhang brothers were executed.
A younger Wu would have avenged the brothers three-fold to reassert her authority. But Wu was growing increasingly frail. Quite clearly losing her grip on the court, Wu had no choice but to abdicate in favour of her son Ruizong, who had been biding his time in exile. While she retired to a life of lavish luxury, this was the end for Wu. She died that same year, much to the chagrin of her enemies, peacefully in bed.
Generations of scholars have argued over Wu, with some claiming she was a ruthless villain, stopping at nothing to cut down her enemies, and others believing her to be far more sympathetic. The issue surrounds the sources, which were almost certainly biased against her, and it’s a problem that has emerged throughout the reigns
of countless female leaders in history like that of Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, when no one wished to record the rule of a woman, hoping instead that she would be erased from history.
However, today Wu is finally being recognised as one of China’s greatest rulers. Although stories of her villainy, baby killing and mutilations are still difficult to shake — and may never truly be resolved — what we can rely on are facts.
Under Wu, China enjoyed a period of stability and affluence that it had never seen before. Her reforms were not removed after her death but kept in place, laying the foundations for China to become one of the most prosperous countries in the world — and that alone is certainly worth carving in stone.
“Today Wu is finally being recognised as one of China’s greatest rulers”