In the more than 2,000 years of feudal history, there were more than 400 emperors in ancient China, most of whom were men. ascended to the throne as a woman, and was known to people, probably only one Wu Zetian.
In fact, during Wu Zetian's reign, the Tang Dynasty has been going downhill, and almost all the good situations opened up during the reign of Tang Gaozong and Li Zhi were all defeated by Wu Zetian. Wu Zetian not only appointed cool officials and wantonly slaughtered the children of the Li Tang Sect, but also lost consecutive battles in the border war.
In addition to making a difference in the imperial examination system, Wu Zetian did not have any other outstanding performances during his reign. So, why is Wu Zetian still so famous?
This is mainly because in ancient times it was a standard patriarchal society, and the social status of women was very low. And Wu Zetian, as a woman, became the supreme emperor, which is naturally particularly eye-catching.
Because Wu Zetian is so famous in history that almost everyone knows about it, many people even think that Wu Zetian is the first female emperor in ancient times. In fact, such an idea is wrong, and the first female emperor in history was someone else.
In ancient times, there were generally two main conditions to measure whether a person was qualified to be called an emperor: one was whether he had held an enthronement ceremony to announce the world, and the other was whether he had promulgated an era name.
If the above two points are met, even if he is a puppet and has never held imperial power, he can be regarded as an emperor.
There are many grass-headed emperors in history, why it is said to be grass-headed emperors, it is because they have not announced the world to be recognized by everyone, or they have not promulgated the era names they use, or they still use the era names of orthodox dynasties.
Having said that, in ancient times, in addition to Wu Zetian, there was also a female emperor named Yuan Girl who met the above two requirements, she held an official enthronement ceremony, announced the world to declare the imperial power, and also promulgated the official use of the era name.
As we all know, the government of the various dynasties of the Northern Dynasties has always been relatively chaotic, and the same is true of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Since the death of Emperor Xuanwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, because the successor Emperor Xiaoming was young, the power of the court has been in the hands of the Empress Dowager Hu.
On the one hand, she excluded dissidents politically and wantonly killed ministers who refused to join her; on the other hand, she disrupted the palace and was very inappropriate in her private life, and she also had an inexplicable relationship with Yuanyi, the king of Qinghe.
As Emperor Xiaoming grew up, he became more and more disgusted with the actions of his mother, Empress Dowager Hu, and the relationship between mother and son became very stiff.
Although Empress Dowager Hu knew that Emperor Xiaoming had opinions about herself and did not dare to return power to Emperor Xiaoming, the ministers in the court advised her to let Emperor Xiaoming take charge as soon as possible. In the end, Empress Dowager Hu couldn't delay any longer, so she had to return the power of the court to Emperor Xiaoming.
Originally, Empress Dowager Hu thought that Emperor Xiaoming would not embarrass herself too much because of the mother-son relationship between the two, but she knew that Emperor Xiaoming had just taken back power, and in a blink of an eye, King Yuanyi of Qinghe was executed.
It is said that "tiger poison does not eat children", but the killing of King Qinghe made Empress Dowager Hu also feel the crisis. In order to protect herself, Empress Dowager Hu took the lead and ordered someone to assassinate Emperor Xiaoming.
At this time, Emperor Xiaoming's daughter Miss Yuan had just been born, and in order to stabilize the government, Empress Dowager Hu lied to the outside world that Emperor Xiaoming had an heir and planned to make Miss Yuan the emperor.
The ministers succumbed to Empress Dowager Hu's obscenity, and naturally did not dare to openly oppose her opinions. So in this way, the imperial court held a grand enthronement ceremony for Miss Yuan, and also issued an amnesty to the world, promulgating the new era name Wutai.
Empress Dowager Hu set up Yuan girl as the emperor was a helpless move, and when Yuan girl became the emperor, Empress Dowager Hu found that there was no rebellion in the court, so the next day she abolished Yuan girl and set up only 3-year-old Lintao Wang Yuanzhao as emperor.
For Empress Dowager Hu to do "Yin Huo's things" at will, the ministers who have no military power in the DPRK and China naturally dare not speak out. But for Er Zhurong, who has a heavy army, the chaos in the court like this naturally gives him the opportunity to covet the throne.
So not long after Yuan Zhao became emperor, Er Zhurong led a large army to attack Luoyang and killed Empress Dowager Hu, Yuan Zhao and more than 2,000 ministers in the court. In the chaos of war, the girl of the abolished emperor was nowhere to be found.
Although Yuan Girl only served as emperor for one day, the Wutai era she promulgated was used for four months. Therefore, nominally speaking, Miss Yuan can be called the first female emperor in history.