Zhang Yao'er was from Wuxing Commandery (吳興, roughly modern Huzhou, Zhejiang).
In 545, with Jiao Province (交州, modern northern Vietnam) seized by the rebel Li Ben, Chen Baxian, then a Liang Dynasty general, was sent to Jiao Province to battle Li; at that time, rather than taking Lady Zhang and Chen Chang with him, he sent them back to Wuxing.
After Jiangling's fall, the supreme general of the remaining Liang territory, Wang Sengbian, along with Chen Baxian, who was then in charge of Jingkou (京口, in modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu), prepared in spring 555 to make Emperor Yuan's son Xiao Fangzhi the Prince of Jin'an, emperor, but subsequently, under military pressure from Northern Qi, Wang accepted Northern Qi's proposed candidate for the throne, Emperor Yuan's cousin Xiao Yuanming the Marquess of Zhenyang.
At that time, Emperor Wu's nephew Chen Qian the Prince of Linchuan, the only close male relative of Emperor Wu then in Chen territory, was constructing a fort at Nanhuan (南皖, in modern Anqing, Anhui), and Empress Zhang, after consulting the officials Du Leng (杜稜) and Cai Jingli (蔡景歷), chose not to announce Emperor Wu's death, and they secretly summoned Chen Qian back from Nanhuan.
Hou approached her and, with his hand on the handle of his sword, requested that she turn over the imperial seal.
She died in 570 and was buried with honors due an empress, with her husband Emperor Wu.