20. China’s First and Only Empress Was Hell on Her Own Family
When Wu Zetian’s lover became Emperor Gaozong, she became his favorite concubine, and was eventually elevated to second wife. Not content to remain second fiddle, Wu 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, the highest-ranking woman in the imperial family. Her power in the imperial household and family grew, as she steadily eliminated opponents and potential threats. When Emperor Gaozong died in 683, Wu became empress dowager, and ran the empire as regent in the name of her son, the underage Emperor Zhongzong.
When Zhongzong ascended the throne in his own right in 684, he tried to get out from under his mother’s thumb. He lasted only six weeks on the throne, before Wu had him deposed, exiled, and replaced with her youngest son, whom she made Emperor Ruizong. She maintained all power in her own hands, and six years later, she tired of bothering with any pretense about who actually ran China. So she made Ruizong relinquish the throne, officially proclaimed herself empress regnant, and ruled in that capacity until she was overthrown in 705.