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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to blame a chalkerboarding and

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Speaker 1: this episode is another listener request. We're rolling them out.

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Speaker 1: I've done a couple of those lately, so we're doing good.

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Speaker 1: It's on Empress wou Zutien, who is best known for

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Speaker 1: becoming the first and only Chinese empress to rule the

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Speaker 1: country in her own name, which she did for fifteen

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Speaker 1: years during a time when Chinese women really didn't have

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Speaker 1: very many rights at all. Yeah, but before you start

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Speaker 1: writing your email to us, it is important to note

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Speaker 1: that a lot of empresses, or at least some embresses,

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Speaker 1: did take ruling responsibilities in the name of their husbands

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Speaker 1: and sons. So if the true emperor were ill or

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Speaker 1: incapacitated or maybe too young to serve, the empress would

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Speaker 1: take up place as a sort of regent. But who

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Speaker 1: was a different story. She ruled in her own right, exactly,

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Speaker 1: and she did it in a very interesting way to

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Speaker 1: hers as a story filled with intrigue, murders, secret police,

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Speaker 1: and kind of a burning question, and that is, did

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Speaker 1: her reign really have any last scene effect on her country.

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Speaker 1: And you can look at this question in a couple

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Speaker 1: different ways. You can look at it from both a

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Speaker 1: feminist point of view and in light of social and

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Speaker 1: political reforms that she may have made. Looking back, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people could argue that she really didn't do

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Speaker 1: too much for the status of women in China, at

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Speaker 1: least she really she didn't create opportunities for them to

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Speaker 1: come into power like she did. In other words, she

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Speaker 1: didn't transform the country from a patriarchy to a matriarchy,

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Speaker 1: but she did enact some changes that stuck around even

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Speaker 1: after her time. Yeah, some major social and political reform,

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Speaker 1: but we're not going to get into all of that

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Speaker 1: quite yet. First we need to set the scene and

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Speaker 1: figure out where she came from and how she managed

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Speaker 1: to assume this role of sole empress. So when he

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Speaker 1: story takes places primarily during the years of the Tong dynasty,

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Speaker 1: which was from about six eighteen a d. To nine

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Speaker 1: oh seven a D. And during this time, women were

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Speaker 1: pretty much treated as second class citizens and men held

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Speaker 1: all the power and prestige through these patriarchal clan systems

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Speaker 1: and dynasties. In fact, women were kind of considered dispensable.

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Speaker 1: Almost poor families, for example, would often cast female babies aside.

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Speaker 1: And another example is after a king or a high

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Speaker 1: ranking official died, his concubines were often expected to show

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Speaker 1: their honor to him by committing suicide. Yeah, so pretty

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Speaker 1: low down on the totem pole here. And in general,

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Speaker 1: women weren't even educated as men were. And I mean

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Speaker 1: for a poor woman, she couldn't expect any kind of

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Speaker 1: career aside from homemaking and child rearing. And for an

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Speaker 1: aristocratic woman, you know, she might receive some education through tutors,

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Speaker 1: but still the best career, if you can even call

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Speaker 1: it that is to become a concubine in the imperial palace.

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Speaker 1: So the most a concubine could hope for was to

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Speaker 1: give birth to the king's son and hopefully give birth

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Speaker 1: to his heir and ultimately marry him. And then finally,

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Speaker 1: the highest position a woman could attain was that of

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Speaker 1: empress dowager, and at that point, of course, her son

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Speaker 1: would be ruler, and she only had real power if

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Speaker 1: the sun were incapacitated in some way, or maybe if

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Speaker 1: he was too young to actually rule himself. So that's

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Speaker 1: as good as it gets. And even if your empress

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Speaker 1: dowager ruling in the name of your son, you're doing

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Speaker 1: so behind a screen. I mean literally, they couldn't show themselves.

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Speaker 1: So definitely not a position of prominence in politics at all.

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Speaker 1: So this is the kind of culture that Wootsutia and

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Speaker 1: was born into in a d but she had a

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Speaker 1: bit of advantage compared to a lot of other women,

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Speaker 1: and that she was born into a noble family. Her

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Speaker 1: father was a rich Timber merchant who had fought for

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Speaker 1: the first Emperor of Tongue, which was lu Yan, and

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Speaker 1: helped him overthrow the previous Sway dynasty, so he was

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Speaker 1: awarded a high post in the government, and whose mother

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Speaker 1: was from a Sway noble family, so she was of

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Speaker 1: kind of minor nobility, but very influential at the court.

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Speaker 1: And because of her family's high social position, and because

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Speaker 1: the Tongue rulers were slightly less rigid in the social

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Speaker 1: conventions they introduced, uh Will learned how to read and

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Speaker 1: write and play music, so she was pretty well educated,

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Speaker 1: and she became known for her intellect and her wit

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Speaker 1: as well as her great beauty. So it seems like

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Speaker 1: this girl is on the fast track to becoming an

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Speaker 1: imperial concubine. If that's the best career aspiration you can

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Speaker 1: get to. Yep, And she did receive that opportunity and

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Speaker 1: age fourteen, and she jumped out the chance. She was

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Speaker 1: taken into the Imperial Palace as a low ranking concubine.

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Speaker 1: Concubines were ranked according to whether or not they had

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Speaker 1: given birth to a son, and the birth of a

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Speaker 1: son could kind of move you up in the ranks.

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Speaker 1: But when she came in she was pretty low down.

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Speaker 1: But the Emperor tight sum. He found her so beautiful

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Speaker 1: that he called her mind Yang, which means the charming lady.

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Speaker 1: But she was kind of a firecracker too, and that

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Speaker 1: must have caught attention. I mean, legend has it that

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Speaker 1: at one point she told the emperor. Legend has it

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Speaker 1: that at one point she told the Emperor she could

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Speaker 1: control a wild horse of his if he gave her

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Speaker 1: a whip, an iron mace, and a dagger. And she

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Speaker 1: basically said, if the whip didn't bring the horse into obedience,

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Speaker 1: she'd use the mace to beat its head, and if

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Speaker 1: that didn't work, she'd cut its throat with the dagger.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's why what you would

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Speaker 1: call breaking the horse if you end up killing the horse,

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Speaker 1: but still kind of a forceful young concubine. It seemed

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Speaker 1: definitely not a shrinking violet, that's for sure. And I

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Speaker 1: think that the story you could keep it in mind

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Speaker 1: almost as we go through her life, because I think

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Speaker 1: she used a sort of a similar strategy with China

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Speaker 1: almost thanks during her rule. Yeah, she keeps that mace

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Speaker 1: and dagger on hand, I think for the rest of

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Speaker 1: her life, definitely. But while she was working as a

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Speaker 1: concubine for tight Sung, but she also got points for

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Speaker 1: being a smarty she was assigned to work in the

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Speaker 1: Imperial Study, which is where she was exposed to official

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Speaker 1: documents and learned something about the affairs of state, so

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Speaker 1: preparing a little bit for her future career in politics.

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Speaker 1: And she may have met someone of great importance during

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Speaker 1: this time too, and that was Tetsung's successor, who was

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Speaker 1: the Crown Prince Lee Chi, and some people say that

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Speaker 1: she may have even had an affair with him, but

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Speaker 1: at least we can assume she's making his acquaintance at

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Speaker 1: this point, which is it turns out to not be

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Speaker 1: such a bad idea shull because very soon tight Song

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Speaker 1: dies in sixty nine a d and all the concubines

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Speaker 1: who hadn't had children with him, they are sent to

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Speaker 1: a Buddhist convent to become nuns. And this is preferable

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Speaker 1: fate to what some other concubines had suffered. According to

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Speaker 1: some stuff that I've read, concubines were occasionally buried alive

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Speaker 1: with the emperor that they served, so it would be bad,

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Speaker 1: that would not be very pleasant. So this was kind

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Speaker 1: of a step up. And we don't know exactly if

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Speaker 1: Wu became a nun or not, but what we do

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Speaker 1: know is that while she was there, she received a

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Speaker 1: visit from her old friend Li Chi Yeah, who of

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Speaker 1: course now is the new Emperor cal Chung, and he's

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Speaker 1: starting to visit her regularly, and by six fifty two

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Speaker 1: he actually brought her back to the palace to be

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Speaker 1: his concubine. This was a big no no, and that's

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Speaker 1: because it was considered incestuous because she had served his

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Speaker 1: father and now she was serving him. It was something

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Speaker 1: that was definitely frowned upon by the court and not

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Speaker 1: good at all, but it worked out in her favor.

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Speaker 1: Within a year, she had a baby boy, which put

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Speaker 1: her in great position to compete with both Celtsung's Empress

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Speaker 1: Wong and his other favorite concubine. She'd already won over

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Speaker 1: the Emperor with her charms and gang his trust, but

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Speaker 1: she needed something extra, not a shoe in yet um.

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Speaker 1: So that happens kind of in a roundabout way in

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Speaker 1: six fifty four when she gives birth to a little

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Speaker 1: girl and the girl is killed soon after, and Wou

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Speaker 1: actually accuses the Empress of murdering the baby, even though

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Speaker 1: a lot of people think that it was we herself

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Speaker 1: who killed her and actually ended up framing Long for it.

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Speaker 1: But regardless, the Emperor believes Wo. He's maybe sort of

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Speaker 1: a simple minded man, or at least easily swayed by

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Speaker 1: this favorite concubine of his. He believes her, and he

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Speaker 1: sends both the Empress and his favorite concubine away. So

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Speaker 1: there she is now a last woman standing. Yeah, all

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Speaker 1: the chips are kind of falling exactly where she wants

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Speaker 1: them too. So next step is celt Song promotes Wu

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Speaker 1: to empress in sixty even though his court is really

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Speaker 1: die hard against this move. They were against it because

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Speaker 1: even though Wu was from a noble family. She wasn't

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Speaker 1: from one of the big aristocratic clans like Empress Wong

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Speaker 1: had been, so Wu wasted no time in using her

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Speaker 1: authority to start sort of taking down the people who

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Speaker 1: had been against her because she I guess she was

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Speaker 1: always worried about being surplanted because she wasn't supported by them.

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Speaker 1: She kneeds she had to lock down this position, so

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Speaker 1: she had the former Empress Wong executed. She had a

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Speaker 1: lot of the other female rivals executed, and after that

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Speaker 1: she started exiling their supporters. So over the next few years,

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Speaker 1: she's like consolidating her our, getting rid of all of

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Speaker 1: the political rivals, banishing them, executing them, and surrounding herself

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Speaker 1: by people who she feels like she can trust. And

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Speaker 1: then in six sixty Sing has a stroke which causes

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Speaker 1: him to go blind. He hands over all administrative duties

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Speaker 1: at this point to Empress Wu, and this is a

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Speaker 1: big moment for her because all the powers in her

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Speaker 1: hands right now. She rules in his name for the

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Speaker 1: next twenty three years and behind well, behind the screen,

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Speaker 1: but she's getting to make all the decisions, so she

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Speaker 1: keeps ruling with an iron fest. She gets sort of

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Speaker 1: anyone who opposes her, even people in her own family.

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Speaker 1: I mean, she's ruthless. She even sets up a secret

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Speaker 1: police and informer system to help her hunt down and

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Speaker 1: torture anyone who's perceived as a threat to her rule.

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Speaker 1: And something else is happening during this time too. Since

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Speaker 1: a lot of her rivals were members of those aristocratic

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Speaker 1: plans who didn't think that she should be empress in

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Speaker 1: the first place, she ended up trying to surround herself

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Speaker 1: with supporters and officials from outside of these clans, which,

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Speaker 1: obviously that was a move on her part to support

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Speaker 1: her own goals, but it worked out in favor of

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Speaker 1: some people who weren't necessarily part of the top echelance

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Speaker 1: of society. Yeah, you buy your your favors essentially. So

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Speaker 1: in six seventy four, she presented the Emperor with something

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Speaker 1: called the Twelve Suggestions, which were basically proposals for policies

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Speaker 1: aimed at winning the support of the common people. This

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Speaker 1: is another tactic of hers to gain support. You surround

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Speaker 1: yourself with nobles who like you and owe you, and

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Speaker 1: then try to win over the common folks who are

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Speaker 1: ultimately going to be the ones who either keep you

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Speaker 1: there or boot you. Right but as we said, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this kind of works out in their favor as well.

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Speaker 1: And this is where we start to see kind of

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Speaker 1: what we mentioned at the beginning. Some of the social

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Speaker 1: and political reforms that she made. The twelve suggestions included

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Speaker 1: everything from policies that encouraged agriculture and silk production, tax reduction,

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Speaker 1: and a disbandment of armies. She also reformed some aspects

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Speaker 1: of political life too. Yeah, and there's some social reformation

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Speaker 1: in there too. The ninth suggestion of these twelve apparently

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Speaker 1: demanded that a father observed at least three years funeral

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Speaker 1: right from a mother if he survived her. Up until

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Speaker 1: that point, you could pretty much move on with your life.

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Speaker 1: If your wife, who had mothered your children died suddenly,

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Speaker 1: at this point you had to stop and I guess

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Speaker 1: pay your respects for a few years exactly. So again

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Speaker 1: we're seeing not just one for the commoners, but one

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Speaker 1: for the women too. Women hadn't received this respect before

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Speaker 1: and now they had it, so putting her influence in

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Speaker 1: there a little bit for her gender, so she shows

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Speaker 1: the potential to affect some changes, but her authority is

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Speaker 1: briefly threatened in six A E. Three when Keltsung dies.

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Speaker 1: At that point, her first son is already dead and

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Speaker 1: just an asside to that. Wo is actually believed to

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Speaker 1: have poisoned him in six seventy five for supporting her enemy.

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Speaker 1: So she has the blood of two, not one kids

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Speaker 1: on her hands now. But then at that point, her

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Speaker 1: second son ascends to the throne as Emperor Chunsung. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she's hoping that the second son will be a

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Speaker 1: puppet king. She can control him and still rule as

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Speaker 1: she has for the past twenty three years, but he

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Speaker 1: shows signs of wanting to be his own emperor, so

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Speaker 1: she manages to have him ousted. You think he would

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Speaker 1: have learned from his older brother, and he's replaced by

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Speaker 1: her fourth son, jueets Song, who finally is the puppet

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Speaker 1: ruler who she's been hoping for. Um she's not in

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Speaker 1: the clear even then, though. Soon after tweets Sung takes

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Speaker 1: the throne, she has to put down a couple of revolts,

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Speaker 1: and those revolts were brought about by Tong loy lists.

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Speaker 1: But she manages to do that, and once that's done,

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Speaker 1: her authority and power are pretty much well established. People see, okay,

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Speaker 1: she has control of the army, she knows what she's doing,

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Speaker 1: and she's able to rule for the next few years

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Speaker 1: without really many major threats. Yeah, and so finally she

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Speaker 1: decides to ditch the whole puppet emperor charade entirely in

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Speaker 1: rule outright herself. So she serves the throne in six ninety.

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Speaker 1: She's sixty five years old at this point. No spring chicken, no,

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Speaker 1: and no one challenges her. That's what's amazing about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the first time a woman had ruled in her own

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Speaker 1: right in China's history, and no one steps up to

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Speaker 1: the plate to really challenge her. So it's interesting. Part

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Speaker 1: of that is no one was really alive at this

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Speaker 1: point to challenge her. She had eliminated anybody who would

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Speaker 1: pose a serious threat. Yes, clever. And she doesn't stop there,

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Speaker 1: she doesn't just take the throne, and she officially changes

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Speaker 1: the name of dynasty to Cho from Tong. And interesting

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Speaker 1: fact about that tweet, Sung the Imperial air was actually

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Speaker 1: given her surname Wu. So those of you who are

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Speaker 1: married women out there, you might find this especially interesting

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Speaker 1: because then at that point, apparently many other imperial princess

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Speaker 1: and princesses petition to do the same thing, to take

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Speaker 1: her surname because they were afraid of her basically, and

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Speaker 1: it was a good deal though, if you had that surname,

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Speaker 1: because everybody named Wu and the empire was exempted from taxation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'd take that. Sign me up. So kind of an

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Speaker 1: interesting juxtaposition of roles there. Um. But even though Empress

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Speaker 1: Wu had some pretty cutthroat methods of getting what she wanted,

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Speaker 1: she was still considered to be a pretty competent ruler. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: She really continued working on those twelve suggestions she had

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Speaker 1: started out with, and doing that definitely added security to

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Speaker 1: her position, you know, because it gets the support of

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Speaker 1: the common people. And some of the things she did

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Speaker 1: for agriculture, she ordered the construction of irrigation systems and

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Speaker 1: encouraged people to cultivate new farmland. She also had textbooks

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Speaker 1: on agriculture written and compiled and reduced taxes, so encouraging

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Speaker 1: growth there. She also made a difference in politics as well.

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Speaker 1: One of the most significant things she did there is

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Speaker 1: set up an examination system for selecting talented candidates to

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Speaker 1: fill political posts rather than just people who were from

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Speaker 1: the aristocracy. And this was this went for even the

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Speaker 1: highest offices, so that Chinese society moved from being more

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Speaker 1: of a political aristocracy to more of a scholarly bureaucracy,

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Speaker 1: and that system stuck around even after her role And

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Speaker 1: Delia you were telling me earlier, I think that part

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Speaker 1: of why she had to do that is she had

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Speaker 1: wiped out so many people she had to figure out

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Speaker 1: a way to fill this position. Yeah, I mean that

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Speaker 1: was part of it. She a lot of the people

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Speaker 1: who had been in those official posts were against her

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Speaker 1: because they were part of the Tongue dynasty and kind

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Speaker 1: of opposed her being in power in the first place.

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Speaker 1: And earlier in our story, as you may recall, she

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Speaker 1: got rid of the people who opposed her. So there

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Speaker 1: were some open positions in the empire at that point,

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Speaker 1: and she filled them in her own way, and in

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Speaker 1: a more fair way, actually we would consider more fair

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Speaker 1: exam essentially, um. And she also did a lot to

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Speaker 1: develop Buddhism and established it as the state religion, had

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Speaker 1: a lot of temples built, probably another thing that helped

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Speaker 1: win over the common people from what you and helped

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Speaker 1: the position of women a little bit, I think too.

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Speaker 1: So like many of our stories, we now come to

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Speaker 1: the dubious question of secession and Empress Wu's reign. As

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Speaker 1: we got older, the question of who would succeed her

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Speaker 1: became even more urgent because she started, as we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: at sixty five, so she wasn't getting any younger, and

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Speaker 1: since she had changed the name of the dynasty, her

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Speaker 1: Wu nephews now hoped that she'd displaced the Tongue heirs

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Speaker 1: of the Lee family and make one of them her air.

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Speaker 1: Even among people who liked Wou, though apparently popular opinion

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Speaker 1: was that the Tongue line should stay intact, no one

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Speaker 1: really wanted these wayward nephews to become heirs to the throne.

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Speaker 1: Stick with the tradition. In the end, Woo does decide

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Speaker 1: to go along with it, partly because the Woo nephews

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Speaker 1: aren't much to speak of. They don't seem particularly qualified

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Speaker 1: for the job. But instead of going with the heir

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Speaker 1: who had been emperor before her youngest son, Dui Chung,

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Speaker 1: she brings back the exiled son, Chung chung uh in

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Speaker 1: six eight nine and names him the Crown Prince. And

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Speaker 1: I wonder if maybe she was partly impressed by his

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Speaker 1: unwillingness to be ruled by her when he was emperor.

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Speaker 1: I wondered the same thing. I thought, maybe since she realized, okay,

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Speaker 1: she wouldn't be able to rule much longer, she wanted

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Speaker 1: someone with a mind of their own to take over.

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Speaker 1: But when she was finally forced to give up the

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Speaker 1: throne in seven oh five, the same year that she

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Speaker 1: died at a j D two, Chinsung became emperor and

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Speaker 1: restored the Tong dynasty, so no more child dynasty. And

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Speaker 1: you know, from a feminist point of view, this may

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Speaker 1: seem kind of like a questionable move on woos part

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Speaker 1: if you look at the members of her family who

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Speaker 1: were alive at that point, because she did have a

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Speaker 1: favorite daughter named Taiping who she could have passed the

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Speaker 1: throne too. But it seems that although we really wanted

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Speaker 1: to rule and attain power for herself, she really had

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Speaker 1: no interest in creating those same opportunities for other women

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Speaker 1: in her family or otherwise. Yeah, it was definitely all

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Speaker 1: about her. Was about her, and after her death, women

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Speaker 1: were pretty unsuccessful in attempting to follow in his footsteps.

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Speaker 1: Her daughter in law tried. She even tried to get

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Speaker 1: Chung Chung's daughter named as heir apparent, but didn't work

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Speaker 1: out no, which is kind of surprising. I think um,

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Speaker 1: but it went back to patriarchal secession and that was

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Speaker 1: the way it was for the rest of the dynasty

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Speaker 1: and throughout China's history. Interesting random fact though about Empress Wu.

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Speaker 1: She was buried with her husband after she died in

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Speaker 1: the shame Ling tomb, but according to her wishes, the

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Speaker 1: tombstone was left blank, and some think that maybe she

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Speaker 1: left it blank for it to be a symbol of

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Speaker 1: her absolute power which went beyond words. But others wonder

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Speaker 1: if she just wanted future generations to decide for themselves,

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Speaker 1: kind of like we're doing right now, how she should

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Speaker 1: have been evaluated or judged. So we're writing the words

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Speaker 1: on those two this very podcast. We are, and you

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Speaker 1: can too if you have your own opinions about whether

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Speaker 1: you think and pers Wu affected change, if you thought

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Speaker 1: that she was a feminist or not. We'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear what you think of her in her life, and

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Speaker 1: you can write us at our email, which is History

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Speaker 1: Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can

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Speaker 1: look us up on Facebook or on Twitter at Miston History. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if you want to learn a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about some of these feminist ideas behind Loose Reign, we

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Speaker 1: have an article called howth feminism Works. You can find

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Speaker 1: it by searching on the homepage at www dot how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

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Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. To

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Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon

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Speaker 1: in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works iPhone app has a rise. Download it today

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Speaker 1: on iTunes, m