WI: The First Emperor of China was actually A crossdressing Woman in Disguise?

Would such A thing be possible? If so, Then given her unprecedented achievement of unifiying the warring states & founding China itself, Would this Female Emperor ever reveal her true gender intentionally? Would this Alt Time Line Emperor/Empress rule in the same way as her Male OTL counterpart? Or would her different life experiences formed as A result of her Gender make Her Tactics, Ideologies, Policies, Religion & Outlook unrecognisable? How different would China be to OTL?
 
Um... well, it's doubtful her reign would be regarded as legitimate, from what I know, which, admittedly is not much.
 
If so, then many people would be remarking on how effeminate that man looks. It isn't like the films where a woman can jsut tie her hair up and wear loose clothes to look like a man.
Even if a woman did pull it off then I don't think emperor is possible as I don't think many people back then would be willing to follow that rather effeminate man.
 
If so, then many people would be remarking on how effeminate that man looks. It isn't like the films where a woman can jsut tie her hair up and wear loose clothes to look like a man.
Even if a woman did pull it off then I don't think emperor is possible as I don't think many people back then would be willing to follow that rather effeminate man.

Unless she was like a Chinese Margret Thatcher. Ermmm on the whole topic... I thought Emperors generally had concubines, people who dressed them etc. Someone would have seen her naked at SOME point.
 
Why would they need the disguise? At the point where they are even attempting to unify china they are probably the head of a dynastic state and if she where a capable enough leader to unite China then she would probably be accepted as the person who held the mandate of heaven.
 
Lao Ai somehow pulled off pretending to be a eunuch for years, having several sons in that time.

China had 3 influential ruling empress regents (of whom empress Wu reigned in her own name), +a number of other influential dowagers. Although there were backlashes after these 3.

How would the history of China be affected by a manifestly successful empress? That is, no backlash against her, and the men who rule after her cannot deny her legitimacy without denying their own, so the victors have to write history that approves her?

Like, Qin Shi Huangdi´s mother succeeds in overthrowing him when he grows up and tries to rule himself, and replaces him by her sons with Lao Ai. What next?
 
The first emperor of united China united it himself at the head of armies in battle. It isn`t like later periods where they sat around in palaces and used agents for everything. A fighting emperor would never be able to be a woman pretending to be a man, maybe she could be a Boudicea or something but she`d have to be open about it.
 
The first emperor of united China united it himself at the head of armies in battle. It isn`t like later periods where they sat around in palaces and used agents for everything.

It was.
Conquest of Han was led by one Teng.
Conquest of Zhao was led by Wang Jian, Jiang Lei and Yang Duanhe.
Conquest of Yan was led by Wang Jian, Li Xin and Yang Ben.
Conquest of Wei was led by Wang Ben.
Conquest of Chu was led by Li Xin, Meng Wu and Wang Jian.
Conquest of Qi was led by Wang Ben.

Qin Shi Huangdi did not move from his capital to take command of armies.

If Qin Shi Huangdi´s mother had had him killed and replaced with his halfbrother she could control, the puppet emperor and his regent mother could have been sending out generals just as Qin Shi Huangdi was.
 
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