WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.419 I want you to picture a hill in Shaanxi Province, 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.379 China. We're standing at the Kenling Mausoleum. 00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:07.820 It's this sprawling imperial complex, the kind 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:10.480 of place that's really designed to make you feel 00:00:10.480 --> 00:00:13.259 very, very small. It is. You walk up this long 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:16.519 path, the Spirit Way, and you're flanked by these 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.079 massive stone statues. You've got officials, 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:22.839 mythical beasts, winged horses. It's all very 00:00:22.839 --> 00:00:25.320 intimidating. And right there, standing guard. 00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:28.719 monument that you just yeah you physically cannot 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:31.160 miss it it's a monolith it really is overwhelming 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:34.159 it's a single piece of limestone standing over 00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:36.859 six meters tall that's what about 20 feet high 00:00:36.859 --> 00:00:40.119 it weighs nearly a hundred metric tons Wow and 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:42.679 usually when you see a steel a stone tablet like 00:00:42.679 --> 00:00:46.109 this in an imperial Chinese tomb it is busy Busy 00:00:46.109 --> 00:00:48.270 how? Like visually cluttered? I mean, every single 00:00:48.270 --> 00:00:51.049 square inch is usually carved. You'd expect inscriptions, 00:00:51.270 --> 00:00:54.009 flowery poems, you know, detailed lists of battles 00:00:54.009 --> 00:00:57.350 won, economic achievements, celestial omens that 00:00:57.350 --> 00:00:59.909 supposedly prove their right to rule. It's basically 00:00:59.909 --> 00:01:02.390 a resume. It's propaganda for the afterlife. 00:01:02.929 --> 00:01:06.129 A resume carved in stone designed to tell the 00:01:06.129 --> 00:01:08.609 gods and future historians just how magnificent 00:01:08.609 --> 00:01:11.370 the deceased ruler was. But you stand in front 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:14.349 of this specific stone and there's just nothing. 00:01:14.549 --> 00:01:19.310 Nothing. It is the wordless still. No eulogy, 00:01:19.349 --> 00:01:23.450 no list of deeds, just blank stone weathered 00:01:23.450 --> 00:01:26.810 by 13 centuries of wind and rain. Which is incredibly 00:01:26.810 --> 00:01:29.329 eerie. Yeah. Because the person buried there 00:01:29.329 --> 00:01:32.209 isn't some minor figure who was forgotten or, 00:01:32.290 --> 00:01:34.390 you know, some disgraced prince who was erased 00:01:34.390 --> 00:01:36.290 from the record. Not at all. We are talking about 00:01:36.290 --> 00:01:38.549 Wu Zetian. One of the most titanically important 00:01:38.549 --> 00:01:40.670 figures in all of Asian history. Absolutely. 00:01:40.769 --> 00:01:43.390 And to understand the silence of that stone, 00:01:43.469 --> 00:01:45.329 you really have to understand the noise she made 00:01:45.329 --> 00:01:47.670 while she was alive. Because Wu Zetian holds 00:01:47.670 --> 00:01:49.609 a title that, well, technically it shouldn't 00:01:49.609 --> 00:01:51.810 exist. We need to parse this right at the start 00:01:51.810 --> 00:01:53.549 because I think most people, especially in the 00:01:53.549 --> 00:01:56.069 West, know her generally as the Empress of China. 00:01:56.209 --> 00:01:58.579 Right. But that English title is actually a bit 00:01:58.579 --> 00:02:00.620 misleading, isn't it? It implies she was just 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:03.799 the wife. It is very misleading. In Chinese history, 00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:06.760 you have the term Hu. That's an emperor's consort, 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:09.080 the primary wife of the emperor. You have plenty 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:11.939 of those. Then you have emperor's dowagers, the 00:02:11.939 --> 00:02:14.759 mothers of emperors. They can have immense influence, 00:02:14.939 --> 00:02:17.439 sure, usually ruling as a regent through a young 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:22.139 son. But Wu Zetian was Huangdi. Which is the 00:02:22.139 --> 00:02:24.780 term for the emperor himself. Exactly. Huangdi 00:02:24.780 --> 00:02:27.180 is usually translated as emperor, but the implication 00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:30.139 is something closer to supreme deity. It is a 00:02:30.139 --> 00:02:33.520 masculine noun. It is a role that structurally, 00:02:33.659 --> 00:02:36.419 philosophically, and religiously was designed 00:02:36.419 --> 00:02:39.750 to be held only by a man. So for, what, 2 ,000 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:42.830 years of imperial history, it was a no -girls 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:44.729 -allowed clubhouse. That's a great way to put 00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:47.169 it. The entire bureaucracy, the Confucian rites, 00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:49.669 the mandate of heaven itself, everything was 00:02:49.669 --> 00:02:51.770 set up to prevent a woman from holding that specific 00:02:51.770 --> 00:02:54.409 title. And she didn't just rule as a regent for 00:02:54.409 --> 00:02:56.590 a young son, essentially keeping the seat warm 00:02:56.590 --> 00:02:59.560 until he came of age. No, not at all. She eventually 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.139 brushed her sons aside, established her own dynasty. 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:04.919 She declared the Tang dynasty over and founded 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:08.560 the Wuzhou. She is the only female sovereign 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.120 in all of Chinese history to rule in her own 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:14.979 right. So the blank stone. Is that an insult 00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:16.719 from the men who came after her? Did they just 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.219 refuse to acknowledge her or was it a boast from 00:03:19.219 --> 00:03:22.099 her? That is the mystery we are trying to solve 00:03:22.099 --> 00:03:25.229 today. the traditional historians the confucian 00:03:25.229 --> 00:03:27.990 scholars who wrote the books after she died they 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:30.569 painted her as a caricature the dragon lady the 00:03:30.569 --> 00:03:33.930 dragon lady the ruthless usurper the hen that 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:36.610 crowed at dawn which was a common confucian insult 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:39.629 meaning a woman in power is an offense against 00:03:39.629 --> 00:03:41.909 nature like a hen trying to act like a rooster 00:03:42.379 --> 00:03:45.180 But we have a stack of sources here. Modern scholarship, 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:47.580 translations from the Old Book of Tang, and recent 00:03:47.580 --> 00:03:50.219 archaeological analysis that paint a much, much 00:03:50.219 --> 00:03:52.259 more complex picture. Right. We're trying to 00:03:52.259 --> 00:03:54.120 move past the cartoon villain. We need to find 00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:56.500 out. Was she a tyrant who murdered her own children 00:03:56.500 --> 00:03:59.099 to get to the top? Or was she a visionary CEO 00:03:59.099 --> 00:04:01.800 who professionalized the bureaucracy, expanded 00:04:01.800 --> 00:04:04.719 the empire, and broke the power of a stagnant 00:04:04.719 --> 00:04:07.620 aristocracy? Or, and this is a scary thought, 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:10.400 was she a both? Let's get into it. Part one, 00:04:10.939 --> 00:04:13.650 The Lion Stallion. To understand Wu, you have 00:04:13.650 --> 00:04:15.990 to look at where she came from. She was born 00:04:15.990 --> 00:04:19.589 around 624. Now, usually, emperors or high -ranking 00:04:19.589 --> 00:04:21.970 consorts came from the old, entrenched military 00:04:21.970 --> 00:04:24.930 aristocracy. These were families with deep roots. 00:04:25.230 --> 00:04:28.290 Old money. Very old money. But Wu's father was 00:04:28.290 --> 00:04:31.740 a timber merchant. So new money. Exactly. He 00:04:31.740 --> 00:04:33.920 made a fortune and became a close ally of the 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:36.019 founder of the Tang Dynasty, so he was rewarded 00:04:36.019 --> 00:04:38.699 with a title. But they weren't part of that deep 00:04:38.699 --> 00:04:40.879 -rooted, blue -blood aristocracy that ran the 00:04:40.879 --> 00:04:44.040 country, and that chip on her shoulder is important 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.079 later. And her education was unusual, right? 00:04:46.339 --> 00:04:48.480 I read that she wasn't just taught embroidery 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:51.019 and how to manage a household. Far from it. Most 00:04:51.019 --> 00:04:52.939 girls, even in wealthy families, were taught 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:54.939 domestic skills to prepare them for marriage. 00:04:55.319 --> 00:04:57.720 Wu's parents, however, encouraged her to read, 00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:00.319 to write, to study politics, history, and music. 00:05:00.579 --> 00:05:03.000 She was literate and sharp long before she ever 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:05.180 set foot in the palace. And there's this great 00:05:05.180 --> 00:05:07.379 story about her leaving home. She's only 14 years 00:05:07.379 --> 00:05:10.319 old, and she's been selected to enter the palace 00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:13.860 as a concubine for Emperor Taizong. That's the 00:05:13.860 --> 00:05:16.040 current emperor. A huge honor, but also terrifying. 00:05:16.459 --> 00:05:19.360 Right. And her mother, Lady Yang. is weeping, 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:21.639 acting like she's being sent to a funeral. Which, 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.259 in a way, she was. Entering the palace usually 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:26.800 meant you never saw your family again. You became 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:29.120 property of the emperor, just one of thousands 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:31.899 of women in the harem. It was a gilded cage. 00:05:32.300 --> 00:05:34.500 But Wu just looks at her crying mother and says 00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:37.259 something like, how do you know that it is not 00:05:37.259 --> 00:05:40.139 my fortune to meet the son of heaven? Ambition 00:05:40.139 --> 00:05:42.519 right from the very start. She wasn't going there 00:05:42.519 --> 00:05:44.839 to serve. She was going there to succeed. But 00:05:44.839 --> 00:05:47.379 she doesn't start at the top. She enters the 00:05:47.379 --> 00:05:51.579 palace as a Karen. A talented lady. What does 00:05:51.579 --> 00:05:53.939 that rank actually mean? It's a mid -tier rank. 00:05:54.079 --> 00:05:56.339 It sounds nice, but she's essentially a glorified 00:05:56.339 --> 00:05:59.000 secretary. She's managing the emperor's wardrobe, 00:05:59.199 --> 00:06:01.639 maybe his library. She has access, but she doesn't 00:06:01.639 --> 00:06:04.120 have status. But she didn't stay unnoticed for 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:06.480 long. And to really understand how she ended 00:06:06.480 --> 00:06:09.139 up on the throne, we have to look at her origin 00:06:09.139 --> 00:06:12.740 story. And there was one anecdote that Wu Zigen 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:15.240 actually told about herself late in her life 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:18.339 that I feel is the skeleton key to her entire 00:06:18.339 --> 00:06:21.199 psychology. The lion stallion. This is a famous 00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:24.259 story, but I want to scrutinize it because honestly, 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.259 it sounds almost too cinematic to be true. It 00:06:27.259 --> 00:06:29.160 does, but I think the fact that she told it about 00:06:29.160 --> 00:06:31.480 herself matters more than if it literally happened 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:33.720 word for word. Okay, set the scene for us. The 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:35.959 setting is the imperial stables. The emperor 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:39.240 at the time is Taizong, a renowned warrior. He 00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:41.720 has this magnificent horse, the lion stallion, 00:06:41.740 --> 00:06:45.279 but it's completely untamable. Psychotic, it 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:47.240 bucks off the best generals in the army, and 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:50.720 no one can ride it. And Wu is what? A teenager 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:52.879 at this point? A low -level consort? She's very 00:06:52.879 --> 00:06:55.399 young, a low -ranking concubine. She's essentially 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.079 invisible in the court hierarchy. But she steps 00:06:58.079 --> 00:07:00.180 forward in front of the emperor and his whole 00:07:00.180 --> 00:07:03.579 entourage and says, I can tame this animal, but 00:07:03.579 --> 00:07:05.839 I need three items. That's a bold opening line 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.600 for an intern speaking to the CEO. Incredibly 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:10.980 bold. The emperor is amused, so he asks what 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:13.759 she needs. And she asks for an iron whip, an 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:16.459 iron hammer, and a dagger. Okay, hold on. I know 00:07:16.459 --> 00:07:19.060 a little bit about horse training. You use a 00:07:19.060 --> 00:07:21.889 carrot. You use a soft brush. You build trust. 00:07:22.069 --> 00:07:24.689 You do not ask for a hammer. Wu wasn't interested 00:07:24.689 --> 00:07:27.149 in whispering to the horse. Her method was a 00:07:27.149 --> 00:07:29.930 pure cold algorithm of escalation. An algorithm. 00:07:30.129 --> 00:07:33.189 Yes. Step one. Whip the horse with the iron lash. 00:07:33.589 --> 00:07:37.069 Demand submission through pain. If it doesn't 00:07:37.069 --> 00:07:39.069 submit. And if the horse keeps bucking, which 00:07:39.069 --> 00:07:41.370 it probably will. Step two. You take the iron 00:07:41.370 --> 00:07:44.829 hammer and you smash it in the head. Which? Surely 00:07:44.829 --> 00:07:46.689 that kills the horse. Yeah. Or at least gives 00:07:46.689 --> 00:07:48.750 it permanent brain damage. It creates a massive 00:07:48.750 --> 00:07:50.930 concussion, certainly. It's meant to break its 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:53.430 will completely. But if the horse still refuses 00:07:53.430 --> 00:07:55.910 to submit... There's a step three. Step three. 00:07:55.970 --> 00:07:58.769 You use the dagger to slit its throat. So the 00:07:58.769 --> 00:08:03.250 logic is, submit or die. There is no middle ground. 00:08:03.410 --> 00:08:06.500 There's no negotiation. Precisely. And look at 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:08.860 the reaction from the emperor. Taizong was a 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:11.620 warrior. I mean, this is a guy who killed his 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:13.680 own brothers in an ambush to get the throne. 00:08:13.819 --> 00:08:16.480 He respected strength. But even he was a little 00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:18.379 disturbed by this. It was too much for him. It 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:21.459 was almost too ruthless. The sources say he praised 00:08:21.459 --> 00:08:24.120 her bravery, but he never promoted her. He kept 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:26.139 her at a distance after that. It was like he 00:08:26.139 --> 00:08:28.540 saw something in her that was a little too cold, 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:31.579 even for him. So why on earth would she tell 00:08:31.579 --> 00:08:34.360 this story about herself? decades later when 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:36.940 she was in power. It makes her sound like a monster. 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:39.100 Because by the time she told it, she was the 00:08:39.100 --> 00:08:42.080 empress ruling a court full of ambitious, scheming 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.759 men. She wasn't telling a funny anecdote about 00:08:44.759 --> 00:08:46.779 her youth. She was giving a warning. Mission 00:08:46.779 --> 00:08:49.159 statement. Exactly. She was telling her ministers, 00:08:49.379 --> 00:08:51.820 I am the woman who will kill the horse if it 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:54.200 doesn't listen. Do not test me. This is how I 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:56.980 operate. So she has the will, but she doesn't 00:08:56.980 --> 00:09:00.809 have the power yet. And then, tragedy or... From 00:09:00.809 --> 00:09:04.149 her perspective, opportunity strikes. Emperor 00:09:04.149 --> 00:09:07.649 Taizong dies in 649. And the rule is very strict. 00:09:07.850 --> 00:09:10.210 If you were a concubine and you didn't have any 00:09:10.210 --> 00:09:12.049 children with the deceased emperor, you were 00:09:12.049 --> 00:09:15.509 shipped off. No exception. None. She was sent 00:09:15.509 --> 00:09:18.950 to Ganyi Temple to become a Buddhist nun. Shaved 00:09:18.950 --> 00:09:21.850 head, simple robes, chanting scriptures for the 00:09:21.850 --> 00:09:23.769 rest of her life. That was supposed to be the 00:09:23.769 --> 00:09:25.570 end of Wu Zhao. She was supposed to fade into 00:09:25.570 --> 00:09:28.129 history. But of course she didn't. Because she 00:09:28.129 --> 00:09:31.190 had made a connection with the new emperor, Taizong's 00:09:31.190 --> 00:09:34.149 son, Gozong. Right. While his father was still 00:09:34.149 --> 00:09:38.190 alive, Wu and the young prince Gozong had, let's 00:09:38.190 --> 00:09:41.090 just say, a moment. There was a spark. He was 00:09:41.090 --> 00:09:43.450 drawn to her. And he remembered her. He did. 00:09:43.690 --> 00:09:46.509 On the anniversary of his father's death, Gaozong 00:09:46.509 --> 00:09:49.990 goes to the temple to offer incense, and he sees 00:09:49.990 --> 00:09:53.149 Wu there in her nun's robes. The story goes that 00:09:53.149 --> 00:09:55.830 they both wept. It's all very dramatic. And this 00:09:55.830 --> 00:09:58.250 is where the palace trauma really kicks into 00:09:58.250 --> 00:10:01.669 high gear, because Gaozong's wife, Empress Wang, 00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:04.470 sees this interaction. Now, you'd think the wife 00:10:04.470 --> 00:10:06.549 would be jealous and want this nun kept as far 00:10:06.549 --> 00:10:08.509 away as possible. That would be the logical reaction. 00:10:08.830 --> 00:10:10.929 But she actually arranges to bring Wu back to 00:10:10.929 --> 00:10:13.799 the palace. Why on earth would she do that? It's 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:17.299 the classic enemy of my enemy is my friend blunder. 00:10:17.500 --> 00:10:20.600 A fatal one. Explain that. Who is she fighting? 00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:23.860 Empress Wang was locked in a bitter rivalry for 00:10:23.860 --> 00:10:25.679 the emperor's affection with a different woman, 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:28.840 the pure consort Xiao. Wang was losing that fight. 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.519 So she thought, if I bring this beautiful former 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:34.500 concubine of my husband's father back, she'll 00:10:34.500 --> 00:10:36.879 distract the emperor from Xiao. Okay, I can see 00:10:36.879 --> 00:10:39.639 the logic, I guess. And her thinking was... Wu 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:42.480 is a former lowly nun who owes me everything. 00:10:42.820 --> 00:10:45.720 She'll be my loyal pawn. Oh, Empress Wang, you 00:10:45.720 --> 00:10:48.779 made a huge mistake. A catastrophic one. Wu returns 00:10:48.779 --> 00:10:51.879 to the palace and she is sharper, she is hungrier, 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:54.419 and she is far more experienced in the ways of 00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:57.059 power than either of them. She very quickly becomes 00:10:57.059 --> 00:10:59.279 the emperor's favorite. And this leads us to 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:02.299 probably the darkest and most debated accusation 00:11:02.299 --> 00:11:05.269 against your entire life. Part two. The path 00:11:05.269 --> 00:11:07.909 to empress blood and accusations. The infant 00:11:07.909 --> 00:11:09.730 daughter incident. And we really do need to get 00:11:09.730 --> 00:11:11.110 into the weeds here because for many people, 00:11:11.149 --> 00:11:12.870 this is the moment where she crosses the line 00:11:12.870 --> 00:11:16.330 from ambitious to monstrous. So the year is 654. 00:11:16.860 --> 00:11:18.840 Wu has given birth to a daughter with Emperor 00:11:18.840 --> 00:11:23.240 Gaozong. Yes. A baby girl. Empress Wang, who 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:25.320 is still the official empress but is losing favor 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:28.039 fast, comes to visit the nursery to see the new 00:11:28.039 --> 00:11:30.299 baby. A political courtesy, basically. Right. 00:11:30.379 --> 00:11:33.440 Look, we're all one big happy family. The story 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:36.080 goes that after Wang leaves, Wu goes into the 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:40.190 room. She finds her baby daughter dead. And Wu 00:11:40.190 --> 00:11:42.850 immediately accuses Empress Wang of murder. She 00:11:42.850 --> 00:11:45.009 does. She points out that Wang was the last one 00:11:45.009 --> 00:11:48.929 seen near the room. Wang had no alibi. The emperor, 00:11:49.090 --> 00:11:51.590 Gezong, who was already drifting away from Wang 00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:54.210 and completely infatuated with Wu, believed it 00:11:54.210 --> 00:11:56.830 instantly. He was furious. He wanted to depose 00:11:56.830 --> 00:11:59.129 Wang right then and there. But the big historical 00:11:59.129 --> 00:12:01.929 question, the ultimate cold case is, did Empress 00:12:01.929 --> 00:12:04.429 Wang actually do it? Or did Wu Zixin kill her 00:12:04.429 --> 00:12:06.840 own baby to frame the empress? It is one of the 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:09.179 most debated and unknowable moments in Chinese 00:12:09.179 --> 00:12:12.460 history. Traditional historians who already disliked 00:12:12.460 --> 00:12:14.919 Wu for being a woman in power flat out say she 00:12:14.919 --> 00:12:17.340 did it. They use it as the ultimate proof of 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.620 her monstrous ambition that she would sacrifice 00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:22.120 her own flesh and blood for the throne. But looking 00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:25.860 at it with modern eyes, is there any actual evidence 00:12:25.860 --> 00:12:28.779 for that? Or is it just a convenient story for 00:12:28.779 --> 00:12:31.980 her enemies? There is zero forensic evidence, 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:34.500 and modern historians look at this with a lot 00:12:34.500 --> 00:12:36.879 more skepticism. We have to remember the environment. 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:40.759 These palaces, they were drafty, they were damp, 00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:44.379 and they were heated by open coal braziers. So 00:12:44.379 --> 00:12:46.620 it could have been accidental. Absolutely. It 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:49.039 could have been what we now call crib death or 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:51.620 SIDs. It could have been carbon monoxide poisoning 00:12:51.620 --> 00:12:53.860 from the faulty heating system, which was very 00:12:53.860 --> 00:12:56.220 common. Or, I mean, Empress Wang might have actually 00:12:56.220 --> 00:12:58.320 done it. Or Wang actually did it. We can't discount 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:00.799 that. It was a brutal time. And killing a rival's 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:03.019 child, especially a favored one, was a standard 00:13:03.019 --> 00:13:05.679 move in the political playbook. But Wu? turned 00:13:05.679 --> 00:13:07.759 that tragedy, whether it was real or manufactured, 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:11.200 into a political weapon. She did, and that's 00:13:11.200 --> 00:13:13.440 the key. Whether she committed the murder or 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:15.799 simply capitalized on a terrible tragedy, the 00:13:15.799 --> 00:13:18.779 result was what mattered to her. The rumor solidified 00:13:18.779 --> 00:13:21.379 her position as the victim and Wang's as the 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:24.000 villain. It was the final nail in the coffin 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.659 for Empress Wang. And things get very Game of 00:13:27.659 --> 00:13:31.059 Thrones very quickly after this. Gaozong promotes 00:13:31.059 --> 00:13:35.529 Wu to Empress. And what happens to her old rivals, 00:13:35.710 --> 00:13:38.389 Wang and the pure consort Zhao? It's grisly. 00:13:38.409 --> 00:13:40.269 They were accused of witchcraft, which was a 00:13:40.269 --> 00:13:42.470 standard political weapon back then, deposed 00:13:42.470 --> 00:13:45.190 and thrown into prison. Later, on Wu's orders, 00:13:45.450 --> 00:13:47.570 they were executed. Now, there's a legend about 00:13:47.570 --> 00:13:49.710 how they died. I've heard these stories about 00:13:49.710 --> 00:13:52.210 them being turned into human swine. There is, 00:13:52.330 --> 00:13:54.549 but we need to be very careful of that one. The 00:13:54.549 --> 00:13:56.409 popular story, the one you hear a lot, is that 00:13:56.409 --> 00:13:58.230 their limbs were cut off and they were thrown 00:13:58.230 --> 00:14:01.649 into wine vats to prolong their suffering. That's 00:14:01.649 --> 00:14:04.730 the human swine torture. Horrific. It is. However, 00:14:04.950 --> 00:14:07.309 our best sources suggest the specific graphic 00:14:07.309 --> 00:14:10.200 detail might be a conflation. It might be later 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:12.779 storytellers mixing Wu -zation up with a different 00:14:12.779 --> 00:14:15.379 empress, Empress Liu from the Han Dynasty, who 00:14:15.379 --> 00:14:17.740 lived centuries earlier and was famous for that 00:14:17.740 --> 00:14:20.200 specific cruelty. So they're blending the stories 00:14:20.200 --> 00:14:22.700 to make Wu seem even more demonic. It's very 00:14:22.700 --> 00:14:24.899 likely. But let's be clear, they were executed 00:14:24.899 --> 00:14:28.059 and the sources say Wu was haunted by it. Haunted 00:14:28.059 --> 00:14:32.200 literally, like she saw ghosts. Allegedly. She 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:34.200 believed their spirits were hunting her in the 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:36.980 palace at Chang. She complained of them appearing 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:40.139 in her dreams, disheveled and bloody. It's actually 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:42.460 one of the main reasons she eventually convinced 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:44.980 the emperor to move the entire court from the 00:14:44.980 --> 00:14:48.139 capital, Chang, to the eastern capital, Luoyang. 00:14:48.320 --> 00:14:50.940 She moved the government to escape ghosts. To 00:14:50.940 --> 00:14:53.299 escape her ghosts, yes. So she's empress now. 00:14:53.659 --> 00:14:57.039 She has the title. She has the power. But she's 00:14:57.039 --> 00:15:00.039 not satisfied with just being the wife. We're 00:15:00.039 --> 00:15:03.120 moving into part three, the two saints, because 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:06.919 in the year 660, something happens to Emperor 00:15:06.919 --> 00:15:09.840 Gozong. Guizhong suffers a major health crisis. 00:15:10.139 --> 00:15:12.080 The records say he suffered from debilitating 00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:14.659 dizziness and vision loss. It was most likely 00:15:14.659 --> 00:15:17.299 a severe stroke or series of strokes, probably 00:15:17.299 --> 00:15:19.940 related to hypertension. He became incapacitated 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:22.399 for long stretches. And who steps in to handle 00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:24.279 the day -to -day business of running the empire? 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:27.419 Wu Zixin. But she doesn't just, you know, sign 00:15:27.419 --> 00:15:29.720 a few forms. She effectively takes over the entire 00:15:29.720 --> 00:15:31.740 administration. She would sit behind a cretin 00:15:31.740 --> 00:15:33.879 or a screen during court sessions, literally 00:15:33.879 --> 00:15:35.779 ruling from the shadows. So the officials would 00:15:35.779 --> 00:15:37.740 be unbessing the emperor. But the decisions, 00:15:37.860 --> 00:15:40.100 the questions, the orders were coming from the 00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:42.539 woman behind the curtain. It got to the point 00:15:42.539 --> 00:15:44.139 where the court officials started calling them 00:15:44.139 --> 00:15:47.200 Er Sheng, the two saints. Meaning they were co 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:50.480 -rulers. Entitled, perhaps. But in practice, 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:53.320 she was driving the car. And this is where we 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:55.700 see her start to reshape the government to fit 00:15:55.700 --> 00:15:58.419 her own ambitions. And also where we see her 00:15:58.419 --> 00:16:01.220 ruthlessness turn on her own family. Yeah, let's 00:16:01.220 --> 00:16:03.600 talk about the family purges. Because usually 00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:06.360 when someone gets power, they elevate their family 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:09.519 members to secure loyalty. Wu didn't exactly 00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:11.909 do that. Well, she had a very complicated relationship 00:16:11.909 --> 00:16:14.549 with her relatives. Remember, her father was 00:16:14.549 --> 00:16:17.549 a merchant and her mother, Lady Yang, had been 00:16:17.549 --> 00:16:21.330 snubbed by Wu's own half -brothers and cousins, 00:16:21.610 --> 00:16:23.909 the men of the family. They looked down on her 00:16:23.909 --> 00:16:26.009 mom. They did. They saw her as coming from a 00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:28.990 lower status. And when Wu got power, she remembered 00:16:28.990 --> 00:16:32.190 that disrespect. One by one, those male relatives 00:16:32.190 --> 00:16:35.970 were demoted, exiled, or worse. So this was payback 00:16:35.970 --> 00:16:38.509 for how they treated her mom years earlier. Absolutely. 00:16:38.769 --> 00:16:43.889 And then there's the... Yes. The niece was getting 00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.389 a little too close to the emperor, perhaps becoming 00:16:46.389 --> 00:16:50.470 a new favorite, so Wu had her poisoned. And then 00:16:50.470 --> 00:16:52.889 she blamed the tainted food on her cousins and 00:16:52.889 --> 00:16:57.549 had them executed for the crime. A terrifyingly 00:16:57.549 --> 00:17:00.289 efficient move. It really reinforces that Iron 00:17:00.289 --> 00:17:03.029 Hammer mentality from the horse story. If you 00:17:03.029 --> 00:17:05.369 are a threat, if you do not submit, you get the 00:17:05.369 --> 00:17:08.420 hammer. But... And here's the nuance we promised 00:17:08.420 --> 00:17:10.900 at the start. It wasn't just murder and palace 00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:13.759 intrigue. She was also governing. Yes, it was 00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.319 policy. In 675, she submitted a document called 00:17:17.319 --> 00:17:20.000 the Twelve Suggestions to Improve Governance. 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:21.960 And these weren't the ravings of a madwoman. 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.559 They were deeply considered progressive reforms. 00:17:24.779 --> 00:17:26.720 What kind of things was she suggesting? Well, 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:28.680 for example, take the mourning period for parents. 00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:30.880 In strict Confucian society, if your father died, 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:33.279 the mourning period was three years. If your 00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:35.660 mother died, it was shorter. It was unequal. 00:17:35.819 --> 00:17:37.960 A reflection of their status. Exactly. Wu changed 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:39.859 the law. So the mourning period for a mother 00:17:39.859 --> 00:17:42.039 was equal to that of a father. That sounds like 00:17:42.039 --> 00:17:44.990 a small ritual detail. China at the time, that's 00:17:44.990 --> 00:17:47.990 a huge symbolic shift. It's massive. It was a 00:17:47.990 --> 00:17:50.789 direct legal challenge to the patriarchal structure 00:17:50.789 --> 00:17:54.029 of society. She was using policy to elevate the 00:17:54.029 --> 00:17:56.970 status of women. She also did things like add 00:17:56.970 --> 00:17:59.569 the Tao Te Ching to the university reading lists, 00:17:59.650 --> 00:18:02.609 broadening intellectual horizons beyond just 00:18:02.609 --> 00:18:05.309 the rigid Confucian classics. So she's encouraging 00:18:05.309 --> 00:18:07.690 agriculture. She's reforming social norms. She 00:18:07.690 --> 00:18:11.069 was actively reshaping society to create a world 00:18:11.069 --> 00:18:13.440 where a woman like her could rule. And while 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:15.619 she was doing this, she was also eliminating 00:18:15.619 --> 00:18:18.440 anyone who could challenge her, which, tragically, 00:18:18.500 --> 00:18:20.680 included her own sons. Let's get into that because 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:23.299 it's so dark. She had four sons with Gaozong. 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:26.519 The eldest, Crown Prince Li Hong, was by all 00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:29.059 accounts popular and capable. He was, but he 00:18:29.059 --> 00:18:31.839 argued with her about policy. Specifically, he 00:18:31.839 --> 00:18:33.779 wanted her to release some of the political rivals 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:36.339 she had imprisoned. He disagreed with her ruthlessness. 00:18:36.579 --> 00:18:39.380 Soon after one of these arguments, he died very 00:18:39.380 --> 00:18:42.059 suddenly. Why is that? Most historians, then 00:18:42.059 --> 00:18:45.779 and now, suspect poison. Then her second son, 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:48.599 Li Xian, was made crown prince. He was also very 00:18:48.599 --> 00:18:50.859 bright, but he was eventually accused of treason 00:18:50.859 --> 00:18:53.019 when weapons were found in his palace. A setup. 00:18:53.140 --> 00:18:55.940 Almost certainly a setup. He was exiled and later 00:18:55.940 --> 00:18:58.819 forced to commit suicide. It's a ruthless Darwinism 00:18:58.819 --> 00:19:02.480 within her own family. Only the son, who is completely 00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:05.099 subservient, will be allowed to survive. It is. 00:19:05.099 --> 00:19:07.319 She was clearing the board of anyone with an 00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:09.900 independent mind. Which leads us to the moment 00:19:09.900 --> 00:19:11.900 where she stops pretending to be the helper. 00:19:12.039 --> 00:19:15.480 Part 4. Establishing the Zhu Dynasty. Emperor 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:20.259 Gaozong finally dies in 683. Her third son, Zongzong, 00:19:20.359 --> 00:19:23.359 takes the throne. He lasts all of six weeks. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.259 A new record, perhaps. What did he do wrong? 00:19:26.460 --> 00:19:28.380 He made the critical mistake of trying to act 00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:30.660 like a real emperor. He tried to appoint his 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:33.079 father -in -law to a high position, a chancellor, 00:19:33.319 --> 00:19:35.819 without checking with mom first. Big mistake. 00:19:36.180 --> 00:19:38.519 Wu essentially saw this as a direct challenge. 00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:41.180 She convened the court and had him deposed for 00:19:41.180 --> 00:19:44.029 treason. Six weeks. She replaces him with her 00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:47.150 youngest, most pliable son, Ruizong, but he was 00:19:47.150 --> 00:19:49.910 emperor in name only. A puppet. A virtual prisoner 00:19:49.910 --> 00:19:51.910 in the inner palace who wasn't allowed to meet 00:19:51.910 --> 00:19:54.549 officials or make any decisions. Wu was the absolute 00:19:54.549 --> 00:19:58.150 undisputed ruler. And then in the year 690, she 00:19:58.150 --> 00:20:00.710 decides to drop the charade completely. The coronation. 00:20:00.869 --> 00:20:04.269 She forces Ruizong to abdicate the throne to 00:20:04.269 --> 00:20:07.230 her. She declares the end of the Great Tang Dynasty 00:20:07.230 --> 00:20:10.509 and the beginning of her own, the Zhu Dynasty. 00:20:10.970 --> 00:20:14.910 And she takes a new name. Wu Zhao. And I read 00:20:14.910 --> 00:20:17.029 that she actually created a new Chinese character 00:20:17.029 --> 00:20:19.130 for her name. She did. A character that means 00:20:19.130 --> 00:20:21.710 something like light shining from the sky or 00:20:21.710 --> 00:20:24.309 sun and moon in the sky. That is a power move. 00:20:24.529 --> 00:20:26.710 I'm not just taking the throne. I'm inventing 00:20:26.710 --> 00:20:29.470 language to describe how awesome I am. The symbolism 00:20:29.470 --> 00:20:32.170 was everywhere. There was this parrot and cat. 00:20:32.509 --> 00:20:35.029 pun that circulated among the people. Her surname 00:20:35.029 --> 00:20:37.789 Wu sounds very similar to the word for parrot. 00:20:37.970 --> 00:20:40.690 The royal family she just opposed, the Li family, 00:20:41.029 --> 00:20:44.029 their name sounds like wildcat. So the cat eats 00:20:44.029 --> 00:20:46.480 the parrot. A political joke. Right. People would 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:48.480 joke about the cat eating the parrot to symbolize 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:50.779 the struggle between the families. But Wu made 00:20:50.779 --> 00:20:53.259 sure the parrot was the one with the claws. And 00:20:53.259 --> 00:20:55.480 to secure this new dynasty, to make sure no cats 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:58.920 were left, she unleashed a reign of terror. Let's 00:20:58.920 --> 00:21:01.160 talk about the mechanics of this, because reign 00:21:01.160 --> 00:21:03.319 of terror is a phrase we hear a lot in history. 00:21:03.819 --> 00:21:05.940 How did she actually do it? What were the tools? 00:21:06.180 --> 00:21:08.740 She constructed a state surveillance system that 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:12.579 was terrifyingly effective. She empowered a secret 00:21:12.579 --> 00:21:15.500 police force led by a group of cruel officials, 00:21:15.700 --> 00:21:18.529 most famously a man named Lai Yunchen. And what 00:21:18.529 --> 00:21:21.410 did these guys do? They were torturers, sadists, 00:21:21.410 --> 00:21:24.109 but she gave them a very specific and brilliant 00:21:24.109 --> 00:21:27.609 tool, the copper mailboxes. The source mentions 00:21:27.609 --> 00:21:30.490 these. They were actual physical boxes in the 00:21:30.490 --> 00:21:32.990 Capitol. Yes, four of them with different slots. 00:21:33.250 --> 00:21:35.609 One slot for men recommending themselves for 00:21:35.609 --> 00:21:37.950 office, another for criticizing the government, 00:21:38.210 --> 00:21:40.769 another for reporting conspiracies and treason. 00:21:40.930 --> 00:21:43.789 And anyone could use them. Anyone. A peasant, 00:21:43.829 --> 00:21:46.809 a servant, a disgruntled neighbor, a rival official. 00:21:46.990 --> 00:21:49.230 You could drop a letter in there anonymously 00:21:49.230 --> 00:21:52.109 accusing anyone of anything. That is terrifying. 00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:55.230 It gamifies snitching. It turns the entire population 00:21:55.230 --> 00:21:58.170 into potential spies for the state. It created 00:21:58.170 --> 00:22:01.130 an atmosphere of absolute paranoia. If you were 00:22:01.130 --> 00:22:03.170 a member of the old aristocracy, you couldn't 00:22:03.170 --> 00:22:05.289 trust your own servants. You couldn't trust your 00:22:05.289 --> 00:22:07.349 brother. Because if a letter with your name on 00:22:07.349 --> 00:22:09.970 it ended up in that copper box, Lai Yunxin's 00:22:09.970 --> 00:22:11.970 men would drag you to their special prisons. 00:22:12.269 --> 00:22:13.970 And they had a manual, right? An instruction 00:22:13.970 --> 00:22:16.890 book on how to get confessions. Yes. It was called 00:22:16.890 --> 00:22:19.890 the Manual of Accusation. It was a literal instruction 00:22:19.890 --> 00:22:23.490 book on torture. It detailed methods to break 00:22:23.490 --> 00:22:26.569 a person's will and extract a confession, regardless 00:22:26.569 --> 00:22:29.980 of their actual guilt. And there were? Name techniques? 00:22:30.359 --> 00:22:32.799 There were. The source mentions one called Dying 00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.480 Swine's Melancholy. We don't have the graphic 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:37.960 specifics, thankfully, but the name itself implies 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:41.660 a kind of prolonged, agonizing process designed 00:22:41.660 --> 00:22:43.640 to break the spirit to the point where the victim 00:22:43.640 --> 00:22:45.759 would admit to anything just to make it stop. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:48.299 Okay, so this is the tyrant side of her in full 00:22:48.299 --> 00:22:50.420 view. She's purging her enemies through torture 00:22:50.420 --> 00:22:53.539 and paranoia. But I want to go back to the why. 00:22:54.190 --> 00:22:57.170 Was she just a sadist killing random people for 00:22:57.170 --> 00:23:00.210 fun? No. And this is the crucial expert nuance. 00:23:00.509 --> 00:23:02.769 While this was undeniably terrifying, there was 00:23:02.769 --> 00:23:05.150 a clear political purpose. She was targeting 00:23:05.150 --> 00:23:08.470 a very specific group, the Guangzong aristocracy. 00:23:08.670 --> 00:23:10.950 Define that for us. Who were these people? Imagine 00:23:10.950 --> 00:23:13.990 the landed gentry in Victorian England or the 00:23:13.990 --> 00:23:16.829 old money families of Boston. These were the 00:23:16.829 --> 00:23:19.390 powerful clans from the region around the old 00:23:19.390 --> 00:23:22.470 capital, Chang 'an. They had held power for centuries. 00:23:22.869 --> 00:23:25.630 They controlled the best land, the top army posts, 00:23:25.789 --> 00:23:27.730 the key court positions. And they hated her. 00:23:27.930 --> 00:23:30.529 They despised her. To them, she was a merchant's 00:23:30.529 --> 00:23:33.250 daughter, an upstart, a concubine who had bewitched 00:23:33.250 --> 00:23:36.690 two emperors, and worst of all, a woman who dared 00:23:36.690 --> 00:23:39.470 to sit on the dragon throne. They were the biggest 00:23:39.470 --> 00:23:41.809 threat to her new dynasty. So by wiping them 00:23:41.809 --> 00:23:44.059 out with the terror... She was clearing the board. 00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:46.740 Yes. She was systematically dismantling the old 00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:49.819 boys club. And to replace them, she needed new 00:23:49.819 --> 00:23:52.660 people loyal to her. This leads us to part five. 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:55.980 Governance, religion, and society. Because her 00:23:55.980 --> 00:23:58.660 most lasting positive legacy is actually how 00:23:58.660 --> 00:24:00.859 she filled those empty government spots. The 00:24:00.859 --> 00:24:03.579 civil service exams. The Kiju. Now, the exams 00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:06.099 existed before her, but they were largely dominated 00:24:06.099 --> 00:24:08.450 by the rich and powerful. If you were from a 00:24:08.450 --> 00:24:10.769 noble family, you got the best tutors, you had 00:24:10.769 --> 00:24:12.730 the connections, you were almost guaranteed to 00:24:12.730 --> 00:24:14.950 pass. It was a system that perpetuated itself. 00:24:15.550 --> 00:24:19.069 Exactly. Wu Zishan reformed it. She opened the 00:24:19.069 --> 00:24:21.650 exams up to commoners and gentry from the rural 00:24:21.650 --> 00:24:24.410 North China Plain, areas outside the traditional 00:24:24.410 --> 00:24:27.289 power base. She made it about skill and knowledge, 00:24:27.490 --> 00:24:30.410 not family lineage. She basically democratized 00:24:30.410 --> 00:24:33.289 the bureaucracy. In a way, yes. She even introduced 00:24:33.289 --> 00:24:35.950 palace examinations at the very end of the process. 00:24:36.269 --> 00:24:38.789 She would sit on the throne and personally interview 00:24:38.789 --> 00:24:41.470 the final candidates herself. Imagine the pressure. 00:24:41.950 --> 00:24:43.789 You walk in, you're a scholar from some tiny 00:24:43.789 --> 00:24:46.150 village, you passed all these tests, and now 00:24:46.150 --> 00:24:48.829 the lion stallion lady is staring at you, judging 00:24:48.829 --> 00:24:51.390 you. Terrifying. But think about the result. 00:24:51.589 --> 00:24:54.609 She creates a whole new class of officials, the 00:24:54.609 --> 00:24:56.789 scholar officials. These guys owe everything 00:24:56.789 --> 00:24:59.990 to her. Their careers, their status, their wealth. 00:25:00.130 --> 00:25:02.650 It all comes from her, not from their grandfathers. 00:25:02.809 --> 00:25:05.049 So they aren't loyal to the old aristocratic 00:25:05.049 --> 00:25:08.059 families. They're loyal to her personally. Precisely. 00:25:08.059 --> 00:25:11.119 She replaced a hereditary oligarchy with a meritocracy 00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:13.900 that was dependent on the throne. It was a revolutionary 00:25:13.900 --> 00:25:16.640 shift in the power base of China, and it lasted 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:19.400 for centuries after she was gone. She also had 00:25:19.400 --> 00:25:22.420 to deal with the fact that, religiously and philosophically, 00:25:22.579 --> 00:25:25.180 she wasn't supposed to be there. Confucianism 00:25:25.180 --> 00:25:28.019 is pretty strict about the whole men rule, women 00:25:28.019 --> 00:25:30.940 obey thing. Very strict. It was a huge ideological 00:25:30.940 --> 00:25:33.640 barrier. So how does she get around that? She 00:25:33.640 --> 00:25:36.980 pivoted. She massively promoted Buddhism, which 00:25:36.980 --> 00:25:39.460 had been gaining popularity, and elevated it 00:25:39.460 --> 00:25:41.920 above Taoism, which had been the favored religion 00:25:41.920 --> 00:25:44.039 of the Tang family she deposed. Okay, so she 00:25:44.039 --> 00:25:46.720 changes the state religion. But doesn't Buddhism 00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:50.099 also have patriarchal elements? It does. There's 00:25:50.099 --> 00:25:52.539 a concept of the five impediments, which says 00:25:52.539 --> 00:25:54.920 women can't achieve certain high spiritual states 00:25:54.920 --> 00:25:57.740 or positions of power, including becoming a universal 00:25:57.740 --> 00:26:00.579 monarch. So how did she get around that? She 00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:03.119 found, or perhaps commissioned, a commentary 00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:05.880 on a Buddhist text called the Great Cloud Sutra. 00:26:05.960 --> 00:26:08.819 Let me guess. It conveniently predicted a female 00:26:08.819 --> 00:26:11.900 ruler. Conveniently, yes. This commentary predicted 00:26:11.900 --> 00:26:14.980 that a female deity, the Devi of Pure Radiance, 00:26:15.099 --> 00:26:18.279 would be reincarnated and would reign as a universal 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:22.000 monarch, bringing peace and prosperity. Wu then 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:24.180 had her supporters declare that she was the incarnation 00:26:24.180 --> 00:26:26.799 of Maitreya, the future Buddha who will come 00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:29.200 to save the world. So she's not just an empress. 00:26:29.299 --> 00:26:32.470 She's a living god. She's a living Buddha. She 00:26:32.470 --> 00:26:35.589 used religion brilliantly to bypass the Confucian 00:26:35.589 --> 00:26:38.190 rules. She essentially said, your patriarchal 00:26:38.190 --> 00:26:40.549 rules don't apply to me. I'm a divine being sent 00:26:40.549 --> 00:26:43.509 to rule. Whatever works. And looking at the map, 00:26:43.529 --> 00:26:44.990 she wasn't just sitting in the palace praying 00:26:44.990 --> 00:26:47.730 and writing exams. The empire was growing under 00:26:47.730 --> 00:26:50.099 her rule. It was. She was an aggressive commander 00:26:50.099 --> 00:26:51.940 -in -chief. She pushed the borders of the empire 00:26:51.940 --> 00:26:55.339 deep into Central Asia, retaking the four garrisons 00:26:55.339 --> 00:26:58.160 of Anxi. Why was that area so important? It controlled 00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:00.359 the Silk Road. Controlling the Silk Road meant 00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:02.960 controlling immense wealth from trade. She also 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:05.140 fought major wars on the Korean peninsula against 00:27:05.140 --> 00:27:07.839 the kingdoms of Silla and Goguryeo. She was an 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:09.900 expansionist. And what about the economy back 00:27:09.900 --> 00:27:13.079 home? She maintained the Junchian or equal field 00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:16.309 system. This was a complex land distribution 00:27:16.309 --> 00:27:19.089 system designed to ensure that farming families 00:27:19.089 --> 00:27:22.710 had land to till. This kept the tax revenue flowing 00:27:22.710 --> 00:27:25.470 steadily and the imperial granaries full. The 00:27:25.470 --> 00:27:27.890 population was relatively stable and content. 00:27:28.250 --> 00:27:30.349 That's the great paradox of her reign, isn't 00:27:30.349 --> 00:27:32.730 it? If you were a high -ranking noble in the 00:27:32.730 --> 00:27:35.970 capital, she was your worst nightmare. You could 00:27:35.970 --> 00:27:38.730 be tortured and executed on an anonymous tip. 00:27:38.869 --> 00:27:41.089 An existential threat. But if you were a rice 00:27:41.089 --> 00:27:43.430 farmer in the provinces, she was actually a... 00:27:43.660 --> 00:27:45.660 Pretty great emperor who kept the taxes fair 00:27:45.660 --> 00:27:47.660 and the borders safe. Precisely. For the average 00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:50.400 person, life was probably pretty good. But, like 00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:53.059 all empires, the cracks started to show eventually. 00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:56.640 We move to part six, the fall and the legacy. 00:27:57.140 --> 00:27:59.420 And unfortunately, the story takes a turn and 00:27:59.420 --> 00:28:02.880 involves gigolos. It does. We have to talk about 00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:04.740 the Zhang brothers. Okay, set the scene for us. 00:28:05.210 --> 00:28:08.329 Wu is now in her 70s and 80s. She's old. She's 00:28:08.329 --> 00:28:10.849 ruled for decades. And she starts relying heavily 00:28:10.849 --> 00:28:14.289 on two young, handsome lovers, Zhang Yizi and 00:28:14.289 --> 00:28:16.369 Zhang Changzong. These two were controversial. 00:28:16.829 --> 00:28:19.730 They were incredibly handsome, apparently great 00:28:19.730 --> 00:28:23.269 musicians, but also profoundly corrupt and arrogant. 00:28:23.509 --> 00:28:26.730 Because they were the empress's favorites, they 00:28:26.730 --> 00:28:28.910 gained immense power. They were the gatekeepers. 00:28:29.109 --> 00:28:32.170 Exactly. They controlled all access to the aging 00:28:32.170 --> 00:28:34.630 empress. Even the highest ministers in the government 00:28:34.630 --> 00:28:36.450 couldn't get an audience with her without going 00:28:36.450 --> 00:28:39.130 through the Zhang brothers first. Why did she 00:28:39.130 --> 00:28:41.869 fall for them? Was she just a lonely old woman? 00:28:42.380 --> 00:28:45.099 It's possible. She was isolated at the top for 00:28:45.099 --> 00:28:48.019 so long. But also politically, she might have 00:28:48.019 --> 00:28:49.960 seen them as useful. They had no independent 00:28:49.960 --> 00:28:52.700 power base. Their power came only from her favor. 00:28:53.099 --> 00:28:55.759 Unlike her sons or ministers, they couldn't betray 00:28:55.759 --> 00:28:57.880 her and start their own dynasty. But they became 00:28:57.880 --> 00:29:00.500 a problem. A huge problem. As she got older and 00:29:00.500 --> 00:29:02.440 sicker, she lost control of them. They started 00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:05.200 taking bribes, abusing their power, and alienating 00:29:05.200 --> 00:29:08.480 the entire court. And this led to one last tragic 00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:12.480 family incident. Yes. Her own grandson, Li Chongbrun 00:29:12.480 --> 00:29:15.259 and her granddaughter were caught privately discussing 00:29:15.259 --> 00:29:17.680 the Zhang brothers, basically gossiping among 00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:19.579 themselves about how much influence these two 00:29:19.579 --> 00:29:21.920 guys had. Just talking about it. It's talking. 00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:25.920 The Zhang brothers found out, ran to Wu, and 00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:28.799 claimed it was a conspiracy. And Wu, paranoid 00:29:28.799 --> 00:29:31.460 in her old age, ordered her own grandchildren 00:29:31.460 --> 00:29:34.279 to commit suicide. Over gossip. Over perceived 00:29:34.279 --> 00:29:37.420 disloyalty. But this was the breaking point. 00:29:37.599 --> 00:29:39.759 The court could handle the purges of the old 00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:41.900 aristocracy. They could even handle the secret 00:29:41.900 --> 00:29:45.200 police. But letting these two boy toys run the 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:47.779 empire and kill the rightful heirs... That was 00:29:47.779 --> 00:29:50.500 too much. The loyalty she had built for decades 00:29:50.500 --> 00:29:53.319 started to evaporate. So the coup finally happens. 00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:57.539 In the year 705, Wu is very ill, bedridden. She's 00:29:57.539 --> 00:30:00.640 roughly 80 or 81 years old. A group of loyalist 00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:03.119 Tang generals and chancellors storm the palace. 00:30:03.380 --> 00:30:05.990 Do they kill her? No. They kill the Zhang brothers 00:30:05.990 --> 00:30:08.089 right there in the hallway outside her rooms. 00:30:08.230 --> 00:30:10.470 Then they go into her bedroom and force her to 00:30:10.470 --> 00:30:12.910 abdicate the throne. And she just gives it up. 00:30:12.990 --> 00:30:15.630 She's 80 and 6. She accepts it. The Tang Dynasty 00:30:15.630 --> 00:30:18.410 is restored under her son, Zhang Zhang, the same 00:30:18.410 --> 00:30:20.309 one she deposed for being incompetent all those 00:30:20.309 --> 00:30:22.670 years ago. She dies a few months later. But her 00:30:22.670 --> 00:30:25.009 final act, her final edict from her deathbed, 00:30:25.089 --> 00:30:27.670 is really surprising. She asks to be stripped 00:30:27.670 --> 00:30:31.359 of the title Emperor. Yes. She formally requests 00:30:31.359 --> 00:30:33.920 to be buried not as Emperor Wu Zhao of the Zhu 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:36.779 Dynasty, but as Empress Consort of the Tang Dynasty 00:30:36.779 --> 00:30:40.579 alongside her husband, Guo Zong. Why? After everything 00:30:40.579 --> 00:30:42.920 she did to get that title, why give it up at 00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:46.559 the very end? Was it humility? Regret? That is 00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:48.799 the million -dollar question. It's unlikely to 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:51.779 be regret. A more cynical and probably more accurate 00:30:51.779 --> 00:30:54.880 reading is that it was one last pragmatic political 00:30:54.880 --> 00:30:57.759 move. How so? If she died as a usurper emperor, 00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:00.740 the restored Tang court might have refused her 00:31:00.740 --> 00:31:02.980 an imperial burial. They might have just tossed 00:31:02.980 --> 00:31:06.119 her in an unmarked grave. By reverting to Empress 00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:09.240 Consort, the wife of Emperor Gozong, she guaranteed 00:31:09.240 --> 00:31:11.920 her spot in the magnificent Qinling Mausoleum 00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:14.859 next to her husband for all eternity. she secured 00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:16.859 her legacy which brings us right back where we 00:31:16.859 --> 00:31:19.519 started to the wordless steel we have this massive 00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:22.539 blank stone standing over her tomb why leave 00:31:22.539 --> 00:31:24.539 it blank there are three main theories and i 00:31:24.539 --> 00:31:26.779 want to hear which one you buy during one it's 00:31:26.779 --> 00:31:30.039 a boast her achievements were so vast so unprecedented 00:31:30.039 --> 00:31:32.480 that no words could possibly contain them it's 00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:34.960 her saying i am beyond language my deeds speak 00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:37.599 for themselves i'm too great for your adjectives 00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:40.220 okay i could see that what's theory two theory 00:31:40.220 --> 00:31:44.009 two She knew she was controversial. She knew 00:31:44.009 --> 00:31:46.069 the male Confucian historians who would write 00:31:46.069 --> 00:31:48.970 the official records hated her. So she left it 00:31:48.970 --> 00:31:51.410 blank intentionally to let future generations 00:31:51.410 --> 00:31:54.849 to let us judge her. It's a challenge. You write 00:31:54.849 --> 00:31:58.089 my epitaph. That's bold. That's very lion stallion. 00:31:58.460 --> 00:32:00.599 And then there's theory three. The Confucian 00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:02.700 scholars who took over after she died hated her 00:32:02.700 --> 00:32:05.079 so much that they simply refused to write anything. 00:32:05.380 --> 00:32:07.900 It was an act of silent protest. They couldn't 00:32:07.900 --> 00:32:10.420 praise her because she was a woman usurper, but 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:12.640 they couldn't deface the monument of an imperial 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:15.259 ancestor, so they just did nothing. An empty 00:32:15.259 --> 00:32:18.000 stone as the ultimate insult. You know, I personally 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:20.440 lean toward the second one. She was a woman who 00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:22.480 was obsessed with her legacy, with controlling 00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:25.039 the narrative. Leaving it blank is the ultimate 00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:27.819 power move. It forces us to keep talking about 00:32:27.819 --> 00:32:30.869 it. her to keep debating her 1300 years later. 00:32:30.970 --> 00:32:33.329 We're filling it in right now. I agree. It's 00:32:33.329 --> 00:32:35.809 a blank canvas that forces every generation to 00:32:35.809 --> 00:32:37.730 project its own values onto her. It's brilliant. 00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:40.890 So let's wrap this up with a final verdict. Was 00:32:40.890 --> 00:32:44.009 she the hen that crowed a disaster for China? 00:32:44.529 --> 00:32:47.609 Or was she a visionary ruler? The Confucian historians 00:32:47.609 --> 00:32:51.130 certainly saw her as a disaster, a violator of 00:32:51.130 --> 00:32:54.089 the natural and cosmic order. A cautionary tale. 00:32:54.529 --> 00:32:57.309 But if you look at the hard metrics, the expansion 00:32:57.309 --> 00:33:00.170 of territory, the stability of the economy, the 00:33:00.170 --> 00:33:03.230 creation of a meritocratic bureaucracy, she was 00:33:03.230 --> 00:33:05.849 an incredibly effective CEO. She broke the glass 00:33:05.849 --> 00:33:09.049 ceiling. She shattered it. She crushed the aristocracy 00:33:09.049 --> 00:33:11.329 that was holding China back and promoted talent 00:33:11.329 --> 00:33:13.990 from all walks of life. Yes, she had blood on 00:33:13.990 --> 00:33:16.809 her hands. Lots and lots of it. But so did Emperor 00:33:16.809 --> 00:33:19.950 Taizong. So did nearly every great emperor in 00:33:19.950 --> 00:33:21.930 history. That's the thing that sticks with me. 00:33:21.970 --> 00:33:24.450 And here's a thought for you to go on. We read 00:33:24.450 --> 00:33:26.130 about her strangling her daughter, poisoning 00:33:26.130 --> 00:33:28.890 her son, torturing her rivals. And it sounds 00:33:28.890 --> 00:33:31.690 absolutely monstrous. It is. But the source material 00:33:31.690 --> 00:33:33.869 also says she accepted words of righteousness 00:33:33.869 --> 00:33:36.609 and honored the upright. She would promote officials 00:33:36.609 --> 00:33:38.990 who stood up to her and disagreed with her if 00:33:38.990 --> 00:33:40.829 she thought they were talented and right. It's 00:33:40.829 --> 00:33:42.890 a fundamental duality. So here's the question. 00:33:43.109 --> 00:33:46.069 If a male emperor had done exactly what she did, 00:33:46.269 --> 00:33:49.380 killed his brothers to secure the throne. purged 00:33:49.380 --> 00:33:52.140 the old lazy nobles with the secret police, expanded 00:33:52.140 --> 00:33:54.900 the borders, and stabilized the economy, would 00:33:54.900 --> 00:33:57.660 he be remembered as a monster? Or would he just 00:33:57.660 --> 00:34:00.240 be another Emperor Wu the Great? And how much 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:02.680 of her evil reputation is simply because she 00:34:02.680 --> 00:34:05.079 dared to sit on the dragon throne as a woman? 00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:07.559 It forces you to ask whether we judge female 00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:10.280 power by a different, harsher standard than male 00:34:10.280 --> 00:34:14.000 power. Power is rarely clean. Wu Zixin showed 00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.420 us just how messy and how effective it can be. 00:34:16.780 --> 00:34:18.780 A lesson for the ages. And on that note, we'll 00:34:18.780 --> 00:34:20.219 leave you to fill in the blank still yourself. 00:34:20.440 --> 00:34:22.199 Thanks for diving deep with us. My pleasure. 00:34:22.340 --> 00:34:23.019 See you next time.