Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (26 November 656 – 3 July 710), personal name Li Xian , and at other times Li Zhe or Wu Xian , was the fourth and seventh emperor of the Tang dynasty of China, ruling briefly in 684 and again from 705 to 710. During the first period, he did not have actual power, which was in the hands of his mother, Empress Wu Zetian and he was overthrown on her orders after opposing his mother. During his second reign, most of the power was in the hands of his consort Empress Wei .
121-581: Zhou , known in historiography as the Wu Zhou ( Chinese : 武周 ), was a short-lived Chinese imperial dynasty that existed between 690 and 705. The dynasty consisted of the reign of one empress regnant , Wu Zhao (Wu Zetian), who usurped the throne of her son, the Emperor Ruizong of Tang , in 690. The dynasty lasted until another one of Wu Zhao's sons, the Emperor Zhongzong of Tang ,
242-547: A family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with
363-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where
484-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and
605-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and
726-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese
847-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of
968-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of
1089-485: A concubine, Li Chongmao the Prince of Wen, was named emperor, with Empress Wei retaining power as empress dowager and regent. Less than a month later, Princess Taiping and Li Dan's son Li Longji the Prince of Linzi rose in rebellion and killed Empress Wei and Li Guo'er. Subsequently, Li Dan took the throne again, displacing Emperor Shang. Shortly thereafter, Emperor Zhongzong was buried in an imperial burial. As Empress Wei
1210-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only
1331-509: A daughter of his grandaunt the Princess Changle and her husband, the general Zhao Gui ( 趙瓌 ), as his wife and princess. Emperor Gaozong had often shown favors to Princess Changle, and this displeased Empress Wu. In 675, on account of this, she had Princess Zhao accused of crimes and put into solitary confinement at the bureau of eunuchs. She was given raw vegetables and raw meat for her to cook them herself. However, sometime later,
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#17327646403291452-638: A document called Commentary on the Meaning of the Prophecy about Shenhuang , which predicted a female Chakravartin who would rule the Jambudvipa as the reincarnation of Vimalaprabha. This document was presented to Wu Zetian two months before the proclamation of the Zhou Dynasty. Various other documents were also written such as The Great Spell of Unsullied Pure Light , also predicting the rise of
1573-453: A document predicting the reign of a woman of great merit who would become universal ruler In support of her imperial ambitions, Wu Zetian also proclaimed herself "Sage Mother", having statues of Laozi 's mother as "Sage Mother" placed in Daoist temples Wu Zetian became a very active supporter of Buddhism. Furthermore, she claimed to be an incarnation of Maitreya , writing a document called
1694-624: A dynasty. There were, however, other dynasties of a similar length, such as the Xin dynasty , or much shorter in length, such as the Shun dynasty . Wu Zetian's rule was long also seen as a period of great tyranny, though in more recent decades this seems to have lessened or reversed, as the appearance of Wu Zetian in countless Chinese works of fiction seems to depict her as a wise ruler. Nevertheless, historically (rather than according to novels) her reign began and continued with extensive violence, combined with
1815-817: A famine in the Guanzhong region (i.e., the region around the capital Chang'an ), Emperor Gaozong took up residence at the eastern capital Luoyang , leaving Li Zhe in charge of Chang'an, assisted by the chancellors Liu Rengui, Pei Yan , and Xue Yuanchao . it was said that while Li Zhe was in charge of Chang'an, he often spent his time on games and hunting, and Xue often advised him against spending time in this manner. When Emperor Gaozong heard this, he rewarded Xue and summoned Xue to Luoyang. In 683, Emperor Gaozong became ill at Luoyang, and he summoned Li Zhe to Luoyang, leaving Li Chongrun nominally in charge of Chang'an, assisted by Liu. After Li Zhe arrived at Luoyang, Emperor Gaozong transferred imperial powers to him (probably on
1936-520: A female monarch, of which Wu Zetian ordered 100,000 copies be printed and distributed. Traditionalist Chinese historiography considers the dynasty as a period of the Tang dynasty, as Wu was also the former empress consort of a Tang emperor and was buried in Qianling Mausoleum , a Tang royal mausoleum. Furthermore, Wu Zetian was the only emperor of Zhou China, which does not fit the concept of
2057-542: A head-start in accomplishing her aims, which she then consolidated as huangdi of Zhou once she became ruler in name also. Beginning in 655, Wu began to preside over court meetings in the name of the emperor, and she co-ruled with Emperor Gaozong until his death. After Gaozong's death, she ruled in name of her sons, who reigned officially as puppet emperors, and power was completely and solely in her hands. In 690, she deposed her son, Emperor Ruizong, and declared herself Huangdi (emperor) of her Zhou Dynasty. The dynasty's capital
2178-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as
2299-404: A post considered one for a chancellor. He also wanted to make the son of his wet nurse an official of the fifth rank. Pei Yan resisted both commissions, and Pei told him: "Although Wei Xuanzhen is your wife's father, he has been promoted too fast, and I'm afraid it will be difficult to convince the public.". As they argued, Emperor Zhongzong, in anger, remarked, "What would be wrong even if I gave
2420-468: A princely rank, was exiled to the provinces and placed under house arrest. Six years later, Emperor Ruizong relinquished the throne to his mother and Empress Dowager Wu officially proclaimed herself empress regnant , while Emperor Ruizong was made crown prince. By 698, the court was caught in the middle of a bitter power struggle. In an attempt to secure her prominence, Empress Wu liberated the former emperor from his 14 years of seclusion and recalled him to
2541-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate
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#17327646403292662-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin
2783-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c. 1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct
2904-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than
3025-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which
3146-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,
3267-446: Is no set pattern to bad and good fortune. Since we will all die one day anyway, why hasten death? At this point, they were deeply in love with each other, and at another point, he told her: If we will see the light of day again, I will not stop you from doing anything. While Li Zhe was in exile, people who rebelled against or plotted against Empress Dowager Wu often used him as a symbol of their resistance. For example, when Li Jingye
3388-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of
3509-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate
3630-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles
3751-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,
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3872-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because
3993-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for
4114-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it
4235-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while
4356-608: The Complete Tang Poems anthology of Tang poetry. Wu Zetian and her court left a remarkable legacy of poetry and literature from the end of Gaozu's reign and even more so during her Zhou dynasty period, during which the Zhuying ji poetry anthology was published, the poets of which were very influential to the subsequent flourishing of Tang poetry . Thus, though the Zhou dynasty failed to take root as an actual dynasty, it
4477-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system
4598-626: The Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in
4719-549: The Great Cloud Sutra , which prophesied that a female emperor would eradicate illness, worry and disaster from the world. She sought the support of the Buddhist clergy to this end. In 673 Wu provided 20,000 cash for a gigantic statue of Maitreya at Longmen Grottoes . Unlike her predecessor's dynasty, Wu Zetian selected people in her government based on their skills, and not on their status. The Buddhist clergy created
4840-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in
4961-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with
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5082-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and
5203-507: The Princess Anle , as heir to Emperor Zhongzong, thought that Li Chongmao, born of Zhongzong and a concubine and who was only 16 years old, would be easy to control and allow her to preserve her power. The scheme failed, however, when Princess Taiping , the sister of Emperor Zhongzong, launched a coup two weeks later with her nephew Li Longji (later Emperor Xuanzong ), son of the abdicated Emperor Ruizong, and overthrew Empress Wei and
5324-644: The Princess Anle . He was relatively similar to his father. Of course, Emperor Gaozong was able to make decisions, although he did it slowly in government affairs, but various debilitating diseases until his death became the main reason for handing over power to his wife Empress Wu. In contrast, Emperor Zhongzong likely had depression due to his long duration under house arrest; this encouraged him to hand over power to his wife and daughter. In 710, Emperor Zhongzong died, allegedly poisoned by Empress Wei, who then installed his son, Li Chongmao, as Emperor Shang . Empress Wei, who had failed to install her daughter Li Guo'er,
5445-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c. 1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded
5566-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at
5687-653: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Emperor Zhongzong of Tang Emperor Zhongzong
5808-495: The Central Palace (the residence of the empresses), he had Li Zhe briefly exercise imperial powers, also, the chancellors aligned with Empress Wu were also responsible for helping him. In 682, Li Zhe's second wife, Crown Princess Wei , gave birth to a son, Li Chongzhao . Emperor Gaozong was pleased, and he created Li Chongzhao the unprecedented title of "Deputy Crown Prince" (皇太孫, Huang Taisun ). Later that year, due to
5929-500: The Duke of Ying rose against Empress Dowager Wu later in 684, he declared that his goal was to restore Li Zhe. Other examples included Yang Chucheng ( 楊初成 ) in 687 and Li Yin ( 李諲 ) the Duke of Poyang (Emperor Gaozong's cousin) in 689. In 690, Empress Dowager Wu had Emperor Ruizong yield the throne to her, and she took the throne as "empress regnant" of a new Zhou Dynasty , interrupting Tang. She created Emperor Ruizong crown prince with
6050-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though
6171-461: The Pei mansion. However, in 674, a similar incident happened by Emperor Gaozong's own instigation—as, at an imperial feast, he divided the imperial musicians into two teams and had Li Xián and Li Xiǎn lead the two teams in competition—although he stopped when the chancellor Hao Chujun pointed out the potential for rivalry. Meanwhile, during the years that Li Xiǎn was the Prince of Zhou, he had married
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#17327646403296292-482: The Prince of Pei had the literarily-talented official Wang Bo on staff, the princes were apparently often engaged in cockfighting . Wang Bo wrote a playful piece entitled the Declaration Against the Prince of Zhou's Cock ( 檄周王雞文 ), which, however, when Emperor Gaozong read it, caused Emperor Gaozong to be angry, as he believed this would cause discord between his sons, and therefore expelled Wang from
6413-595: The Prince of Qiao (born of a concubine), falsely accused Li Chongfu of being complicit in Li Chongrun's death. Emperor Zhongzong demoted Li Chongfu out of the capital to serve as a prefectural prefect, under heavy guard. Emperor Zhongzong initially offered the crown prince position to Li Dan, but after Li Dan declined, created another son by a concubine, Li Chongjun , crown prince. The coup leaders, meanwhile, were trying to curb Wu Sansi's rise, but in turn, Wu Sansi and Empress Wei repeatedly warned Emperor Zhongzong that
6534-567: The Tang general Feng Jiabin ( 馮嘉賓 ), who had been sent to assist Zhongjie. Subsequently, after Emperor Zhongzong recognized Suoge's authority over the Turgesh tribes, hostility ceased, and Suoge again became a Tang vassal. In spring 710, Emperor Zhongzong sent Princess Jincheng, the daughter of his nephew Li Shouli the Prince of Yong (Li Xián's son), to the Tibetan Empire to be married to its emperor, Me Agtsom , cementing peace between
6655-505: The Tang. Nevertheless, some of Wu Zetian's achievements have left their mark on history, such as the emphasis in subsequent Chinese history on merit-based examinations, as well as extant monuments, including huge parts of Longmen Grottoes . Wu Zetian was personally an author and poet, with many surviving works, including sixty-one essays under her name recorded in the Quan Tangwen "Collected Tang Essays" and forty-six poems collected in
6776-598: The Turgesh ( 突騎施 ) chieftain Suoge ( 娑葛 ), who had just succeeded his father Wuzhile ( 烏質勒 ), was challenged by Wuzhile's subordinate Kül Čor (Quechuo 闕啜) Ashina Zhongjie ( 阿史那忠節 ), Zhongjie, who was unable to prevail over Suoge, bribed Zong and Ji to persuade Emperor Zhongzong to prepare a joint attack against the Turgesh with the Tibetan Empire, despite counsel by the general Guo Yuanzhen against it. When Suoge heard this, he launched an attack preemptively, attacking several key Tang garrisons, capturing Zhongjie, and killing
6897-460: The advice of Empress Wu), and soon died. Li Zhe took the throne (as Emperor Zhongzong), but actual powers were entire in the hands of Empress Wu, now empress dowager and regent . After the death of Emperor Gaozong, Emperor Zhongzong ascended the throne, leaving a will on his deathbed which stated: After 7 days, the Crown Prince will sit on the throne in front of my coffin. In the case of
7018-420: The basis of gender. The Wu Zhou dynasty had many achievements both in a broader historical sense as well as in contrast to the reigns of Emperors Zhongzong and Ruizong whose reigns bracketed hers, and in contrast to her weak and sickly husband Emperor Gaozong of Tang . Wu's reign resulted in a greater level of Chinese imperial power both externally and internally. This was accomplished along with diminishing
7139-610: The capital in April 698. He was reinstated as crown prince in October 698, taking his brother's place. On 20 February 705, a palace coup deposed Wu Zetian and Emperor Zhongzong was restored as emperor three days later. Emperor Zhongzong reigned for five years but was a totally weak, carefree, cowardly, shy, henpecked weakling and easily influenced ruler. Thus, real power was in the hands of his empress consort, Empress Wei and her lover Wu Sansi (Wu Zetian's nephew) and his daughter Li Guo'er,
7260-451: The commons, and funded religious activities. However, toward the end of her reign she lost popular support due to the influence of the two young Zhang brothers she took as lovers and the resulting corruption in government. When her court officials intervened, they killed the Zhang brothers, Wu Zetian abdicated the next day, and the so-called Zhou dynasty fizzled to an end with the restoration of
7381-461: The coup leaders acted on 20 February, killing Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong, and then surrounding Wu Zetian. She, in fear, asked, "Who is disturbing me?" Zhang Jianzhi responded, in a formalistic manner: Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong committed treason. Following the orders of the Crown Prince, we have executed them. Because we were afraid that the secret would be leaked, we did not dare to first report to Your Imperial Majesty. We are guilty of
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#17327646403297502-632: The coup leaders were overly powerful and dangerous. In fall 705, Emperor Zhongzong agreed, and created the coup leaders princes under guise of honoring them, but removed them from their chancellor positions. In winter 705, Wu Zetian died. Her "emperor" title was subsequently removed and empress title restored, and Emperor Zhongzong buried her at Qianling , with his father Emperor Gaozong. (Also buried there were Emperor Zhongzong's brother Li Xián, Li Chongrun, and Li Xianhui.) In spring 706, after Emperor Zhongzong's son-in-law Wang Tongjiao (王同皎, husband of Princess Ding'an), who despised Empress Wei and Wu Sansi,
7623-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which
7744-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of
7865-496: The emperor stops ! During the mourning period, Pei Yan proposed that the throne be temporarily entrusted to Empress Wu, who was now the empress dowager, until the new emperor's reign and their responsibilities began, as provided for in Emperor Gaozong's will. After the end of mourning, Empress Dowager Wu handed over the throne to Emperor Zhongzong, but she did not hand over the real power, "the great and small affairs of
7986-532: The empire to Wei Xuanzhen? Why would I begrudge the title of Shizhong ? Pei, in fear, informed Empress Dowager Wu, and she was angry to hear this and said, "This apostate boy treats the Tang Dynasty like a childish game, and it forces me to erase a disaster from the world." Just less than two months after Emperor Zhongzong had taken the throne, Empress Dowager Wu summoned the officials and generals and issued an edict deposing Emperor Zhongzong and reducing to
8107-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by
8228-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable
8349-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has
8470-505: The generals Li Sichong ( 李思沖 ), Li Chengkuang ( 李承況 ), Dugu Yizhi ( 獨孤禕之 ), and Shazha Zhongyi ( 沙吒忠義 ), along with Emperor Zhongzong's cousin Li Qianli ( 李千里 ) the Prince of Cheng and Li Qianli's son LI Xi ( 李禧 ) the Prince of Tianshui. They attacked Wu Sansi's mansion and killed Wu Sansi and Wu Chongxun, and then marched on to the palace, trying to seize Consort Shangguan, Empress Wei, and Li Guo'er. The rebels hesitated at attacking
8591-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although
8712-403: The great disrespect of moving troops within the palace, and should be executed 10,000 times. Wu Zetian subsequently tried to have Li Xiǎn returned to the palace of the Crown Prince, but the coup leaders ignored her. While the coup leaders allowed Wu Zetian to retain the title of "emperor," they had her put under house arrest at the secondary palace Shangyang Palace ( 上陽宮 ) and forced her to yield
8833-448: The kitchen stopped to have smoke and steam come out of it, and when Empress Wu had her confinement house opened, Princess Zhao was seen dead inside, having starved to death. Empress Wu also demoted Zhao Gui to be the prefect of Kuo Prefecture (括州, roughly modern Lishui , Zhejiang ) and ordered Princess Changle to accompany her husband to Kuo Prefecture, and further ordered that neither Zhao Gui nor Princess Changle would be allowed to enter
8954-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into
9075-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses
9196-427: The major affairs of state, and there were rumors that they were seeking to displace Li Xiǎn. The chancellors Zhang Jianzhi and Cui Xuanwei , along with other officials Jing Hui , Huan Yanfan , and Yuan Shuji plotted to overthrow her and the Zhang brothers. They persuaded the generals Li Duozuo and Li Dan (李湛, note different character than the Prince of Xiang) to join the plot. With agreement from Li Xiǎn as well,
9317-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including
9438-474: The most major, powerful and dominant figure at court, along with her daughter Li Guo'er, who now carried the title of Princess Anle and formed a faction that wielded strong control over the court and consolidated her power. The only mother-daughter rival for dominate the emperor's grace and power was the Emperor Zhongzong's sister, Princess Taiping , who also had great favor with Emperor Zhongzong and
9559-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with
9680-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in
9801-702: The nominal commander of the forces defending against a major Göktürk incursion on 26 October, it was said that as soon as he was named the commander, men swarmed to enlist. Before, less than 1000 men joined after more than a month of recruitment; the numbers swelled to more than 50000 after the announcement. In 699, fearing that after her death the Li and Wu clans would not be able to keep peace with each other, Wu Zetian had Li Xiǎn, Li Dan, Princess Taiping, and her husband Wu Youji (Wu Zetian's nephew) swear an oath to each other. In 701, Li Chongzhao (now named Li Chongrun to observe naming taboo for Wu Zetian (whose personal name
9922-453: The officials Ma Qinke ( 馬秦客 ) and Yang Jun ( 楊均 ). She wanted to be Empress Regnant like Wu Zetian, and Li Guo'er wanted to be crown princess—a request that Emperor Zhongzong had repeatedly rebuffed. According to traditional historians, they thus decided to have Emperor Zhongzong killed. They accomplished this by putting poison in a cake, and after Emperor Zhongzong ate the cake, he died on 3 July, 710. Initially, Emperor Zhongzong's son by
10043-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of
10164-431: The palace, and the imperial guards fought back. After the eunuch Yang Sixu ( 楊思勗 ) killed Li Duozuo's son-in-law Ye Huli ( 野呼利 ), and Emperor Zhongzong made a personal appeal to the coup forces, the coup forces turned against Li Chongjun, killing the generals commanding them. Li Chongjun fled but was killed in exile. Subsequently, the senior chancellor Wei Yuanzhong , whose son Wei Sheng ( 魏升 ) had been forced to join
10285-481: The palace. In 676, when the Tibetan Empire attacked Tang's western prefectures, Li Xiǎn and his younger brother Li Lun , the Prince of Xiang, were nominally put in charge of the two armies that were actually commanded by the generals Liu Shenli ( 劉審禮 ) and Qibi Heli ( 契苾何力 ), but neither Li Xiǎn nor Li Lun actually set out with the troops. In 677, Li Xiǎn had his title changed to Prince of Ying. His name
10406-529: The power of the old official class, drawn from the traditionally powerful clans, thus greatly changing the dynamics of power in China. Wu Zetian greatly enhanced the prestige and effectiveness of the civil service recruitment tests , filling government positions by skills demonstrated in written examinations, and opening them up to men of all classes. She followed this with popular promotions and increased salaries. Wu issued Acts of Grace and other decrees of relief for
10527-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,
10648-564: The rebellion, was exiled and killed in exile at the instigation of two chancellors aligned with Empress Wei and Li Guo'er, Zong Chuke and Ji Chuna . However, attempts by Empress Wei's party to implicate Li Dan and Princess Taiping were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the court was dominated by a number of powerful women, including Li Guo'er, Princess Changning (Emperor Zhongzong's and Empress Wei's older daughter), Empress Wei's sister Lady of Cheng, Consort Shangguan, Consort Shangguan's mother Lady Zheng of Pei, senior ladies in waiting Chai and Helou,
10769-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for
10890-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without
11011-429: The same. Wu Zetian finally agreed, and in 698 recalled Li Zhe and his family back to Luoyang, then the capital. Shortly thereafter, Li Dan offered to yield the crown prince position to Li Zhe, and Wu Zetian agreed, creating Li Zhe crown prince on 24 October, demoting Li Dan to the rank of Prince of Xiang. She also changed his name back to Li Xiǎn, and subsequently changed his surname to Wu. Subsequently, when she named him
11132-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by
11253-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language
11374-440: The sorceress Diwu Ying'er ( 第五英兒 ), and Lady Zhao of Longxi. These women were openly accepting bribes, and were able to recommend a number of people to be officials, directly commissioned by Emperor Zhongzong without approval from the legislative (中書省, Zhongshu Sheng ) and examination (門下省, Menxia Sheng ) bureaus. The civil service system was said to be overrun with corruption and running into near collapse. In winter 708, after
11495-570: The state depended on the Empress Dowager's decision, not the Emperor's". Emperor Zhongzong, in spring 684, made his wife, Crown Princess Wei, empress consort , and he was very impressed by Empress Wei, and she told him: "You are the Son of Heaven. Why do you have to listen to the Empress Dowager in everything? Do you want to be a puppet emperor?" Emperor Zhongzong felt that what the empress said
11616-421: The throne to Li Xiǎn, who was formerly emperor, and he was restored to the throne (as Emperor Zhongzong). Emperor Zhongzong once again ascended to the throne, which is different from the first time he was a puppet. This time he truly mastered the power and quickly used it handily. Once restored, Emperor Zhongzong initially put the five coup leaders in prominent positions. However, Empress Wei, once restored, became
11737-427: The title of Prince of Luling. As generals loyal to her physically removed Emperor Zhongzong from the throne, he struggled and asked, "What crime have I committed?" Empress Dowager Wu responded, "You wanted to give the empire to Wei Xuanzhen. How can that not be a crime?" She had him put under arrest, and she made Li Lun (now named Li Dan), Prince of Yu, the new emperor (as Emperor Ruizong) on 27 February. Li Chongzhao
11858-478: The tomb regime, austerity policies must be maintained, and the chancellors Pei Yan , Liu Rengui , Liu Jingxian , and Guo Zhengyi are in charge of assisting the emperor, every important issue should be discussed with the Empress of Heaven, and done by arbitration her. If there is something in the army and government that can't be decided quickly, then the decision is the responsibility of the Empress of Heaven, and
11979-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to
12100-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in
12221-598: The two states. Meanwhile, there had been accusations made by individuals such as Lang Ji ( 郎岌 ) and Yan Qinrong ( 燕欽融 ) that Empress Wei was committing adultery, and that her partisans, including Li Guo'er, her new husband Wu Yanxiu (武延秀, a grandnephew of Wu Zetian), and Zong Chuke, were planning to overthrow the Tang dynasty. Emperor Zhongzong ordered Lang executed, but became displeased when Zong had Yan killed without Emperor Zhongzong having decided to do so. This caused Empress Wei and her partisans to begin to become apprehensive. Empress Wei was, meanwhile, having affairs with
12342-544: The unusual title Huangsi ( 皇嗣 ), and initially, Li Zhe's status was not changed. In 697, during a major Khitan incursion, led by the khan Sun Wanrong , Sun issued a declaration questioning why Wu Zetian was keeping Li Zhe in exile. Thereafter, the chancellor Di Renjie often counseled Wu Zetian to recall Li Zhe, which fellow chancellors Wang Fangqing and Wang Jishan also agreed with. Further, Wu Zetian's close associate Ji Xu also advocated it and further persuaded her lovers Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong to advocate
12463-443: The use of secret police and a network of informers. The debate about Wu's use of violence and coercion is more as to how some of it may have been exaggerated and how much of it was necessary for her own survival, particularly given the animosity of the clans of old nobility of the northern China plain that adamantly opposed her, together with a social and political system which found a woman of her accomplishments to be anathema solely on
12584-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese
12705-820: The way to exile, Princess Wei gave birth to a daughter. There was nothing to wrap the baby with, so Li Zhe took off his own shirt and wrapped the baby in it. To commemorate this, the daughter was subsequently named Li Guo'er (Guo'er meaning "the child that was wrapped"). Li Zhe and Princess Wei both greatly favored this child born in distress. Li Zhe was constantly in fear in exile, as Empress Dowager Wu had previously shown willingness to kill her own children—having forced Li Xián to commit suicide in 684 and having been rumored to have poisoned another son, Li Hong , in 675—and whenever there would be imperial messengers arriving from then-capital Luoyang , he would consider committing suicide, fearing that they brought orders for even worse fates. Princess Wei would repeatedly tell him: There
12826-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until
12947-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with
13068-515: The young emperor. Emperor Ruizong, the father of Li Longji and the older brother of Princess Taiping, was restored as emperor. Li Xiǎn was born in 656, as the seventh son of his father Emperor Gaozong and the third son of his mother, Emperor Gaozong's second wife Empress Wu (later known as Wu Zetian). In 657, he was created the Prince of Zhou and nominally made the prefect of the eastern capital prefecture Luo Prefecture (洛州, roughly modern Luoyang , Henan ). In 661, when his older brother Li Xián
13189-411: Was Shendu (神都 "Divine Capital", present-day Luoyang ). Despite Wu's infamous rise to power, there is evidence that suggests women were granted more privileges during her reign, and China was in a state of great prosperity during her rule. The dynasty's state religions were Buddhism and Daoism , both of which Wu Zetian exploited for self-promoting propaganda. The monk Xue Huaiyi claimed to have found
13310-572: Was Wu Zhao) and now carrying the title of Prince of Shao), Li Zhe's daughter Li Xianhui the Princess Yongtai, and Li Xianhui's husband Wu Yanji ( 武延基 ) the Prince of Wei (Wu Zetian's grandnephew), were accused of secretly disparaging Wu Zetian's relationships with Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong. In anger, Wu Zetian ordered the three of them to commit suicide. In spring 705, Wu Zetian was seriously ill, and Zhang Yizhi and Zhang Changzong were attending to her and, at her direction, handling
13431-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,
13552-626: Was accused of plotting to kill Wu Sansi and depose Empress Wei, Wang and his alleged coconspirators were executed, and subsequently, Wu Sansi and his associates accused Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan, Zhang Jianzhi, Yuan Shuji, and Cui Xuanwei of being complicit in Wang's plot. The five princes were exiled and subsequently died or were killed in exile. In 707, Li Chongjun, angry that Li Guo'er and her husband Wu Chongxun (武崇訓, Wu Sansi's son) had repeatedly humiliated him and tried to get Li Guo'er created crown princess to displace him, rose in rebellion with Li Duozuo and
13673-447: Was also changed to Li Zhe. He was also made the prefect of the capital prefecture Yong Prefecture (雍州, roughly modern Xi'an , Shaanxi ). By 680, Li Xián, who was then crown prince , had lost Empress Wu's favor. After she suspected him of having had her trusted sorcerer Ming Chongyan ( 明崇儼 ) assassinated, she had him investigated for treason, and subsequently, he was found guilty. He was reduced to commoner rank and exiled, and Li Zhe
13794-533: Was created crown prince to replace him. Hao Chujun and another chancellor, Liu Rengui , were made his senior advisors. Emperor Gaozong also recruited the famed hermit scholar Tian Youyan ( 田遊巖 ) to serve as an advisor, although Tian would later draw criticism from others for not having any actual good advice for the crown prince. In 681, after Emperor Gaozong had become ill after consuming pills made by alchemists , Empress Wu rarely allowed anyone to meet with Emperor Gaozong, and all important matters were resolved in
13915-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half
14036-528: Was one of the more important eras in Chinese history, and of influence on modern global culture. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing') is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of
14157-538: Was one of the most powerful women in the court. Also powerful was Wu Zetian's secretary Shangguan Wan'er , whom Emperor Zhongzong took as a concubine , who was also having an affair with Wu Zetian's nephew Wu Sansi the Prince of Liang. Under her introduction, Empress Wei and Wu Sansi also soon started having an affair. With Consort Shangguan's and Empress Wei's influence, Wu Sansi became a powerful and trusted advisor to Emperor Zhongzong. Meanwhile, Empress Wei, disliking Emperor Zhongzong's oldest surviving son Li Chongfu
14278-423: Was reasonable, but there was nothing he could do about it, Empress Wei went on to say: "For now, only by vigorously promoting your own people and cultivating your own power can you compete with the Empress Dowager and formally her government." He was impressed by her words, and wanted to make his father-in-law, Wei Xuanzhen ( 韋玄貞 ) Shizhong ( Chinese : 侍中 ) – the head of the examination bureau of government and
14399-399: Was reduced to commoner rank. Empress Dowager Wu soon ordered that Li Zhe and his family first be delivered to Fang Prefecture (房州, in modern Shiyan , Hubei ), and then Jun Prefecture (均州, also in modern Shiyan), to be held under house arrest at the house that his uncle Li Tai had been placed after Li Tai was deposed in 643. (Subsequently, in 685, he was moved back to Fang Prefecture.) On
14520-610: Was restored to the throne in the Shenlong Coup in 705, marking the restoration of the Tang dynasty . Historians generally regard the Wu Zhou as an interregnum of the Tang dynasty. Wu named her dynasty after the ancient Zhou dynasty , from whom she believed herself to be descended. Before her coronation, Wu Zhao (as she was then known), was often acting as de facto regent for her husband, Emperor Gaozong, or her sons, giving her
14641-553: Was the son of Emperor Gaozong of Tang and Empress Wu (later known as Wu Zetian ), and during the reign of his father, Emperor Zhongzong's mother Empress Wu, not Emperor Gaozong, was in actual control of power as empress consort and power behind the emperor. He succeeded his father in 684, But as emperor, he had no true power, and all authority remained in the firm hands of his mother, Empress Dowager Wu. His mother, however, deposed him less than two months later in favor of his younger brother Emperor Ruizong . The former emperor, demoted to
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