Empress Wu
Wu Zetian defied convention from the start. As a former concubine of the Tang emperor Taizong, she broke all protocol by becoming the lover of his successor, Gaozong. However by 655AD, six years after the new emperor’s ascension, she had reached even more unprecedented heights, by becoming Gaozong’s Empress Consort at the age of 31.
Wu achieved this feat through a mixture of intrigue- and murder. She orchestrated the deposition of her predecessor Empress Wang by accusing her of murder. The victim was Wu’s one-week-old daughter. Wang had been the last person to hold the infant and so was charged with her death. However, it was reputedly Wu who ended the child’s life- just to ensure the removal of her rival.
In 660 AD, the emperor suffered a debilitating stroke. Wu began to rule for her husband- and she liked it. If she was going to yield the reigns of power to another man, it had to be one she could control. Wu had already wiped out several branches of the Tang dynasty. Now she began to dispose of those of her sons she could not manage.
In 675 AD, Wu’s eldest son the crown prince Li Hong died- reputedly poisoned by his mother for defying her. In 683, her second son, Li Xian was ‘discovered’ with a stable full of armor, suggesting preparations for a rebellion. Wu allowed him to live- but as a commoner before forcing him to commit suicide in 684 AD. The year before, Gaozong had died. His son by Wu, now known as Emperor Zhongzong, succeeded him. However, after only two months on the throne, Zhongzong was deposed and exiled by Wu. She replaced him with her more pliable youngest son, Emperor Ruizong.
Finally, in 690AD, aged 65, Wu was tired of the pretense. She forced Ruizong to abdicate in her favor, allowing him to live as her imperial successor. In doing so, she became the only woman in Chinese history to rule in her own right. However, her solo rulership was short-lived. In 705 AD, Zhongzong returned and deposed his ailing mother. Wu died under house arrest later that year.
It is tempting to see Empress Wu as a woman maligned for acting as a man in a man’s world. However, Wu’s memorial stone sums up her surviving family’s opinion of her. She had the blank stone set outside her tomb, ready for her surviving children’s magnificent epithet of her life. It remains unmarked to this day. In the end, no one had a good word to say to Empress Wu.
Some male monarchs who wiped out their children are remembered by history much more favorably.