How might the rule of Wu Zhao have compared with the rule of men during that era?
1 Answer
During this time without generalization men emperors were ruthless when it come to destroying potential rivals. It is the era of perfidy and treasury and cunning. Wu performed as well as the men. She launched three years of reign of terrort, systematically wiping out any and all claimants to the throne. In one year alone, she destroyed fifteen family lines, mostly through executions, trumped-up treason charges, and enforced suicides.
One impact of her reign of terror, also resulted in rooting outy institutional corruption. This in turn allow here to implement standards to steer the government more towards a meritocracy. She also opened up civil examinations to a wider variety of people, making for greater diversity in local and regional governments. From the viewpoint of the laypeople, she was actually a pretty good ruler.
