Titans of History

Increasingly, Gaozong suffered from debilitating bouts of ill health, giving the empress Wu greater opportunities to exert her power. She used her agents to spy on and eliminate potential rivals and officials whose loyalty she doubted—including members of her own family. Some were demoted, some exiled—and many put to death. Among the hundreds who were strangled, poisoned or butchered were the former empress Wang and Consort Xiao, whose murders Wu ordered after it emerged that Gaozong might consider pardoning them. An atmosphere of general terror spread through the imperial court, with servile obedience the only guarantor of survival.

In 675, with Gaozong’s health deteriorating still further, the empress Wu maneuvered for the succession. The emperor’s aunt Princess Zhao, whom he had appeared increasingly to favor, was placed under house arrest and starved to death. Then Wu’s son Crown Prince Li Hong died suddenly—poisoned by an “unknown” hand. He was replaced by his brother—Wu’s second son—Li Xian. Wu’s relationship with him also quickly broke down, and in 680 Wu had him charged with treason and exiled. He was later forced to commit suicide. The line of succession now passed to a third son, Li Zhe.

When Gaozong finally died in 684, it was Li Zhe who became emperor, taking the new name Zhongzong. Needless to say, real authority still lay with Wu, now empress dowager. When Zhongzong looked as if he was about to challenge her power, she had him deposed and replaced him with another of her sons, who became Emperor Ruizong.

Wu now exercised even greater control, preventing Ruizong from meeting any officials or conducting any government business. Anyone who questioned this state of affairs was summarily removed and, frequently, executed. In 686 she offered to return imperial powers to Ruizong, but he had the good sense to decline.

Ever on the lookout for possible threats to her position, Wu encouraged her secret police to infiltrate official circles and identify would-be conspirators. In 688 a putative plot against the empress dowager was smashed, and this sparked a particularly ferocious round of political killings. False accusations, torture and forced suicides became almost routine. Then, in 690, following a series of “spontaneous” petitions demanding that the empress dowager take the throne herself, she acceded to the request. Ruizong was demoted to crown prince and Wu became emperor.

For the next fifteen years Wu ruled using the same ruthless methods that had guaranteed her elevation, and politically motivated denunciations and state-sanctioned killings remained commonplace. In 693 the wife of her son Ruizong (the former emperor and now heir again) was accused of witchcraft and executed. Ruizong was too afraid of his mother to object.

Eventually, in 705, with her own health now failing, Wu was prevailed upon by Ruizong to surrender the throne. Unlike so many of her own victims, she died peacefully in her bed that same year, at the age of 80. While she was in power, imperial politics had been reduced to little more than a deadly game, in which many ended up losers. An old Chinese proverb has it that the rule of a woman is like having a “hen crow like a rooster at daybreak.” Given the country’s experience with Empress Wu, it is scarcely surprising that she has been the only person to put that maxim to the test.

CHARLEMAGNE

768–814

Let peace, concord and unanimity reign among all Christian people … for without peace we cannot please God.

Charlemagne, The Admonitio (789)

Charlemagne—literally “Charles the Great”—transformed his Frankish kingdom into a Christian empire that extended from France’s western coast eastward into Germany, northward into the Low Countries, and southward into Italy. Charlemagne was not only a conqueror; he also presided over a court renowned for its artistic and scholarly achievements, especially in the preservation of classical learning.