Shangguan Wan'er (664 – 21 July 710)[2] was a Chinese politician, poet, and imperial consort of the Wu Zhou and Tang dynasties.

Described as a "female prime minister,"[3] Shangguan rose from modest origins as a palace servant to become secretary and leading advisor to Empress Wu Zetian of Zhou.

Under Empress Wu, Shangguan exercised responsibility for drafting imperial edicts and earned approbation for her writing style.

[4] In 710, after Emperor Zhongzong's death, Shangguan was killed during a palace coup that ended the regency of Empress Dowager Wei.

As Shangguan Wan'er grew older, she read extensively and showed a talent for writing prose and poetry at an early age,[6] as well as in matters of civil service regulations.

Particularly after the Wansui Tongtian era (696–697), Shangguan Wan'er, as Wu Zetian's secretary, was in charge of drafting imperial edicts, and her writing style was said to be exceedingly beautiful.

[9] In 705, a coup led by Zhang Jianzhi, Cui Xuanwei, Jing Hui, Huan Yanfan, and Yuan Shuji removed Wu Zetian and returned Emperor Zhongzong to the throne.

Meanwhile, Consort Shangguan's nephew Wang Yu (王昱) had been warning her, through her mother Lady Zheng, that her continued behavior in working with the Wus and Empress Wei would eventually bring disaster on her and her clan.

As a result, Cui was set to be exiled to be the military advisor to the prefect of Jiang Prefecture (江州, roughly modern Jiujiang, Jiangxi).

Meanwhile, Zong, Wu Yanxiu, and other officials Zhao Lüwen (趙履溫) and Ye Jingneng (葉靜能), were advocating to Empress Dowager Wei that she take the throne.

In 711, he restored Consort Shangguan's title as Zhaorong, and gave her the posthumous name of Wenhui (meaning "civil and benevolent").

In September 2013 it was announced that archeologists in China had discovered the tomb of Shangguan Wan'er near the airport at Xianyang, Shaanxi province.

The tomb was badly damaged, perhaps deliberately according to Chinese archeologists, and only a very few burial goods were discovered inside, including some sculptures of people riding horses.

[16] From the epitaph it was written that Princess Taiping (Wu Zetian's daughter) arranged Shangguan's burial and gave her a proper funeral.

At the end of the epitaph, we can see how was her death described:"The mountain of muse collapsed, the River Xiao Xiang discontinued, a pearl concealed, a jade broken asunder.