This item is in the public domain, and can be used, copied, and modified without any restrictions. Submitted by Emily Mark, published on 17 March 2016. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. She had the mountain named Mount Felicity and claimed it had risen to honor her and her reign. 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. 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. 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. 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. (February 22, 2023). This institution became a political weapon in the hands of Empress Wu when she usurped the throne in 690. When Gaozong suffered a stroke in 660, the empress made herself the ruler. and to pray for permanent world peace. At the end of this spirit road, the tomb itself lies in a remarkably inaccessible spot, set into a mountain at the end of a winding forest path. 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. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Zizhi tongjian [Comprehensive mirror as guide to history]. Whether true or not, it is what people believed. Empress Wu is one of the most controversial leaders in Chinese history for her method of rule and the means she likely used to rise to power. Unknown, . 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). At these pilgrimage sites, rituals were performed which established a link between the standing Buddha and the ruler. Two brothers, known as the Zhang Brothers, were her favorites and she spent most of her time in closed quarters with them. 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. 1996-2021 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. From 655, when she became the empress of Emperor GaoZong of Tang (son of Emperor TaiZong), until 683 . The Empress Wu Zetian (690-704 CE) is the only female ruler in the history of China. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Empress Wu, the first and only female emperor of Imperial China. She did not ask any man's permission to lead these women to Mount Tai; she felt she knew what was best and did it. In promoting Buddhism over Confucianism and Daoism as the favored state religion, the Empress countered strongly held Confucian beliefs against female rule. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Last modified March 17, 2016. Empress Wu Zetian (r. 683-704 CE) of the Tang Dynasty . Her extravagant construction projects and expensive frontier campaigns had exhausted the treasury, which led to a financial crisis. 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. World History Encyclopedia. After Mount Felicity appeared, and Wu claimed it as an omen favoring her, one of her ministers wrote: Your Majesty, a female ruler improperly has occupied a male position, which has inverted and altered the hard and soft, therefore the earth's emanations are obstructed and separated. The Tang empire in 700, at the end of Wus reign. During her Tang Dynasty reign, the practice of Chinese Buddhism is known to have reached its height and influence. None of these actions, though, would have attracted criticism had she been a man. Functioning in a male-oriented patriarchy, Wu Zetian was painstakingly aware of the gender taboos she had to break in political ideology and social norm. She has published historical essays and poetry. 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. 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. Barrett. She worked against the Confucian dictum that women must restrict their activities to the home and in the wildest imagination could not become emperors. To reinforce her legitimacy, Wu Zetian also invented about a dozen characters with a new script. The Analects of Confucius Primary Source Activity - Google Drive - Print & Digital. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. 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. 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.) She organized teams to survey the land and build irrigation ditches to help grow crops and redistributed the land so that everyone had an equal share to farm. It was Taizong who called her 'Mei-Niang' meaning 'beautiful girl' (one of the names commonly, and wrongly, attributed to her as her birth name). Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. R. W. L. Guisso, Wu Tse-ten and the Politics of Legitimation in Tang China (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1978). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984. Her reign was peaceful and prosperous; she introduced the meritocratic system of entrance examinations for the imperial bureaucracy that survived into the 20th century, avoided wars and welcomed ambassadors from as far away as the Byzantine Empire. Originally published/produced in China, 18th century. Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. published on 22 February 2016. Your Majesty may take this as 'Mount Felicity', but your subject feels there is nothing to celebrate. Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) 627-705 First female monarch Sources Rise to Power. No contemporary image of the empress exists. While Confucian historians condemned her usurpation, extravagance, and scandal, Wu Zhao has been credited for providing strong leadership and ruling during an age of relative peace and prosperity. World Eras. However, despite establishing an autocratic and centralised state, Emperor Wu adopted the principles of Confucianism as the state philosophy and code of ethics for his empire and started a school to teach future administrators the Confucian classics. The political success of Wu Zetian indicates that the attributes needed in diplomacy and rulership were not restricted to men. While functioning and surviving in the male-ruled and power-focused domain, she exhibited strengths traditionally attributed to men, including political ambition, long-range vision, skillful diplomacy, power drive, decisive resolve, shrewd observation, talented organization, hard work, and firm dispensal of cruelty. 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. When she died, she was laid to rest in an elaborate tomb in the countryside about 50 miles north of the then capital, Xian. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Buddhism was carried into East Asia by merchants and Buddhist monks traveling the Silk Road from Northern India, Persia, Kashmir and Inner Asia. In the last three decades, Marxist historiography on Wu Zetian in Mainland China has yielded a positive but unreliable and ideologically charged reappraisal. 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. 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. (108). by Unknown. If it still won't be tamed, I'll cut its throat with the knife. Under Wus rule the government was expanded, and many of the new positions were filled through the examination system. They came to power, mostly, by default or stealth; a king had no sons, or an intelligent queen usurped the powers of her useless husband. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Primary Sources with DBQsCHINA 4000 - 1000 BCE Ancestral Rites and Divination . Just how accurate this picture of Wu is remains a matter of debate. Lady Wang had no children and Lady Xiao had a son and two daughters. To consolidate her power, in 657 Wu designated Luoyang as a second capital. 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. And does she deserve the harsh verdict that history has passed on her? Yet it was this series of events that cleared the way for Gaozongs, and hence Wus, accession. disadvantages of food transportation. 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. is held up in Chinese histories as the prototype of all that is wicked in a female ruler. 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. 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 Carved in limestone, the colossal statue is reputed to have been carved in Wus own likeness. https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/empress-wu-wu-zhao, "Empress Wu (Wu Zhao) His son Li Longji succeeded him, ruling as Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE). Encyclopedia.com. 22 Feb. 2023 . The answer was to proclaim another dynasty, not by military conquest, but by interpreting omens that favored her to carry out a change of dynasties and become enthroned as a woman emperor. She ruled for 15 years during the Tang Dynasty and was one of China's most impactful and divisive emperors. There are abundant signs that Wu was viewed with deep suspicion by later generations of Chinese. unified China in 221 B.C. Image taken from An 18th-century album of portraits of 86 emperors of China, with Chinese historical notes. Mike Dash 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 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. All in all, Wus policies seem less scandalous to us than they did to contemporaries, and her reputation has improved considerably in recent decades. 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. World History Encyclopedia. However, the date of retrieval is often important. One of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China was the Empress Wu Zetian. Abdication. I always think that's the most interesting things about primary sources - the bias. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine Wu Zetian's father was a successful merchant and military official who reached ministerial ranks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Our mission is to engage people with cultural heritage and to improve history education worldwide. These criteria no doubt favored the aristocratic families. 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. "Empress Wu and Proto-Feminist Sentiments in T'ang China," in Frederick P. Brandauer and Chn-chieh Huang, eds., Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China. She was the daughter of Wu Shihuo, a chancellor of the Tang Dynasty. Unknown, . Princess Taiping put an end to her plans when she had Wei and her family murdered and put her brother Ruizong on the throne. When Taizong died, Wu and his other concubines had their heads shaved and were sent to Ganye Temple to begin their lives as nuns. Her paranoia resulted in a purge of her administration. Meanwhile, the Turks invaded Gansu, and the Tibetans posed a threat to Chinese possessions in Central Asia. Lady Wu played the role of the shy, respectable emperor's wife well in public but, behind the scenes, she was the actual power. This mountain, so born of the sudden convulsion of earth, represents a calamity. This spy system served her well in giving her early warning of any plots in the making and enabled her to take care of threats to her reign before they became actual problems. Ouyang, Xiu. Wus later life was one long illustration of the exceptional influence she had come to wield. 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. Wills, John E., Jr. "Empress Wu," in Mountain of Fame: Portraits in Chinese History. Running a website with millions of readers every month is expensive. Wu eliminated all the bureaucracy by establishing a direct line of communication between herself and the people. World History Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in Canada. . 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) . 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. Please note that some of these recommendations are listed under our old name, Ancient History Encyclopedia. 04 Mar 2023. "Empress Wu Zetian." She replaced Zhongzong with her second son, who became Emperor Ruizong. 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. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1975. Instead, it was left without any inscriptionthe only such example in more than 2,000 years of Chinese history. One explanation for Wus success is that she listened. Nevertheless, court intrigues still greatly influenced the recruiting of civil servants. 181. 21/11/2022. 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. Missions from Japan, Korea, and Vietnam arrived at Xi'an bearing tribute and seeking education in Buddhism and Confucianism. 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). C.P. Under Xuanzong's reign, China became the most affluent country in the world at the time. A third problem is that the empress, who was well aware of both these biases, was not averse to tampering with the record herself; a fourth is that some other accounts of her reign were written by relatives who had good cause to loathe her. 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. 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. Wuplayed here by Li Lihuawas depicted as powerful and sexually assertive in the Shaw Brothers 1963 Hong Kong movie Empress Wu Tse-Tien. Wu Zetian's tough character and good equestrian skills were perceived by observers even when she was a teenager. 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. 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. Although Wu's account claims that Lady Wang murdered her daughter, later Chinese historians all agree that Wu was the murderer and she killed her child to frame Lady Wang. Her usurpation marked a significant social revolution, the rise of a new class, which the empress tried to use in her struggle against the traditionalist, northwest nobility. 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. 3, no. It is a challenge to recover real people from this morass of bias. 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. 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. How did a woman with such limited expectations as Wu emerge triumphant in the cutthroat world of the Tang court? She ordered the executions of several hundred of these aristocrats and of many members of the imperial family of Li. In 710 CE Zhongzong died after being poisoned by Wei who hid his body and concealed his death until her son Chong Mao could be made emperor. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/4558/empress-wu-zetian/. . "Wu Zetian (624705) speckle park bull sales 2021 847-461-9794; empress wu primary sources. Her daunting task was convincing the Confucian establishment about the legitimate succession of a woman who was the widow of the deceased emperor and the mother of the currently legitimate ruler. Web. Her success in the campaigns against Korea inspired confidence in her generals and Wu's decisions on military defense or expeditions were never challenged. But 28 other consorts still stood between her and the throne. 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. Her experience reflected a reversal of the gender roles and restrictions her society and government constructed for her as appropriate to women. Gaozong had caught a disease which affected his eyes (possibly a stroke) and needed to have reports read to him. 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. There was a sense of trying to keep up with ones rivals by building something bigger than they had. 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. One critic, the poet Luo Binwang, portrayed Wu as little short of an enchantressAll fell before her moth brows. Su, Tong. 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. Justinian. Removing the legitimate heir, she took the name of Emperor Zetian and founded the Zhou dynasty in 690, becoming the first and only female emperor in Chinese history. The critical Anderson concedes that, under Wu, military expenses were reduced, taxes cut, salaries of deserving officials raised, retirees given a viable pension, and vast royal lands near the capital turned over to husbandry.. Empress Lu Zhi (241-180 B.C.) The most spectacular are the stone temples and statues chiseled into grottoes at Longmen, near her capital. 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.
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