Today is the 1313th anniversary of the deaths of Empress Wei of the Chinese Tang dynasty and her daughter Princess Anle. I find Chinese history fascinating but have not unfortunately included it on this blog as much as I would have liked. I therefore thought today would be a wonderful day to do a post about a few of the women in Chinese history I find to be of particularly interest. Hope you enjoy!
One of my major pet peeves in historiography is the complete lack of record-keeping when it comes to women; one major example is that we’re not sure what year Anne Boleyn was born, a fairly key detail you’d think someone would have written down considering just how important she became to British history. We do not know her date of birth nor do we know the date of birth of the woman that inspired this post – Empress Wei. What we do now is during the reign of Emperor Taizong (who lived from 598-949 and reigned from 926-949) her grandfather Wei Hongbiao (韋弘表) was the military advisor to Emperor Taizong’s son Li Ming (李明) the Prince of Cao. We know very little about her role at court after that. She didn’t become someone of note until around 675 when Princess Zhao the daughter in law of the reigning Emperor Gaozong (she was married to his son Li Xiǎn the Prince of Zhou – she was also the Emperor’s niece as she was the daughter of his half sister the Princess Changle and her husband the general Zhao Gui) was arrested and imprisoned for supposed crimes; the cause of her death isn’t exactly clear but she supposedly starved to death on the orders of her mother in law Empress Wu (pfft and you thought your mother in law was bad). It was then decided that he needed a new wife; Wei was chosen to be the bride owing to her apparently good breeding and her family’s loyalty. Around the time of the marriage, her father was promoted and he went from a mere military advisor to the prefect of Pu Prefecture (which was a eighth rank, second class, second division government position) to be the much more important post of being prefect of Yu Prefecture (fourth rank, first class, second division). The ranking system in Chinese bureaucracy is an absolute headache. Basically he got a nice lil promotion. Their first son Li Chongzhao was born in 682; they went on to have three daughters Princess Changning, Princess Yongtai and Princess Anle – her husband had another daughter called Princess Yongshou who we know very little about – it’s possible Wei was Yongshou’s mother. Her father in law died in 683 and her husband became Emperor under the regnal name Zhongzong. There was however a bit of a problem – Zhongzong’s mother Wu Zetian. She held the reins of power and had no desire to relinquish control of the state to her son; her influence is one of the reasons it took over six months for Wei to be granted the title of Empress (wives didn’t automatically get the title when their husband became Emperor – he had to officially grant it to them) – it’s been suggested that Wu wanted to be China’s only Empress. Zhongzong then had the idea of promoting his father in law aka Wei’s father to the position of Shizhong (侍中) which would have made him head of the examination bureau of government – officials who held that role were usually considered front-runners for the most important position of all – Chancellor. Zhongzong also tried to promote his wet nurses son, granting him a government position of the fifth rank. The incumbent chancellor Pei Yan an ally of Empress Wu who had been greatly trusted by Zhongzong’s father Emperor Gaozang objected to both ideas and promptly went to Wu to deal with her son. The thing with Wu was that she was hardcore. Rather than trying to convince her son otherwise or mediate between the various parties, she just simply decided to de-throne him; she summoned the most important officials and generals in the empire and issued an edict deposing Zhongzong and reducing him to the lesser title of Prince of Luling (she’d probably been planning this for some time – his questionable decision making was just the excuse she needed). She then named her other son Li Dan the Prince of Yu, Emperor, with him taking on the regnal name of Ruizong. Shortly thereafter Wu reduced her grandson Li Chongzhao to commoner rank, revoking his status as Deputy Crown Prince which had been granted to him by Wu’s late husband Emperor Gazong; it was around that time that the name of Wei’s son Li Chongzhao was changed to Li Chongrun to observe the naming taboo of Empress Wu’s personal name. The family were exiled firstly to Qin Prefecture (modern Qinzhou in Guangxi, then the Fang Prefecture (modern Shivan, Hubei) and then Jun Prefecture (also in modern Shiyan). Someone else who was also in exile was her entire family albeit separately; tragedy occurred when her father died whilst in exile and a local tribe chief demanded to marry Wei’s younger sister; their mother refused leading to the tribe chief in question murdering her and four of Wei’s brothers. Whist in exile, her husband became increasing paranoid (probably due to the fact that Empress Wu had been previously accused of killing two of her other sons; she had allegedly forced her elder son/his older brother Li Xian to commit suicide in 684 whilst she’d also been accused of poisoning her other song Li Hong in 675). Contemporary reports from the time suggest that whenever imperial messengers arrived from the then-capital, he’d panic and threaten to commit suicide. Wei it’s believed was the only one that could calm him and the two were said to have grown very much in love with one another. In 690, Empress Wu forced her son Li Dan (who had taken the throne as Emperor Ruizong) to yield the throne to her; she thus became the first and only woman to become ‘Emperor’ in her own right – this meant she interrupted the rule of the Tang dynasty to make her own Zhou dynasty the imperial family. Although Li Dan/Ruizong accepted his place as the crown prince, Empress Wu constantly suspected him of plotting against her, and in 693, she had his wife Crown Princess Liu and his concubine Consort Dou executed for treason. She repeatedly considered naming her nephews Wu Chengsi and Wu Sansi the heirs to the throne instead of her own children however there was one major problem with that; her children were of the blood of the old Tang dynasty which was far more revered by the public than her own family. By 698 she had evidently come to realise she needed to unite her family and rely more on her children than her nephews; her chancellors Di Renjie, Wang Fangqing and Wang Jishan, her close confidant Ji Xu and her supposed lovers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong agreed and all came together to promote the idea of revoking the exile of Li Zhe, Wei and their children which Wu eventually did in the Spring of that year. With Li Zhe back in the capital, his brother willing gave up the title of crown prince and a few months later Empress Wu named Li Zhe crown prince (she also had him change his name back to the original name Li Xiǎn. To complicate matters she then ordered he change his surname to her surname Wu—thus making him Wu Xiǎn). With this imperial musical chairs, Wei once again became crown princess and thus the future Empress.
With Empress Wu growing increasingly old and frail, the affairs of state were widely being taken care of by a coterie of advisors including her alleged lovers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, neither of them were exactly Mr Popular. Wei’s son Li Chongrun made the fatal mistake of discussing this fact with his sister Li Xianhui and her husband Wu Yanji; the problem with doing that is you weren’t really supposed to be vocal in your criticism of the Emperor and Wu was maybe a tad more sensitive to criticism than most, especially in light of her previous concerns about her son’s family committing treason. Zhang Yizhi found out about their bitching session and informed Empress Wu who in the fall of 701 ordered the three to commit suicide. This was obviously personally devastating for Wei but it was also politically disastrous; with Li Chongrun’s death she had no remaining sons, only daughters – her husband’s living sons were all borne of concubines. In early 705 a number of officials disgruntled with Empress Wu’s reign and the influence of her closest advisors (who were basically running the show due to her illness) decided to stage a lil coup; they murdered Empress Wu’s lovers & advisors and forced her to abdicate in favour of her son who gladly accepted. We don’t the level of his involvement nor Wei’s involvement; at the bare minimum they knew about the coup – it’d be a major risk to overthrow someone without checking with their replacement that they’re on side. Wei thus became Empress (again). To demonstrate his love for her Zhongzong honoured her deceased family members with grand ceremonies, the likes of which were usually reserved for Emperors. With her husband now Emperor again, he proved to be just like his father i.e heavily dependant on a woman and she quickly began involved in every area of government just as her mother in law Empress Wu had been. During meetings she would sit behind a curtain and had complete access to her husband at all times. One (very brave) government official took issue to her influence complaining to the Emperor, “I found that every time Your Majesty comes to court, the Empress always sits behind the curtain and listens to what was going on in court. Looking at the histories of all generations, is there a peaceful life that is not broken by women listening to politics with the emperor?”. In other words look at the shenanigans that your mother caused, do not let it get that far this time. She followed Empress Wu’s footsteps in other matters too – it’s believed she took a lover in the form of Wu Sansi (he was Empress Wu’s nephew) who, in a very complicated mass of interlinked sexual relationships, was also sleeping with Shangguan Wan’er who happened to be a concubine of Wei’s husband Emperor Zhongzong. The Emperor it appears was either aware of the affair and implicitly approved of it OR had absolutely no idea; the latter option is fairly awkward because Wu Sansi and Zhongzong were actually very close. This caused controversy because most government ministers wanted everyone from Empress Wu’s bloodline (excluding the Emperor obviously) to be as far away from government as possible. Adding to the growing hostility to the new Empress was the fact that she accused her step-son Li Chongfu of being complicit in the death of her late son Li Chongrun (this FYI was a complete lie); the Emperor being a decidedly whipped husband responded by exiling his son to Jun Prefecture to serve as prefect. Following this there’s a ton of rumour, innuendo and allegations about Wei and her faction being fairly corrupt with their influence offering offices for sale and influencing legal decisions. This I think was probably true – there’s such widespread allegations that it’s unlikely there was nothing backing it up. I’m not sure it ever went as bad as rumours suggested; there was a rumour that her daughter Princess Anle often wrote edicts in the Emperor’s name, and then covered up the contents and had him sign them—and because he adored his wife and doted on his daughter he would do so despite not reading the edicts. There is some historical evidence to suggest that Wei was particularly close to Anle and there is some suggestion that she supported Anle when the princess asked the Emperor to name her, his heir – this would have been an unprecedented act in Chinese history as no woman had ever been crown princess in her own right. I give Anle props for boldness. The Emperor however declined and named his son Li Chongjun the heir to the throne instead. Meanwhile the government hatred of Wu Sansi was growing; to counteract it Wei accused his greatest opponents Zhang, Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan, Yuan Shuji, and Cui Xuanwei of being overly arrogant in light of their achievements. Zhongzong decided to make the men princes, which is a fascinating political move because on the one hand you honour them but you also stripe them of any power (princes cannot hold government posts); they however could be made prefectural prefects and sent out of Luoyang. Problem solved. In 706 Emperor Zhongzong’s son-in-law Wang Tongjiao (a staunch enemy of Wei and Wu Sansi) was accused of plotting to kill them; taking advantage of the situation Empress Wei and Wu Sansi managed to implicate those five pesky government ministers who despite being exiled were still being problematic. The thing is it was around this moment that people began to accuse Wei of adultery; the Emperor reacted BADLY (which would suggest that maybe he hadn’t known about her infidelity? Either that or he was pretending to have been unaware or he was just really upset that everyone knew); Emperor Zhongzong ordered they be permanently exiled; they however ended up dead. Of course Wei was accused of having them killed but we really can’t be sure. In the fall of 707 everything kicked off when Wei’s step-son Li Chongjun aka the crown prince had enough of his half sister Princess Anle (aka Wei’s daughter) trying to persuade Emperor Zhongzong to depose him and create her crown princess instead. He became besties with the general Li Duozuo and the Emperor’s cousin Li Qianli (who had a similar dislike of Wei and her faction); their forces killed Wu Sansi and Wu Chengxu, and next headed to the palace, hoping to capture Consort Shangguan and Empress Wei. However, everything fell to pieces and Li Chongjun’s army collapsed following the death of a few key figures; he was soon killed by his own subordinates. The proble with all these succession shenanigans, petty fights and faction-fighting was that the empire was kinda in a dire situation; there was ongoing floods in some parts of the empire and droughts in other parts, famine and poverty were a problem and the chaos in government was bringing any efficient administration of the empire to a grinding halt. This didn’t help anyones popularity especially the all-power girl gang that Wei had assembled around her; they included her daughter Princess Anle, her other daughter Princess Changning, Zhongzong’s other main consort Shangguan, her mother Lady Zheng, Wei’s sister the Lady of Cheng, the emperor’s sister Princess Taiping and a number of senior ladies in waiting the most prominent of which were ladies Chai, Helou, Diwu Ying’er and Lady Zhao. The thing that I find very frustrating about all this is that there’s evidence that suggests Zhongzong was fully aware of their corruption but just did nothing to curb it; instead he just continued asking for Wei’s advice on everything despite the in ya face corruption. I really question his judgement because Wei’s infidelity was more rampant than ever by this point; she had allegedly been having affairs with both Ma Qinke and Yang Jung. The two men evidently became concerned that Zhongzong was going to kill them (maybe don’t sleep with his wife then); this was allegedly the catalyst for Wei to murder her husband. Yes you read that correctly. On July 3rd 710 Zhongzong died suddenly, allegedly murdered by cake served to him by his wife. If the murder had anything to do with Ma Qinke and Yang Jung, I would think that maybe Zhongzong had, had enough of all the infidelity and corruption and there was genuine anxiety from Wei’s faction that rather than looking the other way (as he had done for years) he would begin issuing punishments and that’s what prompted them to act so dramatically. Wei murdering him though just seems so over the top. Wei and her faction did not initially reveal his death; they kept it hidden for two days and got all their ducks in a row. An edict that Princess Taipang and Consort Shangguan drafted announced that her step-son Li Chongmao was to be crown prince and then Emperor under the regnal name Emperor Shang. He was chosen as the new Emperor because unlike other step-sons of hers, he was willing to act as a puppet emperor under her authority. He took the throne on the 8th July. Although everyone in Wei’s faction looked unified at the beginning of Shang’s reign, this was far from the case. Some of Wei’s family members as well as her chancellor and a few close advisors began advising her to take the throne herself; her mother in law Empress Wu (aka the first empress regnant) had set a precedent that they felt Wei should follow. To do this however they needed to get rid of Li Dan (aka the former Emperor Ruizong) and Princess Taipang neither of whom would have agreed for Wei to become the sovereign. This lil plot was leaked (of course) and Li Dan’s sons Li Longji caught wind; he immediately went and told his father and Princess Taipang whose son Xue Chongijan was increasingly influential and was close pals with a large amount of low level government officials. He conspired with them and with the imperial guards who absolutely loathed their superiors Wei Bo and Gao Song, who as nephews of Wei were very much on her side and had her protection. Without telling Li Dan beforehand, they first attacked the palace on July 21st killing a number of Wei’s closest advisors and her cousin. Wei panicked and fled to an imperial guard camp thinking she’d be safe, unaware that actually a large amount of the imperial guards had turned against her. The exact sequence of events is unknown (i.e we don’t know who gave the order) but we know that she never left the camp and was executed. A vast number of her allies and members of her faction were then murdered whilst her body was rather brutally paraded through the street. Despite the agony she’d put him through over the years, Li Dan was not thrilled about them treating her body so; after reluctantly agreeing to once again take the throne, he ordered she be buried with honours. Something I think is very interesting is that in her burial she received the honours given to a government official not an Empress. This would suggest to me that Ruizong didn’t think she had murdered his father; if he had he’d never have given her anything. She’d have been buried in an unmarked grave and he’d have likely tried to completely erase her from history. The fact he showed some degree of respect (albeit less than someone of her position should have received) would imply she maybe wasn’t as god-awful as the chroniclers of the period suggest.
There are few women of the 20th century that have a worse reputation than this woman right here. Cixi was born Yehe Nara Xingzhen on the 29th November 1835 in Beijing; the daughter of Huizheng a man who held the title of a third class duke and his wife Lady Fuca of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan. Very little is known about her childhood other than the fact she was raised alongside her brother Guixiang and a sister Wanzhen – its likely Cixi was the eldest of the three children. It’ also believed her father died at some point in her childhood; he was certainly dead by 1851 when at the age of 15 she was chosen to participate in a bride show for the Xianfeng Emperor alongside sixty other candidates all vying to be his wife. Several candidates were chosen including Cixi, Li of the Tatara Clan and Zhen of the Niohuru clan. She entered the Forbidden City on the 26th June 1852 and was placed in sixth in the Emperor’s ranking of consorts, being given the title “Noble Lady Lan”. She was promoted in February 1854 to the fifth rank and granted the title of “Concubine Yi”. A year later she became pregnant; the birth of her son Zaichun the Emperor’s first and only surviving son in April 1856 won her yet another promotion, this time to the third rank. She was given the new title of “Noble Consort Yi”. Upon her son’s birthday she was promoted yet again, meaning she was now second in the Emperors list of consorts with only the Empress Niohuru ahead of her (despite being basically married to the same man the Empress and Cixi seem to have been actually quite close). The thing is Cixi very much stood out in the harem; unlike the majority of other Manchu women, she had clearly been given a thorough education and she was known for her ability to read and write Chinese. The Emperor was clearly quite impressed and he began to rely on her intelligence and skill; the Emperor it should be noted had deteriorating health despite only being in his 20’s and she began helping him in the governing of the Chinese state on a daily basis. He was known to frequently have Cixi read palace memorials for him and leave instructions on the memorials according to his will. This meant that a) Cixi found herself in very close proximity to the apex of power, b) was aware of every aspect of the state’s affairs and c) learnt all about the art of governing from the emperor. In September 1860 towards the end of the Second Opium Warr, the British envoy Harry Parkes and a number of other British diplomats were arrested, tortured and executed, which to put it mildly colossally pissed off the British who in retaliation banded together with French troops to attack Beijing. The Emperor and his entourage including Cixi and their son fled the city leaving the Old Summer Palace which was destroyed by the British and French. The Emperor fell into a deep depression at the news which combined with his already ailing health was a recipe for disaster. He allegedly turned to alcohol and drugs and was soon pretty much on the cusp of death. In the summer of 1861 he summoned eight of his top ministers and named them the “Eight Regent Ministers” who would rule on behalf of his son & heir who was only 5 years old. That little boy happened to be the son of none other than Cixi herself. Cixi was allegedly given a seal by the Emperor on his deathbed as did his empress; it was assumed at the time and by historians since that the seals were granted to the two women with the hope that they would work together to help the young emperor rule and act as a check on the power of the regents. This to be quite honestly seems unlikely – the seals were informal – they lacked actual authority and were considered objects of art rather than actual instruments of state. If the Emperor wanted the Empress or Cixi to act as regents, he could have named them as such in his will however he did not. The seal in all likelihood was just a gift from a dying man to the mother of his son and heir. With his death, his Empress became Empress Dowager Ci’an whilst Cixi was elevated to Empress Dowager Cixi; they were also known as the East Empress Dowager and the West Empress Dowager (this was because Ci’an took up residence in the eastern Zhongcui Palace whilst Cixi moved to the western Chuxiu Palace. Cixi (a shrewd political strategist in her own right) was not exactly thrilled at eight regents ruling on behalf of her son; especially as she wasn’t highly fond of the regents in question. Despite being the mother of the new Emperor she had no intrinsic political power and the youth of her son meant he had no political power either. This meant she was forced to ally herself with other political figures unhappy with the new regime; this included the other Empress Dowager Ci’an. The two women joined together along with. a number of other court officials and imperial relatives with the plan that they would become co-reigning empress dowagers with more authority invested in them than the eight regents (as I previously mentioned Cixi and Ci’an had actually been pretty close friends since Cixi’s arrival in 1852). The imperial court soon became extremely factionalised and full of conflict; the two Empresses clashed spectacularly with the eight regents particularly the leader of the pack Sushun who did not appreciate Cixi and Ci’an’s interference in the affairs of state. Ci’an herself grew tired of the conflict and the non-stop arguments Cixi seemed to get into with the regents; eventually she started ditching court appearances leaving Cixi to deal with them alone. Cixi seemed to come to the conclusion that she needed to build her own political faction; the thing is the eight regents had made a lot of enemies and those enemies including Cixi’s brother in laws Prince Gong and Prince Chun flocked to Cixi’s side. This was against all precedent; Qing imperial tradition dictated that women and princes were not allowed to engage in politics, yet here they were a woman and two men planning a political coup. Now despite the fact it had been a number of months since the Emperor’s death, the court had still not returned to Beijing; this was because they were waiting for an astrologically favourable time to transport the emperor’s coffin back to the city. This gave Cixi time to plan a coup, and when the funeral procession did eventually leave for Beijing, Cixi made the decision to return with her son before the rest of the procession along with Zaiyuan and Duanhua, two of the eight regents whilst the main regent Sushun was left to accompany the late Emperor’s coffin. This was vital as Zaiyuan and Duanhua were Sushun’s closest allies. Separating them was vital to Cixi’s coup succeeding. Upon arriving in Beijing, Cixi accused the regents of having carried out incompetent negotiations with the “barbarians” (aka the British) – those negotiations she claimed had caused the Xianfeng Emperor to flee to Rehe Province “greatly against his will”, basically implying that they were responsible for his death. She then received an official edict from the highly important Shandong region which requested that she become de-facto ruler and “rule from behind the curtains” with Prince Gong as an executive advisor to the new Regent and child-Emperor. When the Regents were arrested, Prince Gong suggested that the regents should be executed by slow slicing (“death by a thousand cuts”) aka the most painful method of execution possible. Cixi, trying to demonstrate that she was the grown up in the room, capable of exceptional justice, fairness and mercy, declined the suggestion and ordered that only Sushun and his minions Zaiyuan and Duanhua be executed whilst the other five regents were merely exiled. Sushun was beheaded whilst Zaiyuan and Duanhua were forced to hang themselves. In another break from tradition and once again in an attempt to portray herself as being kind and merciful, Cixi outright refused to execute the families of the three men (Qing imperial tradition dictated that if traitors were executed than their families should be too).
She thus became head of the Qing Empire, becoming the only empress dowager in the Qing dynasty to assume the role of regent, ruling from behind the curtains. To reward Prince Gong for his loyalty, she gave him a fancy title and made his daughter a first rank princess (a rank usually only bestowed on the daughters of an Emperor). She was careful however not to grant him too much power. The first thing she did as regent was to issue two imperial edicts alongside Ci’an; the first stated that the two Empresses would be the sole decision makers “without any interference” and the second changed the emperor’s regnal name from Qixaiang (the name chosen by his regents) to Tongzhi (which means “collective stability” – Cixi was clearly trying to make a point here). Now the Qing Empire was in a bit of a pickle at the time; the country was still suffering from the aftermath of the Second Opium War, the South of China was being ravaged by the Taiping Rebellion and to top it off the national bureaucracy (including regional authorities) was absolutely full to the brim of in ya face corruption. In a complete coincidence, 1861 happened to be the year of official examinations, whereby officials of all levels presented their political reports from the previous three years. Cixi decided there was no time like the present for a complete bureaucratic overhaul, and she personally sought audience with all officials above the level of provincial governor, who had to report to her personally. During the course of her cleaning up corruption crusade she had a number of very prominent officials executed to serve as examples to the rest of the bureaucracy (to be fair some of them were guilty of crimes; she wasn’t executing just anyone), as well as implementing a number of reforms aimed at restoring regional armies, modernising railroads and factories and establishing various new government departments including the Zongli Yamen, an official foreign ministry to deal with international affairs. She also made a complete 180 from usual Qing orthodox by appointing a vast number of Han officials as governors in Southern Chinese provinces (since 1644 most major positions at court had been held by the Manchus). These reforms led to a flurry of industrial and commercial productivity, and a brief period of peace that allowed China time to modernize and develop; most historians now acknowledge that China had been on the brink of collapse and the only reason it survived another sixty years was due to Cixi and her reforms. In 1864 the Taiping Rebellion was finally suppressed; with one problem out the way, came another. Her former partner in crime Prince Gong was growing increasingly influential, too influential for Cixi’s liking and his alliance with the Han armies that had defeated the Taiping rebels was a major cause for concern. In 1865, Can Shouqi a minor official filed a memorial accusing Prince Gong of corruption and showing disrespect to the emperor. Gong being a cocky little so and so, considered the accusation insignificant, seemingly unaware of the fact that Cixi was looking for a reason to get rid of him and Can Shouqi had given her exactly that. Under the accusation that Prince Gong had demonstrated “improper court conduct before the two empresses,” he was dismissed from all his offices and appointments, but was allowed to retain his status as a noble. To say the imperial court was shocked was an understatement; as far as they were aware Cixi and Gong were besties. His brothers both beseeched Cixi to change her mind whilst Prince Gong himself in an audience with the two Empresses (Ci’an was still around despite having far less involvement in politics than Cixi), apparently burst into tears when he asked for forgiveness. Cixi eventually gave in and allowed Prince Gong to return to his position as the head of the Zongli Yamen, but rescinded his title of Prince-Regent. The scandal ruined his reputation and he never quite returned to political prominence again; the scandal however made it clear to everyone that all authority lay solely with Cixi, and that she wasn’t willing to relinquish any of it. In 1872 her son turned 17 and with the help of Empress Dowager Ci’an he chose to marry the Jiashun Empress; Cixi was clearly quite unimpressed and mother & daughter in law clashed spectacularly almost immediately (this is hardly surprising – the girl’s grandfather was none other than Duanhua – one of the eight regents that Cixi had ousted from power and then forced to commit suicide) causing Cixi to be pretty pissed off with both her son and co-empress. The new Empresses’ advisors and family warned her to be submissive to Cixi and basically do as she was told, reminding that Cixi was a) absolutely willing to execute someone and b) held all the power. The girl for reasons unknown to me, didn’t listen and apparently declared “I am a principal consort, having been carried through the front gate with pomp and circumstance, as mandated by our ancestors. Empress Dowager Cixi was a concubine, and entered our household through a side gate.” BAD CHOICE MY FRIEND. Tongzhi became pretty dependant on his new wife which annoyed Cixi who favoured his other consort Shushen. Eventually she had enough and forced the couple to separate (because apparently she had the authority to do that); the Emperor became quite depressed and spent several months following Cixi’s order in isolation at the Qianqing Palace. His depression seems to have got the better of him and he became cruel and violent; he also under the influence of various court eunuchs and his best-friend Zaicheng (the son of Prince Gong) began sneaking out the palace when it was dark, spending nights at various brothels in the unrestricted neighbourhoods of Beijing. In 1873 he was given personal rule however it proved to be a disaster; he was lazy and despite being given an exemplary education despised learning and had little interest in politics. This was something that had been present throughout his teen years causing Cixi untold amounts of concern; clearly she’d hoped he’d grow out of it. Spoiler alert; he did not. It has been suggested that Cixi’s expectations of her son were way too high and his dislike of learning and politics apparently stemmed from his resentment towards her. He only ruled from 1873 to 1875 and in that time made several important policy decisions all of which ended badly; the first was to rebuild the Summer Palace which had been destroyed by the British & French and give it to Cixi and Ci’an (I’m 99% sure this was his way of getting his mother out of the Forbidden City so he could be in charge without her hovering) and the second was to strip Prince Gong of his princely titles and demote to him to the status of a commoner and strip Prince Dun, Prince Chun, Prince Fu, Jingshou, Prince Qing, Wenxiang, Baojun and various state counsellors of all their titles and positions too. This was because they had objected to the exorbitant amount of money he was spending on the reconstruction of the Summer Palace (at this point the imperial treasury was virtually empty; there certainly wasn’t enough money to re-build the palace on the scale he wanted it). To say his decisions caused mayhem is way too polite, and Cixi and Ci’an were forced to intervene, making an unexpected, unprecedented appearance at court in which they directly criticised the emperor with Cixi basically reminding him of everything that Gong had once done for them. Tongzhi did not react well to the tongue lashing from his mother and step-mother and soon fell ill and died in January of 1875. Although his physicians claimed it was smallpox, rumours spread that his death was actually syphilis picked up from one of his jaunts to the brothels of Beijing. Some historians tend to buy the smallpox claims whilst others are more inclined to think it was syphilis. He died without a male heir, which created an unprecedented succession crisis in the dynastic line. Due to the way succession worked in the Qing empire, none of his uncles could assume the throne as his successor as the new emperor either had to be from the same generation as Tongzhi or the next generation. Luckily for Cixi she had the perfect candidate; after becoming the head honcho of the empire, she had arranged for her sister to marry one of her brother in laws Prince Chun. Their son Guangxu was just four years old; he from the right generation, was of both the imperial bloodline and Cixi’s bloodline and had parents who were apparently willing to let Cixi take custody of their son. For a period of time after his accession Cixi was unwell, leaving Empress Dowager Ci’an to run the empire. In April 1881 Ci’an died – rumours began spreading that accused Cixi of having her poisoned. There is however absolutely no evidence of this and most historians support the official cause of death which was a stroke; I really doubt Cixi poisoned Ci’an, they’d always been close and I’d also like to point out the reason for the poisoning was apparently due to a disagreement over the 1869 execution of a eunuch – why Cixi would wait over a decade to execute Ci’an just makes no sense. The death of Ci’an meant that Cixi had to take on a slightly different role than she had before; whilst Ci’an had shown little interest in running state affairs, she had always been the main decision-maker in family affairs (as evidenced by her choosing Emperor Tongzhi’s wife). At this point everyone had come to terms with the fact that Cixi had an iron grip on power and did pretty much nothing to question her decisions; between 1884 and 1885 Prince Gong supported Manchu involvement in the Sino-French war and was a major decision maker in the conflict; the fact China lost was used as pretext by Cixi to remove him from his positions and replaced with her brother in law Prince Chun who was far easier to control. The Beiyang Fleet had been established by Cixi in 1871 and was the strongest navy in East Asia; in the late 1880’s Cixi wrote out various orders that stated the navy should continue to develop and expand. When Guangxu took power however in 1889 all naval development stopped. At the time Japan’s various naval victories over China were blamed on Cixi however extensive research in the century since have shown it was actually Guangxu’s fault; he cut the funding to the navy believing that Japan was not a true threat. Cixi then retired from governing the empire, although continued to serve as head of the family; as the head of the family she was responsible for choosing Guangxu’s wife; she chose his cousin Jingfen who became known as Empress Longyu. Jingfen was both Cixi’s niece and Guangxu’s cousin as the daughter of Cixi’s brother; the family relation meant she did not try to fight with her aunt for influence. Despite her retirement, Cixi continued to influence the Emperor’s decisions and it’s believe he visited her every two days asking for her advice; his advisor and mentor Weng Tonghe later noted that while Guangxu dealt with day-to-day administration, the Grand Councillors were involved in more complex situations and in the most complex situations everyone ran to Cixi for advice. In 1894 the First Sino-Japanese war broke out; during this period Cixi was constantly asked to intervene and arbitrate policy making; it’s believed at one point the emperor was sometimes bypassed in the decision making process by his counsellors who went straight to Cixi. In the 1890’s Guangxu became transfixed on establishing various liberal-minded reforms based on the reforms implanted in other monarchies such as Germany and Japan; these reforms however were loathed by the upper echelons of society including high ranking aristocracy, government officials and military officers. To prevent rebellion, Cixi stepped in and stopped them from happening. In hindsight they probably should have gone ahead; China was woefully conservative and in need of liberal modernisation, a fact that Guangxu seemed to acknowledge. In this instance I think Cixi was wrong however she didn’t have the benefit of hindsight and in the short term, those reforms risked rebellion. Allegations of treason against the emperor, as well as suspected Japanese influence within the push for reform, led Cixi once again taking on the role of regent; Guangxu was put effectively under house arrest in the Ocean Terrace, a small palace on an island in the middle of Zhongnanhai only accessible to the rest of the Forbidden City by a controlled road. She then issued an edict that proclaimed Guangxu unfit to be emperor and his reign basically came to an end although he remained emperor in name only.
In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion took place; the rebellion was an anti-West anti-Christian movement that feared the expansion of foreign spheres of influence and resented the extension of privileges to Christian missionaries. Although initially hesitant, Cixi eventually threw her support behind the movement, as did the majority of the Chinese public who feared foreign intervention. The Qing government under Cixi’s leadership and the imperial army supported the Boxers and, under Genral Ronglu, besieged foreign diplomats and civilians. This led to the formation of the Eight-Nation-Alliance (made up of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the US, Italy and Austria-Hungary) which invaded northern China that year (I would like to point out that quite a few of these countries had been looking for a reason to attack China so their intentions were not entirely as pure as they made out). The whole thing turned out to be a total shit show and Cixi and Guangxu were forced to leave the Forbidden City during the Battle of Beijing. Negotiations between the two sides began when the Alliance sent negotiators to deal with Cixi; most of her advisors were against any such peace treaty and wanted to continue the war. Cixi however was practical and agreed to peace as long as a) China would not have to give up any further territories to foreign powers and b) she was allowed to continue running the show. Eighteen months after fleeing Beijing, she returned in January 1902. Between 1902 and 1908, Cixi tried to implement a number of reforms; she sent officials to Japan and Europe to draw up plans for sweeping administrative reforms in law, education, government structure, and social policy; in an amusing twist of fate, she supported the implantation of the New Policies, a reform programme more radical than the one that had been proposed in 1898 – the one she had basically stopped from happening. Guangxu remained under house arrest although interestingly enough his relationship with his Empress – Cixi’s niece seems to have blossomed (they had been estranged due to him favouring a lower ranked concubine over her). In 1908 both Cixi and Guangxu fell seriously ill; he died first on the 14th November 1908. His cause of death is unknown; his medical records show he suffered from “spells of violent stomach aches” and that prior to his death his face had turned blue (typical symptoms of arsenic poisoning). In 2008 his remains underwent a series of forensic tests which showed his arsenic levels were 2000x higher than normal people. The levels however were so high that scientists dismissed that he had been poisoned in little quantities over a long period of time and claimed the high level of arsenic meant he was likely killed by one giant dose. Who poisoned him??? No idea. Unsurprisingly Cixi was the first suspect however she herself was at death’s door and it’s unlikely killing him was her priority (it has been alleged that she ordered his death out of fear he would not continue her reforms – this doesn’t make any sense considering the fact he had supported such reforms a decade earlier). Another suspect was Cixi’s powerful government minister Yuan Shikai; he allegedly murdered the Emperor due to Cixi’s impending death; he knew that if Guangxu were to come to power again, he’d almost certainly have Yuan who he loathed, executed. Cixi despite being on the verge of death herself, managed to proclaim Puyi the next Emperor (he was the grandson of Prince Chun who had been the husband of Cixi’s late sister Wanzhen and the brother of Cixi’s late husband. Puyi’s father had been the son of Prince Chun and his second wife who he had married after Wanzhen’s death; Puyi was therefore Guangxu’s half-nephew). Cixi died literally 24 hours later on the 15th. Cixi’s legacy is such a complicated one; the mainstream view of her was always that she was a villainous ruthless despot who was responsible for the downfall of Chinese imperial power and was devious, cruel and corrupt. It’s important to note though that following the anti-foreign Boxer Movement, she came into contact with various foreign dignitaries all of whom emphasised that she was warm, friendly and graceful with “an unusually attractive personality” and a love of dogs and flowers. The publication of China Under the Empress in 1910 didn’t help her reputation; most of the gossip in the book came from palace eunuchs who described her “on the one hand… as imperious, manipulative, and lascivious” and on the other “ingenuous, politically shrewd, and conscientious…”. One of writers of the book basically admitted later on that some of the sources had been forged. In recent decades her reputation has been somewhat restored with historians coming to the conclusion that although she certainly made mistakes and her reforms including the abolition of slavery, ancient methods of torture and the ancient examination system as well as laws aimed at modernisation, were a little too late, history has largely scapegoated her for deep-rooted problems beyond her control, and that actually the empire only lasted as long as it did because of her.
Empress Lu is next on our list! Born in Shangfu County in 241BC towards the end of the Qin dynastic reign, the daughter of Lu Wen. Now her father managed to get himself into some political shenanigans that were dangerous culminating in him moving the family to Pei county in order to keep his family safe. We don’t really know anything other than that about her childhood. The first record of her is a very interesting moment between her husband and father; sometime between 220BC and 210BC, she met Liu Bang a minor patrol officer of a very unimpressive peasant background. They met at a banquet at her father’s home; you see Lu it appears was quite popular with the men in town and had a TON of admirers. One of those admirers was Xiao He (who served as an assistant of the magistrate); he was apparently in charge of the seating arrangements at the town’s banquets and decreed that “those who do not offer more than 1,000 coins in gifts shall be seated outside the hall.” Gift giving to the host of a banquet was apparently a big deal and Xiao’s expectations for such gifts was high. Liu Bang (who as I said was nothing more than a minor patrol officer) went to the banquet with a single cent and said, “I offer 10,000 coins.” Lu’s father saw Liu Bang and was apparently impressed with him immediately on sight (does that mean the dude was very handsome???). He invited Liu Bang to sit beside him despite Xiao He’s protestations; the two men evidently got along super well and Lü’s father allegedly said to him, “I used to predict fortunes for many people but I’ve never seen someone as exceptional like you before.” So impressed was he that he promptly offered his daughter to the young officer as a wife. Liu Bang evidently accepted because the two were married not long after. They had two children a daughter Yuan and a song Liu Ying – we’re not 100% sure which child was born first. Liu Ying was born in 210BC whilst Yuan was born prior to 211BC meaning either the two were twins or their daughter was born first. As I said though we have no idea when. All this took place towards the end of the Qin dynasty and from 209BC onwards her husband Liu Bang took part in the rebellion against the imperial clan, serving on the side of the insurgent Chu kingdom under King Huai II. Whilst he was serving in the military, Lu and their children stayed under her father’s protection. Her husband’s prominence in the rebellion made her and her children a target and it’s believed there were periods when they were forced into hiding. In 206BC the Qin Dynasty finally fell and the empire was divided into the Eighteen Kingdoms. Her husband was granted the title King of Han and given lands to rule in the remote Bashu region (present day Sichuan); despite this Lu and her children remained with her family, apparently out of concern they’d be in danger in her husband’s new lands. Her husband then took a GIGANTIC risk; he attacked and seized the Three Qins (the three new kingdoms that covered the Guanzhong region). Technically it was his; King Huai II of Chu had promised the land to whoever conquered it first during the rebellion against the empire. Her husband had conquered it therefore it kinda should have been his. This marked the start of a very stressful four-year power struggle for supremacy over China between her husband and Xiang Yu (it became known as the Chu-Han Contention). Lu and her husband’s concerns over the safety of their family turned out to be entirely accurate when Xiang Yu sent troops of his to kidnap Lu and the children; luckily her husband caught wind of the plot and mobilised his own troops to protect them. In 205 BC her husband pulled off a resounding victory when he attacked and captured Western Chu’s capital of Pengcheng (capitalising on Xiang Yu being occupied with rebellions elsewhere). This resounding victory however backfired when their family was captured and held hostage; we believe she was held between 205 & 203 BC and it was during that time that she seemingly began an ill advised affair with one of her husband’s men who was being held hostage with her. A truce was finally agreed in the autumn of 203BC which culminated in a) Lu’s release and b) the Treaty of Hong Canal, which divided China into west and east under their Han and Western Chu domains respectively. Upon her return, her husband clearly happy to see her gave her the title of “Queen Consort of Han”. A year later he went back on the truce and following his victory at the Battle of Gaixia, he unified China under his rule. He promptly proclaimed himself Emperor of China and established the Han dynasty with Lu as his empress and their son as the heir. We know very little about Lu’s involvement in all this; obviously she spent a big chunk of this period either in hiding or held hostage but in the parts of the period where she wasn’t, we don’t know if she had any behind the scenes influence. What we do know is that after he became Emperor, he granted her quite considerable authority; you see even after unification there were still unstable areas in the empire, with required the new Emperor to launch launch military campaigns to pacify these not-so-accepting regions. He left her as regent in charge with their son Liu Ying; with the help of the Chancellor Xiao He and various government ministers, Lu was left to make the empire’s key decisions. She proved to be a very intelligent, competent administrator who established very strong relations with her husband’s ministers and was a thoroughly effective leader. Government minister & military leaders considered her a wise and capable regent albeit a slightly ruthless one. When her husband eventually returned, he recognised the good job she’d done and even with him back at the helm of power, she was given considerable power and remained heavily involved in affairs of state. In 196 BC her husband once again left the capital to suppress a revolt and left her in charge; the revolt had been started by Chen Xi the Marquis of Yangxia. Somehow Lu and her husband discovered that the year before Chen had secretly met with Han Xin, a government minister that the Emperor and Empress had by all accounts been wary of for a while – they hadn’t always been wary of him. Along with Peng Yue, Han had played a vital part in the founding of the Han dynasty. After consulting her advisors, she summoned Han to the Changle Palace. There, the empress had him arrested, captured, and subsequently executed following a bout of torture to determine else in government was plotting against her husband. Meanwhile her husband requested reinforcements from the aforementioned Peng Yue who claimed that he was too ill and sent his subordinates to assist the Emperor instead. The Emperor and Empress then began hearing rumours that Peng Yue was plotting against them too; Lu’s husband made the decision to have Peng arrested and stripped off his titles. Peng was demoted to the status of a commoner and exiled to the remote Qingyi County; he wasn’t however sentenced to death. The Emperor decided exile was enough. Lu disagreed and had Peng brought to Luoyang where he was subsequently executed on charges of treason. This apparently caused some tension between Lu and her husband; tension which apparently had been festering ever since her adultery when she was held hostage. He had begun to take other concubines and there was one Concubine Qi who he favoured in particular; they had a son Liu Ruyi. In 198 BC the boy was installed as the Prince of Zhao a prestigious position which he had previously given to Zhang Ao the husband of his and Lu’s daughter Princess Yuan. The Emperor’s official reason was that he considered Liu Ying (his and Lu’s son) too weak hearted and soft and apparently not up to the job of Emperor; it’s likely he was probably concerned his son would be overpowered by Lu when he was Emperor. The problem is that Lu was so heavily involved in the governance of the empire that the majority of ministers backed her and were generally opposed to the Emperor’s decision. Being an Emperor he didn’t really care. Lu’s ally Zhang Liang invited the “Four Whiteheads of Mount Shang” a group of four reclusive wise very well respected men, to persuade the Emperor to change his decision which they apparently did. Afterwards the four men promised to assist Lu and her son in future if he became emperor. Lu was widowed in 195 BC and her son was promptly crowned under the regnal name Emperor Hui; her late husband’s concerns about his weak natured son being over-powered by Lu turned out to be 100% accurate and she became the most powerful figure in his administration. This was unfortunate for the consorts and children of Lu’s late husband; turns out she was still quite upset over the whole succession thing and took out her resentment on Consort Qi who no longer had the late Emperor’s protection; Qi was stripped of her position, head shaved, forced to wear a prison outfit and made to do hard labour in the form of milling rice. Her son Liu Ruyi was then summoned to Chang’an; the boy I’d like to point out at this point was still only 12. Even some of Lu’s advisors at this point felt she was going to far taking her rage out on the boy; Zhou Chang was a government minister who served as chancellor in Liu Ruyi’s principality and was someone that Lu greatly respected (he had been sternly opposed to the late Emperor Gaozu’s proposal to make Liu Ruyi crown prince). He temporarily protected Liu Ruyi from harm by responding to Lu’s order that, “The Prince of Zhao is ill and unfit for travelling over long distances.” Clearly determined to get the job done, she had Zhou Chang arrested, and then summoned Liu Ruyi again, however Emperor Hui had at this point become aware that his mother was trying to murder his half brother and was unimpressed. He got to the young prince before his mother could and throughout the boy’s stay in Chang’an, he kept him by his side. In either December 195 BC or January 194 BC Emperor Hui went for a hunting trip – he invited his little brother however Liu Ruyi wasn’t feeling well and so didn’t go. BIG GIANT MISTAKE. Whilst her son was hunting, she allegedly sent an assassin to kill the boy who was dead by the time the Emperor returned. Now I say allegedly, but the Emperor was fairly convinced the assassins were sent by his mother. She then ordered Qi’s death; the death was according to contemporary sources absolutely horrendous. Evidently the Emperor demanded to see Qi’s body (or what was left of it) and he was so horrified by her death and the death of his brother that he said “this is something done not by a human”. Despite his horror, he didn’t have the authority to dismiss his mother; she at this point held the reins of power. He fell into a deep depression afterwards; not helped by his mother attempting to murder his other brothers. I think it’s safe to say at this point her paranoia was out of control. Lu’s late husband had, had a son before they were married with a concubine named Lady Cao – that son Liu Fei was the oldest but had always respected his brother’s place as heir. Lu however was concerned at the prince’s popularity and tried to poison him. The events allegedly took place at a banquet hosted by Lu. She ordered her servants to pour a cup of poisoned wine for Liu Fei, and then toasted him however just as Liu Fei was about to drink the wine, Emperor Hui had a bit of a lightbulb moment and realised what his mother was doing; he grabbed Liu Fei’s cup as if he would drink from it which obviously caused Lü to jump up and stop him from drinking the drink. She then tried to kill another one of his mother Liu You who had been married to Empress Lu’s niece but stupidly had an affair with another woman. The niece (whose name we’re not 100% sure of) then went to her aunt and accused her husband of plotting a rebellion. He was summoned to Chang’an and then imprisoned and deprived of food. He refused to commit suicide and so died a long painful death, eventually starving to death. Another step-son of Lu died a few months later when he committed suicide allegedly out of fear of Lu. If you’re struggling to keep up that’s the third stepson she’s murdered. God she makes the Evil Stepmother in Snow White look merciful.
In 191 BC at her insistence, her son married his niece Zhang Yan (the daughter of his sister Princess Yuan). The marriage was unsurprisingly not a happy one and there was no children; Emperor Hui did however have sons – eight in fact. There’s some debate as to the mothers of his sons; the traditional view was that the boys were adopted however modern historians have come to believe that the boys were the biological children of the Emperor and that their mothers were probably unimportant concubines. Her son died in 188 BC and was succeeded by one of his sons who became known as Emperor Qianshao – its likely Lu chose which boy would succeed him. With a child as Emperor, power remained with Lu who ruled as regent; the role of regent was an official one which legitimised her as the first female absolute ruler in Chinese history. In the official history of Ban Gu in the Book of Han it’s written that “Emperor Hui died and the prince was established as emperor, the Empress Dowager presiding over court and issuing edicts, and gave a general imperial pardon.” Interestingly she never claimed the title of Grand Empress Dowager (the usual title for grandmothers) and remained Empress Dowager. She addressed herself as Zhen – a first person pronoun that had been reserved for use by the Emperor during the reign of the Qin dynasty. In all edicts she was referred to as Shang Zhe which indicates the orders are the personal orders of the Emperor. Now when her late husband (remember him?) had established the Han dynasty he had made it a rule that no non-imperial clan members could become princes. I think it’s important to recognise that Lu had once upon a time helped her husband come up with this rule in the first place. She didn’t however seem to find it an important rule anymore and tried to install some of her family members as princes. Government became divided with some members of court such as the Right Chancellor Wang Ling opposing the decision whilst the left Chancellor Chen Ping and the high ranking general Zhou Bo were accepting (or just too damn scared to oppose her). Rather than killing him, which let’s face it was kind of her MO at this point; she promoted Wang Ling to the position of Grand Tutor which although the highest honour meant he didn’t really have any tangible power anymore. He refused and claimed he was too ill to continue in government. This allowed Lu to appoint Chen Ping as Right Chancellor and her lover Shen Yiji as Left Chancellor. With no one in government willing to go against her she installed her grandson Zhang Yan (the son of her daughter Princess Yuan) as the Prince of Lu. She then installed several of her nephews and grandnephews as princes and marquises as well as her younger sister Lü Xu who was granted the title of Marquise of Lingguang (women were not given their own titles usually). Remember when I told you her grandson Emperor Qianshao was likely the son of an unimportant concubine? Well clearly no told had told the boy and when he discovered that his mother was not Empress Dowager Zhang Yan (evidently he thought she was) he didn’t take it very well. Lu evidently tried to hide it from him but executing his birth mother but that only upset him more and he threatened that when he grew up he would make both Empress Dowager Zhang and Empress Lu pay for his mother’s death. She had him secretly confined in the palace and then publicly announced that he was seriously ill and unable to meet anyone. She later adapted the story and told the imperial court that Emperor Qianshao that he suffered from some kind of mental health issue and was thus incapable of ruling. This ultimately led to him being deposed. He was later quietly and secretly killed with him being replaced by his brother who became known as Emperor Houshao. Lu lived until 180 BC when she died aged 61 from some sort of illness. She was buried in her husband’s tomb which considering she murdered three of his son’s I’m not sure he’d be thrilled about. In the aftermath of her death, all of her family members who had received cushy government positions and aristocratic titles were overthrown and massacred, in what became known as the Lu Clan Disturbance. A ton of those involved in this coup were none other than all the government ministers she’d spent decades pissing off including Chen Ping, Zhou Bo and Guan Ying. The young Emperor was deposed some time afterwards and replaced with Liu Heng (later known as Emperor Wen) one of the step-sons Lu didn’t manage to murder. His parents were Lu’s late husband Emperor Gauzo and one of his concubines Consort Bo. Lu’s legacy within the Han dynasty was evident controversial; over a century later in AD 25, Emperor Guangwu had Lu replaced as Empress in Emperor Gaozu’s temple and reaped with Consort Bo. She was given a smaller less grand temple elsewhere.
In Europe the position of Queen Mother is important but it doesn’t automatically grant you authority, in Chinese culture however there is a real reverence for the elders which is one of the reasons why Dowager Empresses so constantly run the show. One of these Dowager Empresses is this woman; Empress Feng. Born in 442, Feng was born with a decent dose of royal blood herself; her grandfather was Feng Hong the last Emperor of the Northern Yan whilst her father was Feng Lang the Duke of Xicheng; her mother’s identity isn’t clear – her name was Lady Wang but we don’t know if she was a concubine or a legal wife. In 433 prior to her birth her father and his brothers had betrayed their father and surrendered to the Northern Wei (which was the larger empire in China at the time); they did this because they evidently feared their step-mother Princess Murong was planning on killing them. The Wei rewarded him initially by making him a provincial governor however he was later accused of committing administrative errors and corruption and was executed. She was still a little girl and so was sent to be raised by her aunt Consort Feng who was a concubine of Emperor Taiwu of the Northern Wei aka the man who had just ordered the death of her father. Taiwu was assassinated in 452 and his son became Emperor under the regnal name Wencheng. Now that’s evidence she was named as his concubine as early as 455 which would have made her just 13 at the time. He was actually a year younger than her – they were both kids meaning it’s unlikely they had actually consummated their relationship at this point. He made her Empress in 456. Wencheng would not end up being Emperor for very long; he died in 465. In the 13 years he sat on the throne, he and Empress Feng had no children together (although he did have children with lesser concubines). We actually know very little about their relationship, although it’s implied they were close – which makes sense they were obviously childhood friends. The lack of a child could mean that the relationship between the two was a platonic one. We also don’t know all that much about her political influence; it’s likely she had some influence over her husband but was somewhat at a disadvantage (the fact she had given him no children for example). The exact level of influence whilst Empress Consort is unknown however we know for certain it wasn’t anywhere near as impressive as the likes of Empresses Wu, Lu and Wei. Like other Chinese Empresses, she actually doesn’t really emerge as a major power player until post her husband’s death. He was succeeded by his 11-year-old son Tuoba Hong who became Emperor Xiangweng. She was given the title of Empress Dowager. Now Feng was absolutely devastated by her husband’s death furthering suggesting their closeness; per Northern Wei tradition, his personal possession were burned. There’s a horrific anecdote which suggests that whilst the burning ceremony was taking place Empress Feng actually tried to jump into the fire but was miraculously saved by the quick-thinking guards. Her devastation combined with the fact her husband’s successor was not her son, meant she immediately lost influence, which allowed the government official Yifu Hun to grasp power and declare himself regent. The thing is he wasn’t exactly Mr Popular and so in order to rule as regent, unopposed he had to execute and exile a number of other key officials. I mean he didn’t have to, he chose to and that caused all sort of chaos. Eventually he became so seemingly tyrannical, that in the spring of 466, Empress Dowager Feng staged a coup with the support of a number of key government figures (who had managed to stay alive) including Tuoba Pi and Jia Xiu. She ordered Yifu’s arrest and execution and assumed the regency. One of her best choices as regent was the circle se surrounded herself with; her advisors Gao Yun, Gao Lu and her brother Feng Xi were all loyal, wise and gave her good advice. Not only after she became regent the rival Liu Song dynasty had a major dynastic struggle following the assassination of its Emperor Qianfei – there was no clear cut successor and so two members of the dynasty – Qianfei’s uncle Ming and brother Liu Zixun – separately declared themselves Emperor. This presented Empress Dowager Feng with a major opportunity to expand Northern Wei territory and influence. When Emperor Ming’s forces defeated Liu Zixun’s and captured and executed Liu Zixun in fall 466, the supporters of the fallen prince including the high ranking influential general Xue Andu (薛安都), declared his allegiance to the Northern Wei. He was soon joined by a number of provincial governors of the Liu Song empire including the governors that ruled the Xu province, Yan Province and the Ru’nan Commandery. Empress Dowager Feng sent her trusted general Yuchi Yuan to accept the surrenders of these Liu Song generals and to secure the region just north of the Huai River. Emperor Ming was obviously deeply unimpressed and tried to fight back however Yuchi subsequently defeated two attempts by his force to recapture those provinces. She further expanded Northern Wei territory by sending the general Murong Baiyao to attack and try to capture the Qing and Ji Provinces, which were cut off from the rest of Liu Song after Xue’s defection, and by 469, both provinces were well and truly in the hands of the Northern Wei and thus our girl Empress Dowager Feng. This was a major win because it meant that now all of the regions north of the Huai River was by now Northern Wei territory. In 467 despite only being thirteen the young Emperor Xianwen became a father for the first time – his consort Concubine Li (a girl chosen by Empress Dowager Feng) gave birth to a son and heir. Now in our modern minds 13 is a) way too young to be a father and b) way too young to take power. However by becoming a father Xianwen was considered a man and thus capable of ruling alone (this seems very questionable logic); Empress Dowager Feng thus terminated her regency and returned all authority to her stepson. Something I think is very interesting about Feng is that she chose to do it; there’s so many stories of regents (not just in China) refusing to willingly hand over power (hello Empress Wu) and yet Feng wasn’t even asked. She just did it. I wonder whether if the fact she wasn’t his mother played a role in that.
Despite not being mother and son, the two appeared to have a fairly close relationship for the first 3 years of his personal rule and contemporary reports seem to indicate that she was fairly influential; he trusted her advice and kept many of the government ministers that she had appointed during her regency, in their positions. There ws nomajor regime change and the transition from Feng to Xianwen seems to have been fairly smoooth, not doubt helped by Feng’s continued presence in government. Things came to a screeching halt however in 470 when a government official Li Xin was accused of corruption – he was a close friend of Li Fu whose brother Li Yi was a high ranking government official who also happened to be Empress Dowager Feng’s lover/partner. The two had apparently been in a relationship for some time, a fact that Emperor Xianwen was apparently aware of; he was said to disapproved over it but chosen not to do anything about it or try and stop it which is surprising. Most Emperors would have had an absolute fit. Li Xin was sentenced to death for his corruption however was told that if he had any information about the corruption of others (wink wink) that he may be spared. Li Xin took the deal real quick and immediately spilled all sorts of secrets about Li Fu and Li Yi – the thing is clearly the man could have said anything and Xianwen would have believed it. Li Xin sang like a canary which culminated in the rather abrupt execution of Li Fu and Li Yi on charges of corruption. Empress Dowager Feng denied the accusations and was understandably pissed. The relationship never recovered and she appears to have somewhat removed herself from government. In 471 he became the bizarre decision to abdicate in favour of his four year old son Tuoba Hong who took on the throne regnal name Emperor Xiaowen. There doesn’t appear to be a clear cut reason why he abdicated and the bizarre thing is because of the age of his son he continued leading government in the role of Taishang Huang (retired Emperor). There is some suggestion that Emperor Xianwen, had for whatever reason grown incredibly spiritual (he’s said to have heavily favoured Taoist and Buddhist philosophy) and no longer wanted to rule; he allegedly planned to pass the throne to his uncle Tuoba Zitui due to the age of his age, however his the accession was opposed by virtually all high level officials including Empress Dowager Feng. Emperor Xianwen then decided to anoint his son. Now during the 5 year period that he was in charge but not Emperor he conducted a number of military campaigns against Rouran, leading the troops himself. He left government in the hands in of a number of trusted advisors. Empress Dowager Feng wasn’t one of them however many of them she had put in place as regent so she still exerted some influence. Behind closed doors relations between Xianwen and Feng were no better; she had never forgiven him for killing the man she loved. Evidently he still trusted her enough to raise his son though. Relations between them continued deteriorating until 476 when she decided to remove him as de-facto head of the empire. There’s two versions of what happened here – one is that she poisoned him (a version supported by historian Sima Guang) whilst another suggests that when he came to her palace to discuss affairs of state she had assassins seize and smother him. Either way not great. She then took on the title of Grand Empress Dowager and assumed the regency. I would like to point out that the 9-year-old Emperor Xiaowen probably had a closer relationship with her at this point than his own father as she had been raising him since his mother’s death a few years before.
It was during this second regency that Feng proved herself to be a political powerhouse. In 485 apparently after having worked on it for years, she enacted a new land-tenure system named the equal-field system, which was designed to boost agricultural production and tax receipts. Under this system, all land was owned by the state, and then equally distributed to taxpaying farmers – this was done basically to break the economic power of local landowners who exerted significant control. This system not only successfully created a stable fiscal infrastructure but it also provided a basis for universal military conscription for the Northern Wei – this system continued well into the Tang dynasty. She also created another initiative nicknamed “the Three Elders System” which aimed to do what we would today call a proper census. Her government sought to compile accurate population registers so that land could be distributed accordingly. Under this system, five households were to make up one neighborhood (li), headed by one neighborhood elder (linzhang) while five neighborhoods were grouped into a village and headed by one village elder (lizhang). Finally, over five villages, there was one ward elder (dangzhang). The three elders, were personally appointed by the government, and were responsible for a number of duties including detecting and re-registering population that fell otherwise outside of state accounts, requisitioning corvee labor, overseeing military conscripts & and taxes, and providing assistance to the poor and orphaned. The outcome of the reforms was extraordinary and in the years afterwards, the Northern Wei dynasty doubled the registered population to more than 5 million households. It’s believed that during her second regency she was harsher than she had been before – she also took vengeance on those that had pissed her off in the past. Li Xin if you recall had been the one who had accused her lover of treason and corruption and had caused his death – Feng evidently hadn’t forgotten this and put him to death in 477. Realising he had a pretty powerful family that could cause all kinds of shenanigans so she accused his grandfather Li Hui the Prince of Nan Commandery of treason in 478 and had him and his clan executed. Despite this was well regarded in her lifetime – she was considered incredibly intelligent and by the standards of other Empresses was noted for living frugally. I’m gonna guess her version of frugal is different from ours? She did do the standard Empress thing of promoting her lovers Wang Rui and Li Chong (both of whom might I add were apparently quite capable officials) however she balanced this by also promoting officials that were not her lovers and who were willing to disagree with her. In 481 the Buddhist monk Faxiu tried to start an uprising against the Northern Wei in the capital of Pingcheng – Empress Dowager Feng ordered him to be arrested and executed. There were then suggestions that she should order the execution of all Buddhist Monks which frankly seems like overkill – Empress Dowager Feng agreed and refused to go along with the idea. That same year she implemented a new criminal code written by a number of scholars most prominently Gao Lu; the code was made up of 832 sections. Now as he grew up her relationship with Emperor Xiaowen appears to have remained pretty good although by a certain point she seems to have been concerned about his ability to rule which led to suggestions of deposing him in favour of his brother Tuoba Xi who was apparently considered more capable. These suggestions evidently came to naught and over the years Emperor Xiaowen began to gradually assume more and more power. Grand Empress Dowager Feng never formally returned imperial powers to him, but by about 483 he appears to have been fairly in control of the government. Grand Empress Dowager Feng however continued to retain substantial powers. Now the Northern Wei had this very awful practise wherein the mother of the Crown Prince had to commit suicide – In 484 Emperor Xiaowen’s concubine Consort Lin gave birth to a son Tuoba Xun and per tradition, Grand Empress Dowager Feng oversee the young woman’s execution. It’s really quite horrendous actually. Emperor Xiaowen then gave his son to her to raise. What is it with the men in this family have 0 role in their children’s upbringing and excepting her to do it all? In 485 to make sure no one mucked up the education for future prince’s she established an imperial school that dictated what princes of the empire should be educated in. Emperor Xiaowen and Grand Empress Dowager Feng evidently to some sort of weird power-sharing arrangement which seemed to work fairly well. This was abundantly evident in 489 when her brother in laws the princes Tuoba Titanic and Tuoba Zhen (the brothers of her late husband) were accused of corruption. The Emperor and the Grand Empress Dowager convened an imperial council together to discuss the punishment; Grand Empress Dowager Feng kicked off the meeting by asking various government officials, “Do you believe that we should care about familial relations and destroy law, or to disregard familial relations and follow the law?”. The vast majority of the officials pleaded for the princes to be allowed to live – she evidently had a fairly good relationship with her brother in laws (probably because she’d been their brother’s childhood friend/concubine) and didn’t wish to see them die. Emperor Xiaowen allowed them to live due to this fondness stating: “what the two princes committed is unpardonable, but the Grand Empress Dowager takes after the brotherly love that Gaozong [which was Wencheng’s temple name] had. Further, the Prince of Nan’an is filially pious toward his mother. Therefore, the two will be spared the death penalty, but their offices and titles will be stripped from them, and they will be reduced to commoner status with no political rights.”
Now there isn’t an image of the next woman so I am instead choosing a picture of an actress that played her (as a side note the costumes in Chinese historical tv shows are INCREDIBLE). Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan holds the distinction of being the youngest person in Chinese history to assume the titles of both Empress Dowager and Grand Empress Dowager. Born in 88BC, Lady Shangguan was born into immense privilege – both of her grandfathers, Huo Guang and Shangguan Jie were were two of the regent for the young Emperor Zhao, who ascended the throne in 87 BC at age seven. Huo was the primary regent. At that time, Lady Shangguan herself was a toddler – young she may have been but she was still the granddaughter of two of the three men ruling China. On the surface the girl had it all. However when the 3rd regent Jin died, it all fell apart a bit. You see Jin had been a moderating influence in the co-regency, a mediator between her two very strong-headed grandfathers and after his death, the two began to argue. Big time, mostly because Shangguan Jie was unhappy with his lesser role in the co-regency. In 84 BC, when she was just 4 Shangguan Jie put forth the idea of marrying her to the emperor to consolidate the family’s power. Her other grandpa Huo initially refused, believing her to be too young. Shangguan Jie decided to gain support elsewhere for the plan. Now Lady Shangguan’s father was a friend of Emperor Zhao’s sister Princess Eyi and her lover Ding Wairen. He knew that Ding was in love with the princess and wanted his relationship with her to be more legitimate than it was; he encouraged Ding to persuade the princess on the marriage being a good idea, arguing that the Shangguans’ power would be firmer with the marriage, and that they could then help Ding legitimize his relationship with Princess Eyi. The Princess who was equally in love agreed and, and later in 84 BC the young Lady Shangguan was created an imperial consort. A year later On 24th April 83 BC she was created Empress despite only being 5 years old. Now because of the fact her and her husband were literal children she had no influence and we don’t know all that much about her early years as Empress; we do know that she faced her first real tragedy (the first unfortunately of many) in 80 BC. Her father’s family the Shangguans, wanted to thank Ding for his role in helping making their girl an Empress and sought to make him a marquess, but this attempt was rebuffed by Huo, who clearly wasn’t a fan of Ding. Their attempts to reward him with government positions always went awry. Princess Eyi was pissed and came to oppose Huo who it appears had managed to offend other important figure including the Vice Prime Minister Sang Hongyang (who had created a monopoly system, which he felt was the key to sound finances for the state, Huo it appears was in the process of trying to dismantle it). This led to an anti-Huo faction at court led by the the Shangguans, Princess Eyi, Prince Dan of Yan, and the Vice Prime Minister. That year Prince Dan sent a report to Emperor Zhao, accusing Huo of improperly exercising imperial authority. They clearly hoped that the young Emperor would authorise an investigation which would likely be led by one of them – they would then have pretext to arrest and execute Huo. Things didn’t quite go to plan, because after the report was given to Emperor Zhao, the 14-year-old monarch took no action on it. Literally did nothing until the next day, when he summoned Huo to the palace and exonerated him, reasoning that the crimes that Huo had been accused of had happened so recently that Prince Dan (who was practically on the other side of empire), could not have known them, and therefore the report must have been false. That right there is a kid playing 4D chess. Everyone at this point seems to have been very impressed with the Emperor however he apparently remained unaware that it was the Shangguans who were behind it. Proving to be idiots of the highest order, the anti-Huo faction tried again. They came up with a very messy, very risky plot which involved Princess Eyi inviting Huo to a feast, where they planned to ambush and kill him (this seems ridiculous already – everyone knew Eyi hated Huo so I’m not sure why she’d be inviting him to tea). They then planned to depose Emperor Zhao and make Prince Dan emperor; there’s also a suggestion that they were considering whether or not to have Prince Dan killed once he arrived in the capital in order to put Shangguan Jie on the throne instead.) The plot was discovered (OF COURSE) when one of Princess Eyi’s servants spilled the beans. The conspirators were arrested and executed along with their entire families whilst Princess Eyi and Prince Dan were forced to commit suicide. Poor little Empress Shangguan was spared, however, a) because of her young age, b) because she had absolutely no involvement and was completely unaware of her paternal family’s scheming, c) she was Huo’s granddaughter and he sought to protect her and d) the Emperor does appear to have been genuinely fond of her. Her tenure as the Consort of China did not last long; in 74 BC her husband died after a quick illness. He was just 20 at the time meaning that Empress Shangguan, then 15, became a widow. This left a bit of a problem. You see not only did Shangguan and Zhao not have any children, but he had apparently decided to be faithful and had never taken any other concubine (and therefore never knocked up any other concubine). This meant that there was no clear successor. I should say we have no actual evidence that their marriage was ever consummated, it’s not clear in contemporary records however considering the fact that Emperors were becoming papa bear’s at 13 it’s likely they did. The male relative closest to her husband (and thus the most likely candidate) to be Emperor was his half brother Liu Xu (劉胥), the Prince of Guangling who was the only surviving son of Emperor Wu however Empress Shangguan’s grandfather Huo refused to crown him, mostly because Emperor Wu himself not given him the throne based on the fact he was considered reckless and impulsive. Attention therefore turned to Prince He of Changyi who was one of Emperor Wu’s grandsons. We don’t know if Empress Shangguan had any influence on the selection of the next Emperor although considering her lack of political involvement at this point it’s unlikely. When Prince He ascended the throne, Empress Shangguan became empress dowager. He proved to be a not so great choice as Emperor; he immediately began giving unlimited promotions to the officials who had served him in Changyi despite them apparently not being up to the job. He also offended everyone (Empress Shangguan included) but failing to observe the period of mourning for her husband; he apparently liked to party and feasted day and night and hunted rather than mourning or ruling. Prince He’s behaviour was so disapproved of amongst government that a number of high ranking officials approached Huo. Team Deposition as I’m calling them from now on came up with a plan and then presented it to Empress Shangguan apparently eager for her agreement. This makes sense despite her total lack of political involvement thus far, she was still the Dowager Empress and thus the highest ranking figure of the imperial family bar the Emperor. She agreed with their plan, and immediately ordered that the subordinates Prince He had promoted be barred from the palace – those subordinates were then arrested. In a very dramatic, very OTT act of political theatre, (the apparently very unaware) Prince He was summoned by Empress Dowager Shangguan; when he arrived at her palace he found her seated on her throne, wearing a fabulous gown made of jewels, surrounded by a bunch of very pissed off government officials. The articles of impeachment against the Emperor were read out including the following crimes – he was accused of a) refusing to abstain from meat and sex during the period of mournng per tradition b) he had not kept the imperial seal secure, c) he had improperly promoted and rewarded officials during the period of mourning, d) he had engaged In feasts and games during the period of mourning and e) he had offered sacrifice to his father during the period of mourning for his uncle (which apparently was not allowed). This all feels problematic but not necessarily criminal enough to be deposed.
Empress Dowager Shangguan evidently disagree and approved the articles of impeachment; as the highest ranking member of the family she then had to be the one to arrest the arrest and deposition of the Emperor. For a short while afterwards there was no Emperor – records from the period aren’t clear about specific timings but for a minimum of a month and up to 4-5 months there was no one sitting on the throne. Who may you ask was in charge? Empress Dowager Shangguan that’s who. She promptly took charge and began ruling on all important matters of state; reports were directed to her and government ministers obeyed her commands. Whilst she was running the show her grandfather Huo Guang began searching for a suitable successor to the throne. At some point, he came across a young man who was a grandson of Liu Ju (a former Crown Prince) and thus the great-grandson of Empress Shangguan’s father in law. He was therefore her grand-nephew by marriage. The young man was technically a commoner (he had been stripped of all imperial titles in 91 BC after his father had rebelled against his great-grandfather. Empress Dowager Shangguan approved making him Emperor however due to his commoner status he technically couldn’t inherit the throne; she dealt with this problem by making him the Marquess of Yangwu. Later that day, she proclaimed him emperor under the regnal name Emperor Juan. Empress Dowager Shangguan was given the title of Grand Empress Dowager, the title she would hold the rest of her life. Despite holding absolute authority for all but 5 minutes, she was quickly excluded from government under the new regime. She by all accounts was fine with fading into the background although it’s deeply depressing that by 20 she was widowed, alone and already being forgotten. Her family remained influential even after her grandfather Huo Guang died in 68 BC. After his death, her uncles & cousins remained in important posts and were made marquesses. The Huo family were by this point rich, as in rich rich and gained a reputation for being a bit high and mighty, acting as if they were the imperial family themselves. The Emperor Xuan apparently objected to this and began to gradually strip their actual powers while formally letting them keep their titles. The only member of the family he didn’t appear to object to was Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan who grew close with his wife Empress Xu. The two women apparently ate their meals regularly together. In 71 BC Empress Xu died suddenly and rumours began spreading of poison although it was unknown who was to blame. Turns out it Grand Dowager Shangguan’s pesky scheming family in particular her grandmother Xian who poisoned the empress in order to allow her daughter (and therefore Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan’s aunt) Huo to take her place as Empress. Shangguan was not involved in the plot and it’s believed she actually had a fairly distant relationship with her grandmother and aunt, apparently being far closer to the dead Empress instead. The Emperor apparently remained unaware of who had murdered his wife. In 67 BC Emperor Xuan named his and Empress Xu’s son Liu Shi the crown prince. Apparently objecting to this Shangguan’s grandmother plotted yet again ordering her daughter Huo to poison the crown prince. Empress Huo apparently did try, but failed each time. Around this time, the emperor began hearing the long gossiped about rumours that the Huos had murdered Empress Xu, which led him to strip the Huos of actual power. Some time later Lady Xian in a panic apparently to her son and grandnephews that she had, indeed, murdered Empress Xu. Knowing that the entire family would be brutally murdered should the Emperor ever find proof, Lady Xian, her son, grandnephews, and sons-in-law formed a conspiracy to depose the emperor. Their plan was to ask Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan (once again not involved in any of the shenanigans) to invite Emperor Xuan’s grandmother, Lady Wang (with whom she was friendly), the Prime Minister Wei Xiang and the Emperor’s father-in-law/ the deceased Empress Xu’s father Xu Guanghan for dinner. On their way to the dinner the Huo family planned to ambush and then kill them. They intended to depose Emperor Xuan and replace him with Huo’s son (she had apparently given birth to a son at this point). The plot was discovered and the entire Huo clan was executed, except Grand Empress Dowager Shangguan who the Emperor accepted was totally innocent and had had no involvement. This left her without any family. She apparently then retired from public life (although did apparently retain somewhat of a friendship with the Emperor). She died in 37 BC, during the reign of Emperor Xuan’s son Empero Yuan and was buried with her husband Emperor Zhao.
Born in March 1613, with the birth name Bumbtai, she was born into a family of immense prestige and wealth; not only was she a member of the Khorchin Mongol Borjigit clan and the daughter of a man that held the rank of prince first class but she was also the niece of Empress Xiaoduanwen who was the wife of Hong Taiji aka the second khan of the Later Jin dynasty and the founding Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. During his decades long reign he consolidated the empire that his father Nurhaci had founded and laid the foundations for the conquest of the Ming Dynasty although this happened after his death. We know very little about her youth – all we know is that in 1625 when she was around 20 she was sent to be one of the multiple consort of her aunt’s husband Emperor Hong Taiji who was 21 years her senior – her aunt hadn’t bore the Emperor a son and so it’s possible Bumbtai was sent to bolster relationships between her clan and the emperor. Can you imagine being forced to marry your uncle. Also imagine having to share your husband with your niece??? She gave birth to her first child a daughter Princess Yongmu in 1629; a second daughter Princess Shuhui was born in 1632 and a third daughter Princess Shuzhe was born in 1633. Once again no son….so what did her family do? They offered her sister Munhui as another bride meaning Hong Taiji was at one point married to a woman and her two nieces at the same time. In August 1636 she conferred titles on his five main wives – her aunt was named Empress whilst she was named Consot Zhuang. In 1638 her time in the spotlight came when she gave birth to a son Fulin. Hong Taiji died on the 21st September 1643 and her family was influential enough that her son Fulin was chosen to succeed him; he was crowned with the regnal name “The Shunzhi Emperor”. Bumbutai, as the mother of the reigning emperor, was honoured with the title “Holy Mother, Empress Dowager” whilst her aunt, as the empress consort of the previous emperor, was similarly honored as “Mother Empress, Empress Dowager”. Now her brother in law (her husband’s half brother) Dorgon was appointed to rule as regent on the 5 year old Emperor’s behalf. What her role was doing the regency is unknown and there’s very little reference to her until the 31st December 1650 when Dorgon died abruptly. Rather than be grieved by his uncle’s death, the young emperor ordered his uncle be posthumously stripped him of his princely title and had his recently buried body exhumed and mutilated. The reason for this? Well it appears that Dorgon and Bumbtai had secretly married; now the thing is some Mongol clans practise levirate marriage (where a man has to marry the widow of his brother) however this wasn’t always done and the fact the young Emperor reacted so viscerally to it, would suggest it was less about tradition and more a personal that Dorgon and Bumbtai decided to make in secret. I have to say the romantic in me loves the idea of them marrying in secret. Following on from this Bumbtai seems to have kept a low profile and was completely removed from politics. That changed in 1661 when her son died and was suceeded by his son Xuanye who was enthroned as the Kangxi Emperor. . As the grandmother of the reigning emperor, she was honored as “Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng”. Since the emperor was underage at the time, four men knowing as the “Four Regents of the Kangxi Emperor” were appointed to rule on his behalf; whilst they took care of government, Bumbtai was granted custody and raised him. She developed great influence over her grandson with whom she was exceptionally close. When her grandson took power in 1667, he had a particular objection to the strong influence of one of the four regents – Oboi. She was obviously aware of this fact and two years later, when he asked her nicely, Grand Empress Dowager Zhaosheng agreed to assist her grandson in his plans to get rid of Oboi. Oboi was lured into a trap and then forced under arrest, and removed from power. Bumbtai was immeasurably popular throughout her life and was widely respected as the Chinese – she was known as a deeply wise, dignified and frugal woman who throughout her life disliked living in the Forbidden City (apparently she was not the biggest fan the luxurious conditions it offered) and was incredibly careful with money, apparently refusing to hold any birthday celebrations as she felt that it would be too costly. In autumn 1687 she fell seriously ill and the Kangxi Emperor took it upon himself to nurse her personally. She died in January 1688 and was given full honours.
I’ve actually decided to split this into 2 so the other half will be up in a few days!! Hope you’ve enjoyed this one
See you soon, Alexandra
The Monstrous Regiment of Women 