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The Empress Wu Hou - China's Only Female Ruler

© John Walsh

Wu Hou, China's only female ruler, is one of the most remarkable women ever to have lived. The daughter of an official, she entered the palace of the emperor T'ai Tsung at the age of 13 in the year 638 CE (AD) as a minor servant. She subsequently rose through a series of violent political intrigues to become the dominant force in the empire and eventually its declared ruler. Subsequent accounts of her life and reign have been clouded by her undoubted cruelty and the dissipation and debauchery of the latter part of her reign - and also by misogyny, since her history has frequently been written by men somewhat jealous of what a woman achieved. In reality, Wu Hou's reign combined successful and expansive foreign policy with changes to the administration of the country which reduced the influence of the military aristocratic class and conferred it on the bureaucratic scholarly class, thereby widening the basis of government.

Wu Hou's Rise to Power

Little is known of Wu Hou's early life. This is not surprising since little attention is customarily paid in histories to those who appear to be playing minor roles. We do know that on the death of the emperor T'ai Tsung she was, as was customary, removed from the palace with the emperor's other servants and installed in a Buddhist nunnery. This nunnery was later visited by the new emperor, Kao Tsung and she took the opportunity to establish a relationship with him, successfully so since Wu Hou returned to the imperial palace in Chang'an with the emperor.

Kao Tsung was a weak and sickly young man and it was not long before he was dominated completely by Wu Hou, now his favourite concubine. It is said that Wu Hou murdered her own newborn daughter and then accused the Empress (Kao Tsung's wife Wang) of the crime. In any case, Wu Hou succeeded Wang in the position of official consort of the emperor. On the death of Kao Tsung, Wu Hou managed to retain her power through forcing the abdication of the next two emperors - Chung Tsung and Jui Tsung - and taking the precaution of having Wang's arms and legs amputated and her body thrown into a vat. Jui Tsung lasted six years but was very rarely seen in public and kept a virtual prisoner in the innermost parts of the imperial palace. In 690, Wu Hou had herself crowned as the Emperor of China. Her reign lasted for 15 years.