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…
Tag: China
72. Ming Dynasty Emperors Hongwu, Yongle, and Zhengde
Most Americans have at least a basic sense of key elements of European history, but that’s not necessarily true when it comes to places like China. And that’s true for us, too. Today we take our first dive into China’s extremely long history – 4,000 years by some accounts! – to meet three notably trashy…