Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [46]
A woman openly ruling as emperor of China violated the Confucian order, in which women obeyed men. (Not surprisingly, traditional historians, most of whom were Confucianists, did not treat Empress Wu kindly.) Empress Wu, however, shrewdly used Buddhism to legitimize her rule. With the help of one of her lovers—a cosmetics and aphrodisiac peddler turned monk— Empress Wu in 694 declared herself the reincarnation of the Maitreya Buddha, a messiah who would one day rule over a future paradise. Empress Wu also funded fantastic monuments such as the giant Longmen Cave Buddha, carved out of solid stone and rising fifty-five feet high. Under the empress's rule, Buddhism in China, already a powerful economic and political force, grew increasingly sinicized, branching off into new, highly influential Chinese sects and schools. In the eighth century China became a leading source of Buddhist dissemination, with foreign pilgrims and even monks from India traveling to China to honor Chinese bodhisattvas.18
Empress Wu further transformed China's traditional social structure. She removed from government positions members of the northwestern aristocracy, who had monopolized power in China for centuries. At one point she ordered hundreds of these aristocrats executed. The empress also systematized and expanded the civil service examination system, creating a new class of government officials selected by competition, not bloodline. The result was by no means a pure meritocracy: Only people from well-placed families had access to the Confucian education necessary to prepare for the examinations. Nevertheless, the empress's innovations marked a turning point in Chinese history. The newly established state examination system reflected the radical new principle that government officials should be recruited solely on the basis of their education and literary talent, as opposed to hereditary privilege.19
Empress Wu, however, did not always follow this principle herself. Although her administration included many respected scholar-officials, she also appointed a number of her own undistinguished favorites to the court. She had her own secret police, many of them her relatives, who eliminated her enemies in grisly ways. Amazing rumors circulated about the empress's personal life, including tales about the wild sexual adventures she had with two half brothers when she was nearly eighty. Supposedly, the empress took so many aphrodisiacs that she “sprouted new teeth and eyebrows.”20
In 705, Empress Wu was finally deposed. After seven years of internecine struggle, the Li family returned to the throne, and in 712 the Tang dynasty was restored. The new emperor, called Ming Huang, or Brilliant Monarch, ruled over the most magnificent cultural flowering that China would ever see.
THE ZENITH OF TANG POWER
Along with Taizong, Ming Huang is considered one of the Tang dynasty's greatest emperors. Upon ascending the throne, he purged the court of Empress Wu's worst extravagances, abolished capital punishment, and embarked on reforms throughout the empire. His reign was the longest in Tang history, spanning nearly half a century (712-756). Like Taizong, Ming Huang combined military aggression with vigorous foreign diplomacy. Under his rule, China's foreign influence reached its zenith, with non-Chinese peoples from Kashmir to Korea, from Iran to Vietnam, acknowledging Tang overlordship.
At the center of the vast Tang Empire was the imperial capital Changan, the most populous city on earth at the time, as well as the most cosmopolitan. As much as one-third of the city's population may have been foreign: emissaries from Arabia; merchants from India, Persia, and Syria; monks