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This photo was taken at Qian Mausoleum (Qian Ling) located outside of Xi'an. These statues once represented the 61 foreign emissaries who attended the funeral of Emperor Gao Zong, who ruled during the Tang Dynasty. For some unknown reasons, every single one of them has been decapitated sometime after they were constructed.
This Emperor Gao Zong is not really known for his own great doings but more for his clever but ruthless wife, Empress Wu Zetian. She is the only woman that has ever ruled China in their 5000-year-long history.
Empress Wu Zetian climbed to power by associating with people in power and then later discarding them. She was once a concubine belonged to Emperor Tai Zong. Soon after his death, she was scheduled to be retired into a Buddhist temple to become a nun, but she was instead invited back to the palace by Empress Wang to become a concubine for her husband, Emperor Gao Zong, the late Emperor's son. Empress Wang did this as a desperate attempt to divert the Emperor's favors from his favorite consort, Consort Xiao.
Within several years of becoming the new Emperor's concubine, she managed to become his favorite consort, giving birth to two sons. The year she gave birth to their daughter and the baby died soon after, she accused childless Empress Wang of killing their daughter out of jealousy, successfully replacing her as the new Empress. She later had both Empress Wang and Consort Xiao killed.
Once she became the Empress, Empress Wu Zetian removed the Emperor's first born son with one of his consorts from the position of power and made their first son crown prince. She grew in power as the mother of future Emperor, later giving birth to two more sons and a daughter, while putting greater influence on Emperor Gao Zong's governance. When Crown Prince was 23 years old, he offended her by urging her not to exercise so much influence. Shortly after, he was poisoned to death.
By the time Empress Wu Zetian finally took the throne 7 years after Emperor Gao's death, she had all of her sons executed or exiled along with anyone who opposed and threatened her political views, including her neice, nephew, and grandson, with an exception of her youngest son who willfully stepped down from his throne.
After 15 years of ruling, she became seriously ill and reinstated her third son, who was waiting all these years in the wings, as the successor. When Wu Zetian passed away later that year, Emperor Zhong Zong had her buried in a joint burial with his father, Emperor Gao Zong, at the Qian Mausoleum, along with his wife, son, and daughter who were all victims of Wu Zetian's wrath. When Emperor Zhong Zong had the tombstone tablet made for his late mother, it is said that he was not able to come up with any praise to be inscribed, therefore leaving it as a blank tablet. There is no other blank tablet at any other royal tomb site.
The craziest thing about this woman is that she actually proved to be a great ruler. She was ruthless to imcompetent officials but generous with those with great talents. She was fair to peasants and promoted scholarship. She replaced Daoism with Buddhism as the favored state religion, achieving highest development of Chinese Buddhism. It's just too bad that she had to be such a bit*h in order to do all those good things.
