As the first and only ruling Empress of China, Wu has been unjustly demonized as one of the most despised historical figures of the country's past.
From common woman to consort to queen to supreme leader, Wu's reign was undoubtedly bloody. Since she was royal, her life has been documented in some detail—however, many of the documents relied upon for information about her are somewhat unreliable, and historians argue about what can be considered true and what is just rumors. Still, the legends about her have led entire generations of Chinese to hail her as a ruthless monster.
Rumors and Scandals
Wu has been charged with numerous crimes as a result of the written history we have about her time ruling as emperor. To list a few, she was believed to have:
murdered her husband
murdered her sister
murdered her own children
poisoned her mother
killed her elder brothers
wiped out twelve branches of the Tang clan
ordered her grandchildren to commit suicide
mutilated her husband's first wife
ordered two concubines to be drowned in a vat of wine
regularly slept with two very young brothers as a seventy-year-old
Quite the list of accusations, isn't it? Yet we have no way to prove, nor to necessarily disprove, many of them.
According to Mike Dash from Smithsonian Magazine, the documents used to record Wu's life are iffy at best. "Just how accurate this picture of Wu is remains a matter of debate," he writes in his article "The Demonization of Empress Wu. "One reason [why is due to]...the official nature and lack of diversity among the sources that survive for early Chinese history; another is that imperial history was written to provide lessons for future rulers, and as such tended to be weighted heavily against usurpers (which Wu was) and anyone who offended the Confucian sensibilities of the scholars who labored over them (which Wu did simply by being a woman). A third problem is that the empress, who was well aware of both these biases, was not averse to tampering with the record herself; a fourth is that some other accounts of her reign were written by relatives who had good cause to loathe her. It is a challenge to recover real people from this morass of bias."
Despite this bad press, we do know Wu also had every reason to be lauded as a successful and excellent empress. She managed to stabilized the crumbling Tang dynasty, which led to the Golden Age of Chinese civilization from 618-907. Some claim that she was also an early inspirer of print publishing. Her reign, despite the murders that colored it, was overall peaceful and prosperous.
Where Did Women Rulers Fit in to the Ancient World? The ancient world was one of feuding rulers and war crimes. Monarchs were military leaders first, and leadership was most often taken by force along with a mighty amount of bloodshed.
A woman fulfilling this role was difficult. They were forced by the very nature of the time period to rule like men, but were criticized when they did so.
Taking this into account, and when comparing the accusations made against Wu to the surrounding reigns of her male counterparts, brings the realization that Wu was not as terrible as history has made her out to be.
We already know that men were rarely gentle and kind leaders in the ancient world. Indeed, Wu's political views and "ruthlessness" were not unusual for her time period, according to
R. W. L. Guisso, author of the book The First Emperor of China. Dash also explains that despite the charges against Wu, "None of these actions...would have attracted criticism had she been a man. Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. Taizong forced the abdication of his own father and disposed of two older brothers in hand-to-hand combat before seizing the throne." Taizong was Emperor while Wu was a concubine.
It's safe to say that, yet again, history has villainized a woman who may be undeserving of it.
For more reading on this fabulous female figure, check out the links below:
"The Demonization of Empress Wu" by Mike Dash for Smithsonian Magazine
by Trista for History Collection
by Aleksa Vučković for Ancient Origins
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