Tomb Mystery

China's only female Emperor worked her way through the ranks of the imperial harem from low ranking concubine to the apex of the emperor's seraglio to become Empress.  She was the power behind the throne, the trusted sage of the ailing Emperor Gaozong.  On his death she ruled as Dowager behind her sons but then tore up the Confucian rulebook by usurping the dragon throne and claiming it as her own.  This is not Dowager Cixi.  Nor did this happen during the early twentieth century.  It was well over a millennium ago, in a powerful pocket of time, when elite Tang women challenged the natural order with their northern ways.  They wore trousers to play polo on horseback, threw back their veils and broke down patriarchal Confucian walls by mixing with men at Buddhist temples.  From the secretive world of the inner back palace they began to hold sway over the emperor and the decisions he made in the Hall of Audience. The odds of a lowborn female becoming Empress, let alone Emperor, were extremely slim but it would take one woman with the sheer audacity and verve to win the dragon throne.   Emperor Wu Zhao, as she would eventually title herself, shook the centre of the earth, sparking accusations that she was guilty of heresy against the heavens.  The old guard of Confucian ministers and the feisty women of the harem plotted conspiracies and used sorcery against her, intent on Wu’s destruction. But little did they know how high the iron phoenix would rise. 

The places in her story

Legacy:  Qianling Mausoleum, Shaanxi

Wu may have overseen the construction of the remarkable Qianling Mausoleum, which at first housed her husband, Gaozong in 683.  She was interred there, controversially, in 706 AD. Archeologists think that vast treasures lie within, and there is a hot debate about whether the underground palace should be excavated. The mausoleum has a perimeter of 40km and includes a vast Spirit Road and statues of ethnic minority envoys guard the tomb.  A stone tablet, said to be the epitaph of the reign of Wu Zhao stands unusually blank, making it hard for us to be clear on how her contemporaries wanted her to be remembered.   Remnants of the official histories scribed in the Office of Historiography fervently rail against the woman who usurped the dragon throne and declared her own dynasty, but what should her eulogy be today? Qianling is China’s holy land of 17 other tombs, including the tomb of the Taiping Princess, who, along with other women of the court, battled, in her mother’s name, to keep the dragon throne in the hands of women in the years after Wu Zhao’s death.  All of the powerful women at court lost their lives during the tumultuous decade of the Tang restoration.  Frescoes and paintings have been retrieved from five of the Qianling tombs, which have been excavated, including that of the Crown Prince she forced into exile, but nobody has yet uncovered the real treasure inside Wu Zhao’s tomb.  Could new technology bring an end to an ongoing battle?

Born to Rule: Lizhou, (modern day Guangyuan), Sichuan, Shanxi

I have read that locals celebrate a relatively remote and mountainous part of Lizhou as the birthplace of China’s only female emperor.  Myths abound that she was borne from a dragon on the Jialing River.  Dragon boat races take place on the Jialing and also Daughter's Day celebrates female power, which is symbolized by the phoenix.   One legend suggests that a face reader visited Lizhou and, thinking baby Wu was a boy exclaimed, 'If this child were a girl, some day she would rule the empire!' The streets, supermarkets and restaurants bear the female emperor's name and you can drink an 'Enchanting Miss Wu' Liquor - a sobriquet anointed to her by Emperor Taizong. The Phoenix Tower was recently built in her name.  Carved inscriptions on a nearby temple show that her parents raised Wu as a Buddhist.  

Low Status:  Bingzou, Sichuan, Shanxi

This is the ancestral home of the Wu clan.  Surely the ancestry lives on? When her father, Wu Shiyue died, Wu’s noble born mother held his funeral here and I am trying to find the exact location of his tomb.  I imagine it was a modest burial. Ever since ancient times, most girls never had their own name, but inherited the status and name of their father.  Men were mourned for three years, and women, for just one.  Ancient Confucian teachings had spawned a hierarchical social order that favoured men, and family name was everything - many women in China still grapple with this today.  Lady Yang, Wu’s noble born mother, struggled to hold onto her husband’s estate because her stepsons wrangled over who should get what.   She had little choice but to return to the elite circles of China’s Tang ruling family by moving to Chang’an.  This would be the only chance for her daughters, whom she had educated, to move up in life.

Concubine to Empress:  Chang’an, (modern day Xian), Shaanxi (A different province than Shanxi)

In 636, at 13 years of age, Wu was whisked into the Imperial City to become concubine to the second Tang Emperor, Taizong.  Chang'an was the largest and most thriving city of the 7th century world.  Even today, the remnants of the Tang capital city – from the expansive city walls to the palaces, pagodas and temples – either still stand, or, are being excavated beneath the hustle and bustle of a cosmopolitan urban sprawl.  Maps have reconstructed what this vast metropolis would have looked like, and we can imagine where Wu would have lived, hidden deep inside the inner back palace of the Tang dynasty elites and cut off from the outside world.  Outside of the imperial city walls, the Bell Tower marks the point where the Silk Road began, a vital source of trade and new ideas.  You can eat ancient delicacies in the vibrant Muslim quarter, explore the convent where Wu spent time as a nun, and also see where Tang treasures were excavated from beneath a crypt at the Famen Temple.  The sacred texts of Xuanxuang, the famous Buddhist monk, were housed in the Great Goose Pagoda, and his written commentaries are now housed in Japan.  Concubine Wu must have heard the stories of his triumphant return to Chang'an from India, weighed down by Sanskrit texts.  In the northern hamlet, surviving street names show us where less noble women were also sold as sexual commodities to service the rich, and a red light district still thrives.  Everyday life was so strictly controlled, yet in the heart of the Imperial Palace, concubine Wu shook the centre of the earth as if she were China’s Anne Boleyn: stealing the heart of the emperor Gaozong when his Confucian ministers refused to allow his divorce from the mother of the nation, Empress Wang.  With brutal conviction, the lovers won the argument and in 655, Wu became the most successful concubine in history, and one can imagine her enthroned as empress atop the Gate of the Vermillion Bird as the gasping masses looked up in awe.

Empress to Dowager: Luoyang, Henan, Mount Tai, Tai’an and Shunling, Shaanxi

Haunted by the deaths of her rivals, the superstitious Empress Wu persuaded the emperor to move to the Eastern Capital, Luoyang.  She played a vital part in raising the status of women in a grand and rare sacrifice at the spectacular Mount Tai.  On the death of her mother, Wu dramatically won the argument against the Confucians, so that women, such as her mother, would have equal mourning time to men.  Her mother’s burial site is at Shunling Mausoelum, where Wu elevated the status and structure of the tomb site throughout her later years; Tang dynasty tombs were incredibly well planned and designed to reflect status.  Brilliantly recreated in the Judge Dee films, Luoyang is a monument to Wu's rise and rule after the death of Emperor Gaozong in 683.  Interestingly, the move to Luoyang was an ideal choice with its proximity to the Grand Canal.  Excavation work on the columns and foundations of the Hall of Luminous Brightness and other structures show us how vast Emperor Wu's capital city was, and her muscle for innovation.  The Tang city gate has been restored and the main granary has also been excavated to reveal an enormous storage facility to feed her populace. Though a modern thoroughfare today, Heaven's Ford Bridge was the setting for the burning of the armour of the Crown Prince, whom Dowager Wu had accused of plotting against her.  There were further rebellions against her rise but in her speeches, Dowager Wu confounded her critics.  Luoyang became a city of gardens and flowers, her favourite being the Peony. Spectacular Peony festivals are held during April and May every year to celebrate the flower she immortalized. 

Emperor: Mount Wutai, Xinzhou; The Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang; Mount Songshan, Zhenggzhou

Eminent Buddhist monks set to work on finding a way for Dowager Wu to claim the dragon throne for herself.  They wrote commentaries on ancient texts about Buddha’s prophesy that a ruler in the form of a woman would govern the earthly realm.  Great Cloud Temples still abound throughout China and beyond, stemming from Wu's efforts to declare herself a divine ruler, and she used print technology to spread the word.  At the Longmen Grottoes, the statue of the Grand Vairocana Buddha, known as China's Mona Lisa imposingly stands.  It is believed to resemble China's only female emperor.  Sacred mountains were also used to pronounce her power.  Mount Wǔtái is home to some of the oldest wooden buildings in China, which have survived since Wu’s era.  The empire became vegetarian as Wu used rituals, omens and portents to carry out her reformation.  Emperor Wu Zhao continued to promote the position of women and infuse her female Yin essence into the Yang male world, which she saw as a threat.  Shangguan Wan'er was Empress Wu's secretary, and came to be known as China’s first female prime minister.   In September 2013, her tomb, near Xianyang airport, was discovered and excavated.  Her descendants are fighting for it to be protected.  In her aging years, Emperor Wu Zhao used Daoist wizards to create longevity potions and in 699 one such wizard prostrated himself at Mount Songshan to perform absolutions on her behalf.  

Empire: The Great Wall; Japan; a border south of the empire; Hong Kong

The Tang saw the Great Wall as a sign of weakness, and during the rise and rule of Emperor Wu Zhao, China's borders were expanded and invaders from the north cleverly routed.   We have the official record of how Wu described the lands that belonged to her empire.  With diplomatic precision, she became the most powerful woman in the world.  In Hong Kong, the Hungry Ghost Festival commemorates Buddhist practices of the Tang - Wu was obsessed with her ancestry.  Diplomatic missions were also remarkable events at this time and as a sign of her soft power, Wu is said to have gifted pandas to the emperor of Japan.  Missions like this had a huge impact on Japanese culture.