試論武則天女皇行事所受前代女中豪傑的影響

On Empress Wu's Acts as Reflecting the Influences of MEK Earlier Female Personages

曹仕邦(Tso Sze-bong)

《新亞學報》 16卷(下) (1993/01) Pp. 287-299+ap13

並列摘要

Empress Wu Tsê-t'ien (武則天623-705, R. 590-705), the one and only recognized monarch of the fair sex to rule over China, had, before coming to power, formed a habit of browsing through historical and literary works, according to Chiu T'ang-shu (舊唐書) or 'The Old History of the T'ang Dynasty'. It is my argument in this article that some of her acts might have been influenced by the doings of earlier female figures as recorded in official histories. An instance in point is that, after supplanting Empress Wang (王皇后) as queen consort of Emperor Kao-tsung (高宗), she had Wang and Royal Concubine Siu (蕭妃) put into two huge jars filled with liquor, their limbs mercilessly truncated. Readers of Shih-chi (史記) or 'Records of the Grand Historian' will recall that in the Former Han Dynasty, when Empress Dowager Lü (呂太后) had seized power after her husband's death, she subjected his favorite concubine Lady Ch'i (戚夫人) to bloodcurdling cruelty. The poor lady was blinded, deafened and muted, likewise truncated, and put into a cesspool. A reading of this episode of inhumanity might have prompted Empress Wu to imitate it. Students of T'ang history all know that an important measure to bolster Empress Wu's rule is the collection of secret intelligence. As she was still an empress dowager with the actual government in her hand, she had four bronze caskets fashioned and installed at the four corners of a palace chamber in Loyang, and encouraged the populace to come forward and anonymously deposit into them bits and pieces of clandestine information. This idea might have come to her from reading the Pei Shih (北史) or 'History of the Northern Dynasties', where it is recorded that after having succeeded to power, Empress Dowager Ling née Hu (靈胡太后) of the Toba Wei (拓跋魏) Dynasty instituted the practice of riding a carriage out regularly to meet her subjects outside the place gate and accepted their written grievances and complaints. In the end, Empress Wu enthroned herself as a monarch and founded a new Chou (周) Dynasty to replace T'ang. This goes against Confuciansim, which allocates no place to woman in the administration of the country. But an inspiration for this contravention might have come to the Empress from the Hou-han Shu (後漢書) or 'History of the Later Han Dynasty', as it records that in the beginning of that dynasty a usurper queendom was founded by a woman named Trung Tac (徵側) which lasted 3 years in today 's Vietnam. As in the T'ang time, the northern and central areas of Vietnam stretching from Hanoi to Hué were regarded as a part of China, Trung Tac was therefore regarded as a Chinese woman in Empress Wu's mind. Hence Trung Tac's example would have encouraged and challenged the Empress to emulate.