Friday, February 02, 2007

China's First and Last Madam Emperor

China's First and Last Madam Emperor


Wu Hou is the only Chinese Empress who rose to an imperial throne several years after the death of her husband, an Emperor. In other words, she is the only Madam Emperor in Chinese history, though debatable for some.

("Wu" means force of arms; "Hou" means a queen or an empress.)

She reigned from A.D. 690 to 705 in the Tang dynasty.
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There are many reports on cruelty conducted under her reign. But, Chinese imperial history had been and was full of atrocities. She was not the worst Emperor at all.

On the contrary, she was nice to Japan. As she was so nice to Japan, it looks as though God set a lady at the Chinese throne when Japan was in its testing time.

In 663, Japan and China made their first full-scale war in the history on the Korean Peninsula for hegemony over a certain country therein. And Japan was defeated. Since then, for decades, Japan faced various serious situations, though Tang military did not advance to occupy Japan.

(In those days, the samurai class was not yet established in Japan.)

Even during this war, Wo Hou was actually in charge of Tang's politics, because her husband was ill.
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It is during her reign and de facto reign in Tang that Japan changed its name from "Wa" to "Nippon" (Japan) and its chief's title from "Dai-ou" (great king) to "Ten-nou" (emperor), in order to gain more respect both domestically and internationally and thus recover from the lost war against Tang, while keeping complete independence from Tang.

As the only super-power in East Asia then, China could have rejected official recognition of such changes in the name of the country and its leader's title. However, the changes were remarkably smoothly accepted.

Unless China's Emperor was a lady who was especially pleased with sophiscated envoys sent off by the Imperial (Yamato) Court of Japan in 702, things might have gone wrong for Japan.

But, the fact is that China had at that age a Madam Emperor as the first and the last case in its long history.
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For this reason based on the historic experience, Japan is not against a lady taking up any high position in the world politics.

I am not against you even trying to be a queen in a certain country, neither (, if you are not yet).



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