13. The Empress Who Murdered Her Daughter to Remove a Rival
According to dynastic China’s Confucian tenets, women were unfit to rule. Wu Zetian (624 – 705) did not care much for that bit of Confucian conventional wisdom, and became the sole officially recognized empress during China’s more than two millennia of imperial rule. Her rise began at age 14, when Wu Zetian was taken into Emperor Taizong’s harem as a concubine. The emperor was not into intelligent women, and thus did not favor Wu, who had brains as well as beauty. Being an intelligent woman, and looking ahead, Wu had an affair with the emperor’s son and eventual successor, who was not intimidated by smart women.
When her lover became Emperor Gaozong after his father’s death, he made Wu his favorite concubine, and eventually elevated her to his second wife – a huge jump in the imperial harem’s rankings. Wu was not content to remain second fiddle, however. So she reportedly strangled her own infant daughter, and framed the emperor’s first wife for the death. The intrigue worked, and Wu became the emperor’s official consort. Upon the emperor’s death, he was succeeded by Wu’s child, with Wu acting as regent. When her son came of age, he tried to assert himself and rule independently. So Wu deposed and exiled him, replacing him with a younger son. Six years later, tiring of the pretense about who actually ran China, she deposed that son as well, and officially proclaimed herself empress.