Empress Zhangsun

Biography

Family Background and Early Life

Empress Zhangsun was born on the sixth day of the second month of 601, the first year of Renshou under Emperor Wen of Sui, and was from Luoyang in Henan. Her ancestors were members of the Tuoba imperial house of Northern Wei and received the surname Zhangsun during the reforms of Emperor Xiaowen. As an imperial kin group, the Zhangsun clan produced many prominent figures from Northern Wei through the Sui dynasty.

Her father Zhangsun Cheng was a You Xiaowei Jiangjun of Sui and was celebrated for the feat of "shooting two eagles with one arrow." He distinguished himself in military and diplomatic affairs and spent many years dealing with the Göktürks, using stratagems to divide their constituent groups and contributing greatly to their political fragmentation. The Chinese source states that the Göktürks feared him so much that they compared the sound of his bow to thunder and his galloping horse to lightning, and that his household consequently acquired the sobriquet "Hall of Thunder." Her mother, Lady Gao, was a daughter of Gao Mai, Prince of Le'an of Northern Qi.

Zhangsun was Zhangsun Cheng's youngest daughter. Her uncle Zhangsun Chi greatly admired Lady Dou, wife of Li Yuan, Duke of Tang, and believed that her intelligence meant she would bear remarkable sons. He therefore urged Zhangsun Cheng to form a marriage alliance with the Li family. Soon after the engagement was arranged, however, Zhangsun Cheng died in 609, the fifth year of Daye. The eight-year-old Zhangsun, her full brother Zhangsun Wuji, and their mother Lady Gao were expelled to their maternal relatives by their half-brother Zhangsun Anye. Their maternal uncle Gao Shilian treated his sister and her two children generously.

Marriage and the Taiyuan Years

Zhangsun Wuji and Li Shimin had been friends since youth. Gao Shilian regarded Li Shimin as an exceptional young man and also knew of Zhangsun's childhood engagement. After the mourning period for her father ended, he arranged the marriage. In 613, the ninth year of Daye, the thirteen-year-old Zhangsun married Li Shimin, who was sixteen.

After the marriage, Zhangsun once returned to her natal family in Yongxing Ward. Zhang, a concubine of Gao Shilian, said that she saw a huge horse, two zhang tall and fully saddled and bridled, outside Zhangsun's quarters. Gao Shilian asked for a divination, which produced a reading interpreted to mean that the girl would occupy an exalted position and possess extraordinary nobility.

Not long after this visit, Emperor Yang of Sui launched his second campaign against Goguryeo. Li Shimin's mother Lady Dou fell ill in Zhuo Commandery while accompanying the army and died in the fifth month of 613. The next month, Yang Xuangan rebelled, and Gao Shilian, who was close to the Minister of War Husi Zheng, was exiled. The newly married couple therefore suffered both the death of Li Shimin's mother and the distant exile of Zhangsun's maternal uncle, and the Chinese source describes them as supporting one another through these reverses.

In 616, the twelfth year of Daye, Li Yuan was transferred to the post of You Xiaowei Jiangjun and ordered to serve as pacification commissioner for the Taiyuan circuit. The following year Emperor Yang appointed him garrison commander at Taiyuan. Li Shimin and Zhangsun accompanied him there. With no mother-in-law to guide her and no sisters-in-law to assist her, Zhangsun, still only about seventeen, assumed the responsibilities of managing the Duke of Tang's household. The Chinese source states that she financed the construction of Xuanzhong Temple near Taiyuan and thereby acquired a reputation for benevolence among local people.

As Princess of Qin

In the fifth month of 617, the thirteenth year of Daye, Li Yuan raised his forces, and in the eleventh month he entered Chang'an. In the fifth month of the following year, 618, Li Yuan received the throne and founded the Tang dynasty, changing the era name to Wude. On the seventh day of the sixth month, Li Shimin was enfeoffed as Prince of Qin, and Zhangsun was accordingly invested as Princess of Qin.

The empire had not yet been pacified in the first years of Tang, and Li Shimin was frequently away commanding military campaigns. Zhangsun tried to remove worries from his household, served Li Yuan with filial respect, and won the approval of her imperial father-in-law. Under the pretext of making her biological son Li Tai the heir of Li Xuanba, an early-deceased legitimate son, Li Yuan directly promoted Li Tai to Prince of Wei and Supreme Pillar of State.

Li Shimin campaigned across the realm and successively defeated the forces of Xue Ju and his son, Liu Wuzhou, Song Jingang, Dou Jiande, and Wang Shichong. In 621, the fourth year of Wude, he was appointed Heavenly Strategist General and ranked above the princes and dukes. By then he held several important posts, and his prestige and power approached that of Crown Prince Li Jiancheng. His position aroused suspicion, while members of the Qin princely household had also offended people in the inner palace. The crown prince and Prince of Qi, together with imperial consorts, were said to have joined in speaking against Li Shimin before Emperor Gaozu.

Princess Zhangsun directly attempted to ease these tensions. She frequently entered the palace, served Li Yuan respectfully, maintained relations with the imperial consorts, and tried to repair the rift between her husband and the emperor, preserving support for him within the inner court.

Life as Empress

After the Xuanwu Gate Incident in 626, the ninth year of Wude, Li Shimin was made crown prince and Zhangsun became crown princess. Only thirteen days after Li Shimin took the throne, she was installed as empress.

Empress Zhangsun enjoyed reading books and illustrated records and is said to have kept reading even while dressing and arranging her hair. She was skilled at drawing lessons from past events and often read and discussed history with Emperor Taizong, offering her own judgments in ways that the Chinese source says benefited government. Taizong often discussed state affairs with her. At first she declined to give opinions on the grounds that she was a woman, but after repeated requests she eventually offered him advice.

She repeatedly warned against excessive privilege and urged her brother Zhangsun Wuji, who ranked first among the Twenty-four Meritorious Officials of Lingyan Pavilion, to resign from office. She cautioned that powerful imperial in-laws in earlier dynasties had often harmed the state and that her family should not repeat that pattern. At her request, Emperor Taizong reluctantly reassigned Zhangsun Wuji as Commander Unequalled in Honor. In 633, the seventh year of Zhenguan, Taizong appointed him Minister of Works.

Empress Zhangsun also used her influence with the emperor to protect worthy officials and correct what she regarded as his mistakes. She admired and protected forthright ministers such as Wei Zheng and repeatedly reminded Emperor Taizong to govern humanely. In 634, the eighth year of Zhenguan, she became seriously ill while accompanying the emperor during the summer at Jiucheng Palace. The crown prince requested a general amnesty and the ordination of people into the religious life, and Taizong agreed, but the empress firmly opposed the measure. Taizong therefore instead summoned the monk Tanzang of Puguang Temple to the palace to pray for her recovery, and her condition subsequently improved.

Death and Posthumous Legacy

In 635, the ninth year of Zhenguan, Crown Prince Li Chengqian married Lady Su. Thereafter the deaths in succession of Empress Zhangsun's mother, Lady of the State of Zhao, and of the Retired Emperor Li Yuan brought another severe emotional blow to both Zhangsun and Li Shimin. The grief of the double mourning period triggered a recurrence of an earlier respiratory illness that had repeatedly troubled her, described in the Chinese source as possibly corresponding to what modern medicine calls asthma. Her condition worsened the following year and did not respond to treatment.

In the fourth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan, Li Shimin ordered the restoration of 392 famous ancient temples across the empire to pray for the empress. She nevertheless died on the jimao day of the sixth month of 636 in Lizheng Hall of Taiji Palace, aged thirty-six. She was buried at Zhaoling on the gengyin day of the eleventh month of the same year. Taizong followed her wishes and used a mountain as the tomb site.

Empress Zhangsun wrote ten chapters of Nü Ze (Examples for Women), compiling stories of women from earlier dynasties as models drawn from the virtuous women of antiquity; the work is lost. One poem attributed to her survives, beginning with a description of peach blossoms in the imperial park at morning and continuing with images of willows, dancing butterflies, and singing orioles.

After her death, Li Shimin never appointed another empress. He personally raised two of the children she bore him, Li Zhi, Prince of Jin, and Li Mingda, Princess Jinyang. According to the Chinese source, Princess Jinyang is the only princess presently known from the evidence to have been personally raised by an emperor.

Her Family and Early Years

The lady Zhangsun was the daughter of Zhangsun Sheng, general of the right wing of the guard of the Sui, a Xianbei, a native of Luoyang in Henan, whose childhood name was Guanyinbi, her proper name being unrecorded in history; her mother was a daughter of Gao Mai, governor of Yangzhou under the Sui, and her elder brother was the later chancellor Zhangsun Wuji, born of the same mother. She was born on the sixth day of the second month of the first year of Renshou, lost her father at eight, and was brought up by her mother's brother Gao Shilian; at thirteen she married Li Shimin. From childhood she loved pictures and biographies, taking the good and evil of antiquity as a mirror for herself, and prized propriety and law, being by nature economical and fond of reading, never neglecting it even while dressing. After the founding of the Tang in the first year of Wude she was enfeoffed as Princess Consort of Qin. As the daughter of a general and the descendant of a great house she married the Prince of Qin, and afterwards became known in the histories as a worthy empress of a generation.

The Struggle over the Succession at the End of Wude

At the end of Wude the struggle over the succession between the heir apparent Jiancheng and the Prince of Qi Yuanji on the one hand and the Prince of Qin Shimin on the other grew ever fiercer. Chapter 190 of the Zizhi tongjian records that in his later years Gaozu of Tang had many favourites, with nearly twenty young princes, whose mothers vied in cultivating the elder sons to secure themselves; that Jiancheng and Yuanji sought to please the consorts with flattery and bribes without limit to win the emperor's favour; and that some said there was lewdness with the consorts Zhang Jieyu and Yin Defei, though the secrecy of the palace made it impossible to establish. At that time the households of the eastern palace, of the princes and princesses and of the palace relatives ran wild in Chang'an, doing unlawful things, and the offices did not dare to inquire. Shimin lived in the Chengqian Hall and Yuanji in the rear court of the Wude Hall, passing day and night to the imperial terrace and the eastern palace without restriction; when the heir apparent and the two princes went in and out of the terrace they rode, carrying bows, swords and other things, meeting one another with the courtesy of a family; and the commands of the heir apparent, the instructions of the Princes of Qin and Qi and the edicts of the throne were issued side by side, so that the offices did not know which to obey and went only by the order in which they received them. Shimin alone would not court the consorts, and the consorts therefore vied in praising Jiancheng and Yuanji and belittling Shimin. After Shimin pacified Luoyang the emperor sent several consorts, including the Imperial Consort, to Luoyang to select palace women of the Sui and gather the treasures of the storehouses; and the consorts privately asked Shimin for precious goods and for offices for their kinsmen. Shimin said that the precious goods had all been registered and reported and that offices should be given to the worthy and meritorious, and refused them all, whereby they were the more resentful.

The Slander of the Consorts and the Emperor's Doubt

The struggle over the succession lay not only between brothers but in the palace chambers. Chapter 190 of the Zizhi tongjian also records that Shimin, because the Prince of Huai'an, Shentong, had merit, gave him several tens of qing of land; and that Zhang Jieyu's father asked the emperor for it through his daughter, whereupon the emperor by his own hand granted it, but Shentong would not give it up, since it had been assigned to him earlier by instruction. The Jieyu complained to the emperor that the land granted by his own hand to her father had been taken from him by the Prince of Qin and given to Shentong; and the emperor in anger reproached Shimin, asking whether his own handwritten command were not equal to Shimin's instruction. On another day he told the left vice director Pei Ji that this boy, long in command of troops abroad, had been taught by bookmen and was no longer the son he had been. Yin Defei's father, Ashu, was arrogant and overbearing; and when Du Ruhui, an officer of the Qin household, passed his gate, several of Ashu's servants dragged him from his horse and beat him, breaking a finger, saying: who are you, to pass our gate without dismounting? Ashu, fearing that Shimin would complain to the emperor, first had Defei memorialise that the Prince of Qin's followers had insulted her family; and the emperor again reproached Shimin in anger, saying that if even the household of his consorts was insulted by Shimin's followers, what of the common people? Shimin defended himself earnestly, but the emperor would not believe him. Whenever Shimin attended a banquet in the palace and, before the consorts, thought of the Empress Taimu, who died early and did not live to see the emperor possess the empire, he would sob and weep, at which the emperor looked at him with displeasure; and the consorts therefore secretly slandered Shimin together, saying that with the empire fortunately at peace and the emperor advanced in years he should only be enjoying himself, yet the Prince of Qin alone wept, which was nothing but hatred of them; and that after the emperor's death their sons would certainly not be suffered by the Prince of Qin, not one being left alive. They wept together and said that the heir apparent was benevolent and filial and that if the emperor entrusted them and their sons to him he would surely preserve them. The emperor was moved to sorrow by this; and from that time he had no thought of changing the heir, treating Shimin ever more distantly while Jiancheng and Yuanji grew daily closer. The lady Zhangsun, living in the Qin household, in those years bound the palace to herself without and steadied the household within, her position being one of danger and doubt pressing from every side.

Her Elevation as Empress and Her Conduct in That Position

On the twenty-first day of the eighth month of the ninth year of Wude the lady Zhangsun was made empress. In the ten years that followed, her conduct as empress is recorded in the several books under the heads of economy, love of reading and much beneficial counsel. Chapter 8 of the Gujin nüshi records that the lady Zhangsun was the Empress Wen De of Emperor Taizong of Tang, daughter of Zhangsun Sheng, general of the right wing of the guard of the Sui; that she loved pictures and biographies, taking the good and evil of antiquity as a mirror for herself, and prized propriety and law; and that when she came to Taizong, first as consort of the heir apparent and then as empress, she was by nature economical and read the more, never neglecting it even while dressing. Chapter 3 of the Shuangqiao suibi records that she was benevolent, filial, economical and plain, and fond of reading, often discussing ancient matters at leisure with Taizong and thereby offering much beneficial counsel; that she cherished and raised the children of others more than her own and was loved and revered by all from the consorts downward; and that in instructing her sons she always put humility and frugality first. When the nurse of the heir apparent, thinking the vessels of the eastern palace few, asked to memorialise for more, the empress would not allow it, saying that the heir apparent's trouble was that his virtue was not established and his name not known, and what had he to do with a want of vessels. It is recorded also that when the emperor in anger reproached and punished palace women without cause, the empress would pretend to be angry too and ask to examine them herself, having them bound within; and when the emperor's anger had cooled she would gradually clear them, so that in the palace none was punished unjustly. That one of an empress's rank could plead for palace women and keep the palace free from unjust punishment shows the care of her handling and the benevolence of her intent, worthy of her position.

Her Observance of Rites Even in Grave Illness

The lady Zhangsun had long been subject to an ailment of the breath. In the ninth year of Zhenguan she accompanied the emperor to the Jiucheng Palace, and when Chai Shao and others reported a plot at midnight the emperor put on armour and came out of the pavilion to ask the circumstances; the empress rose and followed despite her illness, and when those about her tried to stop her she said that since the emperor was alarmed, how could she set her own heart at rest. From this her illness grew worse. Afterwards the heir apparent said to her that the physicians and medicines were exhausted and her honoured body was not recovered, and asked to memorialise for an amnesty of prisoners and for the ordination of men to the Daoist and Buddhist orders in hope of blessing. The empress said that life and death were fated and not to be added to by human power; that if cultivating blessing could prolong life, she had never in her life done evil; and that if doing good had no effect, what blessing could be sought; that an amnesty was a great matter of state, and that Buddhism and Daoism were matters in which the emperor merely showed tolerance for foreign teachings, and she had always feared they would injure the substance of government, and how should she disorder the law of the empire for the sake of one woman; she could not do as he said. The heir apparent privately told Fang Xuanling, who reported it to the emperor, and the emperor, grieving for her, wished to grant the amnesty, but the empress firmly stopped him. As her illness grew grave she took leave of the emperor, saying that Fang Xuanling had long served him, was careful and secret, and unless there were some great fault should not be cast off; that her own kin had come to rank and office by the ties of marriage and not by virtue, and so would easily be overturned, and that if he wished to preserve them he should be careful not to place them in posts of authority; that she had done no good in life and begged that the mounds of her grave might not put the empire to expense, but that she might be buried against the hill, with tiles for vessels; and that she wished also that he would draw near to the noble and keep the petty at a distance, receive loyal remonstrance and reject slander, reduce public works and cease from hunting, and then she would die without regret. On the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan the lady Zhangsun died in the Lizheng Hall at the age of thirty-six.

The Reproof of Fang Xuanling and the Memorial of Chu Suiliang

The Empress Zhangsun gave much protection to loyal and good ministers, and the most striking contemporary evidence is the affair of Fang Xuanling being sent home. The Jiu Tang shu, in its life of Fang Xuanling, records that Fang Xuanling, having been sent home from office on some small reproof, Chu Suiliang, vice minister of the chancellery, memorialised that the sovereign is the head and the minister is called the arm, and that when the dragon leaps and the clouds rise they gather without calling, for if the time comes, a thousand years are as morning and evening; that when the emperor was still a commoner his heart was set on saving the drowning and, light sword in hand, he rose for righteousness and pacified all the rebels by his own divine merit, the help of civil government being much owing to those about him, and that among all subjects for diligent heart Fang Xuanling was first. He added that from the beginning of Wude he had taken office and served with loyalty, diligence, reverence and filial piety, to which all men's judgement turned; that the former heir and the Prince of Hailing, relying on wickedness, had troubled the times and made men uneasy, standing in the danger of piled eggs and the urgency of a man hung head down with life hanging on a moment and the body bound but for an instant, yet Fang Xuanling's heart had never changed from first to last; that in the ninth year, when the crisis came and he was driven out and so was kept from the counsels, he still wore the robe of a Daoist and with the Empress Wen De gave help in secret, owing nothing to his duty as a subject; and that at the beginning of Zhenguan, when all things were new and the officials were being sifted for the sovereign, the judgement of men was with him, his merit without equal and his service as of old. He said further that unless the crime were unpardonable and all the gentry agreed, a man could not be lightly cast off for one fault or one error; that if the emperor pitied Fang Xuanling's age and thought little of what he had done, the ancients had admonished great ministers to retire, and he might later follow the old practice and dismiss him with propriety, without loss of good repute; that to drive out a veteran of several decades for a single matter made men talk at large and think it wrong; and that when the Son of Heaven makes much of his great ministers, men do their utmost, while to make light of dismissal leaves all unsure. The phrase in this memorial that he had with the Empress Wen De given help in secret is the most direct evidence in the histories of the part the Empress Zhangsun played at the time of the Xuanwu Gate; for when Fang Xuanling had been driven out and still wore the robe of a Daoist, he helped the empress secretly, and so Chu Suiliang held that he owed nothing to his duty as a subject.

Her Death and the Stages of Her Posthumous Name

The Empress Zhangsun died in the Lizheng Hall on the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan at the age of thirty-six, and was buried at the Zhaoling in the eleventh month of that year. Her name after death was several times added to: in the eighth month of the fifth year of Xianheng she was posthumously named Empress Wen De Sheng, and in the sixth month of the eighth year of Tianbao the honorific Wen Shun Sheng was added. From Wen De to Wen De Sheng and Wen Shun Sheng her posthumous name was thus accumulated in later ages, but her original posthumous name remained always Wen De. In Wang Bo's stele for the Shanjue Temple at Deyang in Yizhou there is a passage saying that Emperor Wen ruled the calendar with eight talents, raising the glory of the Dai fields, while the Empress Wen De, taking the time with the ten rebels, reverently aided the work of Mount Tu, comparing the ten rebels to the worthy ministers of King Wu of Zhou and the work of Mount Tu to the rise of Yu of Xia, whereby it may be seen that the men of Tang ranked the empress, who helped to complete the work of Zhenguan, with the worthy empresses of Zhou and Xia.

The Burial at Zhaoling and the Edict on Frugal Burial

The Empress Zhangsun left word that the mounds of her grave should not put the empire to expense, but that she should be buried against the hill with tiles for vessels. The Jiu Tang shu, in the annals of Taizong, records the edict of the dingsi day of the second month of the eleventh year of Zhenguan: that life is the great virtue of Heaven and Earth, and length of years but one term of short or long; that a living man has a body of seven feet and his years are bounded by a hundred, and that all who hold spirit and breath are alike in this, receiving it from nature and not able to reach beyond it; that therefore the Book of Rites says that a ruler on his accession prepares his inner coffin, and Zhuang Zhou says that nature labours him with a body and death rests him, which is surely the far-seeing of the sages and the deep knowledge of the wise; that since the later ages few rulers have been enlightened, and all have made much of the honour of the yellow canopy, feared the passing of the white colt and been full of taboos, longing for long years and thinking the cloud chariot easy to mount and the sun's wheel able to be stayed, so that, though on different roads, they tend to one end and their blindness is great. The edict further relates that in the last years of the Sui the seas ran wild, jackals and wolves raged and devoured the black-haired people, and that he threw off his sleeves in anger, his heart set on saving the drowning, upheld the righteous army and rescued them from the mire, until by Heaven's regard and the exertions of his ministers he raised his sword and pointed, and the empire was greatly settled; and that this had been his long-cherished purpose and was now accomplished. He said also that he feared that after his death sons and grandsons, accustomed to vulgar ways, would follow the common rites, add fourfold coffins, cut down trees of a hundred years, trouble the people and make the tomb mounds lofty; and that he now made this rule beforehand, that all should be as frugal as possible, and that at the Nine Zong Mountains there should be room only for the coffin, to be gradually completed over the years. The edict ends with the institution of burial of meritorious ministers beside the tomb: that the founding ministers had either the loyalty of oars and rudder, or plans settled in the tent, or bodies broken in the battle line, sharing the perils of the time and completing the great work, and that thinking of former days he could not forget it; that the Han had buried their generals and chancellors beside the imperial tombs and given them the secret vessels of the eastern garden, a deep kindness of faithful remembrance; and that from that time on, when meritorious ministers and close kinsmen and those who had aided the times by their virtue and work should die, they should be granted ground for a tomb and the secret vessels, so that at the time of burial nothing should be wanting. This edict was issued only months after the empress's burial, and its purpose of frugality and burial against the hill answered exactly to her parting words; and the institution of burying the meritorious beside the tomb became a settled usage of the Zhaoling.

The Shoes She Left and the Song of Spring Outing

Of the relics and poems of the Empress Zhangsun some may still be traced. The Ming writer Yao Shilin, in the middle chapter of his Jianzhi bian, records the colophon of Chen Zhongchun: that reading in the library of Xiang Zhiyu at Xiuzhou, his friend Yao Shuxiang brought out for him the shoes left by the Empress Wen De of Tang, drawn by Mi Yuanzhang, with a short colophon on the left signed "your servant Mi Fu", which he judged to have been made when Mi Fu was a court scholar summoned into the inner court to appraise calligraphy and painting, by imperial order; and that the colophon read: at the right are the shoes left by the Empress Wen De of Tang, woven of red feathers and adorned before and after with gold leaves cut into cloud shapes, a foot long, with the soles turned up about three inches, with two ties in the middle and two pearls at the toe, being the ancient shoes with forked toes, drawn and inscribed by your servant Mi Fu. Chen Zhongchun notes further that it was not known how the shoes came to be handed down into the Song and again entered the imperial treasury, or whether Mi Fu copied another original. He records too that when Yao Shuxiang obtained the drawing he wrapped it in ten folds and did not dare treat it lightly, and when men asked to see it, though they offered tens of thousands of cash he would not allow it, saying that the shoes of the Empress Wen De were not the brocade socks of Consort Yang, and were not to be passed about for play like the old woman at Mawei. That the drawing of a pair of shoes should be so revered by the men of letters of the Ming and Qing shows how much respect later ages held for what had belonged to the Empress Zhangsun. Chapter 8 of the Gujin nüshi also records that she once composed a Song of Spring Outing, which the emperor, seeing it, recited and praised with much admiration, the song running: the apricot blossom in the imperial garden bright in the morning sun, the fair lady in the orchid chamber stirred to spring feeling; the new peach by the well steals her colour, the tender willow by the eaves imitates her lightness; among the flowers she goes to and fro watching the dancing butterflies, among the trees she listens to the orioles calling long and short; beneath the trees what need to ask afar, her surpassing elegance has long been famed.

Her Three Sons

The Empress Zhangsun bore three sons: the heir apparent Chengqian, the Prince of Wei Tai, and the Prince of Jin Zhi, afterwards Emperor Gaozong. The Cefu yuangui, in its section on the heir apparent, records that when Chengqian was about to be deposed, the Prince of Wei, Tai, came daily to attend the emperor, who promised him the heirship face to face and told his attendants that Tai had come in the day before and thrown himself into his arms, saying that he was only now at last counted a son of the emperor, and that it was for him a day of new birth; that he had an unworthy son whom, after the emperor's hundred years, he would kill for his sake and hand the state to the Prince of Jin; and that the way of father and son is by nature, so that seeing him thus he pitied him greatly. Chu Suiliang said that the emperor had spoken greatly amiss and begged him to consider and not make an error; asking how, after the emperor's hundred years, the Prince of Wei, holding the government and wielding the state, could kill his own beloved son and hand the state to the Prince of Jin; that the emperor had made Chengqian heir apparent and yet favoured the Prince of Wei with honours beyond Chengqian, and that it was because the line between principal and secondary had not been kept that matters had come to this; that the warning of Yin was not far off and was enough for a mirror; and that if the emperor now made the Prince of Wei heir he should beg him to settle the Prince of Jin elsewhere so that he might be safe. Taizong wept with tears falling and said that he could not, and rising went within. Taizong, thinking the Prince of Jin benevolent and filial, loved him in his heart, and because a stone with auspicious writing found at Taiyuan said that Li Zhi would have ten thousand blessings, he intended him for his heir, though he did not yet speak of it. Tai, knowing well that the emperor loved the Prince of Jin, said to him: you are on good terms with Yuanchang, and now that he has failed, have you no troubled looks? The Prince of Jin was troubled and showed it in his face; and when Taizong wondered and questioned him repeatedly, he at last told him why, and Taizong sighed deeply and had words of regret at having thought of setting up Tai. These turns, though after her death, concerned only the sons she had borne; and the failure of the eldest, Chengqian, the ruin of the Prince of Wei and the elevation of the Prince of Jin became the main thread of politics from the last years of Zhenguan into the beginning of Yonghui.

The Building of the Ci'en Temple and the Imperial Stele

Of the requiems for the Empress Zhangsun after her death the Ci'en Temple is the most notable. Chapter 8 of the Life of the Master of the Law of the Great Ci'en Temple records that when the imperial stele text was completed the Grand Commandant Zhangsun Wuji was sent to proclaim it to the ministers, its words running that from the first framing of heaven and earth and the first ordering of all things, nothing has not borne its form upon the earth beneath and been covered by the blue sky above; and it recalls how the Buddha arose from the palace, with the lotus spreading its surpassing flower, and the divine pool sending up light, preaching the virtuous note in the Deer Park and gathering many men in the dragon palace, blessing the guilty multitudes and raising up men of a perishing generation. Its account of the reason for building the temple says that the Empress Dowager Wen De, leaning on the jade tree and drawing from the jade spring, had a virtue that shone like that of Mount Tu and a light like that of the Gui river, shedding fragrance through the vermilion records and making her excellent rule manifest to the eight quarters, handing down instruction in the purple palace and spreading her noble counsels through ten thousand ages; and that she had suddenly veiled the moon and put away her steadfast radiance, the earth's bond broken and her flourishing traces sunk for ever; and that feeling it as he touched her mirror and looked up the hill, and remembering Zhong You's sigh over a thousand measures and Yeqiu's grief at three losses, his own boundless debt cut to his life's end, and so he had resolved to build and had founded that golden ground. The stele sets out also the site of the temple: behind it the outskirts of Bin, dotted with the brocade of a thousand villages; before it the peer of Mount Zhong, putting up the lotus of a hundred-fathom peak; on the left the eight rivers, whose clear water mirrors the land; on the right nine highways, with feathered canopies flying up to the clouds; a secret region of the celestial treasury and a famous ground of the upper capital; and it treats too of the Master of the Law, Xuanzang, his journey west for the law and his work of translation. Afterwards, on the guihai day of the third month of the spring of the first year of Xianqing, the imperial stele text was completed, and on the following day the Master led the monks of the temple to the palace to give thanks; and on the eighth day of the fourth month, when the emperor's writing of the stele and the mason's cutting were done and it was about to be sent to the temple, the Master led the monks of Ci'en and the monks and nuns of the capital, each providing banners, canopies and flowers, to the Fanglin Gate to receive it; and the court sent the nine sets of music of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and the musicians of the two counties of Chang'an and Wannian to escort it, with banners so low that the lowest rose above the clouds and the shortest of the streamers still brushed the Milky Way, more than three hundred in all, with more than a thousand carriages of music. On the tenth day, the weather being clear and bright, the court ordered the display as before; on the morning of the fourteenth day it was set in motion, the banners and canopies arranged in order, so that from the Fanglin Gate to the Ci'en Temple the thirty li were bright and full; the emperor ascended the tower of the Anfu Gate and looked on with great pleasure, and the scholars and women of the capital who came to see were more than a million. That a temple should be built, a stele made and the whole city's men and women come out to watch because of the empress was one of the splendours of the capital in the early Tang.

The Dunhuang Manuscript and the Offerings of Later Ages

The name of the Empress Zhangsun appears also in the colophon of a Dunhuang manuscript. There is a scroll copied in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan by Daoxuan, a famous monk of the early Tang and first patriarch of the Nanshan school of the Vinaya, as a sutra of "the empress's circulation and offering on behalf of all beings", namely chapter 11 of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra: the scroll is on paper, in its original scroll mounting, complete at head and tail, twenty-five centimetres high and eight hundred and thirty-nine centimetres long, within it the sixth chapter on manifesting illness and the first part of the seventh chapter on the holy conduct; and at the end there is a note reading: in the fifteenth year of Zhenguan, the year being xinchou, on the twenty-eighth day of the fourth month, the empress circulates and offers this for all beings, copied to completion by the monk Daoxuan. The paper is thin, close-grained, fine and yet tough, dyed with Amur cork, its grey-green antiquity showing through; not having been mounted, the chain lines are clearly visible, giving the pristine appearance and charm of early Tang paper; and the whole scroll has broad margins above and below, well-judged blank space and silk lines of well-modulated ink. This scroll was formerly in the collection of Li Shengduo, and scholarship holds that it should be a sutra offered by the Empress Zhangsun of Taizong of Tang, and being from the hand of the famous monk Daoxuan with a clear date and complete head and tail it has attracted wide attention. To copy a sutra and offer it for all beings in the empress's name seems at variance with her lifelong view that life and death are fated and not to be added to by human power and with her refusal to resort to Daoism and Buddhism; yet since the custom of offering on behalf of the dead was then strong in the palace, this scroll may well have been one of the offerings made for her in the palace after the tenth year of Zhenguan.

Her Clan and the Hereditary Offices of the Sui

The Zhangsun were of a noble Xianbei surname and had held office generation after generation since the Northern Wei; her father Zhangsun Sheng was general of the right wing of the guard under the Sui, and among her clan there are figures who may be traced. The Sui shu, in its life of Zhangsun Chi, records that his courtesy name was Zhongguang and that he was the great-grandson of Zhangsun Zhi, Prince Wenxuan of Shangdang; that his grandfather Zhangsun Yu was minister of the court of imperial sacrifices and governor of Jizhou under the Wei; and that his father Zhangsun Si was master of the imperial insignia with the same office and the third rank under the Zhou, governor of Xiong and Jiang and Marquis of Pingyuan. Zhangsun Chi was clever and handsome, well read in many books and skilled in arms. At the beginning of Jiande, when Emperor Wu of the Zhou favoured the Daoist law and loved dark words, seeking men versed in both the classics and history and skilled in discourse to be academicians of the Hall of Penetrating the Way, Zhangsun Chi was among those chosen, moving with the able and widening his knowledge; in the second year of Jiande he was given the magistracy of Cangcheng in Yongzhou and soon changed to that of Zhouzhi, governing two towns with the best record, and was promoted governor of Yao commandery and then master of the imperial controls at court. When Gaozu became regent he raised him to be adjutant of the staff of the chancellorial office, adding the title of grand commander and enfeoffing him as viscount of Yangping with two hundred households; that year, when Wang Qian rebelled, Zhangsun Chi went up the river with the general Wang Changshu of Xinzhou as his vanguard, broke one of Qian's garrisons, settled five commanderies including Chu and He, took the false general the Duke of Jingshan, Yuan Zhen, alive, and for his merit was given the office of master of ceremonies of the third rank. When Gaozu received the abdication, Zhangsun Chi led the officials into the cleared palace first, and that day was given the post of secretary of the inner secretariat and the third rank of the upper ceremonial office, and soon, holding his own post, was made concurrently right common attendant of the eastern palace, passing in and out of both palaces and much trusted, and being careful and thorough in business, so that Gaozu often praised him. Afterwards he was given the post of senior assistant of the left leading guards, sent with the tally on a mission to thirty-six prefectures of the southeastern circuit to abolish or establish prefectures and inspect customs; on his return he was made attendant of the heir apparent, with the added office of remonstrating grand master, and acting magistrate of Chang'an; with the magistrate of Daxing, Liang Pi, he was reckoned equal to his post, though Liang Pi was known for severity while Zhangsun Chi was noted for mildness; he also held the office of the right superintendent of ever-normal granaries, was promoted assistant governor of Yongzhou and changed in fief to viscount of Raoliang; he was made vice minister of the court of state ceremonial and then vice minister of the court of imperial sacrifices, advanced to the third rank of the founding office; was again sent with the tally as inspecting commissioner of the twenty-eight prefectures of the Henan circuit, and on the way was given the post of vice minister of the civil office; in the first year of Daye he was promoted chief minister of the court of judicial review and again commissioner of the southwestern circuit; was raised to be minister of revenue; and when the Tuyuhun raided Zhangye he was ordered to drive them off with five thousand picked cavalry, pursuing them to the Kokonor and returning, and for his merit was given the title of grand master of silver and blue. In the sixth year, when the emperor visited the Jiangdu Palace, Zhangsun Chi was left to hold the eastern capital, holding concurrently the office of general of the left guards of the watch; and that year he died in office at the age of sixty-two with the posthumous name Jing, his son Zhangsun Anshi being usher of the palace. That within one clan fathers, sons and brothers should all be ranked among the famous ministers of the Sui explains how the Zhangsun could be a great house of the metropolitan region at the turn of Sui and Tang.

The Empress Zhangsun in Later Exegesis and Historical Discussion

The deeds of the Empress Zhangsun appear not only in the standard histories but are repeatedly cited in later exegesis of the classics and in historical discussion. Chapter 9 of the Jiangzhai Mao shi jingyan jiangyi, discussing the poem Juan Er, says that the worthy consorts of antiquity did not rest content with small virtues but wished to aid the ruler in what he wished to do, and that this may be called the purpose of a consort; and that the poem was composed because the subjects were on service abroad and the consort thought of them within, so that gathering the cocklebur she thought of the completion of the wine and sweet drink with which to supply her lord's rewards to the toilers. At the end of the discussion it says that the Empress Zhangsun of Tang always spoke to Taizong of Wei Zheng's uprightness, calling him a minister of the altars of state, and protected his worthiness, so that Taizong achieved the excellence of receiving remonstrance, and that she had indeed the surviving spirit of the consorts of antiquity. To compare her praise of Wei Zheng and protection of an upright minister to the sense of Juan Er, of seeking the worthy and examining the officers, shows that the men of Song took her as an example of the purpose of a consort. The imperial collection of the Hall of Delighting in Goodness, in its discussion of the Empress Zhangsun, says that she was indeed the good hope of the inner apartments; that she was benevolent, filial, economical and plain, and from youth fond of reading, aiding the government within and giving much benefit, instructing her sons always to put humility and frugality first, so that Taizong honoured her virtue; and it cites three matters — her congratulations in the robe of ceremony to remonstrate indirectly, the dowry of the princess, and her refusal in illness to resort to Daoism and Buddhism — as evidence of her wisdom. Such arguments are the judgements of later men, but the matters they rest on — the ceremonial congratulations to secure Wei Zheng, the dowry of the Princess of Changle, and her refusal in illness to permit an amnesty and ordinations — agree one by one with what is recorded in the Zhenguan zhengyao, the Jiu Tang shu, the Zizhi tongjian and the Wenzhong ji, and may serve for comparison.

Her "Resting Firm and Upright" and Her Abstention from Government

Later writers on the Empress Zhangsun have mostly made her abstention from government a chief point. The discussion in the imperial collection of the Hall of Delighting in Goodness says that if the Empress Zhangsun did not meddle in government and, though the emperor asked her, never answered in the end, she may be called one who understood the meaning of resting firm and upright; and it cites the Changes, that the mare is of the earth kind and travels the earth without bound, saying that the horse is a creature of the yin and the virtue of the yin is yielding compliance, yet it must be firm and upright to move, and that only when the earth is boundless can it aid the creative and carry its blessing to the world, whereas mere compliance without firmness could not aid the creative way nor spread its rich grace. This argument comes from a Qing brush, yet what later ages praised in her was precisely that she did not overstep her place in the outer court's affairs and did not neglect her duty in the inner: to the emperor's questions she seldom answered directly, but conveyed her meaning through congratulations, through discussions of antiquity and through parting words; toward her own kin she gave warning in advance not to place them in posts of authority; toward loyal and good ministers she gave constant protection; and in the punishments of the palace she saw to it that none was punished unjustly.

The Zhaoling and the Ministers Buried Beside It

The Empress Zhangsun was buried at the Zhaoling, the site being the Nine Zong Mountains. Taizong, following her wish, kept all frugal and made the hill itself the tomb, and he was afterwards buried there too, so that it became the joint tomb of emperor and empress. The ground about the Zhaoling, on the strength of the edict of the eleventh year of Zhenguan on the burial of meritorious ministers beside the tomb, gradually became the burying place of the meritorious of Zhenguan: Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling, Li Jing and Gao Shilian were all buried there, and the sight of the tombs of the meritorious and of close kinsmen facing the tomb hill became a settled usage of the age. Beginning with the empress's burial and continuing with the burial of the meritorious beside her, the making of the Zhaoling corresponded to the relations of sovereign and ministers throughout the Zhenguan reign: the empress left word that she wished to be buried against the hill with tiles for vessels, and the emperor's edict said that at the Nine Zong Mountains there should be room only for the coffin, while at the same time, saying that the Han had buried their generals and chancellors beside the imperial tombs and given them the secret vessels of the eastern garden in a deep kindness of faithful remembrance, he established the institution of burial beside the tomb, so that they might dwell side by side and look upon one another, which he thought well. In the arrangements after death he both followed the principle of frugality and preserved the meaning of sovereign and ministers keeping one another company, which was one side of the politics of Zhenguan.

The Palace After Her Death and Taizong's Mourning

The Empress Zhangsun died in the Lizheng Hall on the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan at the age of thirty-six, and was buried at the Zhaoling in the eleventh month of that year. Taizong's mourning for her is recorded in several books: the palace women presented the thirty chapters of the Rules for Women, and Taizong, reading it, was grief-stricken and showed it to those about him, saying that this book was enough to be a model for a hundred generations, and again that he did not fail to know the decree of Heaven, and that his was an unprofitable grief, but that in the palace he would no more hear words of remonstrance and had lost a good help, which he could not forget; and he called Fang Xuanling back and restored him to office. The women of the inner palace all mourned her. Taizong never made another empress, and the affairs of the palace mostly followed the old ways; and his struggles over the succession in his later years, the failure of the heir apparent Chengqian, the ruin of the Prince of Wei Tai and the elevation of the Prince of Jin Zhi, all lay among her sons. From the tenth year of Zhenguan to Taizong's death in the twenty-third, the changes of the palace through fourteen years mostly concerned the sons she had borne, and the teaching she had given them in life to put humility and frugality first never in the end closed the rift between the brothers, which was the regret left behind her.

Her Birth, Her Titles and the Order of Her Elevation

The lady Zhangsun was born on the sixth day of the second month of the first year of Renshou; after the founding of the Tang in the first year of Wude she was enfeoffed as Princess Consort of Qin. After the Xuanwu Gate affair in the sixth month of the ninth year of Wude, Li Shimin first became heir apparent, and in the eighth month took the throne; and on the twenty-first day of that same month the lady Zhangsun was formally made empress, no more than some ten days after his accession. So swift an elevation answered to her work in mediating within the imperial house and steadying the morale of the army at the end of Wude: since the Qin household had settled the succession by arms, the position of the empress had also to be settled quickly to quiet all within and without. Her proper name is not recorded in history, her childhood name being Guanyinbi; her posthumous name was first Wen De and was afterwards accumulated into Wen De Sheng and Wen Shun Sheng, while her original style remained always Empress Wen De.

Her Elevation and the Course of Her Position

The lady Zhangsun was made empress in the eighth month of the ninth year of Wude and died in the fifth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan, holding the position for nine months short of eleven years. The course of her position ran together with the sons she bore: in the year after her elevation the heir apparent Chengqian was born, who became heir apparent on Taizong's accession, and afterwards she bore the Prince of Wei Tai and the Prince of Jin Zhi. In those years Taizong's outer government steadily expanded, while the affairs of the inner palace were chiefly her abstention from government and her care to correct. At her death Taizong made no other empress; and the changes of the palace through the fourteen years that followed all lay among her sons. Thus the court of the Zhenguan reign in its palace has two stages: the earlier turning on the Empress Wen De's presence, the later on the rivalry of her sons, and the turn between them was the mourning of the tenth year of Zhenguan.

Major Activities

Political Activity

During her tenure as empress, Zhangsun repeatedly used historical analogies to correct Li Shimin's errors in government. One well-known account describes her protecting Wei Zheng through an admonition delivered in formal court dress. When Taizong returned in anger after Wei Zheng had remonstrated with him, the empress dressed in court robes and offered congratulations, explaining that an enlightened ruler produced upright ministers. This changed Taizong's anger into pleasure. Shortly before her death, she also pleaded for the demoted Fang Xuanling and asked the emperor to continue employing him.

She repeatedly warned against overfull privilege and urged Zhangsun Wuji to resign in order to avoid suspicion, stressing that powerful imperial relatives had often harmed earlier states. At her repeated request, Zhangsun Wuji was allowed to withdraw from the highest executive office while retaining generous rank and emoluments. She also used her influence to support upright officials. The Chinese source credits these actions with contributing to the Zhenguan era of good government.

Travels and Residences

In her early years Zhangsun lived with her husband's family at Taiyuan, where the source says she financed the construction of Xuanzhong Temple. In 634, the eighth year of Zhenguan, she accompanied Emperor Taizong during the summer at Jiucheng Palace. On an earlier imperial visit to Taiyuan, when she became ill, Taizong personally visited Shibi Temple, paid respects to a Chan master, and donated valuable possessions as offerings and prayers for his wife's recovery. In the fourth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan, he ordered the restoration of 392 famous ancient temples throughout the empire to pray for her.

Family Life

Empress Zhangsun and Emperor Taizong are described in the Chinese source as having had a close marital relationship. Among Taizong's consorts, she bore the largest number of children, three sons and four daughters, seven in all. Taizong's first son, Crown Prince Li Chengqian, and his last daughter, Princess Xincheng, were both her children. She twice performed the imperial sericulture ceremony and actively carried out the ritual duties of an empress.

Writings

Empress Zhangsun enjoyed reading classics and illustrated records and often discussed historical matters with Emperor Taizong. She wrote ten chapters of Nü Ze (Examples for Women), compiling stories of women from earlier periods as models of virtue; the work is lost. A poem titled Chunyou Qu is also preserved under her name.

The Princess Consort of Qin as Mediator

When the struggle over the succession was at its hottest the lady Zhangsun, as Princess Consort of Qin, went into the palace to mediate in the relations of the imperial house and to win support for the Qin household. What made this possible was precisely that she took no part in outside affairs while enjoying the confidence of Gaozu and the consorts: she served those above her with reverence and treated those below with generosity, and was skilled in using antiquity to instruct the present, so that though she stood in a place of suspicion she could still move among them. In Gaozu's time the Qin household was repeatedly slandered and its officers often driven out, yet the lady Zhangsun always held to the greater interest from within, keeping the household joined within and without. On the day of the Xuanwu Gate affair she again encouraged the officers and men in person to steady their morale. Of the words and deeds of one woman in a time when father and sons and brothers doubted one another the histories record little in detail, yet in the founding of the Zhenguan reign she had her part.

The Plots of Li Yuanji and the Danger of the Qin Household

The struggle sharpened into designs of arms, the details of which are in the Jiu Tang shu's life of Li Yuanji: when Gaozu was about to escape the heat at the Taihe Palace and the two princes were to accompany him, Yuanji told Jiancheng that on reaching the palace they should raise picked troops and seize him, putting him in an earthen cellar with a single hole for food. It happened that the Turkic Yusheshe camped south of the river and besieged Wucheng, and Jiancheng therefore recommended Yuanji to take the present emperor's place in command of the northern campaign, and had the brave officers of the Qin household, Qin Shubao, Yuchi Jingde, Cheng Zhijie and Duan Zhixuan, all accompany him; he also called up the rolls of the Qin household troops, reviewing the brave to take the present emperor's soldiers and increase his own establishment; and he slandered Du Ruhui and Fang Xuanling and had them sent home. Gaozu knew of the plot but did not check it. Yuanji then secretly asked leave to kill the present emperor, and Gaozu said that he had the merit of settling the four seas and no crime appeared, and if they wished to kill him at once, what would they say for it. Yuanji answered that the Prince of Qin had often disobeyed edicts, that when he first pacified the eastern capital he had been insolent and waited, not returning to the capital at once, and had scattered money and silk to plant private favour; that such disobedience was surely rebellion; and that they need only kill him quickly, and need not worry about a pretext. Gaozu made no answer, and Yuanji withdrew. Jiancheng then told Yuanji that once they had the Prince of Qin's picked troops and commanded tens of thousands, he and the Prince of Qin should go to the Kunming Pool, and there at a farewell banquet have braves seize him in the tent and say he died suddenly, which the emperor would surely believe; that he would have men petition to have the government entrusted to him; and that when he was enthroned he would make Yuanji the grand brother; and that once Jingde and the rest were in Yuanji's hands they could be buried at once and none would dare to disobey. The assistant of the garrison, Wang Zhi, heard the plot and secretly informed the present emperor. With the Qin household in such danger, the lady Zhangsun's moving among them was one link in its survival.

The Robe of Ceremony and Her Support of Wei Zheng

The lady Zhangsun was skilled in using antiquity to instruct the present and so correcting Taizong's faults; her most famous act is the remonstrance in the robe of ceremony. As the tradition recorded in the imperial collection of the Hall of Delighting in Goodness recounts: Taizong returned from court in anger, saying that he would kill this bumpkin; and when the empress asked who it was, the emperor said Wei Zheng. The empress then withdrew, put on her robe of ceremony and offered her congratulations to the emperor, saying that she had heard that when the sovereign is sage the ministers are upright, and that this was because of the emperor's own sagacity, and that she did not presume not to congratulate him. At this the emperor was pleased, and there was nothing Wei Zheng said that he would not hear. Again, in the sixth year of Zhenguan, when the Princess of Changle was to be married and Taizong, loving her greatly as the empress's own daughter, ordered the offices to send her off with a dowry double that of the Grand Princess of Yongjia, Wei Zheng remonstrated, saying that when Emperor Ming of the Han wished to enfeoff his sons he said that his sons could not be compared with the sons of the former emperor and had them all given half of Chu and Huaiyang, and that to send off a princess with double the portion of a grand princess was no different from Emperor Ming's case. Taizong agreed with his words and told the empress, who sighed and said that she had heard the emperor speak highly of Wei Zheng without knowing why, but that now, seeing him cite propriety and righteousness to check the feelings of a sovereign, she knew him for a true minister of the altars of state; that she, though bound to the emperor as wife from youth and made much of, still watched his countenance before every word and did not dare lightly offend his majesty; and that if a subject far removed could speak so boldly, the emperor could not but follow him. She therefore asked to send a palace messenger with four hundred in cash and four hundred bolts of silk and cloth to Wei Zheng, and to say to him that she had heard of his uprightness and now saw it, and had therefore rewarded him, and that he should always hold to that mind and never shift it.

The Affair of the Prince of Yue and the Dignity of the Ministers of the Third Rank

In the tenth year of Zhenguan another affair shows her help as empress. The Zhenguan zhengyao, in its chapter on upright remonstrance, records that the Prince of Yue, born of the Empress Zhangsun and younger brother of the heir apparent, was of surpassing intelligence and especially favoured by Taizong; and that someone said that the ministers of the third rank and above all slighted the prince, the intent being to slander the palace attendant Wei Zheng and the others and provoke the emperor's anger. The emperor held court in the Qizheng Hall, called in those of the third rank and above and, having seated them, said in great anger and with a changed countenance that he had a word for them: that formerly the Son of Heaven was the Son of Heaven, and was not the Son of Heaven of today also the Son of Heaven? that formerly the sons of the Son of Heaven were the sons of the Son of Heaven, and were the emperor's sons of today not also the sons of the Son of Heaven? that he had seen the princes of the Sui house before whom even the high officials were not spared humiliation; that he himself would not allow his sons to run wild, but that they, taking him lightly, could jointly slight them; and that if he let his sons loose, could they not humble them? Fang Xuanling and the others trembled and all bowed in apology; but Wei Zheng answered uprightly that none of the ministers of the day could be slighting the Prince of Yue, yet by the rites a subject and a son stood in the same case, and the tradition said that though a king's man were of low degree he was ranked above the lords; that a lord who employed him as a duke made him a duke and one who employed him as a minister made him a minister, and if he were not made a duke or minister he stood below the lords; that those of the third rank and above were ranked among the dukes and ministers and were all great ministers of the Son of Heaven, whom the emperor himself treated with honour; that even if they had some small fault, how could the Prince of Yue go so far as to humble them; that if the discipline of the state were ruined he did not know; but that in the present enlightened age how could the Prince of Yue do such a thing; and that Gaozu of the Sui, not knowing propriety and righteousness, had loved and raised his princes and let them act without propriety and afterwards punished and degraded them, which was no model and not worth speaking of. Hearing his words, Taizong was delighted and said to the ministers that when a man's words come to the truth one cannot but yield; that what he himself had said was private affection for his own person, while what Wei Zheng argued was the great law of the state; that in his anger he had thought his own position beyond doubt, and only on hearing Wei Zheng's argument perceived how far from reason it was, and that a sovereign's words could not be spoken lightly. He then called Fang Xuanling and the others and reproved them sharply, and gave Wei Zheng a thousand bolts of silk. The Prince of Yue was a son born of the empress, yet the empress never set aside the law of the state for private affection; this affair, with the dowry of the Princess of Changle and the rewards to Wei Zheng, became an example of the way the receiving of remonstrance and the ordering of the inner palace supported each other in the Zhenguan reign.

The Purpose of the Women's Rules and the Argument on Empress Ma of Han

Of the writings of the Empress Zhangsun the most notable is the thirty chapters of the Rules for Women. Chapter 3 of the Shuangqiao suibi records that she gathered the successes and failures of women of antiquity into thirty chapters of Rules for Women, and that she wrote also a discussion criticising Empress Ma, the Mingde empress of the Han, for being unable to restrain the power of her kin, admonishing them only that their carriages were like flowing water and their horses like dragons, which was to open the source of disaster and forbid only its last flow. Afterwards the palace women presented the book to the throne, and Taizong, reading it, was grief-stricken and showed it to those about him, saying that this book was enough to be a model for a hundred generations; that he did not fail to know the decree of Heaven, and his was an unprofitable grief, but that in the palace he would no more hear words of remonstrance and had lost a good help, which he could not forget. He then called Fang Xuanling back and restored him to office. The Rules for Women took the successes and failures of past women as a mirror and warning, and its argument gave particular weight to restraining the power of the maternal kin: it held that Empress Ma of the Han could only warn against the splendour of their carriages and horses, without being able to restrain the power of her kin, and so opened the source of disaster while checking only its last flow. This argument answers to her parting words, that her own kin had come to rank and office by the ties of marriage and not by virtue, and so would easily be overturned, and that if the emperor wished to preserve them he should be careful not to put them in posts of authority; from which may be seen how deeply she had thought about the danger of the power of the maternal house.

The Ten Years of Correction from the Empress's Seat

In the ten years of her position the Empress Zhangsun corrected many of the faults of Taizong's government, mostly by using antiquity to instruct the present. The Gujin nüshi records that she once composed a Song of Spring Outing; the Shuangqiao suibi records that she often discussed ancient matters at leisure with Taizong and thereby offered much beneficial counsel; and chapter 5 of the Ming edition of the Biographies of Women records that she was filial, economical and plain and fond of reading, that she often discussed ancient matters with the emperor and so offered much beneficial counsel, and that when the emperor in anger punished palace women without cause she would pretend anger too and ask to examine them herself, having them bound within, and when his anger had cooled would gradually clear them, so that in the palace none was punished unjustly. The same work records that when Fang Xuanling was sent home on a reproof, she knew in her heart that he was worthy and, being gravely ill and taking leave of the emperor, said that Fang Xuanling had served him long, was careful and secret, and had never divulged a single secret plan, and that unless there were some great fault he should not be cast off; and that she wished the emperor to draw near to the noble and keep the petty at a distance, receive loyal remonstrance, reject slander, reduce labour service and cease from hunting, and then she would die without regret even in the nine springs. Her recommending and protecting of loyal and outspoken men was mostly of this kind. Seen from the two sides of unjust punishment in the palace being prevented and loyal remonstrance being protected, she had power to protect both the punishments within and the worthy without, and her method in all was gentle persuasion, so that she did not meddle in government yet never failed in what was right.

Her Kin and the Preservation of the Maternal House

Among the kin of the Empress Zhangsun the most eminent was Zhangsun Wuji, her elder brother by the same mother, who from the Qin household to the Zhenguan reign stood among the chief ministers. The Xin Tang shu, in its life of Zhangsun Wuji, records that the emperor wished the meritorious ministers to hold their prefectures hereditarily, and in the eleventh year of Zhenguan issued an edict to the offices saying that by the favour of the bright spirits and the strength of worthy helpers he had cut down many difficulties and cleared the empire; that when the times were troubled he had shared their strength, and that to enjoy the profit alone in a peaceful age he would not do; that a prefect was the ancient feudal lord, different in name but one in governing; that Wuji and the others had righteousness running through their fortunes with his, and their loyalty stood out in danger and ease, their excellent merits and noble achievements being set down in his heart; and that their lands should be changed and the hereditary principle applied. Zhangsun Wuji was accordingly made prefect of Zhao with Zhao as his ducal state; Fang Xuanling prefect of Song with Liang; Du Ruhui, posthumously, prefect of Mi with Lai; Li Jing prefect of Pu with Wei; Gao Shilian prefect of Shen with Shen; Hou Junji prefect of Chen with Chen; Daozong prefect of E and Prince of Jiangxia; Xiaogong prefect of Guan and Prince of Hejian; Yuchi Jingde prefect of Xuan with E; Li Ji prefect of Qi with Ying; Duan Zhixuan prefect of Jin with Bao; Cheng Zhijie prefect of Pu with Lu; Liu Hongji prefect of Lang with Kui; and Zhang Liang prefect of Li with Yun, fourteen in all. Zhangsun Wuji and the others declined, saying that they had hacked through thorns to serve the emperor and that now the four seas were one they truly did not wish to be sent far from his side to govern outer prefectures for generations, like men in exile. The emperor said that to divide the land and enfeoff the meritorious was meant to make their heirs for ever a fence for the state, and that to think lightly of the oath of the mountains and rivers and turn to resentment would be wrong, and that he could not force principalities upon them. And so the matter was dropped. The edict was issued a year after the empress's death, and that her brother, as the sovereign's maternal uncle and a founder, could still join the other ministers in declining a fief answered to her parting words that her kin should not be placed in posts of authority; and the preservation of her house through the Zhenguan reign was in some measure deliberate.

The Restraint of the Palace and Her Abstention from Government

In the government of the time the Empress Zhangsun always kept the rule of not presuming to meddle. The discussion recorded in the imperial collection of the Hall of Delighting in Goodness says that if the Empress Zhangsun did not meddle in government and, though the emperor asked her, never answered in the end, she may be called one who understood the meaning of resting firm and upright; and that her conduct over the dowry of the princess, her remonstrance to secure the upright minister, and her refusal in illness to resort to Daoism and Buddhism were especially wise. Though these words come from a later discussion, the three matters they point to — the dowry of the Princess of Changle, the remonstrance to secure Wei Zheng, and her refusal of Daoism and Buddhism in illness — are all matters of fact recorded in the histories. She seldom answered the emperor's questions directly, but conveyed her meaning through congratulations, through discussions of antiquity and through parting words, so that the effect of her correction was marked while no suspicion of meddling was heard; and toward the punishments of the palace she pretended anger and asked to examine the cases herself, while toward the worthy of the outer court she knew them in her heart and recommended them, using influence without the appearance of using it. This was why she was trusted by Taizong from first to last.

The Debate on Temple Music and the Dance of Brightness

Of the rites after her death the debate on the music of her temple is especially traceable. The Complete Tang Prose contains Xu Jingzong's deliberation on the music of the ancestral temple, which says that the seven temples display virtue and their meaning crowns the sacrifices of the ancestral house; that the three ancestors are in heaven and their solemn worship is thereby made manifest; that the feeling of reverence is thereby fully expressed and the way of great filial piety proclaimed; and that therefore the eight rows are set out in full, marshalling the forms in ordered ranks, and the four sets of bells displayed, investing the great emblem in noble music. Its list provides that the music for the three temples of the imperial ancestor the Lord of Hongnong, the Duke Xuanjian and the King Yi should all perform the Dance of Long Growth; that for the temple of Taizu, Emperor Jing, the Dance of the Great Foundation; that for Shizu, Emperor Yuan, the Dance of Great Completion; that for Gaozu, Emperor Taiwu, the Dance of Great Brightness; and that for the temple of the Empress Wen De the Dance of Brightness, with the temple hymns sung for each chamber in turn. The same volume contains Yan Shigu's deliberation, which says that having lately received the imperial word to reform and establish noble names he ought duly to comply, and that the Empress Wen De bore all things in her great virtue and shone in splendour like the heavens; that the Book of Changes says that containing, broad and bright, all things attain their growth, meaning that the way of the earth is perfectly still, yielding and compliant, beneficial and firm, nourishing all kinds of things so that they flourish; and that the music of her temple should perform the Dance of Brightness. To name the music of her temple after brightness, taking the sense of the Changes' "containing, broad and bright", answered to her lifelong practice of yielding compliance, benefit and firmness and the nourishing of all things; and that the music of her temple should stand among the seven temples shows her place in the ritual system of the Tang house.

Taizong's Teaching of His Sons and the Memorials of Liu Ji and Chu Suiliang

After the death of the Empress Zhangsun the education of the heir apparent she had borne became a matter much spoken of by the ministers. The Jiu Tang shu, in its life of Liu Ji, records that when the heir apparent had just been established, Liu Ji held that the worthy should be honoured and the way valued, and memorialised that to receive the four quarters at the suburban sacrifices was how the eldest son completed his virtue; that to sit in the study of learning and yield three times was how the good heir achieved his firmness; and that all this meant bending the honour of the lord of sacrifices and extending the right of intercourse with those below. He said further that the heir apparent is bound to the ancestral line, and that in the matter of good and evil lies rise and fall; that if diligence is wanting at the beginning, regret comes at the end; and that therefore Chao Cuo memorialised that he should first master the art of government, and Jia Yi offered his plan that he should be early taught the rules of propriety. His memorial raised three doubts: that the emperor, though at rest, rested not, was day by day more careful, read books in the second watch of the night, and unrolled scrolls on horseback, yet suffered the heir apparent to idle away his days without studying books; that the emperor, at leisure from government, gave himself to carving phrases and inscribed jade characters in immortal script, yet the heir apparent dwelt at ease and sought no writings; and that the emperor, in the intervals of holding court, received the assembled officials and asked them of the past and present, yet kept the heir apparent long in attendance and out of the company of upright men. From this time an edict ordered Liu Ji, with Cen Wenwen and Ma Zhou, to go by turns each day to the eastern palace to converse with the heir apparent. The Jiu Tang shu's life of Chu Suiliang records further that in the twentieth year of Zhenguan Taizong set up a separate court beside his own sleeping chamber and made the heir apparent live there, forbidding him absolutely to go to the eastern palace; whereupon Chu Suiliang again memorialised, saying that in the Zhou the heir asked after his father's health and retired after three visits, and that the Han heir looked to the emperor's meals and came every five days, and that the ancients had set these rules with far-sighted scale; and that for the heir to remain close to the knee and dwell always in the inner palace meant that the teaching of the tutors had no course and the talk of the classics nothing at all; that friends must not be too intimate, for deep intimacy breeds resentment, and that father and son must not be too fondly attached, for pent-up affection may breed fault; and that he begged the emperor to look far back to Yin and Zhou and near to Han and Wei, not to change everything at once but to proceed by degrees, reckoning that in ten days he should send the heir back to his palace for half of them to learn the arts for himself and spread a good name through the empire, and then the minister would die content, as if he had lived. Both memorials turn on the education of the heir apparent, and since the heir was born of the Empress Zhangsun, the chief business of the court after her death still turned on her sons.

Her Remaining Traces and the Sources of the Record

The deeds of the Empress Zhangsun are scattered through the two Tang histories, the Zizhi tongjian, the Zhenguan zhengyao, the Cefu yuangui and the stele biographies of the men of Tang, while the details of her conduct appear mostly in the records of later ages. Chapter 8 of the Gujin nüshi, chapter 3 of the Shuangqiao suibi, chapter 5 of the Ming edition of the Biographies of Women and chapter 5 of the imperial collection of the Hall of Delighting in Goodness all record her deeds, with greater or less fullness: some dwelling on her grave illness and her parting words to Taizong, some on the remonstrance in the robe of ceremony, the dowry of the Princess of Changle and the securing of Wei Zheng, and some on the making of the Rules for Women and the performance of her temple music. The course of her life and the accumulation of her names appear in Mi Fu's colophon on the drawing of her shoes and in the record of the Jianzhi bian: that the Empress Zhangsun of Taizong of Tang was made empress on the twenty-first day of the eighth month of the ninth year of Wude, died in the Lizheng Hall on the twenty-sixth day of the fifth month of the tenth year of Zhenguan at thirty-six, was buried at the Zhaoling on the Nine Zong Mountains, was posthumously named Empress Wen De Sheng in the eighth month of the fifth year of Xianheng, and had the honorific Wen Shun Sheng added in the sixth month of the eighth year of Tianbao. The several books differ in fullness and detail, yet her benevolence, filial piety, frugality and plainness, her love of reading, her skill in using antiquity to offer counsel and her protection of loyal and good ministers are the same through a thousand years. As to the statements that her proper name is not recorded in history and that her childhood name was Guanyinbi, these come from the traditions on which the sources rest; and the transmission of her life and the admiration of later ages may thus be seen in outline.

The Shanji Temple Stele and the Prayer in the Empress's Illness

The empress's illness and Taizong's prayers for her survive in Tang stele texts. Wang Bo's stele for the Shanji Temple at Deyang in Yizhou records that Emperor Wen ruled the calendar with eight talents, raising the glory of the Dai fields, while the Empress Wen De, taking the time with the ten rebels, reverently aided the work of Mount Tu; and that the late emperor inherited the work and ruled from the imperial seat in Zhenguan, presenting the civil objects to the three heavens and spreading his fame through the ten regions, gathering the host of spirits in his bosom and holding the books in his grasp, so that the imperial treasure descended and the earth's tallies rose, and living things had no fear of drowning while the assemblies of the law looked for deliverance. The stele then relates her illness and the prayer: presently the rear court was stricken with plague, the pepper chamber made solemn divination, the six palaces trembled and the three spirits stared in dismay; jade and silk were sent and offerings made to the ancestral host, but the green draught and the dark needle found no proof in any art; whereupon the emperor, looking down in reconsidered mind, put aside the jade discs and the sceptre, sought the traces of victory in the numinous pass and the good cause in the blessed ground; and so the sacred edict was issued and the temple again opened, a pillar of jasper set up where all was falling and the silver cord made fast where it was already broken; and when the silk commands were settled and the beams and walls had gone round, the earth's virtue had rest and the feminine order was bright again. Then the master of the forests gave out the rule, the officers of Zhou measured the work of choosing days, the carpenters and craftsmen plied the axe, and the skill of the men of Jing was tempered into the wind; with doubled pillars and painted brackets rising into the sky, and the painted chamber of the side trees overlooking the rainbow's eaves. The stele uses "the rear court stricken with plague" and "the six palaces trembling" to describe the empress's illness, and "putting aside the jade discs and the sceptre" and "the good cause in the blessed ground" to describe the emperor's building of a temple to pray for her healing, and "the earth's virtue had rest and the feminine order was bright again" to describe the ending of her illness and the calming of the palace. Though the words are those of praise, the building of a Buddhist temple for the empress's illness in the Zhenguan years has here a documentary witness. Taken with the building of the Ci'en Temple and the circulation and offering of the Dunhuang manuscript, it shows how the empress's illness and death affected the relations between the court and Buddhism at that time.

The Burials Beside the Zhaoling and the Institution for Meritorious Ministers

The burial of the Empress Zhangsun answered to her wish to be buried against the hill with tiles for vessels, and not long after, Taizong issued the edict on the burial of meritorious ministers beside the tomb, the details of which have been given above. The edict of the dingsi day of the second month of the eleventh year of Zhenguan recorded in the Jiu Tang shu's annals of Taizong, after saying that he now made this rule beforehand, that all should be as frugal as possible and that at the Nine Zong Mountains there should be room only for the coffin, goes on that the founding ministers had either the loyalty of oars and rudder, or plans settled in the tent, or bodies broken in the battle line, sharing the perils of the time and completing the great work, and that thinking of former days he could not forget it; that the Han had buried their generals and chancellors beside the imperial tombs and given them the secret vessels of the eastern garden, a deep kindness of faithful remembrance, and that the ancients were no different from himself; and that from that time on, when meritorious ministers and close kinsmen and those who had aided the times by virtue and work should die, they should be granted ground for a tomb and the secret vessels, so that at the burial nothing should be wanting, and the offices should prepare accordingly and satisfy his intent. The institution of burial beside the tomb set up by this edict made the ground about the Zhaoling gradually become the burying place of the meritorious ministers of Zhenguan, and afterwards Fang Xuanling and Wei Zheng and others were buried there. That the emperor should on the empress's wish issue an edict of frugal burial for himself, and then establish the burial of meritorious ministers beside the tomb as a settled usage of the age, both went back to the mourning of the empress in the tenth year of Zhenguan.

The Empress and the Ministers of the Zhenguan Court

There is much to be said of the relations between the Empress Zhangsun and the great ministers of the Zhenguan court. Toward Fang Xuanling, her secret help is recorded in Chu Suiliang's memorial, and his recall from being sent home in her last words and in the presentation of her Rules for Women; toward Wei Zheng, her congratulations in the robe of ceremony to secure an upright minister, and her sending of gifts after the remonstrance on the princess's dowry; toward Zhangsun Wuji, her own elder brother, who as the sovereign's maternal uncle aided the founding and the government, while her parting words warned her family alone not to be placed in posts of authority; toward Gao Shilian, her mother's brother, who had brought her up and in his later years was a chancellor; and toward Chu Suiliang and Liu Ji, whose memorials on the education of the heir apparent came after her death but still concerned her son. In all these may be seen that though she had no part in the government of the outer court, she had settled views on the protection of the loyal and good and on the restraint of her own kin.

The Heir Apparent's Lectures at the Hongwen Hall

In the last years of the Empress Zhangsun's life her son was heir apparent, and there are matters of the eastern palace that may be traced. Chapter 13 of the Xu gaoseng zhuan records that in the autumn of the eighth year of Zhenguan the heir apparent summoned the learned monks to the Hongwen Hall to expound the sutras, and the Master of the Law Daoyue opened the roads of doctrine widely, answering the assembled guests and turning aside their questions so that the sacred meaning was made manifest; and the heir apparent, turning, asked who this master was whose eloquence was such, and the left common attendant Du Zhenglun answered that he was the Master of the Law Daoyue of the Great Dharanis Temple, a model of the tracks of the law and one to whom the schools looked. The heir apparent said that the emperor had built a temple for him and summoned the famous and virtuous in numbers, yet this venerable had not been invited, and asked why. Du Zhenglun answered with the example of Yu Shun preserving Xu You's integrity and Yu of Xia yielding to Bocheng's purpose, and said that for men outside the world and men who had cast off fame he had himself followed their preferences. The heir apparent then gave the order that he should be prevailed on to take charge of the temple, to answer his own open mind; and Daoyue, with a changed countenance, declined, saying that the emperor, deeply mindful of the root, had turned in devotion to the seeds of enlightenment, and had therefore examined this blessed ground, built this temple of benevolence and summoned widely monks without contention to plant a work without bounds; but that his own measure of understanding was not broad and his virtue and conduct without rule, and that to be given charge of the temple truly made him uneasy, and he begged indulgence for his refusal. Refusing repeatedly he could not escape it, and so he took up residence in the Puguang Temple. In the second month of the spring of the tenth year of Zhenguan Daoyue fell ill and lay dying, and no treatment availed; the messengers of the eastern palace were seen in unbroken succession on the road, and he died in the temple where he lived at the age of sixty-nine. The heir apparent gave orders that for the funeral of the abbot of the Puguang Temple whatever was needed should be supplied by the household office, so that it should be ample and not scanty, and he also gave silk and clothing for the season; and presently an edict followed, and the funeral rites were again provided at public expense, with burial southwest of the Ducheng in the southern suburbs. This was between the eighth and tenth years of Zhenguan, at the very end of the empress's life, and shows that the heir apparent at that time had a share in literary matters and in the affairs of the monks.

An Example of an Officer of the Eastern Palace

Of the officers of the eastern palace in the Zhenguan years there is also a stele to witness. The stele of the late Duke Yi of Nan'an, grand master of silver and blue, commissioner holding the tally for the prefecture of Muzhou, pillar of state, records that he had a share in the merit of Guandu and the victory of Xiaoling, and in the campaigns that put down Dou Jiande and Liu Heita; that at the victory feast his merit was reckoned and he was given the title of pillar of state and enfeoffed as the founding marquis of Nan'an with seven hundred households, and was made concurrently deputy of the banner guard and then acting general of the left and right guards of the middle; that he was a close minister of the guard, entrusted with upright men as attendants and with claws and teeth as the sovereign's strength; that in the first year of Zhenguan he was made left guard commander of the heir apparent and acting general of the right martial guards and general of the left leading guards; that in the fourth year he was made general of cloud banners, holding his post as left guard commander as before; that in the tenth year he was made grand master of silver and blue and went to be prefect of Muzhou; and that in the twelfth month of the eleventh year, on his way to the post, he fell ill and died at the state hostel at Songzhou at the age of fifty-five, being given the posthumous name Duke Yi for his conduct. From the offices he held it appears that in the early Zhenguan years the military posts of the eastern palace were mostly filled by officers of the palace guard, who afterwards were transferred out as prefects; and this, read with the memorials of Liu Ji and Chu Suiliang on the education of the heir apparent, shows that in the eastern palace of the son born to the empress both the tutors and the guards were drawn from the talent of one generation.

The Working of the Institution of Burial Beside the Tomb and the Scale of the Zhaoling

Once the edict of the eleventh year of Zhenguan on the burial of meritorious ministers beside the tomb had been issued, the ground about the Zhaoling gradually became the burying place of the meritorious of Zhenguan. Beginning with the empress's burial, Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling, Li Jing and Gao Shilian were afterwards all buried there, some buried against the hill and some with stone figures and beasts set along the spirit way, their tombs facing the tomb hill. The working of this institution was not confined to one reign: afterwards the tombs of the Tang mostly followed the example of burial beside the imperial tomb, so that burial against the hill and the burial of the meritorious beside the tomb became the settled practice of Tang imperial tombs. With her wish to be buried against the hill with tiles for vessels as its starting point, and with the emperor's words in the edict — that if the dead know nothing they are all in silence, and if their souls have knowledge they may dwell side by side and look upon one another, which would be well — as its purpose, the making of the Zhaoling had both the substance of frugality and the feeling of sovereign and ministers keeping one another company, forming a type of its own among the tomb institutions of the early Tang.

The Differences of the Records and Her Image

The record of the Empress Zhangsun runs in three kinds: history in the two Tang histories, the Zizhi tongjian, the Zhenguan zhengyao and the Cefu yuangui; letters in the lives of the Master of the Law of the Great Ci'en Temple, the Xu gaoseng zhuan and the stele texts and deliberations preserved in the Complete Tang Prose; and discussion in the exegesis of the classics, the instruction of women and the imperial essays of the Song, Ming and Qing. The three differ in fullness: history lays weight on her remonstrance and parting words, letters on her prayers and her temple music, and discussion on the meaning of her abstention from government and the purpose of a consort. Reading the histories with the letters, the months and details of her conduct may be fixed; observing the discussion, it may be seen that later ages chose and rejected with their own emphases. That her childhood name comes from tradition, her proper name is absent from the histories, and her poem and the shoes she left survive among men, has furnished later ages with matter for imagination and admiration.

Personal Relations

• Father: Zhangsun Cheng, Sui You Xiaowei Jiangjun.
• Mother: Lady Gao, daughter of Gao Mai, Prince of Le'an of Northern Qi.
• Elder brother: Zhangsun Wuji, early-Tang chancellor and first-ranked among the Twenty-four Meritorious Officials of Lingyan Pavilion.
• Half-brother: Zhangsun Anye.
• Maternal uncle: Gao Shilian, early-Tang chancellor.
• Husband: Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of Tang.
• Sons: Li Chengqian, crown prince; Li Tai, Prince of Wei; Li Zhi, Emperor Gaozong of Tang.
• Daughters: Li Lizhi, Princess Changle; Princess Chengyang; Li Mingda, Princess Jinyang; Princess Xincheng.
• Gao Shilian: maternal uncle who raised her and arranged her marriage.
• Tanzang of Puguang Temple: Buddhist monk who prayed for the empress during her illness.
• Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of Tang: husband and sovereign; the two had a close relationship and often discussed state affairs.
• Wei Zheng: an outspoken official whom she protected.
• Fang Xuanling: senior minister for whom she pleaded shortly before her death.
• Zhangsun Anye: half-brother who expelled her, Zhangsun Wuji, and their mother to their maternal family.

Historical Assessment

Tang and Contemporary Assessments

• Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of Tang: Taizong was deeply attached to Empress Zhangsun. After her death he did not appoint another empress and personally raised some of the children she bore him. The Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance records him as saying that her remonstrances and observations on affairs were often well judged.
• Old Book of Tang: describes her as benevolent, filial, frugal, and simple, fond of reading, and says that her discussions of government with the emperor were often beneficial.
• New Book of Tang: records her compilation of ten chapters of Nü Ze (Examples for Women) and her criticism of Empress Ma of Han for failing to restrain her natal family from involvement in government.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang's Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance records her illness and related events, including that she had long suffered from a respiratory disorder.
• Song writers treated her as a model of a virtuous empress.
• Cefu Yuangui records her deeds and characterizes her as benevolent, filial, frugal, and simple.

Ming and Qing Periods

• A Ming work cited in the Chinese source, Biographies of Virtuous Empresses through the Dynasties, called her the foremost virtuous empress since the Three Dynasties.
• Wang Fuzhi in Du Tongjian Lun praised her virtue in exceptionally high terms.
• Zhao Yi in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories called her a foremost model among empresses across the ages.

Modern Assessments

• Chen Yinke discussed the political importance of the Zhangsun clan from the Northern Dynasties through the Sui and Tang in Draft Essay on the Institutional Origins of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
• Modern historians commonly regard Empress Zhangsun as having contributed to the Zhenguan era of good government, while stories such as her court-dress admonition on behalf of Wei Zheng became exemplary narratives of a virtuous empress.
• The Chinese source states that scholarship generally regards her as one of the most virtuous empresses of the Tang and of Chinese history more broadly.