Читать книгу Long Live the Queens: Mighty, Magnificent and Bloody Marvellous Monarchs History’s Forgotten - Emma Marriott - Страница 9
ОглавлениеBorn: 624 CE
Died: 705 CE
Some fifty miles northwest of the modern Chinese city of Xi’an, deep within Mount Liang, is the tomb of Empress Wu Zetian. There lies the remains of an Empress of China who ruled for more than fifty years during the Tang dynasty (610–907 CE), the only woman in 3,000 years of Chinese history to have sat on the Chinese throne as ruler in her own right.
And yet the great memorial tablet that stands at the entrance to her tomb, erected during her lifetime so that her successors could compose the usual epitaph proclaiming her worthiness as empress, remains starkly blank. By contrast, the tablet that immortalises her husband, Emperor Gaozong, buried in the same mausoleum, carries the usual inscription recording his deeds as emperor, as composed by Wu Zetian to a husband whose death preceded hers by some twenty years.
The lack of inscription on Wu’s memorial, the only one of its kind, was clearly an attempt to obscure any record of Wu Zetian’s rule; she died and lies near to her husband but any other details are best forgotten. The omission also reflects how she was perceived by people around her and successors – in particular the Confucian hierarchy who deeply disapproved of her and the idea of any women having genuine power, deemed as unnatural as having a ‘hen crow like a rooster at daybreak’.
Despite attempts to remove her from record, Wu Zetian is now an immensely famous figure in China – the subject of books, films and TV shows – although she is still largely unknown in the West. Much of her fame, however, rests on her startling propensity for ruthlessness: murdering female rivals, elder statesmen who opposed her, and even members of her own family so that she could wield supreme power. Her image is that of a murderous megalomaniac, almost as if a warning of what a woman can do when given enough power, an image that has in the past overshadowed the many achievements of her reign.
Born in 624 CE, Wu Zetian (original name Wu Zhao) entered the palace of the Tang emperor Taizong in 638 as a fourteen-year-old concubine. As the daughter of a minor general, this was deemed quite an honour, although her role at first would largely be as a glorified serving woman. Little is known about her life as a concubine but it’s thought she managed to get close to the Emperor when her duties included changing the imperial bed sheets. When the Emperor died in 649, the custom was for concubines to have their heads shaved and be sent to a convent, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Taizong’s heir, Gaozong, however, brought Wu back to the palace as his favourite concubine, her rise in status brought about, as some Chinese historians have speculated, by her willingness to gratify emperors’ unusual sexual appetites.
Having given birth to two sons, Wu had a daughter in 654 who died soon after. Wu accused the wife of Gaozong, Empress Wang, of strangling the child in a fit of a jealousy over her own childlessness, although other histories of the period claim Wu smothered the child herself only then to blame the Empress for the death. Wang was subsequently demoted and imprisoned along with another leading concubine. It is said that Wu, who had now replaced Wang as Empress Consort, ordered that both women have their legs and arms cut off and their torsos thrown into a vat of wine, leaving them to drown – an account suspiciously similar to the revenge act of a previous empress, Lu Zhi (241–180 BCE), who is held up in Chinese history as one of the most wicked female rulers.
As Empress, Wu set about removing officials who were opposed to her elevated status on the grounds that she was not of an aristocratic background and as a former concubine of Taizong, her relationship with Gaozong was incestuous. In 660, Gaozong suffered a stroke – although some historians have claimed that Wu Zetian poisoned him – and he remained in poor health for the rest of his life. Wu in effect took charge and continued exiling and executing potential rivals, some from her own family, including possibly her sister and brothers, her teenage niece, who had caught Gaozong’s eye, and Wu’s eldest son Li Hong, who in 675 died suspiciously, some believing that he was poisoned by the Empress.
When it came to her innermost circle, Wu clearly maintained a reign of terror, but her responsibilities also lay with the vast empire of China and the 50 million people who lived on its mountains, lush fields and everywhere in between. Wu did this with real efficiency, employing bureaucratic officials largely based on talent rather than social standing, and increasing the number of government posts filled by civil servants and scholars, who were required to pass a rigorous exam, rather than by those of noble birth. Her government helped to stabilise the Tang Empire, previously torn apart by civil war and under threat from ethic groups in the north and west, and under her aegis the empire was relatively fertile and prosperous. Between 655 and 675, military leaders that were chosen by Wu also conquered Korea, which considerably expanded the influence of the Chinese state, and she welcomed ambassadors from as far away as the Byzantine Empire.
In 683 Gaozong died and was succeeded by his and Wu’s son, Li Xian, known as the Zhongzong Emperor. He was married to a woman who tried to exert as much influence over Li Xian as Wu herself, which led to Wu swiftly deposing and exiling Li Xian and installing her second son, Li Dan, in 684, although his rule was largely nominal and she continued to govern in his stead. Crushing a rebellion in the south by a loyal army, Wu also maintained an efficient secret police, installing a series of copper boxes in the capital in which citizens could post anonymous denunciations of one another.
In 690, Wu took the ultimate step: at the age of sixty-five she usurped the throne itself and declared herself Empress Regnant of the newly declared ‘Zhou Dynasty’, moving the capital to Luoyang in the west of Henan province. As the traditional Chinese order of succession normally barred women from ascending the throne, Wu was determined to sweep away all opposition and continued making use of the secret police. She also took steps to elevate the status of Buddhism as the favoured state religion, over that of Taoism and Confucianism, which had strongly held views against female rule. She ordered every district to set up a Buddhist temple and instigated various visual representations of the Buddha, adding to those built at the grottoes at Longmen near Luoyang – where there is a colossal statue called the Grand Vairocana Buddha, which is believed to have been carved in Wu’s own likeness.
In the last years of her life, Wu made two young courtiers, the Zhang brothers, her favourites at court in return for their devotion and elaborate entertainments, some say in the bedchamber, despite Wu being in her seventies. The brothers were increasingly resented by the court and senior officials. In 705, when she was eighty years old, a group of ministers seized the palace, executed the Zhang brothers and forced Wu to give up power to her son Zhongzong, who ruled as Emperor for another five years. Wu, who was already ill, retired to another palace and died at the end of 705.
Wu Zetian was clearly ruthless, killing off large numbers of officials and her own family, as did other (male) emperors before and after her – intense rivalries at court underpinned the imperial system. As a female, she could only secure power through guile and sheer determination and, in the face of fierce opposition, maintain her power through the ruthless elimination of anyone who stood in her way. And yet she was a competent ruler, controlling a large and widespread bureaucracy, and one of the most powerful champions of Buddhism in China. Had she been a man, she could well have been considered a great emperor and not, as one contemporary described her, ‘with a heart like a serpent and a nature like that of a wolf’. At the very least, her memorial tablet deserves some kind of inscription, although her name and her supposed wicked deeds have lived on regardless.
