The most famous empress dowager of the Tang Dynasty should belong to Wu Zetian, because Wu Zetian's sons could not fight their mothers, so that their mothers changed from empresses to emperors. However, since Wu Zetian, there has never been a female emperor in ancient Chinese history, and most of those who have the ability to look up to Wu Zetian have also voluntarily given up - such as Empress Liu E of the Song Dynasty, and Empress Guo of the Tang Dynasty today.
Empress Guo's life is quite legendary, because she has experienced 7 dynasties of emperors, and her status in 5 dynasties is very prominent, of which 2 dynasties have become empresses, and the other 3 dynasties have become empresses, but she has not even been an empress for a day. This is because the situation in the imperial court in the middle of the Tang Dynasty was very special, and Empress Guo was originally the granddaughter of the famous Tang Dynasty general Guo Ziyi, and her husband was Li Chun, the King of Guangling.
Li Chun was a great-grandson of Emperor Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty and was related to Guo. To put it simply, Guo Ziyi's son married the daughter of Emperor Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty and gave birth to Guo, so in terms of generational calculations, Guo was also a generation higher than Li Chun, and Li Chun counted as her cousin nephew. But royal marriage always has many aspects to consider, and Guo's identity is there, so she still married Li Chun when she was 14 years old.
Li Chun was the 11th emperor of the Tang Dynasty, Tang Xianzong. After he ascended the throne, it was supposed that he should be made empress, but there was no woman in the harem whose status was higher than that of Guo's, and he was very afraid that Guo's becoming empress, and the Guo family would rely on the status of foreign relatives to interfere in politics, so he always let Guo squat on the seat of the noble concubine. Li Chun died after 15 years on the throne, and Guo Guifei's son Li You ascended the throne, known as Tang Muzong.
Guo became empress dowager, naturally elevated in status, and was respectfully raised by Tang Muzong, but Tang Muzong was not very good at managing the government and was only good at playing and enjoying, that is, he died after 5 years on the throne, at the age of 30. In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, when eunuchs were in charge, Tang Muzong was supported by eunuchs to ascend to the throne, and after his death, some eunuchs ran to Empress Guo to persuade her to learn Wu Zetian and hold her grandson to the throne.
As a result, Empress Guo lost her temper and said that although the crown prince was young, there were still many capable ministers in the court who could assist him, and where did he need to worry about himself? The eunuch had to slip away. After this, Tang Muzong's three sons Li Zhan, Li Ang, and Li Yan ascended the throne one after another, and Guo, as their grandmother, naturally enjoyed the treatment of empress dowager.
Among them, Li Ang is the most filial to the Guo family, every time the place offers something good, he will take it to his grandmother's palace for the first time to let his grandmother see a fresh, and the things that the grandmother does not want are taken away by himself. However, the three brothers of Li Ang were all tied together and only sat on the throne for 22 years, after which an important change occurred in the succession of the Tang Dynasty.
Originally, as the eunuchs' power gradually encroached on the foundations of the Tang Dynasty, the eunuchs tried to seize power by dominating the imperial throne, so they chose Li Chen, another son of Tang Xianzong Li Chun, and supported him to take the throne. Li Chen was not born of the Guo clan, his mother was the palace maid Zheng Shi, who originally served the Guo clan, and Li Chen deceived the eunuchs by pretending to be crazy and foolish, and also deceived the nephews of the previous three emperors.
As a result, as soon as Li Chen ascended the throne, he swept away the eunuch forces, and Guo shi was his mother, and his name changed from empress dowager to empress dowager, standing side by side with Li Chen's biological mother, Empress Zheng. But Guo Shi had a hard time accepting the fact that he was on an equal footing with the former palace girl, and Li Chen's relationship with her was also average, and it wasn't long before she was depressed and died at the age of 69.