empress wu primary sources23 Apr empress wu primary sources
Her experience reflected a reversal of the gender roles and restrictions her society and government constructed for her as appropriate to women. In preparing for the legitimacy of her emperorship, she claimed the Zhou Dynasty (1045256 bce) and its founders among her own ancestors. Numerous educational institutions recommend us, including Oxford University. 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. Empress Wu Zetian (Empress Consort Wu, Wu Hou, Wu Mei Niang, Mei-Niang, and Wu Zhao, l. 624-705 CE, r. 690-704 CE) was the only female emperor of Imperial China. 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. 6, no. One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Mutsuhito T.H. Please support World History Encyclopedia. Twitchett, Denis, and Howard J. Wechsler. 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. Her upright Confucian minister, Di Renjie (d. 700, the protagonist of Robert van Gulik's popular Judge Dee detective novels), convinced her to bring back her son, the deposed emperor Zhongzong, to be appointed as her successor. https://www.worldhistory.org/Wu_Zetian/. She was also the most important early supporter of the alien religion of Buddhism, which during her rule surpassed the native Confucian and Daoist faiths in influence within the Tang realm. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Shortly after she took the throne there was an earthquake which was interpreted as a bad omen. 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). 04 Mar 2023. Thus Wu Zetian's experience might have caused some redefinition of gender in her time, but this direction has not translated into enduring gains in the society and political organization that she left behind. One critic, the poet Luo Binwang, portrayed Wu as little short of an enchantressAll fell before her moth brows. https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/wu-zetian-624-705, "Wu Zetian (624705) Please support World History Encyclopedia. June 2, 2022 by by 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. 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. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. No contemporary image of the empress exists. Thereafter the empress favored Confucianism. For only $5 per month you can become a member and support our mission to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. World History Encyclopedia. Mutsuhito All in all, Wus policies seem less scandalous to us than they did to contemporaries, and her reputation has improved considerably in recent decades. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. She has published historical essays and poetry. 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 only woman ever to rule as emperor of China, Wu Zhao (Wu ZeTian) was born in 624 C.E. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) At the age of fourteen, she was selected as a palace maid to Gaozong, then a Prince, and his first spouse and primary consort Xing, who had recently married. Theodora. Cambridge History of China. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . 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. ." So queens and empresses regnant were forced to rule like men, and yet roundly criticized when they did so. . 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. Emperor Gaozong had nothing to do with either of these events, although his name would have been attached to the campaigns against Korea. 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. 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. How did she hold on to power? Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984. In Chinese mythology , Huang-Di (pronounced hoo-arng-DEE), also k, Ho-shen Encyclopedia.com. Two brothers, known as the Zhang Brothers, were her favorites and she spent most of her time in closed quarters with them. Mark, Emily. Since candidates normally tried to win favor with an examiner prior to the tests, some could use their family connections to send samples of their verse in an effort to impress the men who held the keys to government positions. The Turkic chieftain was insulted by the fact that the groom did not come from the Li-Tang imperial family but descended from what he perceived to be the inferior Wu clan, so he promptly imprisoned the unlucky groom and in 698 returned him to China. The mute and limbless concubine was then tossed into a cesspit in the palace with the swine. "Wu Zetian." She kept Ruizong under a kind of house arrest confining him to the Inner Palace. Primary Sources with DBQsCHINA 4000 - 1000 BCE Ancestral Rites and Divination . Bellingham, WA: Center for Asian Studies, Western Washington University, 1978. Cold, ruthless, and ambitious, the Han dynasty dowager murdered her rival, the beautiful concubine Lady Qi, by amputating all her limbs, turning her into a human swine and leaving her to die in a cesspit. . ." Encyclopedias almanacs transcripts and maps, Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Empress Dowager. Why should you weep for me?" Sunzi/Sun Wu, Eastern Zhou Period (770-221 BCE) Selections from the Sunzi: Art of War [PDF] Agriculture, Han Period. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. 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. 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. 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. When she was an infant dressed in boy's clothes, Wu Zetian's potential for emperorship was predicted by an official. She was the daughter of Wu Shihuo, a chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. Web. 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. Empress Theodora. 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. Her last two lovers were the young and handsome Zhang brothers who put on makeup and exploited the relationship by obtaining offices, honors, and gifts for themselves and their family. Even today, Wu remains infamous for the spectacularly ruthless way in which she supposedly disposed of Gaozongs first wife, the empress Wang, and a senior and more favored consort known as the Pure Concubine. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Although the function of the concubine in China is almost always associated with sex, a woman in this position could have a number of non-sexual responsibilities, from daily tasks like taking care of the laundry to more specialized skills like conversation, poetry reading, and playing music. How to evaluate such an unprecedented figure today? They ruled as divine monarchs until Gaozong's death in 683 CE. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Empress Wu, the first and only female emperor of Imperial China. 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. At the same time, another political faction formed around Wu's other son, Ruizong, who was supported by Wu's daughter, Taiping. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. 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. She began her life at court as a concubine of the emperor Taizong. 3rd Series. 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. Modern popular novels and plays, in Chinese, Japanese, and English, also exaggerate the sexual aspect of her rule. 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. ." 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. Mike Dash When Taizong died, Gaozong became emperor, and Wu Zetian joined a Buddhist nunnery, as required of concubines of deceased emperors. When he fell out of favor, he burned the building to the ground. Empress Wu was buried in a tomb in Qian County, Shanxi Province, alongside Gaozong. The woman who believed she was as capable as any man to lead the country continues to be vilified, even if writers now qualify their criticisms, but there is no arguing with the fact that, under Wu Zetian, China experienced an affluence and stability it had never known before. World Eras. . 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.. 7789. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1977. 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. On a similar tone, she ordered that the mother of the Daoist sage Laozi (Lao Tzu, c. 600 bce) be honored. 1996-2021 She improved the public education system by hiring dedicated teachers and reorganizing the bureaucracy and teaching methods. 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. New Capital. New Haven: YUP, 2008; Jonathan Clements. Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) She was also assured that her sons would rule the country after the death of her husband. . This particular minister was silenced but that did not silence the rest; they just were more careful not to speak their mind in front of her. Taizong was surprised that his latest concubine could read and write and became fascinated by her beauty and wit in conversation. Taizong was so impressed at her intellectual abilities, he took her out of the laundry and made her his secretary. Wu Zetian. Thank you! 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. Pronunciation: Woo-jeh-ten. Empress and emperor appear at the center of each scene, larger than the other figures to show their importance, bedecked in imperial purple, and sporting . She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. If it still won't be tamed, I'll cut its throat with the knife. womeninworldhistory.com. Agricultural production under Wu's reign increased to an all-time high. Her travel writing debuts in Timeless Travels Magazine. 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. To legitimize her position, Empress Wu turned mainly to Buddhism, proclaiming herself an incarnation of Maitreya (Mi-le), the Buddhist savior. ." 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. Gaozongs third son succeeded to the throne in 683 after his death, but Empress Wu became the empress dowager in a few months, after forcing the young emperor to abdicate. Already in 674 she had drafted 12 policy directives ranging from encouraging agriculture to formulating social rules of conduct. She reigned during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and was one of the most effective and controversial monarchs in China's history. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. 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). Her one mistake had been to marry this boy to a concubine nearly as ruthless and ambitious as herself. In 705, Wu Zetian's grandson, the later Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712756), slaughtered the Zhang brothers in spite of Wu Zetian's protest and forced her to return the Li-Tang imperial family to power. She established a policy so that informants could be paid to travel by public transportation to report to the court. Hauppauge : Nova Science Publishers, 2003; Richard Guisso, Wu Tse-Tien and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China. Xin Tangshu [New history of the Tang]. 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. 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. Jiu Tangshu [Old history of the Tang]. 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'. 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. When a mountain seemed to appear following the earthquake, this was also interpreted as nature itself revolting against the reign of Wu. Most historians believe Wu became intimate with the future Gaozong emperor before his fathers deatha scandalous breach of etiquette that could have cost her her head, but which in fact saved her from life in a Buddhist nunnery. 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. Wu could have murdered her daughter but her position as a female in a male role brought her many enemies who would have been happy to pass on a rumor as truth to discredit her. The political success of Wu Zetian indicates that the attributes needed in diplomacy and rulership were not restricted to men. To recruit a new class of administrators through competition, the examinations that had played only a secondary role in the recruitment and promotion of civil servants in Han times (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) Wu Zetian is the only legitimatized Empress in Chinese history. 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. Paul, Diana Y. 1, 1993, pp. (108). What role, if any, the undeniably ambitious concubine played in the events of the early Tang period remains a matter of controversy. It was used for religious rites supervised by her lover Xue Huaiyi. Forte, Antonino. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. 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). 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. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. None of these actions, though, would have attracted criticism had she been a man. She was painted as a usurper who was both physically cruel and erotically wanton; she first came to prominence, it was hinted, because she was willing to gratify certain ofthe Taizong emperors more unusual sexual appetites. Born ne Wu (first name at birth not known) in 624 in Taiyuan, Shanxi province; died in 705 in Luoyang, Henan province; daughter of a high-ranking official, Wu Shihuo, and his aristocratic wife; married Emperor Taizong (r. 626649), in 640 (died 649); married Emperor Gaozong (r. 650683), in 654; children: (second marriage) Crown Prince Li Hong; Crown Prince Li Xian; Emperor Zhongzong; Emperor Ruizong; Princess Taiping ; another daughter (died in infancy). Hidden Power: The Palace Eunuchs of Imperial China. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. Her success in the campaigns against Korea inspired confidence in her generals and Wu's decisions on military defense or expeditions were never challenged. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/4558/empress-wu-zetian/. Illustration. For centuries she was excoriated by Chinese historians as an offender against a way of life. Quin Shi Huang-Di Belmont: Wadsworth, 1989, pp. Traditionally, only the emperor, as the son-of-heaven, could communicate with heaven and carry out sacrifices to heaven and earth. (He would camp out in the palace grounds, Clements notes, barbecuing sheep.) Cheng-qian was banished for attempted revolt, while a dissolute brother who had agreed to take part in the rebellionso long, Clements adds, as he was permitted sexual access to every musician and dancer in the palace, male or femalewas invited to commit suicide, and another of Taizongs sons was disgraced for his involvement in a different plot. 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. Gaozong's wife, Lady Wang, and his former first concubine, Xiao Shufei, were jealous of each other but even more envious of the attention Gaozong paid to Wu. 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. Wu disposed of her enemies, first the former empress and then the high-ranking officials, who had strongly opposed her rise. correct answers: the roman empire constructed significantly more roads and developed inland economic resources more extensively than its predecessors the roman empire integrated many Greek and Phoenician trade routes, regional products and trade cities into its own economic system Traditional historians grudgingly acknowledged that she surpassed her sons, the legitimate heirs, in both vision and statecraft. the empress, greatly weakened by infirmity and old age, would allow no one but the Zhang brothers by her side. Give me three tools to tame that wild horse. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst : Prometheus Books, 1990; T.H. Lady Wu played the role of the shy, respectable emperor's wife well in public but, behind the scenes, she was the actual power. There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. Wu Zhao embarked on religious life as a nun in a convent after Li Shimins death in 649. 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. 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). Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty. Unknown, . 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. 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. The emperor believed her story, and Wang was demoted and imprisoned in a distant part of the palace, soon to be joined by the Pure Concubine. Under the administration of Empress Wu, Tang territory expanded through constant fighting with other peoples, particularly the Tibetans. However, the date of retrieval is often important. The poet Luo Binwangone of the Four Greats of Early Tang and best known for his Ode to the Gooselaunched a virulent attack on the empress. "Empress Wu Zetian." 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). had been organized in a systematic way by the year 669. She held power, in one guise or another, for more than half a century, first as consort of the ineffectual Gaozong Emperor, then as the power behind the throne held by her youngest son, and finally (from 690 until shortly before her death in 705) as monarch. Having risen to be empress in Wangs stead, Wu ordered that both womens hands and feet be lopped off and had their mutilated bodies tossed into a vat of wine, leaving them to drown with the comment: Now these two witches can get drunk to their bones., As if infanticide, torture and murder were not scandalous enough, Wu was also believed to have ended her reign by enjoying a succession of erotic encounters which the historians of the day portrayed as all the more shocking for being the indulgences of a woman of advanced age. Patronage of Buddhism. Liu, Xu. Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. Chen, Jo-shui. R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-ten and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1978). "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. Historians remain divided as to how far Wu benefited from the removal of these potential obstacles; what can be said is that her third son, who succeeded his father as Emperor Zhongzong in 684, lasted less than two months before being banished, at his mothers instigation, in favor of the more tractable fourth, Ruizong. 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. Creating overpowering statues, like the one at Longmen, was important. License. In 652 CE, Wu gave birth to a son, Li Hong, and in 653 CE had another son, Li Xian. Empress Wu, or Wu Zhao, challenged the patriarchal system by advocating women's intellectual development and sexual freedom. Gaozong had caught a disease which affected his eyes (possibly a stroke) and needed to have reports read to him. The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. 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 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. Alternate Names They also functioned as powerful reminders of imperial power. Hong Kong: Cosmos, 1994. 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. Uploaded by Ibolya Horvath, published on 22 February 2016. Her reign witnessed a healthy growth in the population; when she died in 705 her centralized bureaucracy regulated the social life and economic well-being of the 60 million people in the empire. 1 minutes de lecture . Mark, E. (2016, March 17). As we know, the truth is somewhere in the middle. 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. Even though there were many important and influential women throughout China's history, only one ever became the most powerful political figure in the country. Empress Wu Zetian. 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. Guisso, Richard W.L. This item is in the public domain, and can be used, copied, and modified without any restrictions. 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.
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