Emperor/Empress Wu Zeitan

[ajk]

Been meaning to post this for a while. The China History Forum sends out a periodic newsletter, and the August issue had some very interesting historical information on the Ming Emperor/Empress Wu Zeitan. Full credit to the author, identified as "WuXiaHer0" (actually the chief editor of the forum); you can read the entire newsletter here:

www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?/topic/34446-chf-newsletter-august-14-2010/

The Female Emperor - Wu Zetian

An emperor emerged from the harem of the Tang court - Wu Zetian. When she was fourteen, she entered the palace as a servant to Emperor Taizong and was made a cairen (the lowest rank of the mid-ranking concubines) with the title wumei. After Emperor Taizong died, Crown Prince Li Zhi came to the throne as Emperor Gaozong. All the concubines who had not given Emperor Taizong children including the sixteen-year-old Wu Zetian were sent to the Ganye Temple to be nuns.

While Emperor Gaozong was crown prince, he had already exchanged furtive glances with his father's concubine. After becoming emperor, he often went to the temple to meet her secretly. Emperor Gaozong's empress, Empress Wang, was busy having a fight with Lady Xiao, and in order to suppress Lady Xiao, Empress Wang ordered Wu Zetian to grow her hair and return to the palace, hoping to use her to control Lady Xiao.

After Wu Zetian returned to the harem, Emperor Gaozong made her zhaoyi (the highest ranked concubine of the nine high-ranking concubines). Within a short time Wu Zetian made Lady Xiao lose her position as the emperor's favourite and earned the trust of Empress Wang. Wu Zetian's next step was to replace Empress Wang. She had just given birth to a daughter and earned the affection of Emperor Gaozong. In order to trap the empress, after Empress Wang came to visit her daughter, Wu Zetian strangled the child. When Emperor Gaozong came to visit his daughter, he found that she was lifeless and after asking palace attendants, he found that Empress Wang had just left. Emperor Gaozong thought that Empress Wang was a murderer and was determined to replace her, but advisors and important officials opposed him.

In order to become empress, Wu Zetian had another plan to accuse Empress Wang and her mother, Lady Liu, of cursing the emperor with evil spells. As it turned out, when the palace of the empress was searched, they found wooden figurines used in witchcraft that were first planted by Wu Zetian. Emperor Gaozong was furious and demoted Empress Wang and Lady Xiao to ordinary citizens and were thrown into the "cold palace" while Lady Xiu was barred from entering the palace. Wu Zetian finally became empress. Her cruel plan to exchange her daughter's life for the throne had succeeded.

Soft-hearted Emperor Gaozong once went to visit Empress Wang and Lady Xiao in prison and after Wu Zetian found out about it, she punished them with one hundred lashes each. Their arms and legs were cut offand they were thrown into a vat of wine. Wu Zetian taunted them as they drowned in the vat, "now you can intoxicate yourselves in your own beauty".

Emperor Gaozong was weak both in willpower and physically, and Wu Zetian moved in to fill the role of leadership. She got rid of the advisors and ministers who had opposed her and installed officials who supported her. She personally presided over the sacrificial ceremonies and read and approved the documents from the ministers on behalf of the emperor. When court was in session, Emperor Gaozong sat in front of a curtain while Wu Zetian sat behind it, being called by the people at the time the "two sages".

But Wu Zetian was not content with just being the "emperor" in the background. In order to ascend the highest throne, she removed all obstacles in her way, including her own sons. She killed two crown princes one after the other - Li Hong (poisoned) and Li Jian (forced to commit suicide). After Emperor Gaozong died, the crown prince, Li Xian, ruled for only fifty five days before he was deposed by Wu Zetian. She then installed her youngest son, Li Dan, as emperor, but she still remained in control of the government. Six years later, she deposed Li Dan and reigned as emperor in her own name, changing the name of the dynasty to Zhou, claiming ancestry from the Zhou Dynasty. By this time, she was already sixty seven years old.

While she was on the throne, Wu Zetian paid particular attention to promoting people of talent. In order to recruit talented people, she actively promoted a graded system of promotion, and created a system of military examinations to choose military and state officials. On the other hand, she punished corrupt bureaucrats harshly, setting straight the behaviour of officials. She also applied herself to raising production with a policy of minimal enforced labour and low taxes.

Like the emperor who can have unlimited numbers of concubines, Wu Zetian had many male favourites. Among them were Feng Xiaobao (also known as Xue Huaiyi) who was a Buddhist monk, and the brothers Zhang Changzong and Zhang Yizhi.

After Wu Zetian had reigned as emperor for fifteen years, she became ill. While she was ill, the prime minister Zhang Jianzhi, took the opportunity to install Li Xian as emperor to restore the Tang Dynasty.

When Wu Zetian was about to die, she willingly changed her title from "Emperor" to "Empress" and instructed that in front of her tomb a blank stele should be set up. No words were to be carved on the stele, meaning that whether she has committed any crime should be left to future generations to decide.

After Wu Zetian's death, she was buried with her husband Emperor Tang Taizong at Qianling.

Although Wu Zetian had to resort to underhanded methods to gain her position, she was an outstanding political genius. She helped the Tang Dynasty to develop, continuing the "Era of Zhenguan" and helping create the "Prosperous Era of Kaiyuan" after her.

[TheBo]

Okay, I guess I don't know the time period of the Tang Dynasty. When was it?

This is fascinating, by the way.

Bo

[MTR]

You really don't know it !!!''OH TANG IT " ....sorry er hem where were we .
Ok 7th -10 th century but by the 10th it was broken up into later Tang, Lesser Tang ,Greater Tang ect .
Here is a funny fact the depiction of Wu in Dae Jo Ka-chung !!!!! is probably better and closer to fact than Chinese Drama's ,the Chinese are very skittish about the more lurid parts of her life and tend to gloss over and present her as a Cinderella type,all the killings she ordered usually are blamed on someone else while Wu is the hapless heroine that tried to save the poor sod .
As such we have yet to see a decent film /drama about the Emperor (she used the male title ,Also for her reign the dynasty name was changed from Tang to Zhao but back to Tang after she passed.)

Zhang Yimou was to have made a film about Wu but the Chinese govn't pulled the plug for a variety of reasons such as they do not like to admit China had a Woman Emperor ,they also had her name eroded from her grave mound .
Gong Li was to have played Wu and she surely would have struck the right chord and put a Gong in my heart ,sadly Yimou was forced to make Golden Flower instead .

This year we have a new Tsui Hark film ''Judge Dee "starring Andy Lau as the Tang Dynasty Sherlock Holmes ,of course the real Dee was a hard line conservative more into punishing than sleuthing ,still Carina Lau delivers up the best depiction of Wu to date but sadly she does not get enough screen time .

[ajk]

WHOOPS, my apologies, meant to type Tang, not Ming. Shame on me. Wu was the emperor we saw in the Dae Jo Young series. DJY's encounters with her were totally fictional but she was a great character and we got a hint of her real story in the series.

Tang was 618-907 and Wu lived from 624-705. Officially she ruled beginning in 690 but apparently she pretty much controlled things from 655 on.

[MTR]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1LN656YUuU&feature=related

Here is the trailer for the new Judge Dee film and it looks like it may even find its way to these shores .

Back to DJY the depiction of Wu was one of the best things in that drama ,i always wished they had done more with her in it .

[ajk]

Don't know if anybody saw this in yesterday's Tribune...but I just had to post it. Too funny not to.

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China TV series runs afoul of censors for showing too much cleavage

By Julie Makinen JANUARY 7, 2015 | REPORTING FROM BEIJING

Shapely breasts, often more ample than Mother Nature bestowed, are objects of desire and status symbols in China these days.

Posters featuring buxom ladies touting the benefits of boob jobs, herbal supplements, creams or other methods to boost one's bust are frequently seen by anyone getting into a taxi or an elevator in central Beijing.

"The happiest women can expose their proud, vital curves," says one advertisement in circulation. "Autologous fat breast enhancement can create a legendary breast."

It's a far cry from the time, a century ago, when many Chinese women bound their chests and feet in an effort to attain a more ideal femininity.

Given such a shift in mainstream aesthetics, it came as a surprise to the Chinese public when a highly anticipated period TV drama, "The Empress of China," also known as the "Legend of Wu Meiniang," was yanked off the air in late December, apparently because its 7th century courtesans were showing more decolletage than government watchdogs found appropriate.

The period drama series "The Empress of China," featuring Fan Bingbing, center, as Empress Wu, went off the air for several days after Chinese censors said it showed too much decolletage.

Days later, the 80-­episode series, featuring A­lister Fan Bingbing as Empress Wu and produced at the
extraordinary cost of nearly $50 million, was back on Hunan TV after some surgical procedures, so to speak. But the censors' scalpel was hardly subtle; medium shots that previously showed the plunging necklines of ladies of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) were hastily converted to extreme close­ups that often cut actresses off at the neck.

Producers of the show announced via social media that "technical problems" were the cause of the hiatus, and even the state-run New China News Agency could not elicit an official explanation from the tight-lipped State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, which polices China's airwaves. But the news agency noted that "many viewers speculated" that the suspension was due to the "revealing costumes," which led online commentators to dub the show's female characters "squeezed breasts."

The re-edited version has been met with derision, with critics rechristening the program as "The Legend of Big Head Wu." Viewers took to the Internet to voice their displeasure, noting not only that ample breasts were au courant during the Tang era but also that the trims, which left hands and most other body parts below the chin on the cutting room floor, also made the action more difficult to follow.

"There was a scene where someone handed a fan to the other person, butI totally couldn't see the fan, only got to know what happened through the dialogue," wrote one viewer on the popular TV and film website Douban.com.

Raymond Zhou, a film critic and pop culture commentator for the state­run China Daily newspaper, said censors could not logically argue that the degree of bosom exposure in "The Empress of China" was historically inaccurate. "All the paintings from Tang Dynasty show that Chinese ladies from that era showed a lot of cleavage," he said. "Actually, much more than in the [TV] costume drama."

Zhou said that according to one rumor, some "old, retired officials" saw the program and lodged a complaint. "It's possible," he said, "but you can never verify this kind of thing."

Zhou said that older viewers, who may have watched Peking opera versions of the Empress Wu story, might have been conditioned to expect more modest costumes. That's because in Peking opera, actors traditionally perform both the male and female parts and often wear what Zhou described as a "white, shawl-like thing that covered up their neck."

"Generations of Chinese were exposed to this and believe this is the way Chinese in the Tang Dynasty wore their clothes," he said. "But this is not true."

State broadcaster CCTV has run similarly revealing Tang Dynasty programs, Zhou said, but those did not "raise an eyebrow" with regulators. The added scrutiny this time, he said, may be because the program aired on the widely watched Hunan TV, which has a populist approach to programming and has run afoul of central government watchdogs before.

"Hunan TV has such a big audience, so it became an issue," he said. "If this series was shown on any other channel, it wouldn't have become a problem because only a fraction of the audience would have seen it."

The bosom brouhaha comes as Chinese authorities, starting with President Xi Jinping, have launched a vocal campaign in recent months to wipe what they deem vulgar and improper elements out of movies, TV programs and other cultural works.

For example, SAPPRFT, the censorship agency, has vowed to impose stricter regulations on foreign TV shows and movies that are streamed online, largely uncut, through video portals. A few popular programs, including "The Big Bang Theory," were taken offline last year. Censors also demanded last-minute alterations in December to the highly anticipated 1920s period Chinese film, "Gone With the Bullets."

Xi, who has increasingly invoked Confucianism as a national cultural touchstone, made a major speech to a gathering of artists in the fall, calling art and culture "an indispensable contributor" to the "Chinese dream of national rejuvenation."

"Popularity should not necessitate vulgarity and hope should not entail covetousness," Xi admonished the writers, actors and others. "Pure sensual entertainment does not equate to spiritual elation."

Wen Hua, an anthropologist and author of the 2013 book "Buying Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery in China," said that the image of women has always been closely related to the image of the nation.

In terms of breast exposure, she said, the Tang Dynasty was more open because of the influence of minority cultures, interchange with foreign visitors and a prosperous economy. But in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, she said, Confucianist culture had a strong influence on women's gender roles as well as the perception of beauty, and "effeminate and frail types" were prized. After the fall of the last emperor in 911, norms shifted again.

With official endorsements of Confucianism on the rise in the 21st century, Wen noted that "there is indeed increasing nostalgia and national sentiment of 'Oriental beauty' to underline the features of Chinese beauty, in which beautiful Chinese women are supposed to be modern … and yet at the same time uphold Chinese values and traditions."

Still, contemporary efforts to diminish Empress Wu's ample bustline are up against not only centuries of history, but also stark geographical reminders.

When she died in 705, Wu — the only woman to rule China in her own name — was entombed next to her husband, Emperor Gaozong, about 50 miles northwest of the modern city of Xian. The tomb sits between two large hills, each topped with a watchtower.

British author Jonathan Clements, in his 2007 biography, "Wu: The Chinese Empress Who Schemed, Seduced and Murdered Her Way to Become a Living God," takes note of the topography on Page 1 of his book.

"Local legend," he writes, "claims the mounds reminded Gaozong of the breasts of the woman he risked his empire to marry."


Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.


www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/la-fg-china-breasts-20150107-story.html#page=1