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The further back in history you go, the more likely a ruler was a vicious one who attained their station by force, or at least their ancestors did. Women often didn’t rule unless there was a lack of sons or a more capable queen usurped power from some loser king she was married to. To rule effectively in an age of barbarism, a woman had to be as ruthless as any man. And Wu Zetian, the first woman to rule China in over three millennia of its history, was pretty fucking ruthless.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: October 17, 690--
Born in 624, Wu began her rise to power as concubine of the useless knob of an Emperor Gaozong. Cunning, ambitious, and merciless, she maneuvered to expel both Gaozong’s wife and his primary consort, then had them killed in a pretty horrific fashion. Wu then married Gaozong in 655 to become empress consort, and basically ran most things because her husband let her. Then the emperor stroked out—but didn’t die—five years later and Wu really ran everything. Five years after that he made it official and said yeah she’s in charge. He lived another 18 years, but did the square of fuck all and just laid back and let Wu do her thing. And her thing was to rule like a fucking champion.
After the emperor’s death in 683, Wu outflanked numerous heirs to retain power, forcing them to abdicate or sending them into exile, and on October 17, 690, she finally attained the rank of Empress Regnant. She ruled until 705, growing China into a great power. She extended its borders, stamped out corruption, and the economy and culture thrived. And many in the ruling class fucking hated her. The stories told about her reign are embellished to make her seem maniacal and bloodthirsty, the leader of a reign of terror.
And to a certain extent, that’s true. She did terrorize the government in order to control it, but for the over 50 million common Chinese citizens, they were all like hey life is pretty good under her rule. Tyrannizing the aristocracy to control them and prevent them from assassinating you doesn’t seem such a bad thing in the context of things being peaceful and prosperous for most everyone else. And she did it not just by being a manipulative enchantress, but by turning the bureaucracy against each other. She installed copper boxes around the capital that allowed citizens to make secret denunciations of others, and her secret police went on a torturing and killing spree to root out the entrenched bureaucratic opposition to her rule.
More modern historians have said that she was little different in her viciousness than many other rulers of the time, but she has been maligned due to her gender. Some have lauded Wu as critical to extending the rule of the Tang dynasty and creating lasting unity in China. After falling ill, Wu was removed from power at the age of 80 and died 10 months later.
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