Name: The Empress Who Ruled The World (Chinese History Documentary)
Uploaded: 2019-09-15T12:21:43.000Z
Duration: 48 min 3 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In China's Valley of the Kings there stands a tall carved stone

It marks the tomb of a woman who rose from lowly concubine to become emperor of China

But China's female Emperor has gone down in history as a controversial and deeply divisive ruler

Not only did Wu Zetian rock the boat in some ways. She overturned it

It would have been a very dangerous thing to get in the way of Wu Zetian

Since her death 1,300 years ago wu zetian has been remembered as a callous tyrant who brought calamity to china

Extraordinary new discoveries are revealing a very different picture of her reign from ancient tombstones

I've been waiting since this was excavated. I am ecstatic

I honestly wasn't expecting that that is really exciting seeing this with your eyes is incredible experience

Lost treasures have even more fantastic than I thought it would be

Now for the first time experts are discovering how one woman managed to rule all the Imperial China

And whether Wu Zetian really was an evil dictator or one of the most misunderstood leaders in history

The only female emperor in China's 2,000 years of Imperial history was named Wu Zetian

She first entered court in 637 ad as a 13 year old concubine

Part of the hareem of mistresses serving emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty

Tang Taizong had more than a hundred concubines by repute. She was beautiful. She was charming. She was entertaining

She quickly gained favour of this emperor and her relationship of become closer and with the rise her of her influence at court

She proved to be politically very very skilful and she's very shrewd

When the old Emperor died Wu Zetian became at first concubine to his son Gaozong

And gradually Wu became the real power behind the throne

Until in 690 with her husband dead Wu Zetian stepped from the shadows and declared herself Emperor

Yet China's ancient chroniclers were scathing in their accounts of her rise to power

History tells us a really dark and bleak picture about Empress Wu

One of the most brutal stories we have is that she killed her own child just to frame the previous Empress and

Rivals legs and arms cut off and then dip them in a vat of wine and let them slowly bleed to death

self-serving and absolutely ruthless Virago

Even after she claimed the throne we're told Wu Zetian was ruthless in her reign

This is the tomb of Wu Zetian's second son Li Xian. He was a threat to his mother

Li Xian was accused of treason and he was exiled to the most remote

corner of the Chinese Empire locked in a room and

So this is a mother killing her own son so that she can hold on to power

According to legend she was a tyrant whose reign brought disaster to the Empire

Now archaeologists run earthing new evidence the challenges this version of Wu's story

The professor Zhang Jianlin is the world's leading archaeologists to the tang era

Today the city of Xian has grown to encompass old Chang'an, Wu's capital

The population of 12 million Xian is rapidly expanding

It's also home to professor Zhang's conservation facility

Historian dr. Harry Rothschild has heard about some intriguing recent finds that date to Wu's rein. Whoa

It's amazing seeing all these Tang artifacts

I've been studying Wu Zhao, Wu Zetian for 17 years and finally here

We are at Ground Zero you can sense her everywhere here in Chang'an

The figurines show life in Wu's capital the musicians traders and nobles buried with the dead to ensure a comfortable

but there's also something unexpected here a

first clue to what Wu's China was really like

So we're looking at an unprecedented boost for the position of women

you're talking about a female Emperor here after all and and so that

Translated directly in this sort of greater opportunity and greater freedom for women in the late 7th in early 8th century

It seems like there may be more to Wu Zetian that meets the eye

But many recent tomb discoveries like the women in men's clothing hinted a rather different story

Professor Tonia Eckfeld is an expert on Tang era tombs

She's on her way to see one of the most amazing archaeological finds in all Chinese history

It's amazing it's even more fantastic than I thought it would be

This is the fabled Phoenix crown of ancient China a

written about in ancient texts, but never seen

This priceless headdress is held under lock and key and can only be viewed by special appointment

Tonia believes that is a vital clue to the truth about Wu Zetian's China

There's an enormous amount to investigate in this piece

Looking closely the metal work is filigree, and there's a lot of granulation

Granulation consists of tiny little beads of gold

The whole crown is like a peacock displaying its tail

There are very very fine flowers made of mother-of-pearl and pearl. There are even fine bunches of grapes made of Chinese glass

luxury items not only in the making of it, but also in the imagery involved

Professors Jung's team found the Phoenix crown in a grave that was already in exceptional find, a tomb that had never been raided

Inside was a skeleton and on the skull the beehive hairstyle

The skeleton was of a young woman named Li Chui a minor descendant of the Tang royal family

For 18 months the team carefully picked out every single jewel and stone

Slowly piecing together the headdress to reveal its true glory

But when they used x-ray chromatography to discover where the different jewels and stones came from they were in for a surprise

The headdress has carnelian from Uzbekistan

2,900 miles to the west of Chang'an, garnet from India 3,000 miles southwest

Amber from Iran 4,000 miles away and ivory from Sri Lanka

Subtitles ListPlay Video

The Empress Who Ruled The World (Chinese History Documentary)

sort

absolutely

massive

reveal