The History of China - #88 - Tang 7: Empress Wu Behind The Curtain

Episode Date: January 23, 2016

The more than two-decade period following Wu Zhao’s ascension as Emperor Gaozong’s empress-consort will serve to point out three things: how weak the emperor is, how powerful Empress Wu has become, and how there is absolutely nothing she won’t do to keep it that way. By the middle of the episode, she’ll be considered even at the time the co-equal ruler of her husband, on of the so-called “Two Holy Ones.” But power is a slippery fish to hang on to… especially when you have no legal means of maintaining it, and several sons just waiting in the wing to snatch it all away.Time Period Covered:656-683 CEMajor Historical Figures:Emperor Gaozong of Tang (Li Zhi) [r. 649-683]Empress Consort Wu Zhao Crowned Prince Li Hong (Emperor Xiaojing [posthumous title]) [652-675]Crowned Prince Li Xián [653-684]Crowned Prince Li Xiǎn (Emperor Zhongzong) [b. 656- , r. 684]Li Zhong, Prince of Liang [d.665]Chancellor Zhangsun Wuji [d. 665]Chancellor Shangguan Yi [d. 665]Chancellor Xu Jingzong [retired 670, d. 673]Major Sources:Dash, Mike. “The Demonization of Empress Wu” in The Smithsonian. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-demonization-of-empress-wu-20743091/?no-istJiang, Chen An. Empress of China: Wu Ze Tian.Karem Skaff, Jonathan. Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors: Culture, Power, and Connections, 580-800.Sima, Guang. Zizhi Tongjian.Weschler, Howard. The Cambridge History of China. “Kao-Tsung (Reign 649-83) and the Empress Wu: The Inheritor and the Usurper.”Old Book of Tang.New Book of Tang. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Four hundred years ago, a trio of tiny kingdoms were perched on some damp islands off the coast of Europe. Within three short centuries, these islands would become the centre of an empire which ruled a quarter of the globe and on which the sun never set. I'm Samuel Hume, a historian of the British Empire, and my podcast Pax Britannica follows the people and events that built that empire into a global superpower. Learn the history of the British Hey everyone, before we launch in today, first some fairly significant news. You may have noticed that latest little addition to the show's title card. And it's true. All of it. The History of China has officially joined up with some of the best and most interesting other history podcasts

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But please, after the show, also check us all out at www.agorapodcastnetwork.com. That is A-G-O-R-A podcastnetwork.com. Thanks once again, and enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome Behind the Curtain Last time, we chronicled the concubine from rural Sichuan, Wu Zhao, rapidly climbed the ranks of Emperor Gaozong's imperial harem until at last she got the top job as Empress Consort. And then we watched in horror as she, with her newfound power, wrought a terrible vengeance on those who had dared to stand in her way, former empress and high official alike. So, first off, there is a lot to cover here,

so much that I could not possibly fit it into one single show at my usual length. Tong China in the latter half of the 7th century is a buzz, both internally and externally, and I don't want to do a disservice to either aspect. On the other hand, I don't think I'd be doing any of these stories any favors by telling them all halfway and then leaving off for the next time without any real conclusion. That just feels unsatisfying. So instead, I'm going to pull a George R.R. Martin and divide this period up not by chronology but by geography.

But I promise I will not fall into his release schedule pace, so don't worry about that. Today, our focus will be internal, specifically on the 28-year-long dual reign of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu, and how her dominance of the court would come to eclipse and even outlast her husband, and even her own sons. Then, next episode, we'll be headed back out to the borderlands to take in what's going on between Tang China and its neighbors over the course of Gaozong's period

of rule. And here's a hint, it's lots and lots of war. Well then, let's get started. We begin where we left off last episode. The year is 656, and Empress Wu has just executed the former Empress Wang and the former prime consort Xiao in a manner so cruel as to be almost unbelievable, that is, hacking off their hands and feet and then ordering them drowned in two vats of wine, a torment which supposedly lasted for days. She had then turned the following year on those of Gaozong's chancellors who had opposed her accession, which was basically all of them, and in short order, all but one of them had been banished from the capital entirely to the far-flung provinces of the realm. The last and greatest of her foes, however, Zhangsun Wuji,

the eminent high chancellor who had brought two emperors to power almost single-handedly, would prove able to withstand the empress's might for a few years, but his time would be brief. Less than three years into her reign, Wu would at last feel confident enough in her power to strike at him directly. The Empress's tool for the political assassination of Chancellor Zhang Sun would be one she'd wielded already several times before. A then 67-year-old elder statesman named Xu Jingzhong, who had been a fervent supporter of Wu from the outset,

an alignment that likely saw him called out of exile in Hangzhou for an earlier scandal and reappointed as chief minister in 657. It had been Xu who had spearheaded these smear campaigns against the now-exiled former chancellors, as well as he who had successfully lobbied the emperor that a new heir, one of the empress's own sons, was in order. As a distinguished and learned official, Xu Jingzong was a sharp blade indeed for the empress to wield against her enemies. And so it would be Minister Xu, once again, who would, at the empress's directive, level charges, this time against Chancellor Zhang Sun, in the fourth month of 659. The chancellor would be roped in with two other more minor officials

who had been brought up on an accusation of plotting against the throne. Over the course of the investigation, headed of course by none other than Minister Xu, it was discovered that Chancellor Zhang Sun had been apparently plotting to rebel against Gaozong's reign. The emperor was, rightly, rather dubious that his chancellor, who was not only already his second-in-command of the entire governmental apparatus, but also his uncle, and the man who had secured his accession to the throne in the first place, would now, at older than 60, suddenly decide to rebel? But Xu had seen this coming, and so bombarded the emperor with historical precedent after historical precedent of treacherous uncles doing exactly that, as well as a laundry list of reasons his uncle might actually wish to rebel.

We are, after all, less than a century out of the period of disunion and the multitudinous intrafamilial treacheries that whole era had produced. So, as we all well know, Xu was not exactly hurting for examples. Gaozong, rather nonplussed, accepted the arguments but wished to question Zhang Sun personally before rendering his decision. Again, however, Xu had been expecting this and argued against it. By summoning the chancellor and tipping his hand as to the charges leveled against him, why, that might just force Zhang Sun to touch off his rebellion immediately. His own career informed us as to how capable he is of reacting quickly and decisively to danger. No, no, your majesty, if we're to kill this serpent before it strikes, we mustn't give it the chance to do so at all. Reluctantly, then, Gaozong signed off on the order to immediately strip Zhangsun Wuji of his titles

and fife, and banish him to the furthest reaches of the jungles of Guizhou, far to the south, without ever so much as summoning him for questioning at all. With this final great obstacle out of her way, the other minor officials who either had opposed, or perhaps just hadn't been loud enough in their assent of Empress Wu, were all quickly purged and disposed of as well. The only other long-term high minister to have survived the initial purge, the 76-year-old Chancellor Yu, was allowed to retire in 664, and he'd die the next year, which was an uncharacteristically generous fate that many of his contemporaries could only wish for. Historian Howard Weschler writes,

quote, Others were not so lucky. Even officials who had previously been banished to the provinces were not spared. Liu Shi, Han Yuan, who somewhat embarrassingly proved to have died sometime before, and Zhang Sen'en, the nephew of Wu Ji, were ordered to be brought back from their banishment for further investigations of accusations of conspiracy and were killed on the road, end quote. Even the elder Zhang Sun wouldn't escape this great and deadly purge. Taking the opportunity to reopen investigations, Minister Xu once again officially opened the former chancellor's file, by which I mean he dispatched an operative to Wuji's residence far to the south with an imperial command to commit suicide and for his total wealth to be confiscated by the state. His clan would

likewise suffer and would be sent to labor camps to pay for their relatives' alleged transgressions. Into this sudden void at court, Empress Wu poured in yet more of her lackeys and supporters, though the court as a whole was intentionally left largely depleted. The Department of State Affairs, for instance, was left without an official head for no less than 16 years after this point, thus severing the official link between the executive branch of government and the minister's deliberations on policy. The number of chancellors to the throne was also greatly reduced,

from eight, as had been the case during much of Taizong's reign and at the beginning of Gaozong's, to five in 659, four in 660, and then only three in 661. Emperor Gaozong, already infamous as the monarch who would, quote, fold his hands and say nothing, would find himself rather further diminished both physically and politically by a series of illnesses that would ravage his body. He had never been a particularly strong or healthy person, and his time on the throne had done that tendency no favors. As early as 657, he'd been forced to retire to his summer palace and only had the physical strength to hold court every other day, therefore leaving many of the affairs of state by necessity

in the hands of the Empress and her two pet chancellors. But the real cherry on the cake, at least for Empress Wu, would come in the 10th month of 660, when Gaozong suffered a terrible stroke, which left him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye. He would ultimately recover, but for the rest of his life, he would suffer a series of relapses that would leave him incapacitated for months on end. To quote Weschler, quote, the Empress, aided by her shrewdness and sharp political acumen, took easily to

administering the empire during his recurrent periods of incapacity. By the end of 660, the Empress Wu was ruler of the empire in fact, if not in name. This set of circumstances so overwhelmingly favored the Empress that it was later alleged by some historians, for instance Sima Guang in the Desert Hongjian, that it was no disease, but instead a kind of slow poisoning administered by Empress Wu herself. This supremacy, however, was tenuous. The idea of an empress wielding any actual political power was without precedent in Chinese history, and so its very implementation generated opposition from the outset. You may recall from last time

that the very argument that had ultimately swayed the emperor to replace his former empress, Wang, with Wu Zhao had been that it was a private family matter that did not involve the machinery of state. Namely, that she may be his empress in name, but she was his consort in practice. Well, that had obviously rather dramatically shifted, and there were still some left alive who would voice opposition to that change in the balance of power. In 663, following the banishment of one Chancellor Li on very public charges of corruption and licentious behavior, one of those malcontents felt that the time to act had arrived.

Li, after all, had been one of Empress Wu's key holders of authority, and the former crown prince, now redesignated as the Prince of Liang, thought his downfall signaled a weakness in the Empress's seemingly unassailable position. Wu had come to heavily favor a Tang monk who had purportedly been dabbling in and possibly even employing on the Empress's behalf witchcraft and magic. It should come as no surprise that such allegations would be criminal. Witchcraft had long been outlawed, but it was news to me, if not exactly shocking, at just how seriously illegally practicing magic was in Tang

China. In fact, it was listed twice among the Ten Abominations, which were the highest crimes of the Tang Code, and included things such as rebellion, incest, and treason, any one of which carried the penalty of death, and were considered so heinous that even those usually legally protected by the so-called eight deliberations, such as imperial clansmen, would have those protections stripped of them and were ineligible for imperial amnesty if found guilty. In any case, a eunuch servant of the Prince of Liang reported the matter of the Tang monk to the emperor. Gao Zong, by this point increasingly bothered by, and perhaps afraid of, his wife's domination over state matters, saw an opportunity to free himself, at his court, from his wife's control.

He therefore summoned up one of his chancellors, the only one who was not entirely sycophantic to Empress Wu, named Shang Guangyi, who had also formerly been a personal advisor to the Prince of Liang, to discuss the case. Chancellor Shangguan, probably as the Emperor expected and hoped, recommended demoting the Empress for the offense, and Gaozong readily agreed. He then ordered that a draft of the edict to depose Wu Zhao be drawn up and prepared for dissemination. But as you'll remember, the eyes and ears of the Empress were spread all across the Imperial Palace, and there was little indeed that escaped their notice. One of these palace spies overheard the discussion and decision,

and raced to the Empress to report the actions being leveled against her. Knowing that time was of the essence, Empress Wu wasted no time in making her way to her husband's private quarters to confront him and prevent this matter from proceeding any further. Speaking with his minister and agreeing to his recommendation was one thing, but for the emperor who folded his hands and remained silent, to actually confront this matter directly with his ruthlessly cutthroat wife was another entirely. And so Gaozong manned up, puffed out his chest, and bravely pointed the finger squarely and entirely on his chancellor. From Weschler, quote, the timid Gaozong, unable to stand up to his consort face to face, sheepishly claimed that the plan to remove her had been entirely engineered by Shang Guangyi. End quote. Man, Gaozong, way to throw him on that sword. And the sword would be exactly what

awaited once Empress Wu got her talons into those who would stand against her. A brief and bloody purge would follow, with her faithful lapdog, Chancellor Xu, drawing up formal charges of treason against both Chancellor Shangguan and the former crown prince, as well as the other lesser conspirators, who were, to a man, swiftly put to death. In the aftermath, anyone who even might have smelled suspicious would slap with the lesser punishment of being banished to the ass-end of nowhere. This abortive attempt to overthrow the empress would be the last gasp of resistance by almost anyone across the empire, and she seemed to understand very well that now her primacy was absolute and impregnable.

By 666, she had grown so confident in her control of the imperial government that she flaunted her power openly in a way that had never been done before. While imperial court took place, Empress Wu, who by tradition would typically not even be allowed inside the chamber, would instead be seated next to her husband on the throne in the audience chamber, veiled by a screen, granted, but still sitting on an equal level with the Son of Heaven in an official capacity. The pair of effectively co-equal rulers would come to be known as the Arsheng, meaning the Two Holy Ones or the Two Saints. The meaning was as obvious then as it is now. Woman or not, the empress was now in every respect the political equal to the emperor, and that was just the ceremonial acknowledgement.

In terms of actual power, well, that matter had pretty well been settled years ago, hadn't it? From the Zizit Hongjian, quote, the great powers of the empire all devolved on the empress. Promotion and demotion, life and death, were settled by her word. The emperor sat with folded hands. Wu Zhao's rise to absolute power carried with it, as is often the case in monarchies, changes in policy that reflected her own personality quirks. As I'd mentioned earlier, Wu was a very superstitious woman, who took very seriously the idea of signs from heaven, portents of good or ill fortune, and the manifestations of the supernatural impacting her life. We'd concluded last episode with her recurrent nightmares and fear

of the vengeful ghosts of the executed Empress Wang and Consort Xu haunting her. That panic had not ceased with her taking up residence in the secondary palace, and by 557, she had begun implementation of what she must have felt would be the definitive solution to her ghost problem. Who you gonna call? The movers, that's who. On Empress Wu's, ahem, suggestion, the Tang imperial government formally reinstated the city of Luoyang as the secondary capital of the empire. Not just a temporary residence, mind you, as it had been up until now, but an out-and-out formal imperial capital. At tremendous cost, branches of every single

government ministry were set up there full-time, and even a second branch of the imperial university established within the city walls. For the remainder of Gaozong's reign, the entire imperial court and central administration of the government itself would periodically uproot for a total of 14 different times over the course of Gaozong's reign, and march the nearly 400 kilometers between the two cities to resettle time and again. This was, as you might imagine, extremely disruptive and expensive. From the Cambridge History of China, quote, the vast entourage left a trail of impoverishment in its wake. The places through which they passed en route were usually permitted long periods of tax exemption to make up in some measure for the devastation caused, end quote.

This physical upheaval wouldn't be the only outcome of the Empress's outsized obsession with the supernatural, either. In 659, Chancellor Xu, at the Empress's insistence, of course, officially petitioned the Emperor and stated that he, and his Empress, should conduct the sacrifices of Feng and Shan. What are the sacrifices of Feng and Shan, you might ask? They were a declaration to heaven itself of the emperor's, and empress's, supreme achievement during his, their, reign, and a manifestation of the highest and most profound blessing heaven could bestow on him, them. Saying it was a big deal doesn't even do it justice. The ceremony had only ever been completed six times in all of Chinese history up to this point, with all but the greatest of monarchs

fearing that their reigns had been insufficient to warrant the ceremony, and that should they attempt it, it would be an act of hubris and thus blasphemy. The last time it had been carried out was more than 600 years prior, during the reign of Guangwu of Eastern Han, the man who had restored and reunified the Han dynasty following Wang Meng's disastrous usurpation. There had, of course, been other attempts to complete the Fengshan sacrifices since then, the latest of which had been by Gaozong's own father, Taizong. Taizong had attempted it no less than three times, but was forced to delay or cancel the ceremony in every case. The first time being dissuaded

by an advisor, the second by an appearance of a comet, which was an ill omen, and the final time, which was a year before his death, he'd be turned back by an unexpected flood. Legend had long held that heaven itself would never allow an unworthy sovereign to reach the top of holy Mount Tai to complete the sacrifice, and in Taizong's case at least, that appeared to have held true. In fact, the ritual was so little used that many of its details and ceremonies had been all but forgotten. And so even though Gaozong was persuaded to make the sacrifice in 559, his officials would have to sift through ancient imperial texts before they were finally confident that they'd pieced how it

was supposed to go back together. But on the day of the new year, 666, the only day of the year that the sacrifice could take place, Gaozong and Empress Wu were prepared and ascended the mountain one after the other. There was absolutely zero historical precedent for a woman to ascend the peak, much less directly take part in the ceremony at all. But hey, since when had Wu paid heed to precedents? For the first time in some 610 years, the Fengshang ceremony was seen through to completion, and it was an occasion so momentous that it was observed by representatives from across Asia. As Jonathan Karam-Skaff notes in his book, Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors, quote, foreign affairs played an important role in planning the

Feng and Shan rites, because external peace was one of the preconditions for the implementation of the ceremony, and foreign guests lent symbolic prestige to the gathering. Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over ten generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.

The ceremony of 666 included representatives of the Turks, Silla, Bekca, Goguryeo, Japan, India, Kamur, Khatan, and the exiled Persian court. For the Turks in attendance in 666, the Fung and Shan rites represented the most important ritual display of Tang dominance in external affairs since Taizong's gathering to be re-proclaimed Heavenly Khagan two decades earlier. As the Turks stood among the splendidly arrayed witnesses at the base of Mount Tai and watched Gaozong sacrifice to heaven, it is easy to imagine them thinking that the heavenly-mandated Khut to rule had transferred from their Ashina lineage to the Heavenly Khagans of the Tang house. End quote. In addition to those listed above,

probably the greatest foreign power of the time in attendance was the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, which had, only five years prior, supplanted the Rashidun Caliphate at the conclusion of the First Muslim Civil War, and indeed had been directly responsible for the Sassanid Persian delegates being in exile. Like everything else the Tang court did in the mid-7th century, it was an enormous affair. Again from Kamar Skaf, quote, The enormous mobile retinues of Gaozong created majestic spectacles. Their camps filled the plain with people for several tens of li, or about 10 to 20 kilometers. The supply trains supposedly stretched for several hundred li, or 1 to 200 kilometers.

In 666, the foreign leaders and envoys are described as bringing large entourages driving cattle, sheep, camels, and horses that clogged the road, end quote. So we're talking about an entire city's worth of people, tens of thousands, arrayed across a vast plain over an area that would have been significantly larger than all but the biggest cities, even in China, much less across the world. And with long lines of animals, gifts, and tribute along the roadway stretching off over the horizon, Gaozong's eventual successor, Emperor Xuanzong,

would likewise perform this ritual almost a century later, in the year 725. And he aimed to one-up his predecessor in terms of sheer spectacle. That time, his master of ceremony arranged the thousands upon thousands of horses and he aimed to one-up his predecessor in terms of sheer spectacle. That time, his master of ceremony arranged the thousands upon thousands of horses gathered at the base of Mount Tai, according to color, so that as the emperor performed the sacrifice at the mountain's peak, he could look out over the valley below and see the horses like gatherings of multicolored clouds. But we'll get to Xuanzong in due course. For now, back to Gaozong and Empress Wu.

In spite of the Fengshan ritual supposedly affirming the emperor and empress's favor in the eyes of heaven, the latter half of the 660s and across the 670s would prove extremely trying for Tang China, and at least in some regions, outright ruinous. As the ongoing conflict in Korea raged on, demanding more and more men, material, and resources, as we will cover more in full next time, the throne of Tang was compelled in 666, the same year as its lavish ritual at Taishan, to devote the entirety of Hebei province's revenues to the conflict. This was absolutely massive, since Hebei, as we've noted in the past, was by far and away the empire's most populous and most affluent region.

The enormity of the cost of the empire's incessant wars, and especially those against the ever-staunchly defended Goguryeo, would launch the Tang dynasty into an economic crisis, the likes of which hadn't been seen since the end of the Sui. Weschler writes, quote, Crisis had risen to unprecedented heights. Vast numbers of peasants fled to developed areas of the empire in an attempt to seek relief from taxation, and year after year, reports came in of famine and drought. The court, however, had little idea of how to solve these problems. End quote. One of the major problems driving this economic crisis

was massive counterfeiting operations across the empire, flooding the economy with far more coinage than there actually should have been, and massively devaluing the existing imperial currency. The court would therefore decide to take on what it thought at the time was an economic stimulus, which was to cancel the existing coinage and then issue new coins with a face value of 10 times the old one. But with legitimate currency already completely inadequate to service the empire's economy, this rollout of new coins only made the problem worse, and the resulting slowdown of minting only drove the Tong economy further into its downward spiral.

This coinage boondoggle made matters so much worse, in fact, that the government would quickly backtrack and reverse its decision less than a year later in an attempt to undo the massive economic disruption their idiocy had caused. But the damage had largely been done. Public confidence in imperial coinage was badly shaken. At a loss, and now even worse off than they'd been before this genius idea had spectacularly backfired, the imperial court was only able to meekly offer one other potential solution, which was to sell the animal manure from the imperial stables, and you can probably imagine the limited economic influence such sales would have had on the wider economy. Through all this,

Empress Wu, walled off from direct economic policy as she still was, although clearly engaged with it still through her husbands and ministers, concerned herself in this period with the extent of her personal political gravity. To this end, then, she'd utilize one of the forces that was directly open to her, and held considerable sway with both the populace at large and the affairs of state. I speak, of course, of religion. You surely remember the two major religions active in China at this time, Taoism and Buddhism. But given the Empress's very nearly getting in trouble for her associations with a Taoist priest, and indeed seems to have become more and more obsessed with

Taoist sorcerers, priests, and wizards as time went on, it's almost ironic then that she would be remembered as being one of the great patrons of Buddhism instead. Though in the earliest years of his reign, the Emperor too would show devotion to the Buddhist faith, perhaps most famously becoming the patron and supporter of the monk Xuanzang's translation project of the hundreds of sutras he had recovered from India in his famous Journey to the West, a tale that we will be focusing on in an upcoming episode, he would gradually, over the course of his reign, become far friendlier to the native Chinese religion, and showed indifference, or even outright hostility, to the transplant. In 666, at the Fengshan sacrifice, for instance, the emperor went so far as to not only affirm Taoism

as the preeminent faith of the kingdom, but also that every prefecture in his empire should have both Buddhist and Taoist pagodas constructed, a move that gave the Taoists for the first time what the Buddhists had had for many years, which was a network of state-sponsored monastic communities. This cooling of the monarch toward Buddhism was dramatically evidenced in 664 following Meng Xuanzang's death, when he discontinued his support for the still far-from-complete sutra translation project. Though he would be careful not to step on too many Buddhist toes, given the clergy's scope and scale of power across the empire, it was clear that Daddy Gaozong had picked a new favorite kid.

Patronage and love for Buddhism, then, fell to Empress Wu, who used her own genuine religious beliefs to bolster her own support within the clergy and the laypeople who came to see her as their benefactor and protector. This broad base of support would prove vital to Wu in late 666, when yet another threat emerged against her. This time, it was her own family, many of whom, thanks to her efforts, now comfortably resided in positions of high office. But it now come to decide that they didn't really need her anymore, even going so far as to reportedly disrespect her maternal family, the still extremely powerful Yang clan, who you may recall was the former imperial house of Sui. In the eighth month of the year, Wu took action at the slight against her mother's name, first demoting a pair of her brothers to far-flung

prefectures when they stated that they didn't feel it was honorable to have been promoted because of their sister, where they'd ultimately die in effective exile. At the same time, two more of her family members, either cousins or half-brothers, were framed for the murder of a court concubine, who had been fast becoming one of Emperor Gaozong's rising favorites. The concubine, Lady Wei, was in fact another of Empress Wu's family members, her teenage niece from her dead sister. She would meet her end through food given to her as offerings by Wu's half-brothers. The brothers would be found guilty of poisoning the imperial

concubine, legally equivalent as an assault on the emperor's own life, and they were immediately put to death. And it was certainly awfully convenient, wasn't it, that these two would just so happen to poison the young concubine swiftly rising through the ranks like a certain Wu Mei had done years before, and then be so stupid as to use food that basically had their names stamped all over it to do so. If one were to accept rumors swirling around the capital, as many traditional historians have been all too ready to do, one might even see how an empress might kill three birds with one stone by killing a potential rival by poisoning the food offered by two ingrates she also needed to get rid of. Such rumors would persist for millennia, tantalizingly plausible, but, as with so

much of Wu Zhao's story, completely unverifiable. The half-decade period between about 667 and 673 would prove yet another tough time for the Empress's lock on power. Thanks in no small part to the continuing struggle against Korea, Emperor Gaozong had in 667 appointed a new council of advisors to his court, this time notably devoid of the Empress's loyalists. Her last lapdog, the by now ancient Chancellor Xu Jingzhong, would retire less than three years later in 670, at the age of 78, leaving her effectively alone within the court. The Empress, however, was not without her own bag of tricks, and had over the previous decade used her public support for patronage of private scholars to secretly construct what had by the late 660s become something of a shadow government within the capital. Called the Beiman Shui Shi, or the Scholars of the Northern Gate, this cabal of capable ministers and scholars,

personally loyal to Empress Wu herself, would begin processing the formal declarations made by the Empress to the throne, and even take over several key components of the state apparatus that by rights should have been the realm of the chief ministerial council. It's all very cloak and dagger. Nevertheless, the scholars of the Northern Gate could only function around the periphery, and Wu slowly found herself locked more and more out of the decision-making process, as it reverted to its normal status under the high ministers instead. Her power there seemed poised to wane permanently, surrounded as she was by now-capable men loyal to no one but her husband. But in 672, the wild card that had boosted her

from this position before struck again. The emperor's always tenuous health took another turn for the worse. In late 672, and then again the following year, Gaozong would be taken so ill that his crown prince, Li Hong, was forced to step in and conduct court affairs in his absence for months at a time. By early 674, his condition had grown so critical that there was serious discussion among the courtiers whether Empress Wu, formidable and able as she was, should provisionally take over as regent head of state. This move would be blocked by the high ministers, but would herald a comeback of sorts, as her shadow government scholars would find greater leeway to continue their influence over, or failing that, circumvention of, the official

court. The crown prince was by this point in his early 20s, and now had some real hands-on experience with government, since he'd been the interim executive during his father's repeated bouts with illness. Prince Li Hong was widely liked and admired by both the common people and the emperor's own court, who had found his conduct of state affairs had been very ably handled. This presented some problems for Empress Wu. After all, her own claim to power was only through her husband, and should he die or abdicate in favor of Li Hong, everything she'd worked for for decades to build would crumble to nothing in a moment. Not only that, but the increasingly independent-minded heir had begun to frequently take his father's side against the

Empress when they disagreed, going so far as to publicly dispute with her over two lady prisoners within the palace. If Hong should take the throne, Wu would be effectively put out to pasture, since he would have no need of a regent. And so, it was to everyone's great shock and despair that the 23-year-old heir to the throne would die suddenly and under mysterious circumstances while visiting his parents at Luoyang in 675. Once again, this seemed to be an incredibly fortuitous coincidence for the affairs of the empress, and at the time, and all the more looking back, strong allegations that she may have once again employed poison against her own family to suit her ends circulated. Though again,

nothing was ever substantiated against her, and no charges ever brought to bear. Emperor Gaozong, however, was duly devastated by the loss of his son and heir. He would take the highly unusual step of posthumously granting Li Hong a monarchal title, Emperor Xiaojing, as though he had actually taken the throne. The office of crown prince was quickly filled by Wu's second son and Gaozong's sixth son, Prince Lixian, who was at the time 21 or 22 years old, marking him as potentially unsuitable in the empress's mind as well. Nevertheless, in the interim, she would go ahead and begin a quiet campaign of systemically picking off the other members of the royal family that she viewed as potential threats to her continued dominance. Gaozong's third and fourth sons, from other consorts, would be banished to the wilds of Hunan after being accused by the

empress of unspecified crimes. And so too in 677, with Gaozong's fourth son after unsubstantiated charges of corruption were brought against him. The year 679 would see Gao Zong succumb to yet another round of debilitating strokes, and once again into the chasm of leadership stepped the heir apparent, Crown Prince Xian. Like his late elder brother before him, he too made the critical mistake of actually being good at his job, and won great praise from the court. All that meant to dear old mom, though, was that son number two was also now a rival to power. It was a state of affairs that wouldn't last long. The next year, Empress Wu would strike again. Following the unsolved murder of one of the Empress's favorite court sorcerers, which she privately blamed the Crown

Prince for, she, as well as her scholars of the Northern Gate, began writing and issuing letters and publications, each one more vociferously admonishing the Crown Prince's perceived faults than the last. The final tipping point was when several of the Crown Prince's household slaves lodged complaints about him being unacceptably intimate with them, an official action which the Empress seized upon at once. Using the relatively minor complaint as her springboard, Empress Wu lodged a formal complaint of her own to the Emperor, who was then expected to launch an investigation. When he duly dispatched three of his top ministers to search the heir's properties,

lo and behold, what should they find but several hundred suits of armor stashed away in his private stables, leading the investigators to the obvious conclusion that he must be plotting a coup against his aging and ailing father. Crown Prince Xian, of course, denied it all. He'd never seen his armor before in his life. You've got it all wrong. Someone's setting me up. Someone, indeed. When several of the heir's personal slaves were brought in for interrogation, one of them also threw in that, oh yeah, he also killed that one court magician too. Emperor Gaozong was extremely reluctant to unseat his crown prince,

but his hands were pretty much tied, and doubly so, with Empress Wu practically bouncing up and down, chanting off with his head behind her silken curtain. She would once again impose her will on her weak husband, and Li Xian would be the second of Gao Zong's heirs to be dethroned, this time by being demoted to a commoner and put under house arrest within Chang'an for a time, then later banished to Sichuan before finally being ordered to take his own life. The title of crown prince, now with no one but Empress Wu's remaining sons to accept it,

fell to her third son, confusingly also named Li Xian, though with a different character. So, for clarity's sake, and since he will actually be taking the throne, we'll just go ahead and start calling him by his imperial name, Zhongzong. Zhongzong, as it would turn out, would be just right. He was, like his father and markedly unlike his two elder brothers, little more than a very young and weak-willed wet noodle, just the sort of heir Empress Wu was hoping for. Gaozong, however, would at least somewhat recover, enough so at least that the Empress Wu planned a new set of fengshan sacrifices, this time at each of the five holiest mountains in all of China, one after the other. She would plan the ceremonies to be conducted during the new year of 684,

to cap off Gaozong's long and illustrious reign over Tang China. Those plans, however, would be stymied in late 683, when Gaozong's health once again took a dip, this time causing dizziness, and once more him losing sight in one of his eyes. Apparently, a new stroke. Weschler writes, quote, An attending physician prescribed bleeding Gaozong. Although the Empress opposed it, Gaozong insisted, and as a result regained his sight. The Empress's detractors have been fond of using this episode to prove that she

did not want Gaozong to recover, and that she hoped he would die. End quote. Weschler goes on to disagree, though, with these assessments, noting that by this point the Emperor was so weak that he couldn't even try to put up a fight over Wu Zhao's dictums, and that should he die, there was always the chance that the Ascended Air would grow a backbone and stand up to her. Nevertheless, in spite of this partial recovery following the bleeding, Gaozong's health continued to rapidly deteriorate. On the fourth day of the twelfth month, 683, or by our adjusted calendar, December 27th, the dying emperor summoned his chief chancellor to his deathbed and gave his last will, that the crown prince should ascend the throne in front of Gaozong's coffin as he had his father before him, and that since he

was still young, Zhongzong should consult with his mother to settle important state affairs until he was ready to fully rule in his own right. That same day he died at the age of 55, having ruled China for 34 years, longer than both his father and grandfather combined. Empress Wu, now the Empress Dowager, had always been several years her husband's elder, and was almost 60 when Gaozong passed away. But though we've reached the end of the line for Gaozong of Tang's marathon reign, we're not done with him yet. Because, as I said at the top of the episode, we've been hyper-focused on the goings-on within the Imperial Palace today, and next time we'll be pulling back

and out to the Borderlands, where Tang expansionism has continued almost unchecked into the heart of Asia to the far west, and very very much checked as its military continues the folly of Taizong and Yang of Sui before them. Thinking that Goguryeo, the Rocky Balboa of medieval East Asia, was surely, this time, just one good punch away from a knockout. No? Well, maybe this next time, definitely. They've got to go down sometime. Right? Thank you for listening. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic

characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts.