Wu Zetian

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Wu Zetian came from a rising bureaucratic family. Her father Wu Shiyue had engaged in the timber trade in his early years and was financially well-off. Near the end of the Daye era of Emperor Yang of Sui, Li Yuan stayed at the Wu household several times while in Hedong and thereby became acquainted with the family. After Li Yuan raised troops at Taiyuan, the Wu family provided money, grain, and clothing. Following the establishment of the Tang dynasty, Wu Shiyue, as an original follower of the new regime, rose to Minister of Works and Governor of Jingzhou and was enfeoffed as Duke of Ying. Her mother Lady Yang descended from the Sui imperial clan and was the daughter of Yang Da, Duke of Suining and younger brother of Yang Xiong, Prince of Guande.

The Old Book of Tang records Wu Zetian as a native of Wenshui in Bingzhou. A General History of China argues that, given Wu Shiyue's official rank and noble title, Wu Zetian should not be regarded as coming from a commoner-landlord bureaucratic household, but rather from an aristocratic bureaucratic family that had risen from such a social background.

In 635, the ninth year of the Zhenguan era, Wu Shiyue died when Wu Zetian was only twelve. Her cousins Wu Weiliang and Wu Huaiyun, together with her elder half-brother Wu Yuanshuang and others, treated Lady Yang disrespectfully. Wu Zetian therefore moved with her mother from Jingzhou back to Chang'an. The source presents this experience as exposing her early to the fickleness of human relations and helping to form her resolute character.

Entering the Palace as a Cairen

In the eleventh lunar month of 637, the eleventh year of the Zhenguan era, Emperor Taizong of Tang visited the Luoyang Palace. Hearing that the fourteen-year-old Wu Zetian was beautiful in appearance and bearing, he summoned her to the palace, appointed her a fifth-rank Cairen, and gave her the sobriquet “Wu Mei.” Before entering the palace, Wu Zetian reportedly said farewell to her widowed mother by asking why serving an enlightened emperor might not prove fortunate and why her mother should weep like an ordinary child.

Historical sources provide little information about Wu Zetian's palace life during Li Shimin's reign. Late in life, Wu Zetian recalled an episode in which she proposed a method for taming Li Shimin's horse, the Lion Stallion. She said she would use an iron whip, an iron club, and a dagger in succession if the horse refused to submit. Emperor Taizong reportedly praised her spirit.

Wu Zetian nevertheless did not receive Li Shimin's particular favor. She remained a Cairen for twelve years without rising in rank. During Li Shimin's final illness, however, Wu Zetian developed a relationship with Crown Prince Li Zhi.

From Ganye Temple to Empress

In 649, the twenty-third year of the Zhenguan era, Li Shimin died. According to custom, Wu Zetian and some childless consorts entered Ganye Temple in Chang'an as Buddhist nuns, although she and Emperor Gaozong, Li Zhi, remained emotionally attached. In the fifth lunar month of 650, the first year of the Yonghui era, Li Zhi went to Ganye Temple to offer incense on the anniversary of Li Shimin's death and encountered Wu Zetian again. The source says that the two expressed their longing during the separation.

Empress Wang, who had lost favor because she had no son, saw this and asked Li Zhi to bring Wu Zetian back into the palace in an attempt to counter her rival Consort Xiao. In the fifth lunar month of 651, the second year of the Yonghui era, Wu Zetian reentered the palace while already pregnant and soon gave birth to Li Hong. After returning, she quickly surpassed Consort Xiao and gained Li Zhi's favor. By the fifth lunar month of the following year she had been appointed second-rank Zhaoyi.

According to the New Book of Tang and the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, Wu Zetian gave birth in 654 to her eldest daughter, Princess Andingsi. About a month later, Empress Wang visited and played affectionately with the infant. After Empress Wang left, these accounts allege that Wu Zetian strangled the princess and covered the body with bedding. Li Zhi was enraged when the death was discovered and thereafter considered deposing Empress Wang and installing Wu Zetian. The episode is disputed: the Old Book of Tang, compiled in the Five Dynasties period, and the Tang Huiyao record only the princess's sudden death and do not state a cause.

At the time, senior ministers led by Zhangsun Wuji and Chu Suiliang held great influence at court, substantially limiting Li Zhi's authority. It is generally held in the source that Li Zhi attempted to use the “Depose Wang and Install Wu” affair to reassert imperial power and weaken the senior ministerial faction. In 655, Secretariat Drafter Li Yifu was the first to support replacing Empress Wang with Wu Zetian, and Xu Jingzong and other ministers also shifted to Wu's side. The veteran general Li Ji declared that this was the emperor's family matter and need not be decided by outsiders, helping to reverse the situation. On the thirteenth day of the tenth lunar month, Li Zhi issued an edict reducing Empress Wang and Consort Xiao to commoner status on charges of plotting to poison others. Seven days later, Wu Zetian was installed as empress.

The Two Sages at Court

In the tenth lunar month of 660, the fifth year of the Xianqing era, Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi suffered an attack of his chronic illness, with dizziness and impaired vision preventing him from managing state affairs. He therefore allowed Wu Zetian to handle government business. At first, the source says, she humbled herself and followed the emperor's wishes, but after gaining power she increasingly exercised authority on her own, angering Li Zhi.

In 664, the first year of the Linde era, Chancellor Shangguan Yi proposed deposing the empress. Li Zhi agreed and ordered him to draft an edict. Palace attendants quickly informed Wu Zetian, who immediately went before Li Zhi to defend herself. He relented and restored their previous relationship. Worried that she would remain angry, Li Zhi then told her that the idea had not been his and had come entirely from Shangguan Yi.

Thereafter, whenever Li Zhi governed, Wu Zetian attended from behind a curtain and was consulted on matters great and small. The source states that the principal powers of appointment, dismissal, punishment, and execution came to rest in the central palace. The pair were known at the time as the “Two Sages.”

Wu Zetian also actively urged Gaozong to conduct the Feng and Shan sacrifices at Mount Tai. Traditionally, the emperor made the initial offering and high officials made the secondary offering. Wu Zetian argued that the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth were major rites and that, while an empress dowager was paired with the Earth deity, the Shan ceremony was otherwise performed entirely by male officials, which she considered incomplete. She therefore sought to serve as the secondary officiant herself. In the first lunar month of 666, the first year of the Qianfeng era, Wu Zetian led titled women of the inner and outer court up Mount Tai and made the secondary offering at Sheshou Mountain, becoming the first empress in Chinese history, according to the source, to participate in the Feng and Shan rites in this way.

Rule as Empress Dowager and Accession as Emperor

In 683, the first year of the Hongdao era, Emperor Gaozong died and Crown Prince Li Xian ascended the throne as Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. Wu Zetian governed from court as empress dowager. The following year she deposed Zhongzong as Prince of Luling and installed Li Dan, Prince of Yu, as Emperor Ruizong of Tang. Ruizong lived in a separate palace and was not allowed to interfere in government, while political decisions were made by the empress dowager.

To consolidate her power, Wu Zetian promoted new men and established institutions such as the palace examination and the military examination, broadening recruitment through the examination system. At the same time, she encouraged denunciations and employed cruel officials to purge members of the Tang imperial clan and veteran officials who opposed her. In 688, the fourth year of the Chuigong era, Li Chong, Prince of Langya, and Li Zhen, Prince of Yue, rose in rebellion against Wu Zetian but were quickly defeated. In 690, the first year of the Tianshou era, Wu Zetian accepted petitions from officials urging her accession, proclaimed herself the “Sacred and Divine Emperor,” changed the dynastic title to Zhou, and made Luoyang the capital under the name Divine Capital.

After becoming emperor, Wu Zetian continued to promote the examination system, emphasized agricultural development, and lightened corvée and taxation. Militarily, in 692, the first year of the Changshou era, Tang-Zhou forces recovered the Four Garrisons of Anxi and reestablished the Protectorate General to Pacify the West. Toward the Later Turkic Khaganate she combined conciliation with military expeditions, at one point obtaining its submission. In her later years, however, the source describes her as increasingly extravagant and autocratic and as showing excessive favor to the brothers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, giving rise to political abuses.

In the first lunar month of 705, the first year of the Shenlong era, Chancellor Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei, and others launched the Shenlong Coup and restored Li Xian as Emperor Zhongzong. Wu Zetian was forced to abdicate and moved to Shangyang Palace in Luoyang. On December 16 of that year, she died at the age of eighty-two. Her final testament ordered that the imperial title be removed and that she be called “Empress Zetian Dasheng.” She was buried together with Emperor Gaozong at Qianling.

The Taming of a Horse and the Doubt about Her Daughter

In her old age Wu Zetian told of the taming of a horse, as the Comprehensive Mirror records for the Jiushi year: "when Xu was reporting business and was citing antiquity and the present, the empress dowager said in anger: 'What you say I have heard to satiety; say no more! Taizong had a horse called the Lion's Mane, fat and ungovernable, and none could master it. I waited at his side as a palace woman and said to Taizong: I can master it, but it needs three things — an iron whip, an iron cudgel and a dagger. If the iron whip does not subdue it, then cudgel its head; if it still will not yield, then cut its throat with the dagger. Taizong thought my spirit heroic. Is such a one as you today worth staining my dagger?'" The words show her iron resolve. Of the death of her eldest daughter the New Tang History records that "the lady of talent had cunning and endless shifts; at first she lowered herself to serve the empress, who was pleased and praised her often to the emperor, so that she was advanced to the rank of consort", and that "the consort watched whom the empress slighted and made friends with them with gifts, dividing among them all she was given, so that whatever the empress and the consort of Shu did she learned at once"; and that "the consort bore a daughter, and the empress came to look at and fondle her; when she had gone the consort secretly killed the child under its coverlet, and waiting for the emperor's coming spoke merrily, then lifted the coverlet and found her dead, and asked those about her in amazement, and all said that 'the empress came just now'; then the consort wept, and the emperor could not see through it, but said in anger that 'the empress has killed my daughter — before she slandered and envied the consort, and now she does this', so that the consort entered his suspicion and the empress could not clear herself, and the emperor trusted and loved her the more and began to think of deposing the empress". Afterwards "wishing to give her the title of consort Chen, the attendant Han Yuan and the secretary Ling Lai Ji said that 'the consorts and palace women have their fixed numbers and a new title cannot be set up', whereupon the consort falsely accused the empress and her mother of witchcraft, and the emperor, holding to his former resentment, took the charge as true and was about to depose her; but Zhangsun Wuji, Chu Suiliang, Han Yuan and Lai Ji contended for her to the point of death and the emperor hesitated, until the secretary Li Yifu and the minister of the guards Xu Jingzong, who were always treacherous, watching the wind, memorialised that the consort should be empress, and the emperor's mind was decided and the decree of deposition issued". Whether the matter is true has been much debated: the Old Tang History, written in the Five Dynasties, "does not mention it directly at all but expresses it in the historian's comment, without firm proof", while the New Tang History "describes the whole process from the empress's visit to the child's death in vivid detail", and the Comprehensive Mirror "follows the New Tang History in the main"; the scholar Meng Xianshi "holds that the more vivid and detailed the description, the more it invites doubt, for the record of the child's death passed from simplicity to complexity, and in that process no more was learned of such an important matter as the time of the event while the detail grew ever clearer", an instance of the theory of "building up by layers"; Lei Jiaji "suspects sudden infant death", and Meng Xianshi holds that "when Wu Zetian's new-born daughter suddenly died grief was inevitable, and to lay the blame on the empress Wang was also possible".

The Deposition and the Deaths of the Empress Wang and the Consort Xiao

The edict of deposition is in the Comprehensive Mirror: in the tenth month of the sixth year of Yonghui, on the day Jiyou, "a decree was issued saying that the empress Wang and the consort Xiao had plotted to poison, and were reduced to commoners, with their mothers and brothers struck from the registers and exiled to Lingnan"; Xu Jingzong memorialised that the patent of the former minister Wang Renyou still existed and that the remnants of rebellion should not enjoy its protection, and its abolition was approved. On the day Yimao the officials memorialised for the setting up of an empress, and a decree said that "the house of Wu is noted for merit and its place high among the tasselled; she was chosen into the rear palace for her talent and conduct, and her fame was heavy in the pepper chambers and her virtue bright in the orchid courts. In the days when I was heir I often received the late empress's kindness and was permitted to attend her, never leaving her morning or evening; within the palace she ever governed herself, and among the consorts she never gave offence; the sacred mind knew it all and often praised it, and so gave the lady Wu to me, as in the affair of the lord of Zheng, and she may be made empress." On the first day of the eleventh month Li Ji was sent with the seals and ribbons to invest the empress Wu, "and on that day the officials congratulated the empress at the Suyi gate". The Old Tang History sums up the matter: "at first, when Zetian was fourteen, Taizong heard of her beauty and bearing, summoned her into the palace and made her a lady of talent. When Taizong died she became a nun in the Ganye temple. The emperor Daizong saw her there and summoned her back into the palace, making her consort. At that time the empress Wang and the consort Liangdi Xiao often strove for favour with the consort Wu, slandering one another, and the emperor would not hear it. She was advanced to consort Chen. In the sixth year of Yonghui the empress Wang was deposed and the consort Chen Wu made empress. Gaozong was called Heavenly Emperor and the empress Wu Heavenly Empress. She was by nature full of devices and versed in letters and history. From the Xianqing years the emperor suffered much from the wind ailment, and all memorials of the hundred offices were entrusted to the Heavenly Empress to decide; and so for decades she assisted the government from within, her power and majesty no different from the emperor's, and men of the time called them the Two Sages." The end of the empress Wang and the consort Xiao was cruel. The Comprehensive Mirror records that "the former empress Wang and the former consort Xiao were imprisoned together in a separate court, and the emperor sometimes thought of them and went secretly to their place, and seeing the chamber sealed very close with only a hole in the wall through which food vessels passed, was moved to pity and called out: 'Where are the empress and the consort?' and the Lady Wang answered weeping that 'we are guilty and are palace bondwomen; how should we have any title?', and added that 'if Your Majesty remembers former days and would let us see the sun again, we beg that this court be called the Court of Turned Hearts'; and the emperor said that he would arrange it. The empress Wu, hearing of it, was greatly enraged and sent men to give the Lady Wang and the Lady Xiao each a hundred blows, to cut off their hands and feet and throw them into a wine jar, saying 'let the two old women be drunk with bones'; and after some days they died and were beheaded. The Lady Wang, when the edict was first read, bowed twice and said: 'Ten thousand years to the sovereign! The consort Chen has his favour; death is my due.' The consort Xiao cursed, saying: 'Ah Wu, demon and cheat, that it comes to this! May I in another life be a cat and Ah Wu a mouse, and grip her throat for ever!' And from that time cats were not kept in the palace. Soon the surname of the Lady Wang was changed to Python and that of the Lady Xiao to Owl; and the empress Wu often saw the two as ghosts, with hair loose and blood dripping as at their death, so that even after she moved to the Penglai palace she saw them again, and so she mostly stayed at Luoyang and never returned to Chang'an to the end of her life."

The Case of Shangguan Yi and the Court of the Two Sages

The Comprehensive Mirror gives its cause: "at first the empress Wu could bend and bear humiliation and obey the emperor's will, and so he set aside the general opinion and made her empress; but once in power she played the tyrant, and whatever the emperor wished to do was checked by her, until he could not bear his resentment. There was a Daoist, Guo Xingzhen, who frequented the palace and practised witchcraft, which the eunuch Wang Fusheng made known. The emperor in anger summoned in secret the vice president of the western secretariat and joint minister Shangguan Yi to consult, and Yi said that 'the empress is wilful and the world does not accept her; let her be deposed', and the emperor thought so too and ordered him to draft the edict. Those about him ran to tell the empress, who went at once to plead with the emperor, and the draft being still before him he was ashamed and could not find it in him, and treated her as before; and fearing her anger, he deceived her, saying that 'I never had this mind; it was Shangguan Yi who taught me'. And from this time, whenever the emperor attended to business, the empress hung a curtain behind him, and nothing great or small in government passed unheard, and the whole power of the realm came into the inner palace, promotion and demotion, life and death decided by her mouth, the emperor but folding his hands; and within and without they were called the Two Sages." The rites of the Feng and Shan sacrifices show how deep her part had gone: she memorialised that "in the old rite of the Feng and Shan, when the earth-goddess is sacrificed the empress dowager is associated, yet the ministers perform the office, which is not in accord with the rites; on the day I beg to lead the noblewomen within and without in the offering", whereupon it was decreed that "at the Shan of Shezou the empress shall make the second offering and the grand consort of Yue the third"; and further decrees ordered that "the seats of the high god and the earth-goddess at the Feng and Shan altar, formerly of straw and earthen vessels, be changed to cushions and libation cups, and the other suburban sacrifices likewise", and that "henceforth at temple and suburban feasts the civil dance shall use the music of the Achieved Virtue and the martial dance that of the Divine Merit". The splendour of the progress is described as "the emperor set out from the eastern capital, the civil and military retinues and insignia stretching without break several hundred li, camps and tents covering the plain; and those attending the court from Koguryo in the east to Persia and Bukhara in the west led their people as escort, felt tents and hovels, cattle, sheep, camels and horses choking the roads; and the years being fruitful, a peck of rice cost five cash, and wheat and beans were not to be seen in the market". Of the Longmen work there is the record of the niche: "on the first day of the fourth month of the third year of Xianheng, the empress Wu contributed twenty thousand strings of her powder money, and by imperial order the examining monks Shandao of the Shiji temple of the western capital and Huilai of the Fahai temple, the commissioners Wei Ji of the court of agriculture and Fan Yuanze, and the master workmen Li Junzang, Cheng Renwei and Yao Shiji finished the work on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month of the second year of Shangyuan"; and though some have taken the words "our sovereign" in the niche record as proof that Wu Zetian had the great Buddha made in her own likeness, the record itself plainly names "the great emperor Gaozong of Tang" and calls Wu Zetian "the empress Wu", so that "our sovereign" cannot mean her, and "in whose likeness the figure was made is still disputed". On Gaozong's wish to abdicate in favour of the empress, Hao Chujun blocked it: "Gaozong, suffering from a rash, wished to abdicate and have the Heavenly Empress administer the state, and consulted the chancellors; Hao Chujun answered that 'I have heard the Book of Rites say that the Son of Heaven governs the yang and the empress the yin virtue, so that emperor and empress are as sun and moon, yang and yin, each with its own charge; if Your Majesty would go against this way I fear above the reproach of Heaven and below the wonder of men. Of old Emperor Wen of Wei decreed that even after his death no empress should hold court; how then would Your Majesty hand the throne to the Heavenly Empress? And besides, the realm is the realm of the two sages Gaozu and Taizong, not Your Majesty's own'", and the vice secretary Li Yiyan spoke likewise, so that "the matter was for a time laid aside". Wu Zetian, learning of it, "called together a great number of men of letters and had them compile many books", among them the Xuanlan, the Models Within and Without, the Essentials of the Eastern Palace, the Correct Models of Youth, the Precepts of the Wall City, the Records of the Purple Pivot, the New Admonitions of the Phoenix Tower, the Lives of Filial Sons, the Lives of Virtuous Women, the Essentials of Inner Models, the Essentials of Music, the New Admonitions for the Hundred Officials, the Root of the Myriad People and the Rules for Ministers; and she "secretly had these scholars take part in deciding the memorials of the court, to divide the power of the chancellors, and they were called by men of the time the Northern Gate Scholars".

Holding Court, the Informers and the Bronze Box

The Old Tang History records the events after Gaozong's death: "on the day Dingzi of the twelfth month of Hongdao the great emperor died, and the heir Xian took the throne, honouring the Heavenly Empress as empress dowager. Being about to usurp, she held court in her own person from that day. On the day Gengwu she added the titles of grand commandant to the prince of Han, Yuanjia, governor of Zezhou, and of equal of the three ministers to the prince of Teng, Yuanying, and made others grand tutors and guardians of the heir, for "Yuanjia and the rest being of honoured rank and weight she feared change and so advanced them to empty honours to set their minds at rest". On the day Wuyin of the second month of the first year of Sisheng "the emperor was deposed as prince of Luling, confined elsewhere and renamed Zhe. On the day Jiwei the prince of Yu, Lun, was set up as emperor, dwelling in a side hall; a general amnesty was proclaimed and the reign-title changed to Wenming, and the empress dowager still held court. On the day Gengwu the imperial great-grandson Chongzhao was reduced to commoner." Of the changing of offices the Comprehensive Mirror of the nineteenth Tang chapter records that "the banners all followed gold; those of the eighth rank and below who had worn blue changed to green; the eastern capital was renamed the divine capital and the palace Taichu; the secretariat became the Wen-chang terrace, its presidents the left and right ministers, and the six boards the six offices of heaven, earth and the four seasons; the chancellery became the Luan terrace and the secretariat the Phoenix pavilion, the attendant became the receiver of words and the secretary the inner historian; the censorate became the left and right Su-zheng terraces, and the names of the remaining offices were all changed by their kinds." The rebellion of Xu Jingye belongs to the same time: "the grandson of the late minister Li Ji, the sima of Liuzhou, Xu Jingye, falsely calling himself the sima of Yangzhou, killed the chief secretary Chen Jingzhi and rose at Yangzhou, calling himself grand general and using the restoration as his cry", and the sima of Chuzhou, Li Chongfu, "surrendered his three counties to Jingye", so that "the great general of the left jade-tally guard, Li Xiaoyi, was made grand commissioner and led three hundred thousand against him", Pei Yan the inner historian being killed and the offices of Jingye's father and grandfather stripped and the family restored to the surname Xu. His proclamation survives, written by Luo Binwang, saying that "the false holder of the court, the lady Wu, is by nature not gentle and her station truly low and mean... she has killed her sisters and butchered her brothers, murdered her lord and poisoned her mother; gods and men alike hate her and heaven and earth cannot contain her"; and by the Comprehensive Mirror, "when the empress dowager saw the proclamation she asked who had written it, and was told Luo Binwang, and said that 'this is the fault of the chancellor; a man of such talent, and to let him wander unknown!'". In the first month of the second year of Chuigong "the empress dowager decreed the restoration of government to the emperor", but "the prince of Rui, knowing that she was not in earnest, memorialised declining it", and "the empress dowager again held court"; and on the day Wushen of the third month she "ordered a bronze box to be cast and set in the court to receive the memorials of the world. Its east side was called 'extending grace', for those offering poems and seeking office; the south 'inviting remonstrance', for those speaking of the gains and losses of government; the west 'redressing wrongs', for the wronged; the north 'reaching the dark', for those speaking of portents and secret military matters. One of the remonstrating officials was put in charge, to examine the credentials before allowing the memorial to be deposited." The doors of informing were thus thrown wide: "from the rebellion of Xu Jingye the empress dowager doubted that many in the world plotted against her, and knowing moreover that she had long monopolised the government and that her private conduct was unseemly, and that the princes and ministers bore resentment and were not at heart subdued, wished to strike greatly to overawe them. And so she opened wide the doors of informing, and of informers the ministers might not question any, but all were given post-horses and food of the fifth rank and brought to the court; even farmers and woodcutters were granted audience and fed in the hostel, and if what they said pleased her they were given office out of the ordinary course, and if it proved untrue no question was asked. And so informers sprang up on every side and men stood in dread." Hence "the rule of the cruel officials" arose, in which "once a man was thrown into that prison the cruel officials used every torture, and of those who came out alive not one or two in a hundred", and "the officials of the court each feared for himself and dared not speak when they met", so that "before every court day the ministers took leave of their families".

The Slaughter of the Princes, the Bright Hall, the Nine Tripods and the Change of Dynasty

The disaster of the imperial kin began with the prince of Langya, Li Chong, and the prince of Yue, Li Zhen. The Old Tang History records that "on the day Renyin of the eighth month the prince of Langya, Li Chong, governor of Bozhou, rose at Bozhou, and the great general of the left golden-spear guard, Qiu Shenji, was made commissioner against him; on the day Gengxu Li Chong's father the prince of Yue, Li Zhen, governor of Yuzhou, rose at Yuzhou in concert with him; in the ninth month the inner historian Cen Changqian and others were sent with troops, and on the day Bingyin Li Zhen and Li Chong were beheaded, their heads sent to the divine capital and their surname changed to Hui", with the princes of Han and Lu and others "beheaded or driven to suicide for complicity", so that "from this time the princes of the blood died one after another until they were nearly all gone; their young sons were exiled beyond the passes and several hundred families of their kin were destroyed". On the day Jiyou of the twelfth month "the holy sovereign worshipped at the Luo river and received the sacred plan of heaven, returning to the palace the same day, and the Bright Hall was finished". Of the Bright Hall the Comprehensive Mirror says it was "two hundred and ninety-four feet high and three hundred feet square, in three stories: the lowest after the four seasons, each with its own color; the middle after the twelve hours, with a round roof above borne by nine dragons; the highest after the twenty-four breaths, also with a round roof bearing an iron phoenix a fathom high adorned with gold. Within was a great beam ten arm-spans about, running through from top to bottom... and beneath a bronze channel, as an image of the circular moat. It was called the Palace of the Myriad Images, and there the sovereign feasted and gave gifts to his ministers, granted a general amnesty and let the people in to see it"; and the treatise on rites records that "on the first day of the first month of the first year of Yongchang he first sacrificed in the Bright Hall in person, granting an amnesty and changing the reign-title; on the fourth day of that month he held court in the Bright Hall and issued nine articles for the instruction of the hundred officials... and after the Bright Hall was finished the women of the divine capital and the elders of the prefectures were let in to see it and given wine and food, until after a long time it ceased. The Tibetans and the various barbarians, hearing that the Bright Hall was finished, also sent envoys to congratulate." Of the change of dynasty the Comprehensive Mirror records that "on the day Bingzi the attendant censor Fu Youyi led more than nine hundred of the people of Guanzhong to the palace gate with a memorial asking that the dynastic name be changed to Zhou and the emperor given the surname Wu, and the empress dowager refused, promoting Fu Youyi to supervising secretary; whereupon the hundred officials and the imperial kin, the people far and near, the chiefs of the four barbarians, the monks and the Daoists, more than sixty thousand in all, memorialised as Fu Youyi had asked, and the emperor also memorialised asking to be given the surname Wu... On the day Gengchen the empress dowager granted the emperor's and the ministers' request; on the day Renwu she received them on the Zetian tower, granted an amnesty, changed Tang to Zhou and the reign-title; on the day Yiyou she was given the title Holy and Divine Emperor and the emperor became the imperial heir with the surname Wu, and the heir apparent became the imperial grandson; on the day Bingxu the seven ancestral temples of the Wu were set up in the divine capital." The New Tang History says that "the censor Fu Youyi led the elders of the passes to ask for a change of mandate, to change the imperial surname to Wu, and pressed the ministers to repeat the request, falsely saying that phoenixes had gathered in the Shangyang palace and red sparrows appeared in the court; the Son of Heaven, uneasy, also asked for the surname Wu to show their single honour. The empress dowager, knowing that the wield of power was hers, granted a general amnesty, changed the dynastic name to Zhou, called herself Holy and Divine Emperor, made red the colour of the banners, and the emperor the imperial heir." Of the nine tripods the treatise on rites records that "in that year bronze was cast into tripods for the nine provinces, and when they were finished they were set in the court of the Bright Hall, each according to its direction. The tripod of the divine capital was eighteen feet high and held eighteen hundred piculs... the other eight were fourteen feet high and held twelve hundred piculs each. The minister of agriculture Zong Jinqing was commissioner for the nine tripods, and fifty-six thousand seven hundred and twelve catties of bronze were used in all. On the tripods were depicted the mountains, rivers and products of their provinces... and when they were finished they were dragged in from the Xuanwu gate, the chancellors and princes leading more than a hundred thousand guards of the northern and southern offices with the great oxen and white elephants of the imperial stud dragging them, and Zetian composed the Song of Dragging the Tripods herself for them to sing in chorus", and when she wished to gild them with a thousand ounces of gold the receiver of words Yao Shu said that "the tripod is a sacred vessel and prized for its plainness, and needs no idle ornament", and it was dropped. The celestial pivot was finished at the same time, "a hundred and five feet high and twelve feet in diameter, eight-sided, each side five feet; below was an iron mountain of a hundred and seventy feet about, with coiling dragons and unicorns of bronze around it; above was a dish for receiving dew on soaring clouds three fathoms across, borne by four dragons standing upright supporting a fire-pearl a fathom high. The workman Mao Poluo made the model, Wu Sansi the text, on which the names of the hundred officials and the chiefs of the four barbarians were carved, and the empress dowager wrote the title with her own hand: the Celestial Pivot of the Praises of the Myriad Nations of Great Zhou."

The Khitan Rebellion, the Death of Huaiyi and the Dispute over the Succession

In the first year of Wansui Tongtian "Li Jinzhong, the Khitan governor of Songmo at Yingzhou, and Sun Wanrong, governor of Guicheng prefecture, rose in rebellion, took Yingzhou and killed its governor Zhao Wen", both of them "dwelling beside the city of Yingzhou", and because "Zhao Wen was obstinate, and when the Khitan were starving gave no relief, treating their chiefs as slaves, the two rose in resentment"; the court sent the general of the left eagle-soaring guard Cao Renshi and "twenty-eight generals against them", and "changed Li Jinzhong's name to Li Jinmie and Sun Wanrong's to Sun Wanzhan". The collapse of Sun Wanrong shows his extremity: his army broken, he "fled east with several thousand light horse", and the advance commander Zhang Jiujie sent troops to intercept him on the road, so that "Wanrong, at his wits' end, fled with his slave to the east of the Lu river and rested in the woods, sighing that 'to return to Tang now, my guilt is too great; to go to the Turks is death and to Silla is death; where shall I go?', and his slave cut off his head and surrendered, and it was hung at the gate of the four-pavilion hostel". The affair of the monk Huaiyi shows the change of favour: "the monk Huaiyi grew ever more insolent, and the empress dowager disliked him; having burned the Bright Hall he was uneasy and often spoke awry, and she secretly chose more than a hundred strong palace women to guard against him. On the day Renzi he was seized under a tree before the Yaoguang hall and beaten to death by braves led by the prince of Jianchang, Wu Youning, and his body sent to the White Horse temple and burned to make a pagoda; on the day Jiazi the empress dowager dropped the title of 'Maitreya and Transcending Antiquity'".

The dispute over the succession turned on Di Renjie's remonstrance. For the first year of Shengli the Comprehensive Mirror records that "Wu Chengsi and Sansi sought the position of heir and several times had men say to the empress dowager that 'never since antiquity has a Son of Heaven had an heir of another surname'; and her mind was not settled. Di Renjie said calmly to her again and again that 'the emperor Wen trod wind and rain and faced the arrows himself to settle the world and hand it to his sons and grandsons; the great emperor entrusted his two sons to Your Majesty, and now you would transfer it to another clan — is that not against the will of Heaven? And which is nearer, nephew or son? If you set up your son, then when you are gone he will sacrifice to you in the ancestral temple for ever; set up your nephew, and no one has heard of a nephew who became Son of Heaven and enshrined his aunt in the temple.' The empress dowager said that 'this is my family matter; you need not meddle', and Di Renjie answered that 'a king takes the four seas for his family, and within the four seas who is not his servant — what is not Your Majesty's family matter? The ruler is the head and the minister the limbs, one body in duty, and I, holding the place of a chancellor, how should I not meddle?' and he urged her further to recall the prince of Luling, and Wang Fangqing and Wang Jishan also urged it, so that her mind began to open. Another day she said to Di Renjie that 'I dreamed a great parrot whose two wings were both broken; what does it mean?', and he answered that 'Wu is Your Majesty's surname and the two wings are your two sons; raise your two sons and the wings are mended', and from that time she had no mind to set up Chengsi or Sansi." The New Tang History records that afterwards "the empress dowager was moved and sent Xu Yanbo that same day to bring the prince of Luling from Fangzhou. When he came she hid him in a tent and, summoning Di Renjie, spoke of the affair of Luling, and Di Renjie pleaded urgently and earnestly until his tears would not stop; then she brought the prince out and said 'I return you your heir', and Di Renjie bowed to the ground and said that 'the heir's return is unknown to men and there is much talk; what is to be believed?', and she agreed and had the heir lodge at the Longmen, and with full ceremony brought him back, to the great joy of court and country." The persuasion of the two Zhang was also decisive: "when Sun Wanrong besieged Youzhou he sent a proclamation to the court asking why the prince of Luling was not restored; and Ji Xu, who with Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong were attendants of the crane-controlling office, and whom the two Zhang brothers treated intimately, said calmly to them that 'your honours are so favoured, not by any merit or virtue of your own, and the world looks at you askance and grinds its teeth; without some great service to the world, how will you keep yourselves safe? I am troubled for you', and the two, afraid, asked him weeping for a plan, and Ji Xu said that 'the scholars and people have not forgotten the virtue of Tang and all think again of the prince of Luling; the sovereign is advanced in years and the great work must be entrusted to someone, and the princes of Wu are not his mind's choice; why not calmly urge him to set up the prince of Luling to bind the hopes of the people? And so you will not only escape disaster but long keep your wealth and honour'; and the two agreed and repeatedly spoke of it to the empress dowager, who, knowing the plan came from Ji Xu, summoned and questioned him, and he set the gains and losses before her, and her mind was settled." Afterwards "on the day Jiaxu the heir was made commander of the Hebei road against the Turks; before this, more than a month of recruiting had brought less than a thousand men, but when it was heard that the heir was to command, those who came were gathered like clouds, and in a short time their number passed fifty thousand". The comforting of Hebei fell to Di Renjie: the people of Hebei "whom the Turks had driven along feared punishment when the invaders withdrew and fled to hide", and Di Renjie memorialised that "the court holds all whom the Khitan and the Turks forced to follow to be guilty, saying that though their deeds differed their hearts did not... I beg that Hebei be leniently pardoned in all its prefectures and no question asked", which was approved, and "Di Renjie then comforted the people, sending back all whom the Turks had carried off to their own districts, distributing grain to relieve the poor, repairing the post stations to help the returning armies, and, fearing that the generals and envoys would make unlawful demands for supplies, himself ate coarse food and forbade his men to molest the people on pain of death, so that Hebei was quieted". Of Mo-chuo's marriage proposal, in the first year of Shengli "on the day Wuzi Wu Yanxiu reached the southern court at Heisha, and the Turk Mo-chuo said to Yan Zhiwei and the others that 'I wished to marry my daughter into the Li house — what use have I for a boy of the Wu? Is this a son of the Son of Heaven? The Turks have received the grace of the Li for generations, and hearing that the Li are nearly destroyed and only two sons remain, I shall lead troops to set one up', and confined Yanxiu elsewhere... and sent troops against the Jinnan, Pingdi and Qingyi armies"; and in the third year of Chang'an "Mo-chuo sent the envoy Mohe Dagan asking to give his daughter to the son of the heir apparent, and Zetian had the heir's sons, the prince of Ping'en Chongjun and the prince of Yixing Chongming, receive him, and feasted him at the Suyu pavilion, with the heir, the prince of Xiang and the assembling envoys of the third rank and above present, richly rewarding and sending him back".

The Shenlong Coup, His Last Years and Matters After His Death

In the first month of the first year of Shenlong the coup rose from the guards. The New Tang History records that "on the day Renwu of the fifth year a general amnesty was granted; on Gengyin slaughter was forbidden; on Guimao Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei and the generals of the left and right jade guards Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan, the junior minister of justice Yuan Shuji, Li Zhan, Xue Sixing, Zhao Cheng'en, Yang Yuanyan, Li Duozuo, the censor-in-chief and others led the guards of the left and right against the rebels, and the Zhang Yizhi, Zhang Changzong and others were executed; on the day Bingwu the emperor returned to his place; on the day Dingwei the empress was moved to the Shangyang palace; on the day Wushen she was given the title of the Great Sage Emperor of Zetian". The Old Tang History records likewise that "in the first month of the first year of Shenlong Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei, Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan and Yuan Shuji decided in council and led the guards to kill Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, and welcomed the heir apparent to supervise the state and take charge of all business, granting a general amnesty... On the day Yisi Zetian transmitted the throne to the heir apparent; on the day Bingwu he took the throne in the Tongtian hall..., and she was given the title of the Great Sage Emperor of Zetian". Of the restoration of Tang the Comprehensive Mirror records that "on the day Xinhai of the second month the emperor led the hundred officials to the Shangyang palace to inquire after the empress dowager's health, and thereafter went once in ten days; on the day Jiayin the dynastic name was restored to Tang, and the suburban sacrifices, the altars of soil and grain, the tombs, the officials, the banners, the colours of dress and the forms of writing were all as before the Yongchun period; the divine capital again became the eastern capital, the northern capital Bingzhou, and the Old Lord again the Dark Prime Emperor". His last years were pitiable: "it is recorded that in old age Wu Zetian 'was careful in her painting and adornment, so that even with her children about her they did not perceive her age'; but after her abdication she no longer dressed or painted herself and her face grew haggard. Once when Li Xian came to see her he was astonished, and Wu Zetian wept and said that 'I brought you back to the divine capital from Fangling, meaning indeed to entrust the world to you, but the five traitors, greedy for merit, have alarmed me to this pass'; and Li Xian, hearing it, wept bitterly and knelt, 'thanking her and pleading guilty to death'. Some hold that it was this which allowed Wu Sansi and the Wu clan still to take part in the government."

The crane-controlling office and Zhu Jingze's remonstrance belong to the abuses of her late court. The Comprehensive Institutions records that "in the first month of the second year of Shengli the empress dowager Wu set up the crane-controlling office, with a comptroller of the third rank... making Zhang Yizhi its comptroller over the left and Zhang Changzong over the right... In the sixth month of the Jiushi year it was renamed the office of heavenly steeds and on the twenty-fifth of that month again the office of the attendant of the imperial couch... Yuan Banqian, holding that the office of attendant of the couch had no precedent in antiquity and that those appointed to it were mostly frivolous and no fit choice for the advancement of court virtue, memorialised for its abolition and thereby offended the throne"; and the Old Tang History records that "the empress dowager ordered the choosing of handsome youths as attendants of the left and right, and the right remonstrating official Zhu Jingze remonstrated that 'I have heard that the will must not be filled and pleasure must not be exhausted; the desires of men are the same in wise and foolish, and the worthy can control them and keep them from excess, as the sages have said. Your Majesty's favourites number already Huaiyi, Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, which should suffice...', and Zetian thanked him, saying that 'had you not spoken plainly I should not have known it', and gave him a hundred pieces of silk". Of what remained after her death, two things are much talked of: the wordless stele and her flying-white calligraphy. The origin of the wordless stele "is variously told: one view is that Wu Zetian used it to display herself, holding that her merit and virtue were too great for words; another that, knowing her crimes were heavy, she thought it better not to write an inscription; a third that in setting up the wordless stele she left merit and fault to the judgement of later ages, which was a clever thing to do; and there is also a view that the Tang court had already prepared an inscription when it set up her stele, but that for various reasons it was not cut on the stone and may lie in the underground palace of the Qianling". Of her calligraphy, "the so-called 'flying white' is a script in which the strokes show threads of white, of great difficulty but of a very elegant appearance. Wu Zetian once wrote the names of her ministers in flying white and gave them to them, and a minister memorialised that 'having graciously written in flying white the names of your servants and deigned to bestow it, I kneel to present the precious gift and look up to wear the jade writing, as though unrolling the chart of the seven luminaries and receiving the seal of the five spirits; it stands first of the six scripts and alone among the eight forms... Zhong You laboured and could not equal it, and Boying wore out his sinews and could not reach it'". Of her early years there remains the affair of Li Junxian and the Secret Record: by the Comprehensive Mirror, "at first the general of the left military guard, the duke of Wulian county of Wu'an, Li Junxian, was on duty at the Xuanwu gate, when Venus appeared often by day, and the astrologers said that 'a woman shall flourish', and among the people there circulated a Secret Record saying that 'after three generations of Tang, a woman of the Wu shall rule the world'; the emperor hated this. And at a feast of the military ministers in the palace, at a drinking game where each told his boyhood name, Li Junxian said that his was Five Girls, and the emperor, astonished, laughed and said 'what woman is so valiant?', and, because his office and fief all contained the word Wu, hated him the more and sent him out as governor of Huazhou... and on the day Renchen he was condemned and executed and his family confiscated"; and the emperor had also asked Li Chunfeng in secret whether the Secret Record was to be believed, and he answered that "looking up I examine the heavens and looking down I search the reckonings, and the person is already in Your Majesty's palace, of your kin, and within thirty years shall rule the world and slaughter the sons and grandsons of Tang until they are all but gone, the omen being already accomplished", and when the emperor asked whether all suspects should be killed he answered that "what Heaven has appointed man cannot oppose; the ruler cannot die, and to kill many would be to kill the innocent; and thirty years from now the person will be old and may have something of a merciful heart, and the harm be the less". The text of hers preserved in the Complete Tang Prose and the tradition of the Great Fuxian temple at Luoyang touch on her birthplace: "the Old Tang History records that Wu Zetian was the second child of her parents, and that in the second year after her birth she went with them to Yangzhou; moreover no source records the couple leaving Luoyang between their marriage and her birth. Hence it is possible that Wu Zetian was born at the Great Fuxian temple in Luoyang."

The Submission of the Tangut, the Remnant of the Wu and Her Native Place

In Wu Zetian's time the peoples of the west also submitted. The Comprehensive Mirror records for the first year of Ruyi that "in the second month, on the day Jihai, more than ten thousand of the Tangut tribes of Tibet submitted and were settled in ten prefectures", and that "in the fifth month the Tibetan chief Hesu brought his tribe asking to submit, and the general of the right jade-tally guard, Zhang Xuanyu, was made commissioner of comfort and sent with twenty thousand picked troops to receive him; in the sixth month the army reached the west of the Dadu river and Hesu's affair was discovered and he was seized by his own people; and the chief of another tribe, Zanchui, brought more than eight thousand Qiang and Man who submitted, and Zhang Xuanyu settled his tribe in Laichuan prefecture and returned." As to the fate of the Wu clan, one matter belongs to her last years: after her abdication she said to Li Xian, weeping, that "the five traitors, greedy for merit, have alarmed me to this pass", and "some hold that it was this which allowed Wu Sansi and the Wu clan still to take part in the government". Her daughter the princess of Taiping had her part in the government within and without: the Old Tang History's account of the consort kin records that "the princess of Taiping was the youngest daughter of Gaozong, and being born of Zetian was especially favoured. In the Yonglong years she married the emperor's son-in-law Xue Shao, who was executed in the Chuigong years on a false charge of conspiring with the princes, and Zetian secretly had the wife of Youji killed to marry him to the princess. The princess was stout, with a square brow and broad jaw, and full of stratagems, and Zetian thought her like herself and often let her share in counsels, the palace being closely guarded and nothing allowed to leak; and the princess too, in awe, kept herself in check, though she adorned her mansion richly." Of her native place there remains the memorial hall of today: "the Wu Zetian memorial hall is in Nanxu village of Wenshui county in Shanxi, with the Lüliang mountains to the west and the Wenyu river to the east and the provincial capital Taiyuan seventy kilometres to the north; the 'stone arch of the native place of Zetian' on the east side of the national road is its landmark. The hall faces south and covers twenty-six thousand square metres, and the temple of Wu Zetian stands at its northern end."

Worshipping at the Luo River, Receiving the Plan, and the Seven Jewels

In the days of her regency the doctrine of portents was her reliance. The Old Tang History records that "in the fifth month the empress dowager was given the title Holy Mother Divine Sovereign; in the autumn, in the seventh month, a general amnesty was granted; the precious plan was renamed the Heaven-bestowed Sacred Plan, the god of the Luo river was enfeoffed as Manifest Sage with the rank of chief minister and a temple built for him, the county of Yongchang was set up beside the water, and the realm feasted for five days", and that on the day Jiyou of the twelfth month "the divine sovereign worshipped at the Luo river and received the Heaven-bestowed Sacred Plan, returning to the palace that day". The granting of titles followed the same precedent: in the second year of Changshou "in the ninth month, on the first day, the day Dinghai, there was an eclipse of the sun; the prince of Wei, Chengsi, and five thousand others memorialised for the title of Holy Sovereign of the Golden Wheel; on the day Yiwei the empress dowager received the title in the palace of the Myriad Images and granted an amnesty, and had the seven treasures of the golden wheel made and displayed in the court at every assembly; on the day Gengzi she posthumously honoured Emperor Zhao'an as the Enveloping Origin Emperor Zhao'an, Emperor Wenmu as the Establishing Pole Emperor Wenmu and Emperor Xiaoming Gao as the Supreme Xiaoming Gao Emperor, the empresses following the emperors' titles". The name of the Buddhist wheel-turning king and the omens of prophecy went hand in hand, and in these lay the ground of her legitimacy.

The Army of Xu Jingye and the Transmission of the Proclamation

The scale of Xu Jingye's rising is plainly recorded. The Comprehensive Mirror says that "Jingye styled himself grand general of the restoring office and governor-general of Yangzhou, with Zhiji and Qiuren as the left and right chief secretaries, Zongchen and Zhongzhang as the left and right marshals, Siwen as army adviser and Binwang as recording secretary, and within ten days he had more than a hundred thousand victorious troops". The proclamation sent to the prefectures was long recited, saying in brief that "the false holder of the court, the lady Wu, is by nature not gentle and her station truly low and mean; she once filled the lower ranks of Taizong's household and found favour by attending at his changing of clothes, and in her later years she polluted the spring palace, hiding the late emperor's private favour and secretly plotting for the bedchamber's love, trampling the empress's robe of pheasant and casting our lord into the shame of the stag"; that "she has killed her sisters and butchered her brothers, murdered her lord and poisoned her mother, so that gods and men alike hate her and heaven and earth cannot contain her"; that "she hides a traitor's heart and peeps at the sacred vessels, the emperor's beloved son being shut in a side palace while the traitor's kin fill the great offices"; that "the earth of one handful is not yet dry, and where is the orphan of six feet?"; and closing with "look today upon the realm — whose house is it that holds the world?" When Wu Zetian saw the proclamation she asked who had written it and was told Luo Binwang, and sighed that "this is the fault of the chancellor: a man of such talent, to be left to wander unregarded". The army was broken within the month, but the proclamation has come down through the ages.

The Frequent Change of Reign-Titles and the Government of Portents

From her regency to her accession Wu Zetian changed the reign-title again and again, in turn Tianshou, Ruyi, Changshou, Yanzai, Zhengsheng, Tiance Wansui, Wansui Dengfeng, Wansui Tongtian, Shengong, Shengli, Jiushi, Dazu, Chang'an and Shenlong, some of the changes being tied to the addition of an honorific and others to omens and auspices, as when the reign was changed to Ruyi or to Guangzhai in connection with some auspicious sign. This institutional habit of frequent change shows both her political method of adorning herself with the mandate and the gods, and one aspect of the government of her reign.

The Accumulation of Honorifics

With the frequent change of reign-titles went the piling up of honorifics: at the beginning of her regency she was given the title Holy Mother Divine Sovereign; on taking the throne she received that of Holy and Divine Emperor; afterwards that of Holy Sovereign of the Golden Wheel, at one time joined with that of Maitreya and Transcending Antiquity; and later the latter was dropped. The more exalted the title the more cumbersome the style, another trait of the institutions of the reign.

Major Activities

Political Reforms

During her period of rule, Wu Zetian instituted the palace examination and personally questioned examination candidates in Luocheng Hall; the practice later became regularized. She also established the military examination to select military talent. In addition, she promoted systems of self-recommendation and probationary appointment, allowing officials and commoners to recommend themselves and granting permanent office to those who passed evaluation. The source presents these measures as weakening aristocratic monopolies over official careers and broadening the regime's political base.

Economically, Wu Zetian adopted measures to lighten taxes, reduce warfare, and lessen labor service. She ordered the compilation and empire-wide distribution of the Record of the Fundamental Occupations of the People to encourage farming and sericulture. During her period of rule, registered households rose from 3.8 million at the end of Gaozong's reign to 6.15 million in the first year of the Shenlong era, a substantial increase in population registration.

Military Affairs and the Frontiers

During Wu Zetian's rule, Tang-Zhou forces repeatedly contested the Four Garrisons of Anxi with the Tibetan Empire. In 692, the first year of the Changshou era, Wang Xiaojie led an army that defeated Tibetan forces, recovered the Four Garrisons of Anxi, reestablished the Protectorate General to Pacify the West at Kucha, and stationed thirty thousand troops there. The source states that Tang forces thereafter maintained an advantageous position in the Western Regions.

Toward the Later Turkic Khaganate, Wu Zetian combined marriage diplomacy with military campaigns. In 698, the first year of the Shengli era, Qapaghan Qaghan of the Later Turks invaded southward. Wu Zetian dispatched forces to resist him while also conferring on him the title “Qaghan Who Turns Toward Goodness,” and at one point obtained his submission. Overall, however, frontier warfare remained frequent during her rule and consumed substantial state resources.

Politics of the Cruel Officials

To consolidate her rule, Wu Zetian encouraged denunciations and employed cruel officials such as Suo Yuanli, Zhou Xing, and Lai Junchen, resulting in many wrongful cases. Lai Junchen and Wan Guojun compiled the Classic of Entrapment, which purported to teach methods of constructing criminal charges. The cruel officials devised numerous forms of torture, including those known as “Fixing the Hundred Pulses” and “Roaring from the Ground,” leaving court officials in constant fear.

In 697, the first year of the Shengong era, Lai Junchen was executed after attempting to frame princes of the Wu clan and Princess Taiping, bringing the politics of the cruel officials to a close. In her later years, Wu Zetian reflected on their actions and told attendants that Zhou Xing, Lai Junchen, and others had repeatedly linked court officials to treason cases and that, after she ordered closer investigations, the truth was uncovered and the offenders were publicly executed.

Literature and Culture

Wu Zetian herself was described as highly intelligent and well versed in literature and history. She wrote both poetry and prose. The Complete Tang Poems preserves several dozen poems attributed to her, including “Ruyi Niang.” She also authored collections titled Chuigong Collection and Golden Wheel Collection, both now lost.

Wu Zetian strongly promoted literary and cultural activity and gathered scholars to compile works such as Pearls of the Three Teachings and Rules for Ministers. She valued calligraphy and is said to have written the names of officials in the feibai script as gifts. The source describes poetry as flourishing during her rule and as helping lay foundations for the high point of High Tang poetry.

Religious Policy

Wu Zetian patronized Buddhism and used the prophecy of a female ruler receiving the mandate in the Great Cloud Sutra to support the legitimacy of her rule. In 690, the first year of the Tianshou era, she ordered a Great Cloud Temple to be established in each of the two capitals and in the prefectures, with copies of the Great Cloud Sutra housed there for eminent monks to explain. She also supported the development of the Huayan school, inviting the monk Fazang to lecture in the palace and granting him the title “National Preceptor Xianshou.”

In 693, the second year of the Changshou era, Wu Zetian adopted the additional imperial title “Golden Wheel Sacred and Divine Emperor” and held a Golden Wheel ceremony, using the Buddhist image of the cakravartin, or wheel-turning monarch, to reinforce the legitimacy of her rule.

The Trial Officials, the Spirit of Remonstrance and the Western Frontier

The practice of trial office began then. The Comprehensive Mirror records that "the empress dowager received the men recommended by the commissioners of comfort and promoted them all without regard to wisdom or folly, the better as trial phoenix-pavilion secretaries and supervising secretaries, the next as trial vice directors, attendant censors, remonstrating officials, reminders and correctors of texts; the trial official dates from this", and the men of the time said that "the remonstrating officials are cartloads together and the reminders measured by the peck; steward censors by the dozen and correctors of texts turned out like bowls", to which the candidate Shen Quanjiao added that "the commissioners of comfort have their hearts muddled and the Holy and Divine Emperor has his eyes dimmed", and was seized by the censor Ji Xianzhi, who impeached him for defaming the government and asked that he be flogged in the court and then handed to the law; but "the empress dowager laughed and said that 'if only you are not too many, what need to mind men's words? Let him be pardoned', at which Ji Xianzhi was much ashamed". Of her tolerance of remonstrance it is said that "though her ordinances were strict and her punishments severe, and 'when she resolved to be cruel, however beloved, she did not spare', yet she respected those who spoke plainly and dared to remonstrate, adopting their counsel as far as possible and, even if their words gave offence, bearing with them and not pursuing the matter. In her reign few were punished for plain remonstrance, so that speaking plainly became the fashion at court and the feelings of those below could reach above, which did much to reform abuses and promote clean government." Her scrutiny of officials was strict too: she examined "the magistrates" and "sent envoys with the six articles to inspect the prefectures", testing whether the officials were upright and fit, and "punished without mercy the corrupt of whatever rank, while raising the worthy out of the ordinary course, esteeming much the honest and upright among her ministers and those of talent and learning, and employing them one by one". Abroad she used the policy of sowing discord among the Tibetans: the Comprehensive Mirror records Guo Yuanzhen memorialising that "the people of Tibet are weary of levies and garrisons and have long wished for marriage and peace, while Qinling profits by commanding troops and monopolising power and alone does not wish to submit; if the state sends envoys of peace every year and Qinling constantly refuses, the resentment of his people against him will deepen daily... and this is a beginning of division, by which their rulers and people may grow suspicious and discord arise within", and "the empress dowager thought him much in the right". Of the defence of a city there is the affair of Feihu: the Old Tang History records that "there was then the wife of Gu Xuanying, the Lady Gao, who also held the county town of Feihu and kept it from falling to the Turks", whereupon a decree said that "when Mo-chuo attacked the city all feared it would fall; a man holding it firmly could not yet be sure, but a woman with loyal heart did not shrink from stray arrows, and by this the endangered city was restored to peace. If she is not honoured, how shall others be encouraged? Let the wife of Gu Xuanying be enfeoffed as the lady of the county of Xunzhong".

The Twelve Proposals of Shangyuan, the Achievement of Guo Yuanzhen and the Government of Letters

The twelve proposals of the first year of Shangyuan are the plainest instance of her raising the standing of women: "in the first year of Shangyuan she put forward twelve proposals, among them that the mourning for a mother, where the father still lived, be extended to three years, which was adopted. By the rites before this, where the mother died and the father lived a son mourned her for one year, while where the mother died after the father, or the father died while the mother lived, the mourning was three years in either case. Some scholars hold that to extend the mourning for the mother while the father lived was the most conspicuous act by which Wu Zetian raised the standing of women, her chief motive being to honour women." In the west the achievement was chiefly Guo Yuanzhen's. Zhang Yue's account records that "Tibet and the Turks joined, broke into the western river, took several dozen cities and pressed on Liangzhou, whose governor went out and fell in battle, trampling the crops until a peck of rice cost ten thousand cash. Zetian was then feasting at the gate of the Luo city when the messenger from Liangzhou arrived, and stopped the music and made him governor of Liangzhou and commissioner of the armies of Longyou, calling out fifty thousand men from the Qin region under the name of two hundred thousand and sending them to the western river. Reaching Liangzhou, the Tibetans, who had long heard of his fame, said to one another that 'our Tsenpo himself fears him, how should we stand against him?', and withdrew in a body... and he called out a million two hundred thousand troops of Longyou under the name of two millions and gathered them at Huangzhou, their camps covering a thousand li, with beacon fires for signals. At that time Zong Chuke was chancellor and had long been at odds with him, and had a man accuse him of conspiracy, at which Zetian was in terror and knew not what to do; but Di Renjie, Wei Yuanzhong, Wei Anshi, Li Qiao, Song Jing, Yao Chong, Zhao Yanzhao, Wei Sili and Zhang Yue, twenty-five in all, memorialised to guarantee him, and Zetian was somewhat reassured... and the Tsenpo bowed and sued for peace, offering three thousand horses and thirty thousand catties of gold and countless cattle and sheep." The Old Tang History's life of Guo Yuanzhen records the effect of his government at Liangzhou: "in the first year of Dayu he was transferred to be governor of Liangzhou and commissioner of the armies of Longyou. Before this the territory of Liangzhou was no more than four hundred li from north to south, pressed by the Turks and Tibetans, whose forces came to the city wall every year, to the distress of the people; and Guo Yuanzhen began by setting up the city of Herong at Xiakou on the southern border and the White Pavilion army in the desert on the north, holding the key roads, so that the territory of the prefecture was extended fifteen hundred li and the raiders no longer came to the wall." Her government of letters appears in her own works and those she had compiled: several dozen of her poems survive in the Complete Tang Poems, and her collections, the Chuigong and Golden Wheel collections, "are now lost"; the books she had her scholars compile were "the Pearls of the Three Teachings and the Rules for Ministers"; and "she valued calligraphy and once wrote the names of her ministers in flying white for them; in her reign poetry flourished and laid the ground for the full glory of High Tang verse".

The Burning of the Bright Hall, the Beginnings of Selection and the Restraint of Speech

The Bright Hall, though the institution of an age, also suffered fire: the Comprehensive Mirror records that the monk Huaiyi, "having burned the Bright Hall, was uneasy and often spoke awry", and was afterwards killed by the empress dowager, which shows that the burning came after his insolence; the substance of the Bright Hall has been told already. The beginnings of the selection of officials were three in number: first the palace examination, in which during her power she "examined the candidates in person in the Luocheng hall, which thereafter became a standing rule"; second the military examination, "to select men of military talent"; and third the systems of self-recommendation and trial office, which "allowed officials and commoners to recommend themselves and, once proved in trial, to be formally appointed". These three "broke the monopoly of the gate-valve gentry over office and widened the basis of government". Of the restraint of speech there is a curious contrast with the licence of her later court: on the one hand it was said that "prisons multiplied daily and men were killed like hemp", and on the other that "when the candidate Shen Quanjiao... was seized by the censor Ji Xianzhi, who impeached him for defaming the government and asked that he be flogged in the court and handed to the law, the empress dowager laughed and said that 'if only you are not too many, what need to mind men's words? Let him be pardoned'". Such was the mixture of severity and leniency in her rule.

Personal Relations

• Father: Wu Shiyue, a founding contributor to the Tang dynasty who rose to Minister of Works and Governor of Jingzhou and was enfeoffed as Duke of Ying
• Mother: Lady Yang, descended from the Sui imperial house and daughter of Yang Da, Duke of Suining
• Elder half-brothers: Wu Yuanqing and Wu Yuanshuang, who treated Wu Zetian and her mother disrespectfully and were later demoted
• Cousins: Wu Weiliang and Wu Huaiyun, who were demoted and later executed after becoming implicated in political cases
• Elder sister: Wu Shun, enfeoffed as Lady of Han
• Younger sister: Lady Guo
• Eldest son: Li Hong, appointed crown prince and died suddenly in 675
• Second son: Li Xian, Crown Prince Zhanghuai, deposed and exiled to Bazhou and later forced to commit suicide
• Third son: Li Xian, Emperor Zhongzong of Tang, who twice ascended the throne
• Fourth son: Li Dan, Emperor Ruizong of Tang, who twice ascended the throne
• Daughters: Princess Andingsi, who died in infancy, and Princess Taiping
• Nephews: Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi, who wielded great power under Wu Zhou
• Grandson: Li Longji, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang
• Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin: emperor when Wu Zetian first entered the palace and the ruler who appointed her Cairen
• Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi: Wu Zetian's husband; the pair were known as the “Two Sages”
• Zhangsun Wuji: chancellor under Gaozong who opposed Wu Zetian's elevation to empress and was later demoted and forced to commit suicide
• Chu Suiliang: chancellor under Gaozong who opposed Wu Zetian's elevation and later died in grief after demotion
• Li Ji: leading early-Tang general who declared support for installing Wu Zetian as empress
• Shangguan Yi: executed after proposing that Wu Zetian be deposed
• Di Renjie: one of Wu Zetian's most trusted chancellors; repeatedly remonstrated with her and persuaded her not to make Wu Chengsi crown prince
• Zhang Jianzhi: organizer of the Shenlong Coup who forced Wu Zetian to abdicate
• Lai Junchen: cruel official, later executed
• Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong: Wu Zetian's favored attendants in her later years, killed during the Shenlong Coup
• Princess Taiping: Wu Zetian's favored daughter, who played an important role in the Shenlong Coup

Historical Assessment

Tang / Contemporary

• The Old Book of Tang praised Wu Zetian's policy of promoting talent, noting that she actively opened paths for recommendation, appointed people without hesitation, and even allowed individuals to recommend themselves.
• After his restoration, Emperor Zhongzong Li Xian described Wu Zetian as Empress Zetian Dasheng, saying that she had received the mandate from Heaven and ruled the realm, thereby acknowledging the legitimacy of her government.
• The contemporary official Zhu Jingze criticized the proliferation of political prosecutions and killings under Wu Zetian and directly condemned the abuses of cruel-official politics.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Northern Song historian Sima Guang, in the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, criticized Wu Zetian's broad use of ranks and offices to win support but also acknowledged that she removed or punished those who proved incompetent and praised her decisiveness and ability to employ talented men.
• Southern Song scholar Zhu Xi, in the Outline and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror, associated Wu Zetian with Empress Lü as a major example of female political calamity and adopted a sharply critical view.
• Yuan historian Hu Sanxing, in his commentary on the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, argued that Wu Zetian's wrongdoing could not be concealed but that her abilities were likewise extraordinary.

Ming and Qing Periods

• Ming thinker Li Zhi, in Book to Be Hidden, praised Wu Zetian highly for recognizing and nurturing talent and for keeping the welfare of the people in mind, asking whether many rulers of more recent ages had matched her.
• The late-Ming and early-Qing thinker Wang Fuzhi, in Discussions from Reading the Comprehensive Mirror, strongly condemned Wu Zetian and argued that her wrongdoing went beyond killing members of the Tang imperial house and displacing the Tang calendrical order.
• Qing historian Zhao Yi, in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories, acknowledged that Wu Zetian's willingness to accept remonstrance and her ability to recognize talent were difficult to surpass.

Modern and Contemporary

• Chen Yinke, in A Study of the Li-Wu-Wei-Yang Marriage Group of the Tang Dynasty, interpreted Wu Zetian as a product of political conflict between the Guanzhong-Longxi group and the Shandong group and argued that her rule altered the political configuration inherited from the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties.
• Lü Simian, in History of the Sui, Tang, and Five Dynasties, acknowledged Wu Zetian's cruelty in some matters but argued that her political ability could not be denied.
• Cen Zhongmian, in History of the Sui and Tang, described Wu Zetian as inheriting the legacy of the Zhenguan era and opening the way toward the prosperity of the Kaiyuan era, emphasizing her transitional role between the two periods.
• Huang Yongnian regarded Wu Zetian as having a progressive significance in Chinese history, arguing that her attack on aristocratic clans and expansion of examination recruitment promoted social mobility.