[8] Empress Wu is considered one of the greatest emperors in Chinese history due to her strong leadership and effective governance, which made China one of the world's most powerful nations.

Within China, besides the more direct consequences of her struggle to gain and maintain power, Wu's leadership resulted in important effects regarding social class in Chinese society and in relation to state support for Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, education and literature.

Wu played a key role in reforming the imperial examination system and encouraging capable officials to work in governance to maintain a peaceful and well-governed state.

[12] Wu also had an important impact upon the statuary of the Longmen Grottoes and the "Wordless Stele" at the Qian Mausoleum, as well as the construction of some major buildings and bronze castings that no longer survive.

Wu Zetian and Empress Dowager Liu of the Song dynasty are said to be the only women in Chinese history to have worn a yellow robe, ordinarily reserved for the emperor's sole use, as a monarch or co-ruler in their own right.

Once the Tang dynasty was established, Wu Shihou held a succession of senior ministerial posts, including the governorship of Yangzhou, Lizhou, and Jingzhou (荊州) (modern-day Jiangling County, Hubei).

Meanwhile, later that month, Li Hong, the Crown Prince—who urged Wu not to exercise so much influence and authority on Gaozong's governance and offended her by requesting that his half-sisters, Consort Xiao's daughters, Princess Yiyang and Xuancheng (under house arrest) be allowed to marry—died suddenly.

In 678, contemporary poet Luo Binwang criticizes Empress Wu's involvement in governmental affairs: "She whispered slander from behind her sleeves, and swayed emperor with vixen flirting."

This offended Wu, and she accused him of being complicit with Li Jingye and had him executed; she also demoted, exiled, and killed a number of officials who, when Pei was arrested, tried to speak on his behalf.

Secret police officials, including Suo Yuanli, Zhou Xing, and Lai Junchen, began to rise in power and carry out systematic false accusations, torture, and executions.

[33] In 688, Empress Dowager Wu was set to make sacrifices to the deity of the Luo River (洛水, flowing through the Henan province city of Luoyang, then the "Eastern Capital").

The Song dynasty historian Sima Guang, in his Zizhi Tongjian, writes:[37] Even though the Empress Dowager[note 12] excessively used official titles to cause people to submit to her, if she saw that someone was incompetent, she would immediately depose or even execute him.

She was observant and had good judgment, so the talented people of the time also were willing to be used by her.In 690, Wu had Emperor Ruizong yield the throne to her and established the Zhou dynasty, with herself as the imperial ruler (Huangdi).

Instead, when Wu Yanxiu arrived, he detained him and then launched a major attack on Zhou, advancing as far south as Zhao Prefecture (趙州, in modern Shijiazhuang, Hebei) before withdrawing.

She used informants to choose people to eliminate, a process that peaked in 697 with the wholesale demotion, exile, or killing of various aristocratic families and scholars, furthermore prohibiting their sons from holding office.

[49] Wu eliminated many of her real, potential, or perceived rivals to power by means of death (including execution, suicide by command, and more or less directly killing people), demotion, and exile.

Mostly this was carried out by her secret police, led by people like Wao Ganjun and Lai Junchen, who were known to have written the Manual of Accusation, a document detailing steps for interrogation and obtaining confessions by torture.

The Guangzhong aristocracy was not willing to relinquish its hold on the reins of government, but some of the more newly wealthy families in other areas, such as the North China Plain or Hubei, were eager for a larger share of national power.

The fubing system of self-supportive soldier-farmer colonies, which provided local militia and labor services for her government, allowed her to maintain her armed forces at reduced expense.

[55] The historical details of the consequences of Wu's promoting a new group of people from previously disenfranchised backgrounds into prominence as powerful governmental officials, and the examination system's role, remain debated by scholars of this subject.

Wu Zetian used her political powers to harness from Buddhist practices a strategy to build sovereignty and legitimacy to her throne while decisively establishing the Zhou dynasty in a society under Confucian and patriarchal ideals.

[58] Translated from a late fourth-century version in Sanskrit to Chinese, the original Great Cloud Sutra (Dayunjing) accentuated in Wu's Commentary had fascicles describing a conversation between the Buddha and the Devi of Pure Radiance.

[61] Her narrative was intentionally crafted to persuade the Confucian establishment, circumvent the Five Impediments that restricted women from holding political and religious power, and gain public support.

According to William Dalrymple, Wu used Buddhist texts brought from Nalanda University by Xuanzang to legitimise her rule, and her reign resulted in a substantial importation of Indian ideas.

[67] Toward the end of Gaozong's life, Wu began engaging a number of mid-level officials who had literary talent, including Yuan Wanqing (元萬頃), Liu Yizhi, Fan Lübing, Miao Chuke (苗楚客), Zhou Simao (周思茂), and Han Chubin (韓楚賓), to write a number of works on her behalf, including the Biographies of Notable Women (列女傳), Guidelines for Imperial Subjects (臣軌), and New Teachings for Official Staff Members (百僚新誡).

Literary allusions to Wu may carry several connotations: a woman who has inappropriately overstepped her bounds, the hypocrisy of preaching compassion while simultaneously engaging in a pattern of political corruption and vicious behavior.

[72] Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing rehabilitated Wu as part of a propaganda campaign to suggest she be considered as a successor to her ailing husband.

Articles praising the sixth-century empress as a great unifier of the nation appeared in the press, even though she was popularly reviled as a ruthless, wicked ruler who had mercilessly crushed her opponents.

[76]"To the horror of traditional Chinese historians, all members of the shih class, the continued success of the T'ang was in large measure due to an ex-concubine who finally usurped the throne itself....Though she was ruthless towards her enemies, the period of her ascendency was a good one for China.

"[52]"China's only woman ruler, Empress Wu was a remarkably skilled and able politician, but her murderous and illicit methods of maintaining power gave her a bad reputation among male bureaucrats.