In its many thousands of years of history, China has had only one official ruling monarch who was a woman. Sure, there were powerful Empress Consorts who pulled the strings of weak Emperor husbands, but Empress Wu Zetian ambitiously, and ruthlessly, upended convention to claim the throne in her own name.
Born to a prosperous and well-connected family sometimes in the first half of the 620s, Wu joined the Imperial Court at the age of 14 in the privileged position of concubine to the Emperor. Instead, she became a trusted scribe and advisor who was sent to live out her life in a monastery after his death.
But his son, Emperor Gaozong, brought her back to court, where she promptly began having babies with him, something his official wife was never able to do. It took many years, but through devious, even violent means, Wu Zeitan would clear the Court of all rivals to her power and become Gaozong’s legal wife, and Empress Consort of China. This was an open door to full control of China; Wu Zeitan only needed to walk through it – and she did.
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