Wu Zhou’s childhood was educated but short as she became a junior concubine at a short age. “Wu was given a good education [and] was taught to read, write, and to play music” (“Empress Wu Zetian”). In that time, it was not common for women to gain an education. Her father urged her to gain an education, and living in a wealthy family, Wu could become well educated. “Wu Zhou entered he palace of the Tang Emperor Taizong, at the age of 14, as a junior concubine” (FitzGerald). Being very beautiful in her youth, Wu caught the eye Emperor
Becoming empress was no easy task, but with the determination Wu Zetian could achieve that task. “She first eliminated her female rivals within the palace… and in 655 gained the position of Empress for herself…” (FitzGerald). After gaining the favor of the new emperor and being brought back to the palace gave Zetian another chance to gain power. Framing the Emperors wife, and getting her out of the way, and eliminating anyone else who attempted to stand before her, Wu finally gained the title of Empress. “And while Wu played the role of the doting wife in public, she wielded great powers behind the
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scenes” (Cheprasov). Though she seemed powerless in public, simply the supportive wife, Wu had much power and authority. She did not care about the stereotypes of women in that period, and did what she could to stay in power and continue making her way up. After gaining the title of Empress, Wu wanted to take it further and become the ruler of China. “[The Emperor] suffered from a crippling stroke. The Empress Wu took over the administrative duties of the court, a position equal to the emperor” (Reese). After her husband became ill, she took role in leading, but under the Emperors name. The emperor was basically a puppet on Wu Zetians strings, and solely relied on her to make all ruling decisions. “Her second son proved to be a disappointment to her, so she made him abdicate the throne and made herself emperor” (Cheprasov). After exiling her first son, Wu brought her next son to rule. Kind of. Another puppet on her strings, her son did whatever Wu wanted. But still being dissatisfied, Wu took the rule herself. Being a ruler is no easy task, but Wu Zetian was able to maintain control and have many successes.
“The secret police kept the court in turmoil… but the end result was that no unified opposition ever emerged” (Conliffe). Being a women rule, which is not common, Wu had to keep the respect and loyalty of her people. Using the secret police helped Wu to see who was loyal and who was not and to help her to continue to be seen as a leader in the eyes of her people. “Empress Wu expanded the borders of China by conquering new lands in Korea and Central Asia” (“Empress Wu Zetian”). Besides making changes that made the lives of the pole better, Wu also expanded her Empire. She was powerful and because she conquered land, it shows that she accomplished many things for her country and that being well educated, she knew what she was doing as
ruler. Though it was a brutal process to become Ruler, Zetians reign affected the people and economy in an effective and helpful way. “She found the best people she could to run the government, and treated those she trusted fairly” (Reese). Wu changed many things that affected the people in a good way. She changed old traditions, and was very successful. The government, traditionally made of the wealthy and Nobel, was instead full of well-educated and scholarly people, who had to take an assessment and pass before getting the job. “[During Wu Zetians rule in the Tang Dynasty, it was] known as the Golden Age. People were happy. The wars were over” (Donn). In her reign, people felt happy and benefited from the many changes made creating a better and more successful system and environment. Even the peasants who originally were poor and had little to nothing gained from the new changes. Like all rulers and dynasties, they eventually come to an end, and Wu Zetian though a great leader became to ill to rule more thus ending her reign in the Tang dynasty. “In her last years of life, from 699, the empress gave her favor to the Zhang Brothers, artistic but depraved courtiers who engaged her affection by elaborate entertainments and skillful flattery” (FitzGerald). Despite the warning given to Wu about the Zhang Brothers, Wu allowed herself to become flattered, and distracted. Because she allowed the brothers to catch her eye, she was blinded form their true intentions of gaining power. “Empress Wu died in 705. Her son Emperor Zhongzong, took over as emperor and reestablished the Tang Dynasty” (“Empress Wu Zetian”). After the Zhang brothers, who were resented by the court and palace, were killed, Wu, becoming of old age, became very ill. She was urged to pass the crown down to her son, which she agreed to do so a year before she died.
Power and Money do not Substitute Love and as it denotes, it is a deep feeling expressed by Feng Menglong who was in love with a public figure prostitute at his tender ages. Sadly, Feng Menglong was incapable to bear the expense of repossessing his lover. Eventually, a great merchant repossessed his lover, and that marked the end of their relationship. Feng Menglong was extremely affected through distress and desperation because of the separation and he ultimately, decided to express his desolation through poems. This incidence changed his perception and the way he represents women roles in his stories. In deed, Feng Menglong, is among a small number of writers who portrayed female as being strong and intelligent. We see a different picture build around women by many authors who profoundly tried to ignore the important role played by them in the society. Feng Menglong regards woman as being bright and brave and their value should never be weighed against
Ban Zhao wrote Lessons for a Woman around the end of the first century C.E. as social guide for (her daughters and other) women of Han society (Bulliet 167). Because Zhao aimed to educate women on their responsibilities and required attributes, one is left questioning what the existing attitudes and roles of women were to start with. Surprisingly, their positions were not automatically fixed at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Ban Zhao’s own status as an educated woman of high social rank exemplifies the “reality [that] a woman’s status depended on her “location” within various social institutions’ (167). This meant that women had different privileges and opportunities depending on their economic, social, or political background. Wealthier noble women would likely have access to an education and may have even been able to wield certain political power (167). Nevertheless, women relinquished this power within the family hierarchy to their fathers, husbands, and sons. Despite her own elevated social status, Ban Zhao still considered herself an “unworthy writer”, “unsophisticated”, “unenlightened’, “unintelligent”, and a frequent disgrace to her and her husband’s family (Zhao). Social custom was not, however, the only driving force behind Zhao’s desire to guide women towards proper behavior.
Most outcasts of history had a particular, exclusive life; full of struggles against the society ever since birth and grew up with a heart made out of steel from the harsh criticism they have endured. They differ from the community within their beginning to their end, and many of their stories end up becoming legends and gaps of the past that nobody will be able to reincarnate. China’s first and last female emperor, Wu Zetian, was one of these exclusives. Ever since birth, her history of tactics to the people around her; in order to ascend the throne, juxtaposed towards society’s attitudes of women at the time; through her breakdown of gender stereotypes and quick knowledge, and offered a new perspective to the world of just how cruel and beautiful women can be. She successfully destructed all accumulated views of women in the Tang Dynasty, and created her future in the way she wanted it – on top of every man in her country. She was an outcast – somebody who juxtaposed against the demands of her. She was history.
However, this “ladder of success” was not as simple as it seemed. First of all, the class of both families will be a huge barrier. We are not even talking about freedom to love here, there is no such thing in late imperial China. Although we can’t say that love doesn’t exist even in such systems, such as Shen Fu and Chen Yun, but most marriages are not about love. Rather, it was about exchange of values. For example, when two families want to become business partners, the parents of the family will have their son and daughter married, so the two families will have closer bonding which made the business much easier. In this sense, we can see that the couple is simply a tool. In the same sense, the families which has not much “values” can only have marriages with the same class of families. Meaning for a women to climb up the ladder of success is not quite possible as the class of her family is a huge deciding factor for marriage in the
Lü Zhi (241–180 BC), commonly known as Empress Lü and Empress Dowager Lü, was the empress consort of Emperor Gaozu (256–195 BC), the founder and first ruler of the Han Empire. The consort earned her title by bearing Liu Ying (210–188 BC), who would later become Emperor Hui of Han. As such, Lü Zhi was the first woman to assume the title Empress of China, a title for which there had been no prior precedence. The later death of her husband in 195 BC resulted in the empress holding her power as a dowager, or a widow with a title from her late husband. Since Lü Zhi did not hold formal power through an office, and instead wielded a ceremonial position in the ruling household, her ability to manipulate the court without legal ramifications was amplified, and due to both her age and her sway over the ...
Sit, Tony. "The Life of Empress Cixi” (from Issue 10 of the China in Focus Magazine). Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU), 2001. .
At the center of Japanese and Chinese politics and gender roles lies the teachings of Confucius. The five relationships (五倫） of Confucius permeated the lives of all within the Heian and Tang societies.4 However, the focus here will be on the lives of the courtesans. The Genji Monogatari provides us with an unrivalled look into the inner-workings of Confucianism and court life in the Heian period. Song Geng, in his discourse on power and masculinity in Ch...
Wu Ding ruled from 1250-1192, which was the longest of all Shang kings. The period of Wu Ding was a fruitful time. During the sixth year of his father’s rule, Wu Ding was instructed to live at He and study at Ganpan. He was living with commoners and learned the hardships of a peasant’s life. Wu Ding was a great warrior and was able to defeat many other leaders during his reign. He defeated the Guifang in the north, the Qiangfang in the west, and the Jingman in the south. Wu Ding educated the allegiance of neighboring tribes by marrying one woman from each of them. His favorite consort Fu Hao entered the royal household through marriage and took advantage of the slave community to advance through the ranks to military
In the beginning of the story, Jing-mei complies with her mother’s tests of prodigiousness which shows her naive nature. At first, Jing-mei is immensely enthusiastic to be a prodigy in many different types of fields. Jing-mei’s mother is extremely animated and electrified by the ideas of fame, but Jing-mei “[is] just as excited as [her] mother, maybe even more so” (1). Jing-mei supports her mother’s dreams for her. Jing-mei sees the fame as “exciting” and is willing to go through her mother’s
He was considered the “son of heaven,” and that was the reasoning as to why the Chinese had a booming population growth, powerful military, and a wealthy economy. He was seen as having “heavenly powers and obligation to maintain order on earth (Pélissier).” He was well respected and because of that, as well as not handing a government position to a favorite. He installed a civil service exam which was intensely competitive, and very few were chosen for government positions. The system was created for the scholar bureaucrats to help run the country, and not do anything that would work in their own favor to fit their personal agenda which is what was seen in most monarch controlled countries. However, this still gave wealthy families some advantages over the poorer ones. They had to be well educated in order to be a scholar and be schooled in calligraphy, which Qianlong was in fact, a scholar and a poet himself. Qianlong however, is famous for the censorship of the Anti-Manchu literature, which is the line that the Emperor himself was from( Elliot
She utilized secret informants to spy and order assassinations of prospective rivals. As Empress, Wu introduced the examination system, which streamlined bureaucracy by worth rather than by noble birth (Dash, 2012). She influenced the promotion of literature and art, lowered oppressive taxes, raised agriculture production, and strengthened public works (Dash, 2012).
The story of Princess Huo’s daughter is a story about a man by the name of Li Yi. Li Yi was from a good family and showed brilliant promise. Even senior scholars admired him. At the age of twenty-one, he hoped for a beautiful and accomplished wife. In Chang’an Li asked a matchmaker by the name of Bao to find him a wife. Li gave her expensive gifts and she was very well inclined to him. One afternoon, some months after talking to Bao Li was sitting in the south pavilion of his lodgings when he heard continuous knocking. Bao entered and Li asked her “What brings you here so unexpectedly, madam”. Boa had found Li a perfect match for a wife, and with the good news Li was ecstatic and leaped for joy. Saying “I shall be your slave as long as I live!” Bao informed him that she was the youngest daughter of prince Huo. Her name is Jade, her mother was the prince’s favorite slave. When the prince died, his sons refused to keep the child, so they gave her a piece of wealth and made her leave. She changed her name, and the people do not know the prince was her father. She is the most beautiful...
Growing up in the royal palace, I received a top-notch education. I excelled in history and the art of warfare, resulting in me developing a reputation of being intelligent, thoughtful, and well-organized. Because of this, I began my plans to unify all of China when I took the throne at thirteen
During the period of my ruling, I aimed to contribute as much as I can to change the image of a woman in the society. Education was one of the major fields of accent. The fact that me, a woman, received such an honor to become an empress, was put in questions many times, however, due to the effectiveness of the decisions and reforms that occurred under my guidance I proved that a women can and should work, take important decisions, and get a chance to become a leader. Just like you, I tried to change the laws and make them more appropriate for the
government, he felt that “Principle was the diffusion of the imperial government.”(www.travelchinaguide.com). So in order to correct the situation of the government, he tried to strengthen rule into absolute rule by emperor. One of the single most important innovations that Hongwu made to the Chinese government was the abolishment of the Chief Minister. By eliminating the Chief Minister, Hongwu essentially took over the administration. In a way he was proclaiming absolute...