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Family Executed by China's 1st Female Emperor


Anomalocaris

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Tomb Tells Tale of Family Executed by China's 1st Female Emperor

A 1,300-year-old tomb, discovered in Xi'an city, China, holds the bones of a man who helped the nation's only female emperor rise to power. The epitaphs in the tomb describe how she then executed him and his entire family.

Located within a cave, the tomb contains the remains of Yan Shiwei and his wife, Lady Pei. While little is left of the individual's skeletons, archaeologists found colorful ceramic figurines, a mirror with a gold plaque and, most importantly, epitaphs inscribed on bluestones.

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The fella got a bit too big for his own britches when he tried to manipulate the Emperor into being a nit under his thumb ~ she had other ideas ...

Despite the important aspects of her reign, together with the suggestions of modern scholarship as to the long-term effects of some of her innovations in governance, much of the attention paid to Wu Zetian has been to her gender, as the anomalous female sovereign of a unified Chinese empire officially holding the title of Emperor of China (Huangdi, 皇帝). Besides her career as a political leader, Wu Zetian also had an active family life. Although family relationships sometimes became problematic, Wu Zetian was the mother of four sons, three of who also carried the title of emperor, although one held that title only as a posthumous honor. One of her grandsons became the renowned Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.

She's a smart one but , naturally , as far as things goes back in the day , unfortunately the men too, had other ideas ~

The Demonization of Empress Wu

"She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother," the chronicles say. But is the empress unfairly maligned?

By Mike Dash

smithsonian.com

August 10, 2012

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Explaining why the empress was so reviled, then, means acknowledging the double standard that existed–and still exists–when it comes to assessing male and female rulers. Wu probably did dispose of several members of her own family, and she ordered the deaths of a number of probably innocent ministers and bureaucrats. She also dealt ruthlessly with a succession of rivals, promoted members of her own family to high office, succumbed repeatedly to favoritism, and, in her old age, maintained what amounted to a harem of virile young men. None of these actions, though, would have attracted criticism had she been a man. Every Chinese emperor had concubines, and most had favorites; few came to power, or stayed there, without the use of violence. Taizong forced the abdication of his own father and disposed of two older brothers in hand-to-hand combat before seizing the throne.

  • smithsonian mag link

~

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