Empire: World History - 181. The Dragon Empress: China’s Game of Thrones

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

The inculcation of Buddhism from India as the state religion in China was enabled by the violent rise of China’s only ever woman Emperor. Raised by pious Buddhist parents, Wu Zetian left a trail of bodies in her wake as she charted a path to absolute power. From a lowly ranked concubine in the imperial harem to the corridors of power, she used Buddhism to legitimise her unprecedented claim to rule. Listen as William and Anita discuss the unstoppable rise of China’s only woman Emperor to rule in her own right, and what this meant for Ancient India’s empire of ideas. To fill out the survey: survey.empirepoduk.com To buy William's book: https://coles-books.co.uk/the-golden-road-by-william-dalrymple-signed-edition Twitter: @EmpirePodUK Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producers: Anouska Lewis and Evan Green Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durimple. This is all going to be spotlight on Willie today, isn't it? It's all so exciting because I am actually really learning. every time we do these things, you've been subsumed by this topic for years and years,

and we're just getting the fruits of your label. Yeah, I know, I know. And we're going to continue this series now, talking about India's empire of ideas. Just remind us, first of all, where we got to last time, because it's been some time since we've talked about this. Sure. So the central idea of my new book, The Golden Road, how ancient India transformed the world, which is published, on the 5th of September. I'm not getting a plug-in at all, Anita.

No, no, no, you plug away and you should be proud to plug, and can I plug as your very proud friend, very, very proud friend. Plug-y. It is one of those books that you will not be able to put down, even though it is a hefty tome, I've got it in hardback, apart from being an entirely beautiful piece of production. You've written beautifully. I think it's some of your best writing, may I say?

No, I really mean it. I really mean it. You humanise things. And also these great strides across epochs of history. You not only draw together time, but also geographical space in a way that I don't think anyone else can. So I think it's brilliant. I think it's your best work.

You're very sweet. So the central idea of this book is that India's importance to world civilization, but specifically also India's place in the early classical world has been greatly underrated. In the West, we obsess rightly with, you know, the amazing civilized. civilization that came out of Greece and how our ideas of mathematics and politics and philosophy came much of it from the foundations laid in ancient Greece. But almost all that is equally true of the place of India in Asia. And this is something that I think people in the West are far less familiar with. People in India know about it, but often don't have the specifics and certainly

don't know the effects of India, outside India's boundaries, other than the few little sort of pages in Indian textbooks. I mean, we've talked about that before, and it's a very important point to make. The spread of those ideas, though, is perhaps, I mean, maybe one of the reasons people in the West don't talk about it. And we're going to talk about the spread now, because we did speak about Buddhism spreading to China before when we did that excellent Shuangh episode of the monk who wants to come back to India, to come back to the seat of learning, to find the scrolls, to bring back these cartloads of learning. But we want to know today the person or the people who take Buddhism,

if we say the slipstream of this learning is Buddhism, which we've established in previous episodes, to the next level in China. And who is it who takes the spotlight today? So this is a story that I think is completely unknown, not only in the West, but also in India, it's a moment when there's effectively a coup d'etat in China. And for a generation, China is ruled by its only woman emperor, whose name is Wu Zetian. And not only is she the only emperor, in order to be a woman emperor in a patriarchal world when women were not taken seriously in Confucian society, they were regarded as lower-class,

according to Confucius, inferior to men. She took refuge in the power of Buddhism as an alternate philosophy. And not just Buddhism in general, but specifically a strand of Buddhism, which Shwan Zhang had brought back to China, this Mahayana tradition, which is full of powerful goddesses. Yes. And the climax of this moment is when she gets a whole series of India, trained monks, many of whom are ethnically from India, who have been imported into Cheyenne, the capital, to present her as the longed-for saviour matria in the form of a goddess who will come back to earth. And therefore, that she is not only justified to be an empress, she's actually a goddess that has been prophesied, she's divine. So the version we're going to give in the next couple of

episodes of Wuzetian's life is one that's full of bloodshed, full of sexuality, full of fun and games, frankly. Game of Thrones. It is Game of Thrones. It is Game of Thrones. It's the nearestest book gets to Game of Thrones. But we should put at the beginning a large red alert symbol that the sources for Wuzetian are almost all hostile men who lost power during her reign.

I mean, she clearly was bloodthirsty. There's no question that, you know, lots of the. previous ruling dynasty are wiped out in her reign. And she goes through something like 30 ministers in the course of her reign, all of whom are either killed or exiled or take their own lives. But this is the prosecution version we have. And her own books and her own sources have almost all disappeared. Right. Stop teasing us now, then. Let's talk about Empress Voussetian's origin story. So first of all, nuts and bolts of this young lady. She was born in 6.25. AD to pious Buddhist parents. I mean, not poor, but not grand. They had money, but they were,

I think you'd say middle class these days. She's a timber merchant's daughter. So that doesn't strike me as being a very wealthy background. So her mum is posher than her dad. Her mom is related to the previous dynasty. Her father, it's not a sort of timber merchant in the sense of, you know, he's not selling logs on the street. He is a hugely, wealthy middle-class capitalists who's controlling the logging of southwest China. He's based in Su-Suan. It's very different to the woodcutter's daughter. Yeah, it's not a cabin in the woods. This guy is one of the richest people in southwest China. And he's clearly sassy because he backs the Tang dynasty as they're rising to power. There is a revolt going on. The previous dynasty is

falling. And this instead needs the moment that Shwan Zhang is walking out of China. into India through this anarchy. And the paths of Shwan Zhang and the Empress Wu Zetian will cross very soon in this story. But at this point, she's a little girl in the mountains of Southwest China. Her dad is backing the right side in the civil war. And Shwan Zang's off looking for lost Buddhist texts in India, the University Library of Nalanda. And we should say that the young Muzetian, she has a different nickname altogether flower girl because she's pretty and people do bang on about her sort of beautiful cuteness at this stage don't they exactly that and her extreme beauty is one of her sources of power she's a remarkable girl but she knows how to use her beauty and how to use her

attractiveness and when her father dies leaving the family slightly in the lurch is not the right moment in history to be a fatherless family. And she manages to get a much coveted place at the age of 15 in the imperial harem. Now, of course, today we would regard anyone going into an old man's harem at the age of 15 as a disgusting and abusive thing. But at the time, it doesn't raise eyebrows. This is very much the age that women enter the imperial harim. And by the standards of the time, it's not exceptional. One of them, one of the most delicious stories, you've missed out about her origin story, which I only know from you anyway, which is this supernatural visitation that supposedly happens to her mother. So can I tell this story? Can I tell the story?

I mean, this story has to be said is made up by the Empress to try and give herself a divine origin later in life. But it's a good story. So we sat here and looking back on her origin story, would rather you've heard it this way, that the Lady Yang, who is her mother, is boating on a river one day when a black dragon surges out of the water and she swoons poor lady yang as you would wouldn't you? Black dragon is searching out of the water. It's what you do. She swoons, she falls unconscious and when she comes to, she's told of a vision in which she had made passionate love to the dragon. I, I. And then nine months later, she gives birth to a heavenly daughter. And that daughter is Wuzetian. It will not surprise.

that Wu Zetian put this story about quite a lot when her enemies were, you know, sort of snapping at her heels. But it's a good one. It is a good one. And we know that this is something that was current in her lifetime because there is actually a temple in her birth province of Seshwan, where her statue is still in worship as a goddess. And you can go there today and see this picture of her. It does they have dragon motifs of things around. Even on her final epitaph-less Stella raised on her death, the Rajas Dragons. I told you, man, it's Game of Thrones right from the get-go.

All right, so she enters this harem at the age of only 13, which is kind of horrifying, as you say, for us. But it is a chance for her. What is it like in the harrowing? She is not necessarily and probably not at all actually the concubine of the emperor, not because she is too young, but because she's too junior. there's already a whole world of different ranks of concubines that the emperor Taizong, who is incidentally one of the sort of great figures of Chinese history.

The Tang dynasty is regarded, I suppose, rather like we regard Charlemagne or the Emperor Augustus in the West. It's one of the sort of peak moments of civilizational achievement. And so she's emerging into power just as the civil war is ending, as a new dynasty is establishing itself. And the emperor Tai Zong, his emperor who welcomes back the monk, Shwan Zhang, when he's on his way back from Nalanda, is now firmly in power. And particularly, I think, historians of Chinese culture look on the early tongue as a period of great poetry, great art, beautiful porcelain. It's a classic period of early Chinese history. But it's also a

period of great cosmopolitanism. And Xi'an during this period is full of travellers' coming in on camels from Central Asia and Western China. There are travellers from all over, and particularly there are many Buddhist monks now coming in over the mountains from India. But what is life like in the harem? She asks again, hopefully. Fair enough. Why won't you tell us about the harrim, William?

I'm always happy to talk haris. I think her job initially is to be rather disappointing because I know where you're heading or heading Anita. No, no, no, I'm not. No, no. She's fifth grade. Her job is basically in charge of the laundry. So, yeah, that's what I mean. She changes the bed sheets and that sort of thing is her job. She's sort of a scut around, you know, pretty scat. But she's still, you know, she's even just being there is an elevated position in the court. Oh, it's the most powerful position a woman could have in China at this time. Do we know what the politics of the harem was? Was it like Ottoman harems?

Highly competitive, as always in these worlds, competition between wives and conquests. between those that have had the emperor's children and those that haven't, highly hierarchical grading. And she's entering it as Taizong, who has led this revolution, conquered back the whole of China, seen off armies of Turks and Tibetans, and is one of the great heroes of Chinese history. He's now an old man. As she arrives in the harem, our favorite monk, Shwan Zhang, is on his way back from Nalanda with all these manuscripts, the ones that have not gone into to the Indus River. And Shwan Zhang arrives in time to become like, I think in the West you'd say a sort of confessor to the emperor. He is the spiritual guide who takes Taizong into old age,

telling him philosophical tales, telling him all about India and what he's seen on his travels all over the West, Shwan Zang knows it. And the two meet. We know that the young Wu Zetian and the elderly Shwan Zang become allies because they're both Buddhists. This is a period when there is a strong competition for influence between, on one hand, the Confucian elite, on the other hand, the Taoist religious hierarchy, and the outsiders who are the Buddhists. And Shwan Zang is doing his very best to bring Taizong, who's previously shown more favor to the Taoists, from whom he's supposed to be descended. He's meant to be a descendant of one of the founders of Taoism. And Shwan Zhang is bringing him into the Buddhist world. He's teaching him all the Buddhist teachings.

He's telling him about the text. He's telling him about the incredible sophistication of the universities. I love this image of the old Ailing Emperor who is listening to the whisperings, sober whisperings of this monk who's been so well-travelled. And then does actually say, I wish I'd spend more of my life not doing warfare, but actually, actually studying Buddhism, you make it sound so very tantalizing. Yeah. Again, we have Buddhist sources for this. So, of course, he's going to say that. And Shwan Zhang certainly is under the impression that he's about to declare Buddhism as the religion of the emperor.

But of course. But then he goes and dies. And he dies. And he dies. And he dies. So this is bad news for our two heroes. Swan Zang, who thinks that he's about to convert China to Buddhism, has lost his great ally. And it's particularly bad news.

for the flower child for Wu Zetian. I mean, he does give her a nickname as well because he notices her, even though she's only fifth grade in the haram. And he calls her the charming Miss Wu, the charming Miss Wu, which again sort of elevates her status. But without him, she has lost her protector. Not only lost her protector, but what happens when an emperor dies is that the whole Harim is shipped off to Nunnery. Oh, dear. This 13-year-old who has for two years been the centre of everything and, you know, been busy coming into the imperial bedchamber and changing the sheets and the towels or whatever

and smiling sweetly at the old emperor who sort of winks at her and thinks she's very charming. It's all over for her because her future is to give up her silks and fine clothes and go off and wear Hessean robes in a nunnery. And have their head shaved. I mean, there's that image that we certainly are. familiar with, aren't we? So it looks like it's all over, but Wu has preempted this, because in the last days of the emperor's decline, so the emperor has retired to the wonderfully named Jade Flower Palace in the mountains north of its capital. And the crown prince wants to be with his father in his last days. So moves in. And we don't know the degree of intimacy, which develops between the crown

prince and the fifth grade. And the bed sheet girl. It's quite possible that they become lovers. But she certainly catches his eye. So a year later, when the new emperor comes to remember his father at the imperial nunnery, Wu is there weeping saying, Take me back. I miss you every day. She writes beautiful poems to the emperor saying, I remember you. And the fact that she dares to do that implies there's a real degree of intimacy between them, whether or not they were physically lovers. The suggestion in the sources is that they were lovers. And this is regarded by the old Confucians who write this all up as incest and completely beyond the bounds. This is because she's in the Harim, she's his father's woman, the son should not be taking an interest. Well, I'll tell you some of the poetry that's written in, then we'll take a break. This is the poetry of which you speak. I look upon your disc of jade and my thoughts scatter and disarray as haggard from grief, sundered and separated.

I so keenly miss my sovereign. If you don't believe this endless litany of tears, then open my chest, examine my tear-stained pomegranate dress. We'll take a break. Welcome back. So just before the break, we were talking about these two young laugh. reunited. We think they're lovers anyway. But this is now the fast track for our Empress to be, isn't it? Because she was fifth grade, which is bed sheets. She gets promoted to second grade. Now what can you do when you're a second grade concubine? Well, whatever she does, she gets pregnant pretty quick.

I think that explains that. It's quite clear. What's going on that? What's the job description is there? Okay. She has gone straight into the new emperor's bed. And she is making no bones about this. And in fact, she gets pregnant twice in the next three years. Now, there is, as we said, a very established hierarchy of warring concubines and wives. And the theory is, according to one of the Confucian sources, again, we shouldn't necessarily believe them. But the theory is that Wu Zetian is allowed into the palace and the emperor is encouraged to bring her back from nunry by the wife who wants to displace the first concubine. Oh, I see. See.

So there's competition. Politics. As the Confucian source says, she didn't realize that she had loosed a tiger upon the mountain. Well, quite, because I mean, the title that she's given, which is promoted to second grade, is Lady of Luminous Demena, which is hardly threatening. And so, of course, you know, you bring back this woman to catch your husband's eye and then kick out the number one concubine. All is fine. But not if the Lady of Luminous Demeina has her intentions. So the Empress Wang is the Empress who has...

let loose the tiger on the mountain. And she is coming to see Wu Zetian, who is obviously spending more and more time in the emperor's bedroom. And it seems that the Empress doesn't mind this, because what she particularly objects to is the favourite concubine who's called Shao Liangdi. And on one of these visits, the Empress plays with Wu's new baby son. And within minutes of her leaving, the baby is found dead. This is so grim. Wu Zetian's child is dead. And the accusation in the Confucian sources is that Wu herself strangled her son in order to frame the Empress.

So she kills her boy and says, look, the Empress was so jealous of our love. She killed your son. She killed your beautiful boy and is weeping and waiting. So, of course, you know, the emperors, it's such an unnatural act that people are going to believe, you know, new mother wouldn't do this to her baby. A new mother would never do this, they say. And so she is believed. And both the empress and the chief concubine are blamed for this death. Blimey. And removed into a sort of prison wing of the palace. Initially, they are alive and well. But Wu now is the chief concubine. She's risen to. the top of the tree. All the opposition is removed. And she chooses her time. She ingratiates herself even more with the new emperor Gaizong. And when the moment comes, she formally demands a

trial of these two women. And they are tried for witchcraft, a whole range of false accusations. Why witchcraft are not murder? Murder and witchcraft. I think the two together. it's depicted as a plot and the two are somehow in alliance which is extremely unlikely because they're rivals. It's that because it is such a heinous crime that they will be hated and vilified and she will be seen in contrast

as being goodness personicrous. I think that's exactly it. Either way, the most gruesome series of events begin to unfold. So what happens next is that Wu bribed servants and other rival concubines to spy on

the Empress and the Chief Concubine. Within a few months, both the Empress and the Chief Concubine have been deposed, degraded to the status of commoners, and imprisoned in the inner palace. And the coffin of the Emperor's father is unearthed and broken into bits, and her family are executed and driven into exile. Bloody hell, they dug up her dad. Of her dad. I mean, it's serious stuff. Wow. I mean, he did. God. Right. Okay. Basically, Wu manages to persuade the Empress that this woman is a site. It's an evil family from an evil witchcrafty family.

Murdering imperial heirs. And she is lobbying to be made the empress in the stead of this poor woman in prison. And all the old Confucian ministers are strongly opposing it because she was the former concubine of the last emperor and it's effectively incest. It goes against all the rules of the palace. But she gets her way. And on the 19th day of the 10th month of 6.55, Wu is formally enthroned as empress at the age now of 31. And on the following year, her position is entrenched when her son is recognized as the heir apparent.

And this is the first time when she begins to really bring in Buddhists into the palace. 5,000 Buddhist monks are given a vegetarian feast in the palace. And the following year, and this is the really gruesome bit, in November 655, the new empress moves on her former rivals. Oh, who is still locked up in the palace somewhere? Locked up in the palace, waiting their fate. And at this point, now that Wu is the empress, both are sentenced to death for having murdered her child, as well as for a supposed plot to poison the emperor and kill him

through black magic. That was where the black magic came from. She bribed other concubines to say that the chief concubine was planning to kill the emperor. And when the sentence is read out to both of them, the former emperors bows several time and says, long life to his majesty. But the former chief concubine is less forbearance. She's not having it. She's not going to take it.

She screams curses at Wu and says, Wu is a treacherous fox who has brought me to this. I pray that in my future lives, I shall return as a. a cat and Wu will be a mouse and from then from life to life I shall tear her throat out. And the Empress immediately orders that no cats should ever be admitted to any of her palaces. That's so funny. But whether or not we believe this speech about the chief concubine threatening to come

back as a cat in future lives and terrorise the Empress Wu, the Empress Wu, it's very clear, was extremely guilty about what she'd done to her predecessors. And we have from several sources the fact that she has nightmares and sees bloody apparitions of the chief concubine and the former empress in the palace. And she bullies the emperor the next year to move the entire court from Cheyenne to Luyang, allegedly to sort of free herself of these bloody apparitions in what is a kind of striking echo or precursor to Lady Macbeth's nightmares in Macbeth, which is written, you know, a thousand years later, almost.

This is happening in seventh century China. Shakespeare comes up with Lady Macbeth's apparitions in the 1590s. So it's an extraordinary moment. But instantly, the Empress creates what is like a kind of reign of terror. Within, I think four years, five ministers who've attempted to block Wu's rise to power have been driven to disgrace in the provinces, while one, the chief counsellor has actually taken his own life. And from this point, you get this pattern of ministerial purges beginning. Of the, I think it's 46 chief ministers who are in power between about 684 and 694,

decade later, half end their life hour execution. And around three quarters have their careers terminated either by violence or by exile. And by the end of her reign, Wu had forcibly removed no less than 80% of the chief ministers who are ruling with her. And according to one contemporary source, Frank's speech was avoided at court. No one dared to oppose the imperial will or to strongly demonstrate. For almost 20 years, it was like this. But here, is the really gruesome bit. The punishment for witchcraft in Imperial China is incredibly brutal. So first, the two women were severely beaten by executioners. Their hands and feet are cut off, and they're then thrown bound into a half-filled vat of wine. And the exultant new Empress Wu

remarks, now these witches can get drunk to their bones. And after several days of agony, the two victims die, their corpses are decapitated and cut into pieces. I have questions. I have questions. I have questions. I have questions. First of all, that is bloody awful and sick and awful. And China at this time is getting quite the reputation for forms of torture and brutality.

I mean, how, I don't know if anyone's ever done a survey, but how does this compare to, you know, the medieval, torturous bastards that existed? in Europe. I mean, where does this, first of all, who wins the brutality top trumps? And why are people so awful? I think, I think probably you could find similar levels of brutality in almost all societies of 7th century, Eurasia. I mean, you know, this is not an idea, got the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings in Europe. None of these guys are soft touch. But they're not sort of, but they're not, they kill people, sure, but this sort of long, flaying, peeling, burying, burying, Ant, and's covering in honey, water torture, hanging upside down. Just think to this time last year with Ivan the Terrible, hanging people by their ribs.

And, you know, I think the sort of thing is, we're a very brutal species. And we like to think of ourselves as this very civilized race, but far from it. This sort of thing goes on throughout human history. And I don't think it's something specifically Chinese at all. So there isn't a winner of this top Trump's at all. We're all the same. I think Ivan the Terrible probably wins. most contests, but Woo is not far behind. But anyway, I mean, it's an extraordinary story. So here

you now have that this woman who's from a provincial background, she's from Sichuan, she's from not an aristocratic background on her father's side, but from a middle-class merchant who backed the right side in the Civil War. She's got into the Harim. She's somehow escaped from the nunnery. She's back in the emperor's bed, and she's got rid not just of the chief concubine, but the emperors. And what is the emperor? I mean, does the emperor, I mean, does the emperor have any doubts in his mind that this is a true story and his son and heir was was killed by these two women does he because he knows the empress he's known the empress for years he's loved the concubine there are many indications that he is extremely worried by this and and also just very sad he

apparently weeps when they're tortured and killed uh that helps but uh but uh it's clear that Wu is not just very beautiful and very smart, but that she is deeply manipulative. And she's got the new emperor Gao Zhong absolutely in her palm of her hand. And Gao Zhong is, you know, classic case of the son of a very, very powerful man. He is not his father's equal. He's far weaker. Is he a weakling? Are you saying he's weakling?

Absolutely right. Taizong was this sort of towering conqueror who seizes the throne and is this sort of remembered in China as this supreme figure, both of military might and of civilization. But Gao Zhong is weak and pretty soon into the Empress Wu's time as Empress, he has a stroke. Now, again, there's many suggestions in the Confucian sources that the Empress Wu may somehow have been behind this, that she was putting stuff in his food or whatever. She's a one. She certainly is a one.

I don't know whether that's true at all, but the suggestion is that she is manipulating things. And by the time that he is recovered from the worst effects of his stroke, she is appearing at court behind a curtain directing events on the stage, but out of sight. She may have bested her rivals in the harem, both the Empress and the chief concubine. and she may well have control over her hugely weakened, already weak husband, the emperor. But Rousseau-Tan still has to have a face-off with the Confucians, because if she's to be safe, Buddhism has to prevail. If Buddhism has to be the strong and dominant force in China, the Confucians have to be dealt with.

Join us in the next episode when we discuss what the bloody queens or the bloody empresses next move might be. Till then, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnan. And goodbye from me, William. Drimple.