AHC: Make the Second Zhou Dynasty a true Dynasty

With a POD after Wu Zeitan's birth, allow her dynasty to last beyond her death, be separate from the Tang dynasty, and establish a precedent for future emperors. The POD may be before or after her initial declaration of a new dynasty, but the closer to the OTL time of her declaration, the better.
 
Well firstly she needs to have an heir that won't try and reinstate the Tang Dynasty. That means getting her own sons out of the succession in favour of the Princess Taiping (possibly), which is a delicate enough procedure in itself and would likely require assassination, not that she wasn't capable of that.

Overcoming the resistance of the Tang bureaucracy is going to be a major issue, and Wu Zetian did it quite well initially through a mixture of competent administration, court favorites, and secret police. But she was losing her touch by the end - partly because of the lack of a clear non-Tang heir, and partly because her last favorites, the Zhangs, were not popular. She will need to change that.

Ultimately she ascended to the throne at too old an age - a 15 years' reign is simply not long enough to nurture a new generation under the Zhou rather than the Tang Dynasty, which is quite important for such an 'earth-shattering' change as a female empress. To change that, she would likely have needed to get rid of Gaozong in some way - which is pretty unlikely.

An alternative was to shelve her own ambitions to be empress, and instead be a 'behind-the-scenes' figure while actively nurturing Princess Taiping and the Wu clan to take over the throne after Wu Zetian's death, kind of like how Cao Cao did it.
 
Well firstly she needs to have an heir that won't try and reinstate the Tang Dynasty. That means getting her own sons out of the succession in favour of the Princess Taiping (possibly), which is a delicate enough procedure in itself and would likely require assassination, not that she wasn't capable of that.

Overcoming the resistance of the Tang bureaucracy is going to be a major issue, and Wu Zetian did it quite well initially through a mixture of competent administration, court favorites, and secret police. But she was losing her touch by the end - partly because of the lack of a clear non-Tang heir, and partly because her last favorites, the Zhangs, were not popular. She will need to change that.

Ultimately she ascended to the throne at too old an age - a 15 years' reign is simply not long enough to nurture a new generation under the Zhou rather than the Tang Dynasty, which is quite important for such an 'earth-shattering' change as a female empress. To change that, she would likely have needed to get rid of Gaozong in some way - which is pretty unlikely.

An alternative was to shelve her own ambitions to be empress, and instead be a 'behind-the-scenes' figure while actively nurturing Princess Taiping and the Wu clan to take over the throne after Wu Zetian's death, kind of like how Cao Cao did it.
Should a succession by Princess Taiping even be in the equation? What about skipping over that and having Wu Sansi or Wu Chengsi as heir instead?

I feel it would be very difficult having Empress Wu establish a real dynasty unless she had a male non-Li heir somewhere out there. I think the best she can hope for is something like Empress Wang and Wang Mang: if she declares her own dynasty and has a nephew or something become Emperor instead, then she can solve the heir problem. I know Wang Mang came to power in a dynasty that was already decaying and after Emperors that had burnt out the goodwill attached to their dynasty though.
 

scholar

Banned
With a POD after Wu Zeitan's birth, allow her dynasty to last beyond her death, be separate from the Tang dynasty, and establish a precedent for future emperors. The POD may be before or after her initial declaration of a new dynasty, but the closer to the OTL time of her declaration, the better.
Have her die sooner around the time she planned on making her nephews her heirs. Her dynasty died in part because, well, her children were not of her family but of her husband's family.
 
Should a succession by Princess Taiping even be in the equation? What about skipping over that and having Wu Sansi or Wu Chengsi as heir instead?

I feel it would be very difficult having Empress Wu establish a real dynasty unless she had a male non-Li heir somewhere out there. I think the best she can hope for is something like Empress Wang and Wang Mang: if she declares her own dynasty and has a nephew or something become Emperor instead, then she can solve the heir problem. I know Wang Mang came to power in a dynasty that was already decaying and after Emperors that had burnt out the goodwill attached to their dynasty though.

Well, as decaying empires go the Western Han wasn't really in that bad a shape when Wang Mang took it over, being really only afflicted with a severe case of court politics.

Princess Taiping is not ideal, but it's really Wu Zetian's only shot because Taiping is still, however unorthodox her succession, a 'Li'. Having the Wu clan (nephew or not) as heir would really be usurpation in the eyes of the Tang bureaucracy, as even if you hated Wu Zetian before, you at least have the comfort of knowing that the old woman was going to die before long and that her male heirs would quickly reject her legacy. There's also the fact that legitimacy through lineage was actually quite important in Tang society, as demonstrated by the number of Tang epitaphs that make reference to glorious deeds of ancestors (which doesn't happen in the Song).

I think the 'silent coup' that ultimately overthrew her in 705 would have progressed at an even faster rate had she openly declared a non-Li as her heir, which is sort of why she delayed making one.

It is difficult for Wu Zetian to establish a real dynasty, but she is helped by the fact that Zhongzong and Ruizong were pretty average, while Princess Taiping - really the only legitimate heir who has a reason to continue with this Zhou Dynasty business - was comparatively talented. Then again, the necessary support for a Zhou Dynasty would have to be provided by the Wu clan, which wasn't really up to the task.

It is possible to outmaneuver the Tang bureaucracy, which while formidable is of course plagued with issues of its own that a good politician can exploit to his/her advantage.
 
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raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
Wu Sangui defeats the Qing in the revolt of the feudatories. He designates an heir who is successful. I know this is a different Zhou dynasty than the OP meant but that was the dynasty name Wu Sangui proclaimed in the 1670s.
 
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