I want you to picture a hill in Shaanxi Province,
China. We're standing at the Kenling Mausoleum.
It's this sprawling imperial complex, the kind
of place that's really designed to make you feel
very, very small. It is. You walk up this long
path, the Spirit Way, and you're flanked by these
massive stone statues. You've got officials,
mythical beasts, winged horses. It's all very
intimidating. And right there, standing guard.
monument that you just yeah you physically cannot
miss it it's a monolith it really is overwhelming
it's a single piece of limestone standing over
six meters tall that's what about 20 feet high
it weighs nearly a hundred metric tons Wow and
usually when you see a steel a stone tablet like
this in an imperial Chinese tomb it is busy Busy
how? Like visually cluttered? I mean, every single
square inch is usually carved. You'd expect inscriptions,
flowery poems, you know, detailed lists of battles
won, economic achievements, celestial omens that
supposedly prove their right to rule. It's basically
a resume. It's propaganda for the afterlife.
A resume carved in stone designed to tell the
gods and future historians just how magnificent
the deceased ruler was. But you stand in front
of this specific stone and there's just nothing.
Nothing. It is the wordless still. No eulogy,
no list of deeds, just blank stone weathered
by 13 centuries of wind and rain. Which is incredibly
eerie. Yeah. Because the person buried there
isn't some minor figure who was forgotten or,
you know, some disgraced prince who was erased
from the record. Not at all. We are talking about
Wu Zetian. One of the most titanically important
figures in all of Asian history. Absolutely.
And to understand the silence of that stone,
you really have to understand the noise she made
while she was alive. Because Wu Zetian holds
a title that, well, technically it shouldn't
exist. We need to parse this right at the start
because I think most people, especially in the
West, know her generally as the Empress of China.
Right. But that English title is actually a bit
misleading, isn't it? It implies she was just
the wife. It is very misleading. In Chinese history,
you have the term Hu. That's an emperor's consort,
the primary wife of the emperor. You have plenty
of those. Then you have emperor's dowagers, the
mothers of emperors. They can have immense influence,
sure, usually ruling as a regent through a young
son. But Wu Zetian was Huangdi. Which is the
term for the emperor himself. Exactly. Huangdi
is usually translated as emperor, but the implication
is something closer to supreme deity. It is a
masculine noun. It is a role that structurally,
philosophically, and religiously was designed
to be held only by a man. So for, what, 2 ,000
years of imperial history, it was a no -girls
-allowed clubhouse. That's a great way to put
it. The entire bureaucracy, the Confucian rites,
the mandate of heaven itself, everything was
set up to prevent a woman from holding that specific
title. And she didn't just rule as a regent for
a young son, essentially keeping the seat warm
until he came of age. No, not at all. She eventually
brushed her sons aside, established her own dynasty.
She declared the Tang dynasty over and founded
the Wuzhou. She is the only female sovereign
in all of Chinese history to rule in her own
right. So the blank stone. Is that an insult
from the men who came after her? Did they just
refuse to acknowledge her or was it a boast from
her? That is the mystery we are trying to solve
today. the traditional historians the confucian
scholars who wrote the books after she died they
painted her as a caricature the dragon lady the
dragon lady the ruthless usurper the hen that
crowed at dawn which was a common confucian insult
meaning a woman in power is an offense against
nature like a hen trying to act like a rooster
But we have a stack of sources here. Modern scholarship,
translations from the Old Book of Tang, and recent
archaeological analysis that paint a much, much
more complex picture. Right. We're trying to
move past the cartoon villain. We need to find
out. Was she a tyrant who murdered her own children
to get to the top? Or was she a visionary CEO
who professionalized the bureaucracy, expanded
the empire, and broke the power of a stagnant
aristocracy? Or, and this is a scary thought,
was she a both? Let's get into it. Part one,
The Lion Stallion. To understand Wu, you have
to look at where she came from. She was born
around 624. Now, usually, emperors or high -ranking
consorts came from the old, entrenched military
aristocracy. These were families with deep roots.
Old money. Very old money. But Wu's father was
a timber merchant. So new money. Exactly. He
made a fortune and became a close ally of the
founder of the Tang Dynasty, so he was rewarded
with a title. But they weren't part of that deep
-rooted, blue -blood aristocracy that ran the
country, and that chip on her shoulder is important
later. And her education was unusual, right?
I read that she wasn't just taught embroidery
and how to manage a household. Far from it. Most
girls, even in wealthy families, were taught
domestic skills to prepare them for marriage.
Wu's parents, however, encouraged her to read,
to write, to study politics, history, and music.
She was literate and sharp long before she ever
set foot in the palace. And there's this great
story about her leaving home. She's only 14 years
old, and she's been selected to enter the palace
as a concubine for Emperor Taizong. That's the
current emperor. A huge honor, but also terrifying.
Right. And her mother, Lady Yang. is weeping,
acting like she's being sent to a funeral. Which,
in a way, she was. Entering the palace usually
meant you never saw your family again. You became
property of the emperor, just one of thousands
of women in the harem. It was a gilded cage.
But Wu just looks at her crying mother and says
something like, how do you know that it is not
my fortune to meet the son of heaven? Ambition
right from the very start. She wasn't going there
to serve. She was going there to succeed. But
she doesn't start at the top. She enters the
palace as a Karen. A talented lady. What does
that rank actually mean? It's a mid -tier rank.
It sounds nice, but she's essentially a glorified
secretary. She's managing the emperor's wardrobe,
maybe his library. She has access, but she doesn't
have status. But she didn't stay unnoticed for
long. And to really understand how she ended
up on the throne, we have to look at her origin
story. And there was one anecdote that Wu Zigen
actually told about herself late in her life
that I feel is the skeleton key to her entire
psychology. The lion stallion. This is a famous
story, but I want to scrutinize it because honestly,
it sounds almost too cinematic to be true. It
does, but I think the fact that she told it about
herself matters more than if it literally happened
word for word. Okay, set the scene for us. The
setting is the imperial stables. The emperor
at the time is Taizong, a renowned warrior. He
has this magnificent horse, the lion stallion,
but it's completely untamable. Psychotic, it
bucks off the best generals in the army, and
no one can ride it. And Wu is what? A teenager
at this point? A low -level consort? She's very
young, a low -ranking concubine. She's essentially
invisible in the court hierarchy. But she steps
forward in front of the emperor and his whole
entourage and says, I can tame this animal, but
I need three items. That's a bold opening line
for an intern speaking to the CEO. Incredibly
bold. The emperor is amused, so he asks what
she needs. And she asks for an iron whip, an
iron hammer, and a dagger. Okay, hold on. I know
a little bit about horse training. You use a
carrot. You use a soft brush. You build trust.
You do not ask for a hammer. Wu wasn't interested
in whispering to the horse. Her method was a
pure cold algorithm of escalation. An algorithm.
Yes. Step one. Whip the horse with the iron lash.
Demand submission through pain. If it doesn't
submit. And if the horse keeps bucking, which
it probably will. Step two. You take the iron
hammer and you smash it in the head. Which? Surely
that kills the horse. Yeah. Or at least gives
it permanent brain damage. It creates a massive
concussion, certainly. It's meant to break its
will completely. But if the horse still refuses
to submit... There's a step three. Step three.
You use the dagger to slit its throat. So the
logic is, submit or die. There is no middle ground.
There's no negotiation. Precisely. And look at
the reaction from the emperor. Taizong was a
warrior. I mean, this is a guy who killed his
own brothers in an ambush to get the throne.
He respected strength. But even he was a little
disturbed by this. It was too much for him. It
was almost too ruthless. The sources say he praised
her bravery, but he never promoted her. He kept
her at a distance after that. It was like he
saw something in her that was a little too cold,
even for him. So why on earth would she tell
this story about herself? decades later when
she was in power. It makes her sound like a monster.
Because by the time she told it, she was the
empress ruling a court full of ambitious, scheming
men. She wasn't telling a funny anecdote about
her youth. She was giving a warning. Mission
statement. Exactly. She was telling her ministers,
I am the woman who will kill the horse if it
doesn't listen. Do not test me. This is how I
operate. So she has the will, but she doesn't
have the power yet. And then, tragedy or... From
her perspective, opportunity strikes. Emperor
Taizong dies in 649. And the rule is very strict.
If you were a concubine and you didn't have any
children with the deceased emperor, you were
shipped off. No exception. None. She was sent
to Ganyi Temple to become a Buddhist nun. Shaved
head, simple robes, chanting scriptures for the
rest of her life. That was supposed to be the
end of Wu Zhao. She was supposed to fade into
history. But of course she didn't. Because she
had made a connection with the new emperor, Taizong's
son, Gozong. Right. While his father was still
alive, Wu and the young prince Gozong had, let's
just say, a moment. There was a spark. He was
drawn to her. And he remembered her. He did.
On the anniversary of his father's death, Gaozong
goes to the temple to offer incense, and he sees
Wu there in her nun's robes. The story goes that
they both wept. It's all very dramatic. And this
is where the palace trauma really kicks into
high gear, because Gaozong's wife, Empress Wang,
sees this interaction. Now, you'd think the wife
would be jealous and want this nun kept as far
away as possible. That would be the logical reaction.
But she actually arranges to bring Wu back to
the palace. Why on earth would she do that? It's
the classic enemy of my enemy is my friend blunder.
A fatal one. Explain that. Who is she fighting?
Empress Wang was locked in a bitter rivalry for
the emperor's affection with a different woman,
the pure consort Xiao. Wang was losing that fight.
So she thought, if I bring this beautiful former
concubine of my husband's father back, she'll
distract the emperor from Xiao. Okay, I can see
the logic, I guess. And her thinking was... Wu
is a former lowly nun who owes me everything.
She'll be my loyal pawn. Oh, Empress Wang, you
made a huge mistake. A catastrophic one. Wu returns
to the palace and she is sharper, she is hungrier,
and she is far more experienced in the ways of
power than either of them. She very quickly becomes
the emperor's favorite. And this leads us to
probably the darkest and most debated accusation
against your entire life. Part two. The path
to empress blood and accusations. The infant
daughter incident. And we really do need to get
into the weeds here because for many people,
this is the moment where she crosses the line
from ambitious to monstrous. So the year is 654.
Wu has given birth to a daughter with Emperor
Gaozong. Yes. A baby girl. Empress Wang, who
is still the official empress but is losing favor
fast, comes to visit the nursery to see the new
baby. A political courtesy, basically. Right.
Look, we're all one big happy family. The story
goes that after Wang leaves, Wu goes into the
room. She finds her baby daughter dead. And Wu
immediately accuses Empress Wang of murder. She
does. She points out that Wang was the last one
seen near the room. Wang had no alibi. The emperor,
Gezong, who was already drifting away from Wang
and completely infatuated with Wu, believed it
instantly. He was furious. He wanted to depose
Wang right then and there. But the big historical
question, the ultimate cold case is, did Empress
Wang actually do it? Or did Wu Zixin kill her
own baby to frame the empress? It is one of the
most debated and unknowable moments in Chinese
history. Traditional historians who already disliked
Wu for being a woman in power flat out say she
did it. They use it as the ultimate proof of
her monstrous ambition that she would sacrifice
her own flesh and blood for the throne. But looking
at it with modern eyes, is there any actual evidence
for that? Or is it just a convenient story for
her enemies? There is zero forensic evidence,
and modern historians look at this with a lot
more skepticism. We have to remember the environment.
These palaces, they were drafty, they were damp,
and they were heated by open coal braziers. So
it could have been accidental. Absolutely. It
could have been what we now call crib death or
SIDs. It could have been carbon monoxide poisoning
from the faulty heating system, which was very
common. Or, I mean, Empress Wang might have actually
done it. Or Wang actually did it. We can't discount
that. It was a brutal time. And killing a rival's
child, especially a favored one, was a standard
move in the political playbook. But Wu? turned
that tragedy, whether it was real or manufactured,
into a political weapon. She did, and that's
the key. Whether she committed the murder or
simply capitalized on a terrible tragedy, the
result was what mattered to her. The rumor solidified
her position as the victim and Wang's as the
villain. It was the final nail in the coffin
for Empress Wang. And things get very Game of
Thrones very quickly after this. Gaozong promotes
Wu to Empress. And what happens to her old rivals,
Wang and the pure consort Zhao? It's grisly.
They were accused of witchcraft, which was a
standard political weapon back then, deposed
and thrown into prison. Later, on Wu's orders,
they were executed. Now, there's a legend about
how they died. I've heard these stories about
them being turned into human swine. There is,
but we need to be very careful of that one. The
popular story, the one you hear a lot, is that
their limbs were cut off and they were thrown
into wine vats to prolong their suffering. That's
the human swine torture. Horrific. It is. However,
our best sources suggest the specific graphic
detail might be a conflation. It might be later
storytellers mixing Wu -zation up with a different
empress, Empress Liu from the Han Dynasty, who
lived centuries earlier and was famous for that
specific cruelty. So they're blending the stories
to make Wu seem even more demonic. It's very
likely. But let's be clear, they were executed
and the sources say Wu was haunted by it. Haunted
literally, like she saw ghosts. Allegedly. She
believed their spirits were hunting her in the
palace at Chang. She complained of them appearing
in her dreams, disheveled and bloody. It's actually
one of the main reasons she eventually convinced
the emperor to move the entire court from the
capital, Chang, to the eastern capital, Luoyang.
She moved the government to escape ghosts. To
escape her ghosts, yes. So she's empress now.
She has the title. She has the power. But she's
not satisfied with just being the wife. We're
moving into part three, the two saints, because
in the year 660, something happens to Emperor
Gozong. Guizhong suffers a major health crisis.
The records say he suffered from debilitating
dizziness and vision loss. It was most likely
a severe stroke or series of strokes, probably
related to hypertension. He became incapacitated
for long stretches. And who steps in to handle
the day -to -day business of running the empire?
Wu Zixin. But she doesn't just, you know, sign
a few forms. She effectively takes over the entire
administration. She would sit behind a cretin
or a screen during court sessions, literally
ruling from the shadows. So the officials would
be unbessing the emperor. But the decisions,
the questions, the orders were coming from the
woman behind the curtain. It got to the point
where the court officials started calling them
Er Sheng, the two saints. Meaning they were co
-rulers. Entitled, perhaps. But in practice,
she was driving the car. And this is where we
see her start to reshape the government to fit
her own ambitions. And also where we see her
ruthlessness turn on her own family. Yeah, let's
talk about the family purges. Because usually
when someone gets power, they elevate their family
members to secure loyalty. Wu didn't exactly
do that. Well, she had a very complicated relationship
with her relatives. Remember, her father was
a merchant and her mother, Lady Yang, had been
snubbed by Wu's own half -brothers and cousins,
the men of the family. They looked down on her
mom. They did. They saw her as coming from a
lower status. And when Wu got power, she remembered
that disrespect. One by one, those male relatives
were demoted, exiled, or worse. So this was payback
for how they treated her mom years earlier. Absolutely.
And then there's the... Yes. The niece was getting
a little too close to the emperor, perhaps becoming
a new favorite, so Wu had her poisoned. And then
she blamed the tainted food on her cousins and
had them executed for the crime. A terrifyingly
efficient move. It really reinforces that Iron
Hammer mentality from the horse story. If you
are a threat, if you do not submit, you get the
hammer. But... And here's the nuance we promised
at the start. It wasn't just murder and palace
intrigue. She was also governing. Yes, it was
policy. In 675, she submitted a document called
the Twelve Suggestions to Improve Governance.
And these weren't the ravings of a madwoman.
They were deeply considered progressive reforms.
What kind of things was she suggesting? Well,
for example, take the mourning period for parents.
In strict Confucian society, if your father died,
the mourning period was three years. If your
mother died, it was shorter. It was unequal.
A reflection of their status. Exactly. Wu changed
the law. So the mourning period for a mother
was equal to that of a father. That sounds like
a small ritual detail. China at the time, that's
a huge symbolic shift. It's massive. It was a
direct legal challenge to the patriarchal structure
of society. She was using policy to elevate the
status of women. She also did things like add
the Tao Te Ching to the university reading lists,
broadening intellectual horizons beyond just
the rigid Confucian classics. So she's encouraging
agriculture. She's reforming social norms. She
was actively reshaping society to create a world
where a woman like her could rule. And while
she was doing this, she was also eliminating
anyone who could challenge her, which, tragically,
included her own sons. Let's get into that because
it's so dark. She had four sons with Gaozong.
The eldest, Crown Prince Li Hong, was by all
accounts popular and capable. He was, but he
argued with her about policy. Specifically, he
wanted her to release some of the political rivals
she had imprisoned. He disagreed with her ruthlessness.
Soon after one of these arguments, he died very
suddenly. Why is that? Most historians, then
and now, suspect poison. Then her second son,
Li Xian, was made crown prince. He was also very
bright, but he was eventually accused of treason
when weapons were found in his palace. A setup.
Almost certainly a setup. He was exiled and later
forced to commit suicide. It's a ruthless Darwinism
within her own family. Only the son, who is completely
subservient, will be allowed to survive. It is.
She was clearing the board of anyone with an
independent mind. Which leads us to the moment
where she stops pretending to be the helper.
Part 4. Establishing the Zhu Dynasty. Emperor
Gaozong finally dies in 683. Her third son, Zongzong,
takes the throne. He lasts all of six weeks.
A new record, perhaps. What did he do wrong?
He made the critical mistake of trying to act
like a real emperor. He tried to appoint his
father -in -law to a high position, a chancellor,
without checking with mom first. Big mistake.
Wu essentially saw this as a direct challenge.
She convened the court and had him deposed for
treason. Six weeks. She replaces him with her
youngest, most pliable son, Ruizong, but he was
emperor in name only. A puppet. A virtual prisoner
in the inner palace who wasn't allowed to meet
officials or make any decisions. Wu was the absolute
undisputed ruler. And then in the year 690, she
decides to drop the charade completely. The coronation.
She forces Ruizong to abdicate the throne to
her. She declares the end of the Great Tang Dynasty
and the beginning of her own, the Zhu Dynasty.
And she takes a new name. Wu Zhao. And I read
that she actually created a new Chinese character
for her name. She did. A character that means
something like light shining from the sky or
sun and moon in the sky. That is a power move.
I'm not just taking the throne. I'm inventing
language to describe how awesome I am. The symbolism
was everywhere. There was this parrot and cat.
pun that circulated among the people. Her surname
Wu sounds very similar to the word for parrot.
The royal family she just opposed, the Li family,
their name sounds like wildcat. So the cat eats
the parrot. A political joke. Right. People would
joke about the cat eating the parrot to symbolize
the struggle between the families. But Wu made
sure the parrot was the one with the claws. And
to secure this new dynasty, to make sure no cats
were left, she unleashed a reign of terror. Let's
talk about the mechanics of this, because reign
of terror is a phrase we hear a lot in history.
How did she actually do it? What were the tools?
She constructed a state surveillance system that
was terrifyingly effective. She empowered a secret
police force led by a group of cruel officials,
most famously a man named Lai Yunchen. And what
did these guys do? They were torturers, sadists,
but she gave them a very specific and brilliant
tool, the copper mailboxes. The source mentions
these. They were actual physical boxes in the
Capitol. Yes, four of them with different slots.
One slot for men recommending themselves for
office, another for criticizing the government,
another for reporting conspiracies and treason.
And anyone could use them. Anyone. A peasant,
a servant, a disgruntled neighbor, a rival official.
You could drop a letter in there anonymously
accusing anyone of anything. That is terrifying.
It gamifies snitching. It turns the entire population
into potential spies for the state. It created
an atmosphere of absolute paranoia. If you were
a member of the old aristocracy, you couldn't
trust your own servants. You couldn't trust your
brother. Because if a letter with your name on
it ended up in that copper box, Lai Yunxin's
men would drag you to their special prisons.
And they had a manual, right? An instruction
book on how to get confessions. Yes. It was called
the Manual of Accusation. It was a literal instruction
book on torture. It detailed methods to break
a person's will and extract a confession, regardless
of their actual guilt. And there were? Name techniques?
There were. The source mentions one called Dying
Swine's Melancholy. We don't have the graphic
specifics, thankfully, but the name itself implies
a kind of prolonged, agonizing process designed
to break the spirit to the point where the victim
would admit to anything just to make it stop.
Okay, so this is the tyrant side of her in full
view. She's purging her enemies through torture
and paranoia. But I want to go back to the why.
Was she just a sadist killing random people for
fun? No. And this is the crucial expert nuance.
While this was undeniably terrifying, there was
a clear political purpose. She was targeting
a very specific group, the Guangzong aristocracy.
Define that for us. Who were these people? Imagine
the landed gentry in Victorian England or the
old money families of Boston. These were the
powerful clans from the region around the old
capital, Chang 'an. They had held power for centuries.
They controlled the best land, the top army posts,
the key court positions. And they hated her.
They despised her. To them, she was a merchant's
daughter, an upstart, a concubine who had bewitched
two emperors, and worst of all, a woman who dared
to sit on the dragon throne. They were the biggest
threat to her new dynasty. So by wiping them
out with the terror... She was clearing the board.
Yes. She was systematically dismantling the old
boys club. And to replace them, she needed new
people loyal to her. This leads us to part five.
Governance, religion, and society. Because her
most lasting positive legacy is actually how
she filled those empty government spots. The
civil service exams. The Kiju. Now, the exams
existed before her, but they were largely dominated
by the rich and powerful. If you were from a
noble family, you got the best tutors, you had
the connections, you were almost guaranteed to
pass. It was a system that perpetuated itself.
Exactly. Wu Zishan reformed it. She opened the
exams up to commoners and gentry from the rural
North China Plain, areas outside the traditional
power base. She made it about skill and knowledge,
not family lineage. She basically democratized
the bureaucracy. In a way, yes. She even introduced
palace examinations at the very end of the process.
She would sit on the throne and personally interview
the final candidates herself. Imagine the pressure.
You walk in, you're a scholar from some tiny
village, you passed all these tests, and now
the lion stallion lady is staring at you, judging
you. Terrifying. But think about the result.
She creates a whole new class of officials, the
scholar officials. These guys owe everything
to her. Their careers, their status, their wealth.
It all comes from her, not from their grandfathers.
So they aren't loyal to the old aristocratic
families. They're loyal to her personally. Precisely.
She replaced a hereditary oligarchy with a meritocracy
that was dependent on the throne. It was a revolutionary
shift in the power base of China, and it lasted
for centuries after she was gone. She also had
to deal with the fact that, religiously and philosophically,
she wasn't supposed to be there. Confucianism
is pretty strict about the whole men rule, women
obey thing. Very strict. It was a huge ideological
barrier. So how does she get around that? She
pivoted. She massively promoted Buddhism, which
had been gaining popularity, and elevated it
above Taoism, which had been the favored religion
of the Tang family she deposed. Okay, so she
changes the state religion. But doesn't Buddhism
also have patriarchal elements? It does. There's
a concept of the five impediments, which says
women can't achieve certain high spiritual states
or positions of power, including becoming a universal
monarch. So how did she get around that? She
found, or perhaps commissioned, a commentary
on a Buddhist text called the Great Cloud Sutra.
Let me guess. It conveniently predicted a female
ruler. Conveniently, yes. This commentary predicted
that a female deity, the Devi of Pure Radiance,
would be reincarnated and would reign as a universal
monarch, bringing peace and prosperity. Wu then
had her supporters declare that she was the incarnation
of Maitreya, the future Buddha who will come
to save the world. So she's not just an empress.
She's a living god. She's a living Buddha. She
used religion brilliantly to bypass the Confucian
rules. She essentially said, your patriarchal
rules don't apply to me. I'm a divine being sent
to rule. Whatever works. And looking at the map,
she wasn't just sitting in the palace praying
and writing exams. The empire was growing under
her rule. It was. She was an aggressive commander
-in -chief. She pushed the borders of the empire
deep into Central Asia, retaking the four garrisons
of Anxi. Why was that area so important? It controlled
the Silk Road. Controlling the Silk Road meant
controlling immense wealth from trade. She also
fought major wars on the Korean peninsula against
the kingdoms of Silla and Goguryeo. She was an
expansionist. And what about the economy back
home? She maintained the Junchian or equal field
system. This was a complex land distribution
system designed to ensure that farming families
had land to till. This kept the tax revenue flowing
steadily and the imperial granaries full. The
population was relatively stable and content.
That's the great paradox of her reign, isn't
it? If you were a high -ranking noble in the
capital, she was your worst nightmare. You could
be tortured and executed on an anonymous tip.
An existential threat. But if you were a rice
farmer in the provinces, she was actually a...
Pretty great emperor who kept the taxes fair
and the borders safe. Precisely. For the average
person, life was probably pretty good. But, like
all empires, the cracks started to show eventually.
We move to part six, the fall and the legacy.
And unfortunately, the story takes a turn and
involves gigolos. It does. We have to talk about
the Zhang brothers. Okay, set the scene for us.
Wu is now in her 70s and 80s. She's old. She's
ruled for decades. And she starts relying heavily
on two young, handsome lovers, Zhang Yizi and
Zhang Changzong. These two were controversial.
They were incredibly handsome, apparently great
musicians, but also profoundly corrupt and arrogant.
Because they were the empress's favorites, they
gained immense power. They were the gatekeepers.
Exactly. They controlled all access to the aging
empress. Even the highest ministers in the government
couldn't get an audience with her without going
through the Zhang brothers first. Why did she
fall for them? Was she just a lonely old woman?
It's possible. She was isolated at the top for
so long. But also politically, she might have
seen them as useful. They had no independent
power base. Their power came only from her favor.
Unlike her sons or ministers, they couldn't betray
her and start their own dynasty. But they became
a problem. A huge problem. As she got older and
sicker, she lost control of them. They started
taking bribes, abusing their power, and alienating
the entire court. And this led to one last tragic
family incident. Yes. Her own grandson, Li Chongbrun
and her granddaughter were caught privately discussing
the Zhang brothers, basically gossiping among
themselves about how much influence these two
guys had. Just talking about it. It's talking.
The Zhang brothers found out, ran to Wu, and
claimed it was a conspiracy. And Wu, paranoid
in her old age, ordered her own grandchildren
to commit suicide. Over gossip. Over perceived
disloyalty. But this was the breaking point.
The court could handle the purges of the old
aristocracy. They could even handle the secret
police. But letting these two boy toys run the
empire and kill the rightful heirs... That was
too much. The loyalty she had built for decades
started to evaporate. So the coup finally happens.
In the year 705, Wu is very ill, bedridden. She's
roughly 80 or 81 years old. A group of loyalist
Tang generals and chancellors storm the palace.
Do they kill her? No. They kill the Zhang brothers
right there in the hallway outside her rooms.
Then they go into her bedroom and force her to
abdicate the throne. And she just gives it up.
She's 80 and 6. She accepts it. The Tang Dynasty
is restored under her son, Zhang Zhang, the same
one she deposed for being incompetent all those
years ago. She dies a few months later. But her
final act, her final edict from her deathbed,
is really surprising. She asks to be stripped
of the title Emperor. Yes. She formally requests
to be buried not as Emperor Wu Zhao of the Zhu
Dynasty, but as Empress Consort of the Tang Dynasty
alongside her husband, Guo Zong. Why? After everything
she did to get that title, why give it up at
the very end? Was it humility? Regret? That is
the million -dollar question. It's unlikely to
be regret. A more cynical and probably more accurate
reading is that it was one last pragmatic political
move. How so? If she died as a usurper emperor,
the restored Tang court might have refused her
an imperial burial. They might have just tossed
her in an unmarked grave. By reverting to Empress
Consort, the wife of Emperor Gozong, she guaranteed
her spot in the magnificent Qinling Mausoleum
next to her husband for all eternity. she secured
her legacy which brings us right back where we
started to the wordless steel we have this massive
blank stone standing over her tomb why leave
it blank there are three main theories and i
want to hear which one you buy during one it's
a boast her achievements were so vast so unprecedented
that no words could possibly contain them it's
her saying i am beyond language my deeds speak
for themselves i'm too great for your adjectives
okay i could see that what's theory two theory
two She knew she was controversial. She knew
the male Confucian historians who would write
the official records hated her. So she left it
blank intentionally to let future generations
to let us judge her. It's a challenge. You write
my epitaph. That's bold. That's very lion stallion.
And then there's theory three. The Confucian
scholars who took over after she died hated her
so much that they simply refused to write anything.
It was an act of silent protest. They couldn't
praise her because she was a woman usurper, but
they couldn't deface the monument of an imperial
ancestor, so they just did nothing. An empty
stone as the ultimate insult. You know, I personally
lean toward the second one. She was a woman who
was obsessed with her legacy, with controlling
the narrative. Leaving it blank is the ultimate
power move. It forces us to keep talking about
it. her to keep debating her 1300 years later.
We're filling it in right now. I agree. It's
a blank canvas that forces every generation to
project its own values onto her. It's brilliant.
So let's wrap this up with a final verdict. Was
she the hen that crowed a disaster for China?
Or was she a visionary ruler? The Confucian historians
certainly saw her as a disaster, a violator of
the natural and cosmic order. A cautionary tale.
But if you look at the hard metrics, the expansion
of territory, the stability of the economy, the
creation of a meritocratic bureaucracy, she was
an incredibly effective CEO. She broke the glass
ceiling. She shattered it. She crushed the aristocracy
that was holding China back and promoted talent
from all walks of life. Yes, she had blood on
her hands. Lots and lots of it. But so did Emperor
Taizong. So did nearly every great emperor in
history. That's the thing that sticks with me.
And here's a thought for you to go on. We read
about her strangling her daughter, poisoning
her son, torturing her rivals. And it sounds
absolutely monstrous. It is. But the source material
also says she accepted words of righteousness
and honored the upright. She would promote officials
who stood up to her and disagreed with her if
she thought they were talented and right. It's
a fundamental duality. So here's the question.
If a male emperor had done exactly what she did,
killed his brothers to secure the throne. purged
the old lazy nobles with the secret police, expanded
the borders, and stabilized the economy, would
he be remembered as a monster? Or would he just
be another Emperor Wu the Great? And how much
of her evil reputation is simply because she
dared to sit on the dragon throne as a woman?
It forces you to ask whether we judge female
power by a different, harsher standard than male
power. Power is rarely clean. Wu Zixin showed
us just how messy and how effective it can be.
A lesson for the ages. And on that note, we'll
leave you to fill in the blank still yourself.
Thanks for diving deep with us. My pleasure.
See you next time.