Empress Wu Zetian (624-705) of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was the only female monarch of China, and ruled the empire for over half a century. While her actions have been a subject for debate for more than ten centuries, Wu Zetian remains the most remarkable, influential and mysterious woman in Chinese history.
Wu Zetian was born in 624. Her parents were rich and of noble families. As a child she was taught to write, read the Chinese classics and to play music.
At the age of fourteen, this accomplished child became a concubine to Emperor Taizong. She was given the title Cairen (a fifth grade concubine of the Tang Dynasty). Her perspicacity set her apart from others in the palace and her knowledge of literature and history and talent quickly found favor with the emperor. He bestowed Wu Zetian the title Meiniang which means 'charming lady' and she was assigned to work in the imperial study. Here she was introduced to official documents and quickly became acquainted with affairs of state.
In 649, when she was twenty-six years old, the emperor died. He was succeeded by his son Gaozong and following the established court procedures, the old emperor's concubines were sent to a nunnery to live out their days. Emperor Gaozong was fascinated by Wu's talent and beauty and frequently visited her in the nunnery. After a period of some two to three years, she was summonsed to the palace and given the title Zhaoyi, the second grade concubine of the new emperor.
Wu gradually earned Gaozong's trust and favor. After giving birth to two sons, she began to compete with Empress Wang and the senior concubine Xiaoshu for the favor of the emperor. To achieve her goals, Wu Zetian horrifically killed off other favorite concubines of the emperor, and to get rid of the empress, she murdered her own infant daughter and blamed it on Empress Wang. Of all of these crimes, the emperor knew nothing off.
In 655, Gaozong promoted Wu to the position of Empress in place of the now disgraced Wang. Before long both the former empress and the concubine, Xiaoshu, were put to death due to Wu Zetian's scheme and Wu's position was finally secured. Then Wu Zetian began her political career in earnest for her goal was to become the first female-emperor of China.
Her resourcefulness and discernment meant that she was highly esteemed by her husband, the emperor. Wu recommended and had accepted new ideas regarding agriculture, tax reduction, social reforms and effective labor saving practices. Within five years of her marriage, Wu took an active part in state affairs and fostered her henchmen with zeal.
The emperor suffered a crippling stroke in 660 and Empress Wu Zetian took over the administration of the court. Showing no mercy toward anyone who failed to conform to her wishes, she would have them thrown into prison or executed. Her cruelty extended to members of her family as well as those high ranking officials who had contributed much to the founding of the dynasty.
Emperor Gaozong was disgusted by these actions but by now had become too feeble to make efforts to curb Wu Zetian. She would appear in court alongside the emperor whenever he held an audience. The pair became known as the Holy Sovereigns, and the emperor was merely a figurehead and ruled in name only.
Gaozong died in 683 and Wu's third son, Li Xian (656-710) ascended to the throne and was named Emperor Zhongzong. In the February of the following year, Wu deposed Zhongzong as he was proving difficult to control and replaced him with his younger brother, her fourth son, Li Dan (661-716). This latest emperor was known as Ruizong. All along, Wu was the puppet master and ruled the empire through her son, who had no option but to do what she told him. Finally, in 690 Wu Zetian usurped the throne and declared the empire was henceforth ruled by the Zhou Dynasty from her capital city Luoyang.
To achieve her ambitions she was as ruthless as was possible. She appointed sadistic and cruel officials to seek out and eliminate any opposition to her regime. Not only those who opposed Wu were severely dealt with, but also many other innocent people were cruelly put to death.
As Wu grew older, so her hold on state affairs began to lessen. She also realized that as a woman, she could only be respected after her death as a member of the Li family. She therefore allowed herself to be persuaded in 698 to reinstate Li Xian as Crown Prince. In the year 705 there was a palace coup and Wu was forced to resign. Her son Emperor Zhongzong thus restored the Tang Dynasty to power.
Aged 82, Wu Zetian died in the December 705. She was buried alongside Emperor Gaozong in the Qianling Tomb, located west of the present day Xi'an City.
So lived and died the only woman who ever ruled the Chinese empire in her own right. Opinion is sharply divided between those who admire her for her many achievements and those who regard her as a ruthless, merciless schemer and autocrat.
Achievements
1. In spite of her ruthless rise to power, Wu Zetian proved to be a very competent monarch and throughout her reign the legacy of prosperity was bequeathed.
2. Wu Zetian was eager to draw into her government all manner of talented people. She even encouraged people to volunteer their services should they consider themselves competent. The imperial examination system was further revised in order that no man of ability should be excluded due to his lowly birth. She also initiated the practice of personally interviewing candidates. In this way, many political talents were found and employed in the government. Such people included the famous prime minister, Di Renjie, Zhang Jianzhi, etc.
3. Wu Zetian attached great importance to the development of agriculture. She ordered the construction of irrigation schemes, and commissioned the compilation of farming textbooks. Local officials were evaluated by the task of cultivating land. As an incentive for increased production, taxes were reduced and corvee upon the peasant population was eased. By allowing peasant farmers to retain more of their produce, they were able to improve their lot and in general the population benefited from quite considerable prosperity.
Though Wu was a competent feudal monarch in terms of achievement she made, she was extremely ruthless murdering her relatives who tried to take advantage of her position. Those who opposed her in any way were quickly removed from office, exiled or forced to commit suicide including those founding fathers of the dynasty Zhangsun Wuji, Zhu Suiliang, Yu Zhining and Cheng Wuting and many others. Members of the Li royal family and their relatives were likewise eliminated. In addition, Wu favored Buddhism and ordered the construction of many Buddhist temples and sculptures nationwide, which added great pressure to the common people.
Source
I include Wu Zetian not despite her ruthless actions, but partially because of them. Even those dedicated to women's history tend to overlook women who were cruel despite their litany of accomplishments. I think this is a great disservice to women and history. And despite the things Wu did, she undeniably had lasting effects on her time and culture and beyond.
I do think we have a tendency to forget or denounce women in history who were cruel or ruthless; their accomplishments are almost always overshadowed by the fact that they aren't ~*nice proper ladies*~
Women are only allowed to be remembered positively if they match what society thinks ladies should be like. And yet male historical figures are remembered for their accomplishments, even if they are backstabbing and nasty.
I'm not sure the intention was for me to be impressed, but I am. Because, historically, plenty of men who were not exactly nice people are respected for what they did, even if it was horrible; so why not the same for a woman? Ugh.
(At the risk of sounding completely crazy, I have been playing TOR a lot lately, and my Sith inquisitor is sitting here in my head nodding and saying "You GO, lady.")
I mean, was it normal for imperial concubines to vie for favor and deal with rivals in violent and sometimes murderous fashion? Somehow, given that there were dozens or hundreds of women sharing access to one solitary man, with not only rank and empress-hood on the line but the ability to have children and even get laid at all . . . I'm guessing that such a situation would be more conducive to the Hunger Games than the Care Bears.
I'm wondering about the context of the place and time. I don't know how to consider it, to do violence when you're surrounded by violence and it's normative, as opposed to doing violence when those around you are kind, but it kind of is different.
When women are cruel, there's often this reaction of "how unnatural!" surrounding it, as though women are inherently kind and soft and sisterly all the time and only a particularly vicious abomination of nature could or would eliminate rivals as she did. One gains the impression from some sources that she was like a vicious wolf murdering kind and gentle sheep, or something, and that way of thinking loses accuracy if we don't consider the realities of the rest of the women involved in that part of her story.
If she rose through spilling the innocent blood of gentle mothers or the like, versus if she rose through a silent, seething battlefield and was simply the most clever or most lucky fighter among a host of capricious women bent on gaining the Emperor, the high rank, and the position of heir for their son, some of them equally willing to murder for it . . .
Basically, she's not the only woman in this story, and how she's viewed is intertwined with what they were like, and if there's a tendency to ignore cruelty in historically notable women, there's also a tendency to point to ruthless women as aberrations and unnatural and wrong, and to use that to cast doubt on the validity of whatever they did. It's harder for someone to say "she shouldn't have done that and therefore doesn't belong there" when it was what people did in that situation, women as well as men.
I have to admit, though, that I'm impressed the most with the depth of the deception she managed when framing someone else for the murder of her child. It seems like something that could easily backfire.