Tang Stwijn 23-24 (2005-06)

Beyond Filial Piety:

Biographhs of Exnnpl4ry WOmm and
Wu Zhao's New Paradigm of Political Authority

NORMAN HARRY ROTHSCHILD

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA

Wu Zhao Ji:\~1 (r. 690-705), the only female Emperor in

Chinese history, redefined filial piety. Shortly after her mother's
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death in 670, she proposed a measure that set the mourning period
for the mother at three years--even if the father were still alive-
effectively making the demands of filial piety equally applicable for
both parents. The memorial, proposed during the Shangyuan L Jt
reign era (20 September 674 to 18 December 676), was approved
of and implemented by her husband, Emperor Gaozong (r. 649-
683).2 Later, when Wu Zhao was Grand Dowager, the measure was

I would like to thank Suzanne Cahill and the two anonymous Tang StuJits
readers for providing extremely perceptive, helpful, and constructive criticisms.

1 While in most secondary scholarship she is known as Wu utian J1t ~IJ ~ or

Empress Wu Jitl§, throughout this paper I use the self-styled designation Wu

tongjian llmim.
and Xin Tang shu if'-.
Zhao that she assumed in 689. For her assumption of the name Zhao, see Zjzhi
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1995; hereafter ZZTj), 204.6263,
(hereafter XTS), 76.3481; all references to the twenty-
four dynastic histories are to the Beijing Zhonghua shuju edition.

2 Dong Hao .f5 et al., comps., Quan Tang wm ~~~ (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1996; hereafter QTW), 97.1000, contains the "Qing fu zai wei mu zhong
sannian fu biao" gJX::(£~flJ:~ '=:1f.ij~~; Wang Pu .3:~, ed., Tang huiyao
~fJ~ (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 37.675-76. XTS (76.3480) gives a
general date of the Shangyuan era for the proposals. In the ZZTj (202.6374),
these twelve proposals were made on the ""yin 3:
Ji day of the twelfth lunar
month of Shangyuan (28 January 675). Among others, Chen Jo-shui discusses
this measure and its subsequent development in detail in "Empress Wu and
Proto-Feminist Sentiments in T'ang China," in Frederick ~ Brandauer and
Chun-chieh Huang, eels., Imptrial Rulership and Cultural Changt in Traditional
China (Seatde: University of Washington Press, 1994, 77-116). After Wu Zhao's
death, the old mourning rule was temporarily restored in 719, but in the Grtat
Tang Kaiyuan Ritulll CotU of 732, Xuanzong reconfirmed it, and the measure

149
 Rothschild: &,0"" Fililll Piny

formally codified in her Chuigong g~ ~mt3(Regulations of the

Ch uigong Era). j
Naturally, this measure served to elevate the role of the mother
as the recipient and object of filial devotion of sons. Given her
venerable stature at this juncture as Empress and matriarch of the
imperial clan, Wu Zhao benefited greatly from the new ceremonial
regulation. On the surface an act of filial respect, of ritual humility
before her deceased parent, this measure served in reality to exalt
her own status both within family and state. Beginning with her
proposal of this article in the mid-670s as Wu Zhao rose in political
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eminence and moved toward the establishment of her own dynasty,

she consistently sought to extend the breadth of her "motherhood"
from her flesh-and-blood children to a far wider network of
"political sons" empire-wide.
Filial piety was a complex concept with many permutations.
An individual might be a subject offering filial attention to parents,
ancestors, and parents-in-law or the object of filial devotion
proffered by younger generations. This essay will focus not upon
Wu Zhao in her capacity as a giver of filial piety-though, when
necessary, she played that role well-but as a receiver, as the object
of filial devotion. A clever politician, she grasped the profound
normative importance of filial piety: she situated herself as a
champion of Confucian values, as a dutiful wife, a filial daughter
and daughter-in-law, and a mother deeply concerned with the
education of her children. That her new definition of filial piety
might be propagated and bear fruit, as her husband Gaozong's 00-
regent, as Grand Dowager, and ultimately as ruler, Wu Zhao often
instructed others on how to be filial-not just her own children.

stood throughout the history of imperial China (86-87). Formerly, following

the Yili and Li ji, the mourning period for the mother was only one year when
the father was still alive. Keith Knapp, in &lfkss Offipring: FiJUd Chiltbm anJ
Social Ortkr in Early MtdinJal ChiNl (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press,
2005), notes that three-year mourning rites for parents, though mentioned in
earlier ritual manuals like the Yili and Li ji, only came into widespread practice
during the Eastern Han and they were not fully sanctioned until the Western
Jin (ISS, 157).

3 Chen, "Empress Wu and Proto-Feminist Sentiments in T'ang China," 86.

150
 Tizng StJuJin 23-24 (200S-06)

In Tangd4i funu di~i yan}iu ~f~~~tt!! fiL UJf~, contem-

porary scholar Duan Tali ~t~1I observes that in the early Tang
widows and mothers enjoyed a particularly high status. Duan
notes that despite the injunction contained in the Confucian
Three Obediences (sancong .=.. f:£) that a mother submit to her sons
after the death of her husband, in reality, assuming a Tang widow's
parents-in-law were deceased, she "exercised tremendous authority
within the family, not only as the true head of household but also
as heir to their husband's prestige and social status." A widow was
responsible for managing the family estate and keeping it intact.'~
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As widow (after Gaozong's death in 683), mother, and regent, Wu

Zhao was perfectly situated to command the filial devotion and
loyalty of blood sons and "political sons"-that is, ministers-
alike.
Within the Confucian system, texts like the Li~nu zhuan
~!J ftfl'J (Biographies of Exemplary Women), a Han dynasty
work composed by Liu Xiang ilJ rtu, continued, in the words of
Josephine Chiu-Duke, "to shape the Tang perception of maternal
responsibility." Such works represented women~specially
mothers-in a constructive light as "a crucial positive force of society
in general and of the state in particular."s Chiu- Duke furthermore
remarks the repeated appearances of celebrated paragons of
motherhood, such as the mother of Mencius and Jing Jiang tb
~ on Tang epitaphs, representing the continuity of an established
vision of motherhood. According to the inscriptions, following the
model of these paragons, and like these wise instructresses of the
past well versed in the art of governance, Tang mothers imparted
moral guidance to their sons serving as officials. Inheriting the
tradition of wise and upright motherhood touted in Biographies of
Exemplary ~men, these Tang mothers set public service and duty

4Duan Tali, Tangd4ifunu diwei yanjiu (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2000),

57-58.
5 Josephine Chiu-Duke, "Mothers and the Well-being of State in Tang China,"

Nan Nu: WOmmand GenJn- in China 8 (2006): 59.

151
 Rolhschild: lkyoNJ f,Ji4J 1"'1]

as a greater good than private, familial intercst.6 This image of the

public-minded mother who placed loyalty to state above family,
reflecting deep-seated Confucian values that still held a strong
contemporary resonance, contained great political currency for Wu
Zhao as ruler. She strategically affiliated herself with these same
paragons of motherhood.
Among the paradigms of Confucian propriety and chastity
catalogued in the Bjographj~sof Exmlpl4ry Women, there are many
categories of filial women: filial daughters, filial daughters-in-law,
filial widows, and filial avengers to name a few. Such women were
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recognized and celebrated for their acts of filial devotion. Lisa

Raphals, for example, has identified ten sub-categories of learned
instructresses, including "mothers who instruct their children" and
"mothers who instruct grown sons on their conduct as officials."7
Rather than offering filial devotion to men, these sagacious mothers
had, by virtue of the edification and guidance they had provided
their offspring, earned and duly received filial piety from their sons.
Cultivated and morally improved through their mother's teachings,
these sons owed a deep debt of filial gratitude. Not surprisingly,
it was these women with whom Wu Zhao most closely identified
herself. By affiliating herself with this lineage of wise instructresses
possessing profound knowledge of the political sphere, Wu Zhao
consciously situated herself as a motherly sage-an object of filial
devotion and piety.
The idea presented in this essay ofWu Zhao as an exemplary
and perspicacious mother of state-the object of due filial devotion
commanding the respect and homage of a multitudinous brood of
political children-is not novel. In "Chen Gui and other Works
Attributed to Wu Zetian," Denis Twitchett argues that Chen pi ~

6 Ibid.

7Lisa Raphals, Sharing th~ Light: Rrpmmtlltions ofWomm ana ~rtw in FArly
China (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988), 54-55. Cf. Jennifer Holmgren, "Women's
Biographies in the wt-i shu: A Study of Moral Attitudes and Social Background
Found in Women's Biographies in the Dynastic History of the Northern Wei"
(PhD diss., Australia National University, 1979), 178-202.

152
 Tilnt StwJin 23-24 (200S-{)6)

fJL (Regulations for Ministers), a political treatise credited to Wu

Zhao, reinforces the ruler-minister relationship "on a very personal
level by stressing the amalgamation of the concept of'loyalty' toward
ruler with that of filial piety within family."8In addition, he remarks
that in the Preface of this manual Wu Zhao "stresses the part played
by family feelings in the structure of authority by presenting herself
in the role of 'ever-watchful' mother of her ministers."9 Twitchett,
however, is concerned with the larger structure and context of
Regulations for Ministers and does not explore specific examples of
this amalgamation between loyalty and filial piety in the text not
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their implications.
Identifying the text as a key work among the thirty texts
attributed to or composed by Wu Zhao, Twitchett sees Regulations
for Ministers as "part of a program of normative political texts,"
that is to say "prescriptive texts providing models of appropriate
conduct for various groups in Tang society."lo Li Hexian
fiij7t has analyzed the context of Regulations for Ministers and
*
commented brieRy upon each of the ten fascicles that comprises
the two chapters. He has remarked that the text provided an ideal

8 Denis Twitchett, "Chm Gui and Other Works Attributed to Wu utian," Asia
Major 16 (2003): 73. For the original text, see Chm gui, compiled by Wu utian,
in Zhongijngji qita wuzhong 1'i!;'.t.~&Jtftl!1ift,Congshu jichmg chubian W.
~PXf)]tii 0893 (Taibei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936). The preface to the Chm
gui can be found inQTW: 97.1004-5. In Rrgulations for Ministn'S, Confucian,
Legalist and Daoist traditions were molded into forms more amenable to Wu
Zhao's assumption of power. Drawing on no fewer than thirty-five diverse texts
and commentaries from Confucian, Daoist, Legalist and military traditions, the
text was woven together into an eclectic model of top-heavy political power.
Twitchett remarks that it would be futile to speculate upon actual authorship
of the Chm gui. The date of the Chm gui, like its authorship, is controversial
(53); 685 is most likely. On the contents of the Chm gui, its authorship and
its elevation to a compulsory examination text in 693, see also Rothschild,
"Rhetoric, Ritual and Support Constituencies in the Political Authority ofWu
Zhao, Woman Emperor of China" (PhD diss., Brown University, 2003), chapter
5 and Appendix Three.

9 Twitchett, "Chm Cui and Other Works," 75.

10 Ibid., 55-56.

153
 Rothschild: &yonJ FiJiJJ Piny

blueprint for the ethical code of a minister, cl'Clting the image of

a perfect organic machine in which each cog knows and capably
performs its role. This mutual interdependence, this coordinated
effort and unswerving loyalty, is necessary to administer a vast
empire with multitudinous tasks. I I
Among these normative texts were a massive, one-hundred
chapter edition of Biographits of ExnnplAry m,mm
and a separate
Xiaonu zhuan ~!J:fW (Biographies of Filial Daughters, in 20
chapters). 12 Curiously, Biographits of ExtmplAry Womm and
Regulations for Minist~ne a guide to dutiful, chaste, and
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filial behavior for women; the other a political treatise to create a

culture of total loyalty for coun ministers-appear to have been
closely linked. Twitchett argues that amidst a maelstrom of crises-
Gaozong's waning health and death in 683, border incursions,
droughts and famines, severe economic problems, and tense
succession issues, including the deaths of two heirs apparent in 675
and 680-Regulations for Ministm was pan of an ambitious effon
by the Scholars of the North Gate (Beimen xueshi :Jtr~¥±),
an extra-bureaucratic group of literary masters, to help Wu Zhao
buttress her precarious political position.13 During the Shangyuan

11 Li Hexian, "Cong Chm~i kan Wu utian de jun-chcn lunli sixiang" ~li!ttL

fi:lftQIJ~B"Jt!~ fJfU~/f!I,~, HUIlZhong shifan t14xw xwbllO .q:.Miffi*¥.
fi 5 (1986): 5~2.
12 XTS, 58.1487. In Jiu Tang shu (46.2006; hereafter fTSJ, there is a record
of Biographies of Exnnpl4ry m,mt'n compiled by Great Sage Celestial Empress
(46.2006) as well as a shorter, twenty-chapter Biographin of Exnnp14ry ~mm
attributed to Wu Zhao (6.133), which may, as Twitchen suggests, be the result
of confusion ("Chm Gui and Other Works," 37). Knapp lists Wu Zhao's twenty-
chapter Biographit'S of FiluJ Daughtn-s in a table of medieval accounts of filial
offspring (&lflm Ojfipring, 63). Unfortunately, neither her Biographin of
ExnnplAry ~mm nor Biographies of Filial Daughtn-s survive.
13 For a catalogue of these crises, sec Twitchett, fAChm Gui and Other Works,"

57--62. The Scholars of the North Gate entered through the Nonh Gate and
compiled these texts in the inner palace. Wu Zhao often consulted them on
matters of state, circumventing the outer court. For more on the role of this
group in literary compilations under Wu Zhao, see Twitchcn , Chm Gui and
fA

Other Works,"44-46.

154
 Tang ShuJin 23-24 (200s-06)

era, Liu Yizhi iJ~z., one of the Scholars of the North Gate, was
involved in the "joint compilation" of the two texts. I" Wu Zhao's
biography in the Xin Tang shu's "Biographies of Empresses and
Consorts" also mentions the texts together:

In the Emperor's [Gaozong's] later years, his illness grew

increasingly severe and his humors were out of kilter, so
that all of the affairs of the empire were determined by
the Empress. The Empress thereupon, in order to foster
greater peace and civility in governance, gathered a large
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group of Confucian scholars into the Inner Palace who

compiled and edited Biographits of Exemplary Womtn,
Regulations for Ministers, New Instructions for tht Hundrtd
Offices, the Book of Music, etc., overall more than a
thousand chapters. 15

In this account and two others that appear in the official Tang
histories, &gulations for Ministers immediately follows Biographits
of Exemplary W0men. Thus, the two texts were linked by shared
authorship, compiled by Liu Yizhi and the other Scholars of the
Northern Gate in tandem with Wu Zhao.
In the opening of the Preface to Regulationsfor Ministers, Wu
Zhao cast herself in a motherly light, declaring her "determination
to rear and nurture without partiality, children and ministers
alike."16 Thus, from the very beginning of this brief two-chapter
political manifesto, Wu Zhao sought to extend the reach of her
maternal aegis beyond her own children to the ministers of her
court. The Preface continues, "The compassion and love of a mother
for her sons runs especially deep. Though the son may already

14 fTS, 87.2846.
IS XTS, 76.3476. The same sequence of texts appears in the biography of Yuan

Wanqing in XTS, 201.5744, andfTS, 190.5011.

16 Chen gui, 1. This translation is from Twitchett, "Chen Cui and Other
Works," 75.

155
 Roduchild: &,0"" FiJill/ Piny

have accumulated loyalty and goodness. still the mother wishes to

pass down her exhonation and encouragement."17 This text was
designed not for her Resh-and-blood sons. but for ministers. Wu
Zhao's broad vision of motherhood. her avowed concern for the
character, improvement. and well-being of her sons. extended to
her children in court and country.
To further emphasize this expansive and political maternity
in Rrguilltionsfor Ministn'S. Wu Zhao related. in abbreviated form.
several famous episodes from the opening chapter of Biographin of
Exmtpillry Womm that featured many of the "learned instructresses."
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celebrated models of "Maternal Rectitude" (muyi ail). The first

account is the story of Lady ji of Lu e~.
jing Jiang. a woman of
the Spring and Autumn era who instructed her son Wenbo )( 18
on the finer points of statecraft. When Wenbo was a young man.
his mother ji of Lu expounded on the humility and sagacity-
the willingness to receive remonstrance and the meticulous self-
perfection-of such Zhou paragons as King Wu and the Duke of
Zhou. This mother nonpareil also employed an extended metaphor
to explicate to Wenbo the nature of good governance: different
parts of the 100m corresponded with different interdependent
administrative offices. 18
Wu Zhao prefaced the excerpt on Lady ji of Lu with the
remark, "In the past Wenbo was already accomplished, yet he
added the metaphor of the axle." Subsequently, her abbreviated
version of the weaving metaphor that Lady ji of Lu impaned to
Wenbo reads as follows:

When Wenbo was minister of Lu, Jing Jiang Ui of Lu]

said to him: "I will tell you the essentials of administering

17 Chen gui, 2. This and subsequent translations from the Chm pi, unless
otherwise indicated, are my own.

18 Raphals, Sharing the Light, 30-33; and Albert R. O'Hara, 1JH Position
of WOman in Early ChiNl IUcording to the Lieh nu chuan, -1he BiographiD of
Eminmt Chinese WOmm" (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America
Press, 1945; rpt. Taipei: Mei Va, 1971),30-37. Both sources contain tranSlations
of this account of Lady Ji ofLu.

156
 Ta"g StwJin 23-24 (200S-{)6)

the state-it is entirely in the warp. Wearing the robes of

the ruler is a heavy responsibility. In traveling the long
road, he who is upright, genuine and firm is the axle.
The axle can be called "the minister." Upon receiving her
instruction, Wenbo bowed repeatedly.19

In the original text of Biographi~s of Exmzpl4ry Womm, the selvedge,

the hem of a garment, must be strong, for as it forms the border
when one weaves, it is critical for keeping the pattern straight
and even. The "selvedge" is a metaphor for the general (Jiang ~).
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Strategically, in Wu Zhao's abbreviated version, homophone "ruler"

(fu :1c) replaces selvedge lfu 11Ji). In the original Biographi~s of
Exempl4ry WOmm, the ruler is not explicitly present. In Wu Zhao's
abridged version, the central point of emphasis is the importance
of the ruler finding capable ministers of high character.
The central figure in the second anecdote from the Biographi~s
of Exempl4ry WOmm that appears in the preface to &gul4tions for
Minist~ is the renowned mother of the Confucian sage Mencius. A
brief comment precedes the excerpt: "Meng Ke [Le., Mencius] was
already a worthy man, but through the instruction of cutting the
weaving from the loom, he was further improved."20 Immediately
following this comment, a shortened version of the story of Mother
Meng from Biographi~s of Exempl4ry WOmm is recorded:

Once when Mencius was young, he had just returned

home from studying. Mother Meng was weaving. She
asked how far his studies had progressed. Mencius
answered, "About the same as before." Mother Meng
then took a knife and cut her weaving. Terrified, Mencius
asked the reason. Thereafter, morning and night, without

19 Chm gui, 2. The text preserved in Q1W contains the commentaries on the I

passages from Biographi~s of Exnnp/ary WOmm (97.1004); it does not, however,

include explicit mention of or citation from the texts as does the Sibu congkan
version.

20 Chm gui, 2.

157
 Roduchild: &,0"" Fi/U' Piny

cease, Mencius studied assiduously. He served his reacher

Zi Si and became a famous Confucian scholar known
empirc:-wide.~1

In Mother Meng's sage instruction to her son, omitted in this

abbreviated version, her severance of her weaving from the loom
was analogous to Mencius' casual, neglectful approach to study. She
admonished him that such a haphazard approach to study would
be calamitous and inevitably reduce him to becoming a thief or
lackey. Alternatively, diligent application to his study might allow
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him to cultivate virtue and become a junzi, a true gcndeman.22

Officials who read &gultztions for Ministns were entirely familiar
with the episodes from Biographi~s of Exnnpltzry WOmm and did
not need the whole story recounted.
There are two other figures from the original Biographi~s
of Exnnpillry Womm who appear in Wu Zhao's Rrguilltions for
Minist~ the mother of Zi Fa T R and the mother of General
Gua of Zhao tlHI~f5-BJ. Both appear in the penultimate fascicle
of the latter chapter, "Good Generals." In the opening chapter of
Biographies of Ex"'lpltzry Womm, featuring models of "Maternal
Rectitude," the mother of Chu general Zi Fa is situated between
the two aforementioned paragons, Lady Ji of Lu and the mother
of Mencius. Because Zi Fa did not share rewards and spoils with
his rank-and-file troops, his mother refused to open the gate of
the family steading to allow him entry. Zi Fa's mother impaned to
her self-absorbed son the importance of "sharing in sweetness and
bitterness alike" with his men.
Following the account of Zi Fa's mother in "Good Generals"
is a detailed story of the mother of General Gua of Zhao. In
Biographies of Exemplary Womm, she is featured in "Biographies
of the Benevolent and Wise." The mother of General Gua of Zhao

21 Ibid.

22For translations of the original Biographin of Exnnpl4ry ~mm account of

Mencius' mother, see O'Hara, Position of~man in Etzrly Chi1l4, 39-42, and
Raphals, Sharing tht Light, 33-35.

158
 Tilnt StruJin 23-24 (200s-06)

remonstrated with the king, arguing that her son, who did not share
gold and silks with his men, was unfit to lead the troops of Zhao
and would be unable to inspire his men on the field of battle. Not
heeding her pleas, the King of Zhao still appointed Gua general.
As the prescient mother had anticipated, the army led by the selfish
son was utterly routed by Qin. As Gua's mother had forewarned
him of this result, the ruler did not sentence the Zhao family to
clan extermination (zhu ti*). Wu Zhao placed these two accounts
in &gulations for Ministnos to valorize among her officials, whether
civil or military, a public-minded spirit (gong 0) of serving the
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state and to disparage self-serving behavior that benefited private,

familial interests.
To understand Wu Zhao's intent in her inclusion of these
episodes from Biographi~s of Exmzplary \%mm, it is important to
assess the contemporary political circumstance. The decade that
Wu Zhao worked in tandem with the Scholars of the North Gate
on &gulations for Ministers, Biographies of Exmzplary \%men, and
other such "normative texts" was a critical juncture in her political
career. In the inner palace and court, Gaozong's longstanding
illness worsened and he was dying, prompting growing tensions
about succession. She had many powerful opponents in court.
Domestically, the country endured a series of grim catastrophes in
the late 670s and early 680s. In 679, coupled with an empire-wide
cattle pestilence, there was a famine in Guanzhong.23 In 681, there
were local reports of earthquakes, floods, and droughts. During
the Yongchun era (22 September 682 to 27 December 683), a
horde of rapacious rabbits devoured the seedlings and disappeared
into thin air in Lanzhou JMl1i'l and Shengzhou 001H prefectures.24
In Guanzhong, a plague of locusts descended upon the crops;
grain prices skyrocketed. As famine swept across the Yellow River
heartland, "the dead pillowed on each other in the streets of the
two capitals [Chang' an and Luoyang]," and people resorted to

23 XTS, 35.897-98 and 905. ZZT], 203.6313-14.

24 XTS, 35.919 and 922.

159
 Roduchild: /kyDNJ FiJi4/ Piny

cannibalism.l~ On the fringes of the empire, TIbetans, KhiWl, and

Tujue Turks spurred a series of disturbances. Wu Zhao's husband
and co-ruler, Tang Emperor Gaozong, was dying. For Wu Zhao
personally, and for the Tang dynastic house, these were precarious
times. At this volatile juncture, with her future anything but
certain, she sought to stabilize and secure her position through the
circulation of this series of normative texts.
To guide her wayward second son Crown Prince Li Xian in
the late 670s, Wu Zha~ituating herself as a concerned Confucian
mother-presented him two works: Orthodox Pattnns for PriTU~ 0/
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te
~ 1£ and Biographi~ of Fililzl Sons ~ T 11.2IJ She also established
the Classicof Filial Pi~ty as a compulsory examination text in 678.27
The ambitious Crown Prince surrounded himself with a coterie of
tutors and styled himself not an obedient princeling and filial son,
but one ready to assume the mande of a Confucian monarch. In
679, the Crown Prince allegedly plotted to murder a soothsayer
who had suggested he was not cut in the mold of an emperor.
Shortly thereafter, hundreds of suits of black armor were found in
his palace, indicating a plot to usurp the throne.28 He was sent away
from the capital and later killed in 684, shortly after Gaozong's
death.19 By the time R~gultztionsforMinist01wascomposcd in 685,30
Wu Zhao, Grand Dowager and regent, had recendy deposed her
feckless third son Zhongzong and relegated the nominal emperor,
her tractable youngest son Ruizong, to the palace of the Crown
Prince while she "supervised the court and issued edias" (lin€hao

2SFor this catalogue of misfortunes, see ZZTj, 203.6410 and Du You tt fti,
Tongdilln im~(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996),7.149.
26JTS, 86.2832; XTS, 81.3591. The Scholars of the North Gate were also
involved in these compilations.
27 Twitchett, "Chm Cui and Other Works," 76; cf. Tang huiyao, 75.1373.
28 ZZTj, 202.6390 and 6397.
29 ZZTj, 203.6409.

30 This date is given in Chm gui, 64.

160
 Tang StwJin 2~24 (200~)

ehmgzhi gWl~m).31 Her paramount concern in &gul4tions for

Ministn-s was not with defining proper filial conduct for her Aesh-
and-blood sons, but rather, as the name of the text suggests, with
prescribing behavioral expectations for men in court, demanding
of these political "sons" an unswerving and absolute loyalty.
Immediately after the pair of episodes from the exemplars of
"Maternal Rectitude," the Preface continues:

Mothers truly do this because their feelings are abundantly

full of motherly kindness toward their sons, and they wish
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to assist them in achieving success. Recently, instructions

for self-cultivation have been compiled for the heir
apparent and for the princes. But as yet no model rules
for providing information on loyalty and guidance of
goodness have been set forth for the assembled nobles
and the ranks of those appointed to officer.32

In this transition from motherly concern for the well being of her
flesh-and-blood children to a wider matriarchal preoccupation
with her "children" of the larger empire, the Preface accordingly
shifts in emphasis to the central theme of the text: the paramount
importance of ministerial loyalty. As Wu Zhao puts it in the
Preface, "Now in the leisure of my mornings, my mind wanders
to questions of policy and government."33 Thus, in a wider sense,
these two episodes were woven into the opening of Wu Zhao's
political manifesto that demanded total loyalty from ministers, a
critical rhetorical part of her transition from conscientious mother
of the imperial princes to ur-mother of a wider polity. Tellingly,
both episodes featured filial sons honoring politically-savvy sage
mothers.

31 JTS, 6.116; XTS, 4.82.

32 Chen pi, 2. Translation from Twitchett, "Chen Cui and Other Works," 56

and 75-76.
33 Chen pi, 2.

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 Rolluchild: &,0"" Fi/iJIJ Piny

The affiliation betwccn Wu Zhao and two celebrated female

instructresses. Lady Ji of Lu and Mother Meng, sagacious women
who wholly grasped the essence of stateCraft and impaned mat
great wisdom to sons. served to legitimize her role in government.
Mother Meng and Jing Jiang joined a lineage of eminent women
with whom Wu Zhao consciously affiliated herself Mother of Qi
(Tushan Girl). the Quccn Mother of the West, Nii Wa, and the
Mother of Laozi to name a few. She situated herself as a patron
of Confucian scholarship and learning and as an enthusiastic
champion of Confucian virtues, a strategy that she used effectively,
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time and again, to mute criticism from the roun. She insinuated
herself into tradition: to attack her was to attack these paragons
of Confucian principle and virtue. And who would dare criticize
Mencius' mother?
These passages clearly reflect Wu Zhao's effort to create
a wider paradigm of motherhood, one that reached the entire
court and country. As First Lady, Celestial Empress, and Grand
Dowager, she had long styled herself mother of the empire. In an
edict promulgated shortly after Gaozong's death, at roughly the
same juncture &gulations was crafted, she announced, "I gaze as a
mother over the realm" (JI*a~~~).34 As Gaozong's co-ruIer, Wu
Zhao had been widely known since 660 as one of the Two Sages.35
In 688. established as a wise instructress, not only by the rhetoric in
Regulationsfor Ministers but by three decades of seasoning dealing
with matters of court, the "Sage" formally became a "Sage Mother."
In the fourth month of 688, her nephew Wu Chengsi inscribed

34 "Gai yuan guangzhai shewen" & ~:Jt; ~~ X. Wmyuan yinglnut )(~~ ••

463:7b; translated by Stephen Bokenkamp in "A Medieval Feminist Critique of
the Chinese World Order: The Case ofWu Zhao," &/igion 28 (1998): 384.

3" ZZTj, 201.6343. The earliest reference to the Two Sages (t'T shmg =~)
in official histories is in the Hou Han shu, where it is used to indicate Kings
Wen and Wu of the Zhou. Mere decades before Wu Zhao's time. Sui Wendi's
Empress Dugu sat on the throne with her husband and co-authorcd edicts. They
were formally called the "Two Sages." The title "Two Sages" also concealed the
feminine aspect of Empress Dugu. Given this political value, it is little wonder
Wu Zhao borrowed this number from Dugu's political repertoire.

162
 Til", StwJjn 23-24 (200S-06)

an apocryphal "Precious Diagram," a stone from the Luo River

that a man of obscure background, Tang Tongtai, "discovered"
and presented at court. To the immense delight of Wu Zhao, its
inscription read, "When the Sage Mother is close to the people,
the imperial cause will eternally prosper." In the fifth month, she
formally assumed the title "Sage Mother, Divine Sovereign."36
As both ruler and mother she became the object toward which
both filial piety and loyalty were directed. This assumption of the
"Sage Mother" tide marked the political realization of a broader
motherhood, extending to all of the subjects of her empire, bringing
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to fruition the vision of maternity that had been articulated in

R~gulationsfor Ministn-s several years earlier. Years later, in 696,
she implicidy referred to herself as "the mother of myriad things"
in her composition on the stele of the Ascended Immortal Crown
Prince.37
One of the brilliant aspects in &gulationsfor Ministm-the
pith of Wu Zhao's political philosophy-was the elevation of
loyalty to the pinnacle of the hierarchy of virtues, supplanting filial
piety. This is spelled out explicitly in the opening fascicle, "Same
Organism" (Tongti ~ftI), of the text:

The minister serving his ruler is like a son serving his

father. The deportment and reverence are the same. But
though the father and son are extremely close, they are not
of one body like the ruler and minister. There have been
fathers without sons. There have been families without
fathers, yet there has never been a rwer without ministers,
or a country without a ruler. 38

36 ]TS, 6.115, 119, and 24.925; XTS, 4.87 and 76.3480; ZZT], 204.6448.
Q~
37 98.1007. Bokenkamp translates this as "the mother of creation" ("A
Medieval Feminist Critique," 391).
38 Chm gui, 1.

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 Rolhschild: &,0"" FiJi4/ Piny

The bond between ruler and minister is stronger than that berween
father and son. In her analysis of the Chm pi, Lii Huayu argues
that this section of the text is geared to iUustrate that loyalty,
associated with public interest and the common weal, is a greater
virtue than filial piety.}lJFather and son are separate beings. The ruler
and ministers are one being. To the ultimate survival of the body
politic, they are dispensable. They are essential to the survival of the
state. In effect, the role of ruler supersedes the role of parent.
In the second fascicle of Rrgul4tions for Ministn'S, "Absolute
Loyalty" (Zhizhong ~I~'), state and ruler are once again placed
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above family and parents. The traditional family was a corporate

body bound by patriarchal structures. Within these entrenched
and hierarchical ties of blood kinship, roles of women were severely
restricted. By elevating loyalty over filial piety in &gu/4tions for
Mjnist~rs, Wu Zhao functionally allowed her authority to operate--
if not outside, then above-the patriarchal structures of the five
Confucian relationships. At the same time she acknowledged and
exalted the principle of Confucian hierarchy. As an object of a loyalty
that transcended kinship bonds, as the governing mind-hean of a
large single organism, Wu Zhao effectively circumvented strictures
of traditional social relationships. Family, while important, was
secondary. A prospective impediment to absolute loyalty, family was
relegated to the realm of private and petty, hence the diminished
status of filial piety. Loyalty to the state is a necessary precondition
for the cultivation of filial piety. Family is not the basic building
block of state: only once the foundation of state is stable can a
family be united by humane bonds of filial piety. Family is created
by, born of, state:

Therefore, in antiquity loyal officials served their ruler

first and then their parents; placed the nation first and
then the household. Why? The ruler is the root of the
parents. Without the ruler, the parents would not exist.

39 Lii Huayu ,..~, "Wu Zetian 'Chen Gui' Pouxi" JitJtIJ7C~fJL~~, in Wu

atianyu Luoyang tEt~IJ7CW7~~, 00. SuJian fi}l and Bai Xianzhang S••
(Xi'an: San Qin chubanshe, 1993),90.

164
 Tanl StwJin 23-24 (200;-06)

The nation is the foundation of the household. Without

the nation, the family could not be established. Thus, it is
from the ruler that the parents receive their existence. It is
due to the state that the family is established. Therefore,
the ruler is first and the parents second. The state is first
and the household second.4O

This philosophical coup, made with no radical departure from

traditional texts, removed any emphasis on her female gender. At
the apex, as the ruler is representative of the nation, she was not
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a woman but the core of a shared body toward which absolute

loyalty must unquestioningly be directed.
Filial piety and loyalty are conjoined yet again in the third
fascicle, "Maintaining the Dao":

If the dao resides within [a minister], his speech naturally

accords and his behavior is upright. In serving the ruler
he is naturally loyal. In serving his father, he is naturally
filial. Thus if words and actions tally and accord, loyalty
and filial piety are regulated. All issues from the daO.41

This interpretation is framed in terms of instructions for court

ministers. The commentator expounds upon the manner in which
the quote illustrates certain principles of political philosophy. The
loyalty demanded of officials, in the text, seems to flow from larger
cosmic and natural movements. None of the ideas in Regulations
for Officials is wholly original. Rather, the genius of Wu Zhao,
Liu Yizhi, Yuan Wanqing, and other advisers is manifested in
their ability to tailor pre-existing concepts to the particular socio-
political circumstance of the times.
In the Tang Code, being unfilial was considered a grave crime,
one of the Ten Abominations.42 On the surface, filial piety within

40 Chen gui, 11.

41 Chen gui, 17.
42 Twitchett, "Chen Cui and Other Works," 74; Wallace Johnson, the Tang

165
 Roduchild: &yonJ FiJiJlJ Piny

family superseded loyalty to state as the foremost vinue. Anide 46

stipulated that, except in the case of plotting sedition or some such
capital crime, family members were expected to mutually protect
and conceal each other.'u Still, though Tang law reinforced the
social hierarchy protecting the sanctity of the Confucian family and
status differentiation--of father over son, of husband over wife, of
elder over younger-the real message of Anicle 46 is that when the
empire is imperiled, when conflicts between family and state are at
issue, the law ultimately demanded loyalty to state. Loyalty to state
was the paramount virtue.
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In his essay on filial piety tales in early medieval China,

Keith Knapp remarks that "as the power and reach of the central
government declined in the Eastern Han and local elite families
took on more governmental functions and social importance
than ever before, maintaining order and generating solidarity
within these large, extended families became an urgent problem
for patriarchs."44 Essentially, during the late Eastern Han and
subsequent period of disunity-an era of protracted turmoil,
frequently changing dynasties, and weak central authority-
powerful families strategically entrenched themselves locally as
protection against recurring dynastic upheavals. Concomitant to
this development was the ascent offilial piety over loyalty, of private,
familial interests over communal, public-spiritedness. Conversely,
however, with the re-establishment of a strong, central state in the
Sui and Tang, it followed that loyalty to state trumped filial piety
as the highest virtue.
In his study of Tang ceremonial practices, Offrrings of Jark
and Silk, Howard Wechsler showed that the early Tang was a time
when the nature of political power underwent a process of diffusion,
evolving from a secretive, close-knit consanguine cult based

Cork. Vo/umt Ont: Gtnn-a/ Principus (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1979), 74-77 (article VI).

H Johnson, tht Tang Cork, 31-33 and 2-8.

44 Keith Knapp, Stlfkss Ojfipring, 57.

166
 Tang StwJin 23-24 (200s-06)

in the ancestral temple to a larger "cult of political ancestors."4S

Extended beyond blood and marriage ties, the dynastic family
developed a political lineage, affiliating themselves with a glorious
train of cultural heroes including King Wu, the Duke of Zhou,
and Confucius. The ruler was not only a blood heir, but heir to a
mantle of virtue.
Close examination of the excerpts from Biographies of
Exemplary WOmen in Regulations for Ministers reveals an effort on
the part of Wu Zhao and her propagandists to co-opt and move
beyond filial piety, fusing it with loyalty to buttress her political
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authority. While she embraced filial piety in principle, she sought

to diminish it in essence. By creating a figurative political kinship,
a larger family bound by common "political ancestors" rather than
blood, in which all subjects were sons, Wu Zhao sought to diffuse
and thereby weaken familial ties, creating an intense culture of
loyalty in court.
Throughout Regulation of Ministers, the two virtues, loyalty
and filial piety, are consistently conAated. Denis Twitchett remarks
that the text emphasizes "the amalgamation of the concept of
'loyalty' toward ruler with 'filial obedience' within the family." The
primacy of loyalty is made manifest and filial devotion is clearly
shown to be a "lesser loyalty."46 Seemingly, this predominant
message of "loyalty over filial piety" (zhongxian xiaohou 1~,7t~
f~), the clear elevation of duty to state over obligation to family
contained in Regulations for Ministers, contradicted the image of
Sage Mother that Wu Zhao so diligently strove to cultivate. But
Regulations was written for her ministers, not for her children. The
carefully culled passages from Biographies of Exemplary \%men in
Regulations were designed to paint Wu Zhao as a matriarch wise in
the ways of governance, anticipating her assumption of the Sage
Mother title. Wu Zhao was due at once the absolute loyalty that
a subject owed a ruler, and the unswerving filial devotion that

45Howard Wechsler, Offmngr of JIUk and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the
Legitimization of the Tang (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 136.
46 Twitchett, "Chen Cui and Other Works," 73-74.

167
 Rothschild: &,0"" FiIillJ Piny

offspring owed a conscientious parent. In &p/MUms for Mi"istns,

we see Wu Zhao's deft rhetorical engineering of the "ascendancy- of
filial piety over loyalty: she situated herself not within the narrow
consanguine confines of family, but as a sage mother, a mother
of all mothers, an ur-mother whose brood extended beyond her
immediate imperial offspring to the court and far beyond palace
walls to her myriad subjects. Han and non-Han, of the larger
empire.
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