There were not many women history was kind to, not because they were horrible, but because they were women. Emperor Wu Zetian was one of the women who suffered this fate. She was recorded in history as a ruthless monarch, a cruel woman with no regard to the correct way of life, and someone who "favoured evil sycophants and destroyed good and loyal officials", all the qualities of a corrupt and muddle-headed ruler. However, Wu Zetian was far from this, but a very good emperor. So, let's discuss: who is she? And how did she come to be so wrongly portrayed?

Wu Zetian was the first and last female emperor to ever rule in China. She was born to a chancellor in Tang Dynasty China in 624 BC and was brought up with very high education the way a man of wealth would be. She learned to read and write poetry, to play music, and to speak very coherently, all of which were not things a woman was usually exposed to at that time.

When Wu Zetian was thirteen, she was brought into the court as a fifth-tier concubine of the then emperor Taizong. He's the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty. As a fifth-tier concubine, her job, essentially, was to do the royal laundry. Then one day, when she and Taizong were alone, she talked to him about the history and that impressed him so much that she was promoted to be his secretary where she was involved with the state affairs. This could be when she developed her wanting of power and a political career. There, she also met the prince, Li Zhi, who became the future emperor Gaozong. They started an affair that lasted until Taizong died.

Here comes one of the many scandals of her life. Wu Zetian was supposed to be sent to a temple to be a nun, after the emperor Taizong died but Gaozong took her back to be his concubine. This was very scandalous and considered incestuous since Wu Zetian was regarded as Gaozong's mother, even though not by blood.

11 years later, Gaozong suffered a series of illnesses that led to Wu Zetian becoming the head of the state. She made all the decisions, including waging war on Korea and effectively reducing it to a vassal state.

When Gaozong died in 683, Wu Zetian's firstborn son, Zhongzong, replaced him. However, as her son did not heed her orders and her daughter-in-law tried to broaden her sphere of influence, Wu Zetian banished him and his wife in the name of treason. Then she let her second child Ruizong be the emperor but forced him to abdicate in 690 when she declared herself the emperor.

Here are some of her edicts. She made the agriculture system better by building irrigation systems, redistributing land, and distributing farming manuals. She improved the taxation system and the public education system. In fact, she was a staunch supporter and promoter of literature, Buddhism, and Taoism. She also fired officials who were performing badly or, in some cases, executed. She appointed better people, regardless of family status and connections. Some of this she did in retaliation and spite, but it nevertheless improved the system. It sure got rid of some nepotism that was ubiquitous in the court. She also improved the military by making all the officers take exams and rooted out the unqualified ones. Finally, she established a method to obtain information from the people of her empire. She created a petition box that allowed regular citizens to criticize, accuse, and report things and recommend themselves. Before, citizens had to go through all the bureaucracy to do it, but Wu Zetian eliminated all that. This made her closer to the people, something a lot of emperors had failed to do.

I'm not going to exonerate her. She has done some questionable and cruel stuff, especially to the other concubines in the court, but compared to her male counterparts in history, she was criticized and demonized tenfold - all for her gender.

Women were to be at home and she wasn't. She threatened the patriarchy, and seventh-century China was a heavily patriarchal society. She needed to be punished.

There was another scandal. Soon after her inauguration, an earthquake happened. People went crazy. They took it as a bad omen. The scholar N. Henry Rothschild put it this way: "The message was clear: A woman in a position of paramount power was an abomination, an aberration of natural and human order".

One Confucian scholar wrote that nature had been reversed by the 'usurping woman' and "throughout the empire in every prefecture hens changed into roosters, or half changed". Why did he say so when it's clear that no such thing happened? It's because the scholars felt threatened by her. Wu Zetian was a woman, and she had way too much power for a woman. It's a no-brainer that the male historians and scholars would be against her.

Just like her counterparts in other parts of the world! Cleopatra, a woman of great intellect, was regarded this way as well.

Her successor, Zhongzong, the one she banished because he wouldn't obey her, encouraged the bad rumours. Then, when she abdicated and died, nothing was written on her tomb, leaving her to be the only ruler without her accomplishments written on her tomb in remembrance. Like with Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt, people wanted to erase her from history. Or rather, to erase her accomplishments and amplify the scandals.

By the way, if you would like to learn more about Wu Zetian or Tang Dynasty, here's a YouTube link. It's shown in the inline comment.

WRITTEN BY the13thbluecat

BANNER BY Sugar_And_Spice125