Wu empress biography channel

Wu made him step down soon after and she became the first female emperor of China. Wu declared the start of the Zhou dynasty but the Tang dynasty returned after her death. Empress Wu was a very good ruler who was loved by the people. However, women were less respected than men in ancient China and many thought that a woman was not suitable to be emperor.

Wu created a spy force to track who was loyal to her and who wanted to get rid of her. Anybody who was against her was killed. Confucianism was a set of ideas that many followed in ancient China. These ideas said that women should stay at home and look after the family — women could not hold power.

Wu empress biography channel

To get around this, Wu named Buddhism as the state religion because Buddhism would let her hold power and would make the people happy. Wu was ambitious and clever. She brought a lot of wealth and trade to China by conquering some of Korea countries to the west of China. She also lowered taxes, built new infrastructure and developed better ways of farming.

Wu also gave people important jobs based on their intelligence and not their family standing. Empress Wu died on 16 Decemberaged 81, in Luoyang province. InEmpress Wu died. A year prior to her death, she was jettisoned out of the imperial palace in an apparent coup organized by senior military wu empresses biography channel and state counsellors.

Many historians over the years have insisted that Empress Wu Zetian was ruthless, manipulative and power hungry; however there is no doubt whatsoever that she accomplished some very astounding things during her fifteen-year reign as ruler of China. Many of her actions and social reforms were responsible for making China a prosperous and powerful nation.

In the article below worldhistoryedu. Empress Wu was an extraordinary woman with amazing intellect and just the right amount of competence to rule China in a manner that allowed the empire to prosper. The manner in which she steered the affairs of the empire has been compared to great female monarchs in history, such as Catherine the GreatQueen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth.

She also kept the Silk Roads very vibrant, allowing for a plethora of entrepreneurial and trading activities to thrive. Trade flourished with other Western empires and Eurasian nations. Much of the items traded were in textiles, spices and minerals. She also built several irrigation systems and brought down taxes on farmers. All those economic policies helped secure huge trade gains for the empire.

This in turn improved the lives of many peasants in deprived and remote prefectures. Stories abound about how Empress Wu ruthlessly eliminated either killed or exiled her female rivals during her meteoric rise to the throne. However, it must be noted that her cruelty was not only aimed at women, it was simply aimed at anyone that stood in between her and her ambitious pursuit for power.

She encouraged Tang women to remain very assertive and earn the same level of education as their male counterparts. During her reign, women occupied a number of civil service positions; women in the Tang dynasty could put on male clothes and ride horses. In one instance Empress Wu insisted that she too be allowed to offer sacrifices to the deities of heaven and earth at Mount Tai.

Her husband Emperor Gaozong had just offered his sacrifices. Wu took an unprecedented move and followed suit, inviting a number of other princesses to do same. Did you know : In an unprecedented move, Empress Wu made the mourning period for a deceased mother to be the same as the period for a deceased father? In spite of her using the informer system and a well-resourced wu empress biography channel police to ruthlessly eliminate every individual that threatened her reign, Empress Wu Zetian did indeed work tirelessly to unite China, as well as rule the empire with very great efficiency.

Historians to this day are amazed by her ability to seamlessly get raid off every palace element that sought to usurp her from her position. Even when Emperor Gaozong, her husband, was on the throne, Empress Wu Zetian was the power behind the throne. And as Gaozong started to lose his vision as a result of a possible hypertension, Wu became more and more relevant in the court.

She ruled on his behalf; it was understood that she even made better decisions than the emperor. Additionally, she had a knack for making sound decisions that kept China on track within the golden age era of the Tang dynasty. Wu Meiniang was elevated to the position of Empress. She gave birth to four more children, three more sons and a daughter, Princess Taiping.

Her life as Empress was peaceful, until her sister, the Lady of Han, returned to the palace. The Lady of Han was Wu Meiniang's older sister, who was widowed at an early age. She had two children, Helan Minzhi and Helan Minyue from her marriage and often visited the palace. The Lady of Han craved affection and wanted to be the Empress and replace her younger sister, even wished for her sister's death, which hurted Wu Meiniang's feelings.

Soon, the Lady of Han was pregnant with Li Zhi's child. Accusing her of plotting to harm her own younger sister and replace her position, Wu Meiniang decided to poison the Lady of Han and made her lose both pregnancy and further her life. The Lady of Han's daughter, Helan Minyue suspected something was wrong with her mother's death. She felt that Empress Wu was the murderer and further gained the trust of her uncle, Li Zhi the Emperor.

Helan Minyue wanted the spot of Empress to take revenge for her mother, and asked the Emperor to depose Empress Wu. As the Emperor was about to sign the deposing statement, Wu Meiniang rushed in and made Li Zhi feel pitiful. He then blamed the matter on an official named Shangguan Yiand had his whole family executed except for his granddaughter, Shangguan Wan'er.

Shangguan Wan'er became Wu Meiniang's secretary and also was in a romantic relationship with two of her sons. Angered with Wu Meiniang's power and intelligent tricks, Helan Minyue united with Wu Meiniang's evil cousins and plotted to kill her to take revenge for her deceased mother. They invited Meiniang to a family dinner, poisoned the food, and further planned to burn down the palace to kill her.

But Wu Meiniang soon acknowledged her cousins and niece' evil crimes and feared for her life to be threatened, so she let Helan Minyue to eat the poisonous food and then ordered to behead her cousins. After Helan Minyue's death, her brother Helan Minzhi decided to take his sister's place, assaulted most women in the palace and planned to kill Wu Meiniang, but he was later exiled and killed for good.

She exiled all of the government officials against her, and replaced them with her allies. Her sons had frequently betrayed Wu Meiniang for holding too much power as an Empress, and worried that she would take over the dynasty that their ancestors had established. In the process, three of them committed suicide, were exiled or poisoned.

The death of the Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Wu Meiniang's three sons received outrage from the public, mostly from the male traitors.