Wu Zetian: China's Only Reigning Empress (690-705)

Wu Zetian (624-705) was the only woman in Chinese history to rule as emperor in her own name. Born into an official’s family, she entered the palace as a junior consort, became empress of the Tang Emperor Gaozong and steadily took control of the government. In October 690 she proclaimed her own Zhou dynasty and reigned until a coup forced her from the throne in 705. Admired by some as an able ruler and condemned by traditional historians as a usurper, she remains one of the most debated figures in Chinese history.

Background: Tang China in the 7th century

The Tang dynasty, founded in 618, was by the mid-7th century the strongest state in Asia. Its capital Chang’an was among the largest cities in the world, and its second capital, Luoyang, was a major centre of trade and Buddhism.

Political power was concentrated among a small group of aristocratic clans from the north-west, many of them related to the imperial Li family. Confucian tradition held that women should not govern, although empresses and empresses dowager had occasionally exercised great influence, especially as regents for young emperors.

Early life and rise to empress

Wu Zhao, as she was named, was probably born in 624. Her father, Wu Shiyue, was a wealthy timber merchant who had supported the founder of the Tang and became a provincial governor. Her mother, Lady Yang, came from the old Sui aristocracy. Unusually for a girl, she seems to have received a good education.

Around 637 or 638, aged about 13, she entered the palace of Emperor Taizong as a cairen, a consort of the fifth rank. She did not rise far under Taizong. When he died in 649, custom required his childless consorts to leave the palace, and she was sent to a Buddhist convent.

Taizong’s son and successor, Gaozong, had known her before his father’s death. Around 650 or 651 she was brought back to the palace, apparently with the support of Empress Wang, who hoped to use her against a rival consort. Wu soon became Gaozong’s favourite and bore him several children.

In 654 an infant daughter of Wu’s died. Later histories claim that Wu killed the baby herself and blamed Empress Wang, but this story was written down long afterwards by authors hostile to her, and many modern historians doubt it. Whatever happened, in 655 Gaozong deposed Empress Wang and Consort Xiao and made Wu empress. The two former consorts were soon put to death.

Senior ministers who had opposed her elevation were driven out. The chancellor Chu Suiliang was exiled and died in 658, and the emperor’s powerful uncle Zhangsun Wuji was accused of treason in 659 and forced to take his own life.

Ruling beside Gaozong

From about 660 Gaozong suffered from a chronic illness that affected his vision and left him unable to work for long periods. Wu increasingly read state papers and made decisions in his name. Contemporaries spoke of the “Two Sages” ruling together, and from 674 the couple took the titles Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress.

These were years of great military success. Tang and Silla forces conquered the Korean kingdoms of Baekje in 660 and Goguryeo in 668, and Tang power stretched into Central Asia. Wu also sponsored great Buddhist projects, contributing funds in 672 to the colossal Buddha of the Fengxian Temple at Longmen.

Her position remained bitterly contested inside the family. Her eldest son, the crown prince Li Hong, died in 675, and his successor Li Xian was deposed in 680 and later forced to commit suicide; traditional histories blame Wu for both events, though the evidence for the first is uncertain.

Regent and the road to the throne

Gaozong died in December 683. Their son Zhongzong came to the throne but was removed after less than two months in early 684 when he tried to promote his wife’s family. Wu replaced him with his younger brother Li Dan, Emperor Ruizong, who was kept in seclusion while she ruled as regent.

Her power provoked resistance. In 684 Li Jingye, grandson of a famous Tang general, raised a rebellion at Yangzhou that was crushed within about two months. In 688 several Tang princes rose against her and were quickly defeated. Wu responded with a campaign of terror. She set up bronze boxes in which anyone could post secret denunciations and relied on ruthless investigators such as Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing. Hundreds of officials and many members of the Li clan were executed or exiled.

At the same time she built an ideology to justify female rule. She made Luoyang her main capital, built a vast Hall of Light (Mingtang) there in 688, and favoured Buddhism over the Taoism linked to the Tang ruling house. In 690 a group of monks presented a commentary on the Great Cloud Sutra suggesting that a female ruler would appear and govern the world, and she was associated with the coming Buddha Maitreya.

Emperor of the Zhou dynasty

In the ninth month of 690, corresponding to October in the Western calendar, Ruizong “requested” that his mother take the throne. Wu proclaimed a new dynasty, the Zhou, named after the ancient dynasty from which the Wu family claimed descent, and took the title huangdi, emperor. Ruizong became her heir, renamed Wu Dan.

As emperor she ruled with energy. She personally examined candidates and greatly expanded the imperial examination system, bringing in men from outside the old aristocracy, and she is credited with adding a palace examination and military examinations. She promoted capable officials, among them Di Renjie, Yao Chong and Zhang Jianzhi, who would remain leading statesmen after her. She also introduced a set of newly designed Chinese characters, including the one used for her personal name, Zhao.

Her reign was not free of troubles. Tibetan armies threatened the western frontier, though in 692 Zhou forces recovered the Four Garrisons of Anxi in Central Asia. In 696 the Khitans of the north-east revolted and inflicted serious defeats before being subdued, and the revived Eastern Turks raided the northern frontier. Yet official registers suggest the population grew, and the empire passed intact to her successors.

Decline and fall

The question of succession troubled her later years. She long considered naming a nephew from her own Wu family, but ministers led by Di Renjie persuaded her to recall Zhongzong, who was restored as crown prince in 698.

In old age she relied on two young favourites, the brothers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, whose influence alarmed the court. In February 705, when she was about 80 and gravely ill, the chancellor Zhang Jianzhi and other officials led palace guards into her residence in Luoyang, killed the Zhang brothers and forced her to hand power to Zhongzong. The Tang dynasty was formally restored.

Wu was given the honorific title Emperor Zetian Dasheng and allowed to live in comfort in a separate palace. She died there in December 705. Her will asked that she be remembered as empress rather than emperor, and in 706 she was buried beside Gaozong at the Qianling Mausoleum, north-west of Chang’an, where an uninscribed “wordless stele” stands in her honour.

Key people

Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-683), her husband, raised her to empress and shared power with her. Di Renjie (630-700), her most respected chancellor, became a legendary figure of upright justice in later fiction. Zhongzong (r. 684 and 705-710) and Ruizong (r. 684-690 and 710-712), her sons, were both reduced to figureheads during her rule. Zhang Jianzhi (625-706), an official she had promoted, led the coup that ended her reign.

Myths and facts

Much of what is popularly said about Wu Zetian comes from histories written after her death by Confucian scholars who disapproved of female rule, especially the New Book of Tang (1060) and Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror (1084). Stories of murder, sexual scandal and cruelty may contain truth, but they are hard to verify and were often shaped to warn against women in power.

She was not, as sometimes claimed, the only powerful woman in Chinese history, but she was the only one to take the title of emperor and found her own dynasty. Nor did her dynasty bring the Tang to an end: her own sons restored it, and her grandson Xuanzong presided over the high point of Tang culture.

Legacy

Wu Zetian’s reign weakened the grip of the old north-western aristocracy and helped make the examination system a route to high office. Many of the officials she trained guided the prosperous early years of Xuanzong’s reign. Her patronage left lasting monuments, from the Longmen sculptures to the rebuilt Giant Wild Goose Pagoda.

Modern views of her have changed greatly. In the 20th century she was reassessed by some as a capable and even progressive ruler, while others stress the violence of her rise. She has been the subject of countless novels, operas, films and television dramas in China and abroad.

By the numbers

The household figures come from official Tang registers and reflect registration as well as real population growth.

Timeline

• 624: Probable year of Wu Zhao’s birth.
• c. 637-638: She enters Emperor Taizong’s palace as a junior consort.
• 649: Taizong dies; she leaves the palace for a convent.
• 655: Gaozong makes her empress.
• 674: Gaozong and Wu adopt the titles Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress.
• 683, December: Gaozong dies.
• 684: Wu deposes Zhongzong, installs Ruizong and crushes the Yangzhou rebellion.
• 690, October: Wu proclaims the Zhou dynasty and takes the title of emperor.
• 698: Zhongzong is restored as crown prince.
• 705: A coup in February forces her abdication; she dies in December.

Why it matters

Wu Zetian broke the deepest rule of Chinese political life by ruling as emperor in her own right. Her long dominance shaped the Tang state at its height, from the examination system to imperial Buddhism. How she has been judged over thirteen centuries also reveals how history is written: much of her image was created by those who opposed the very idea of a woman on the throne.