Did Wu Zetian really kill her daughter to steal the emperor’s favor?

Wu Zetian (624–705 CE) was the only woman in all of Chinese history who actually ruled as emperor on her own, and even today people still argue about who she really was. One of the most shocking stories told about her is that she killed her newborn baby just to get rid of a rival and win over Emperor Gaozong.

Where the Story Comes From

The main source for this claim appears in two old historical records—theOld Book of Tang and theNew Book of Tang—which were both put together centuries after Wu Zetian had died, during the 10th and 11th centuries respectively. These books say that not long after Wu gave birth, Empress Wang (who was married to Emperor Gaozong at the time) came to visit her, and after Wang left the room, Wu supposedly smothered her own infant; then, when the emperor walked in, she blamed Wang for the child’s death, which made him furious and led him to start pushing his wife out of power so Wu could take her place.

Why the Story Might Be Biased

It’s important to remember that most official Chinese histories were written by Confucian scholars who strongly believed that women should not hold supreme power, so because Wu broke that rule by becoming emperor, later writers had good reason to paint her in a bad light. The story about her killing her own baby fits neatly into that effort—it makes her seem heartless and wicked, which was a common trick used to discredit powerful women throughout history.  

On top of that, getting rid of Empress Wang wasn’t something that could be done just because Gaozong liked Wu more; there needed to be a strong public reason, and accusing Wang of murdering an innocent newborn gave them exactly the kind of emotional justification they needed to act.

No Proof from Her Time

There are no documents or records from Wu Zetian’s own lifetime—or from Emperor Gaozong’s court—that say anything about this event happening. If something as terrible as a mother killing her own baby to frame someone else had really taken place, you would expect to find some mention of it in letters, official reports, or notes from people who were actually there, but nothing like that exists, which makes many researchers think the whole story was invented much later to damage her image.

Was It Even Necessary?

Back in the 600s, it was sadly common for babies to die very young because of illness, poor living conditions, or the lack of proper medical care, so if a newborn passed away suddenly, most people wouldn’t have thought it strange or suspicious. That means Wu could have simply said her daughter died from natural causes without having to go through the dangerous and complicated plan of killing the child herself and then pointing fingers at someone else, especially since doing so would have carried huge risks with little clear benefit.

What Modern Historians Say

Most historians working today don’t take the infanticide story seriously and see it more as a myth than a real event. Experts like R.W.L. Guisso, Mark Edward Lewis, and N. Harry Rothschild all point out that the tale first shows up long after Wu’s death, during the Song dynasty—a time when traditional Confucian values were being pushed hard and people were especially uncomfortable with the idea of women in charge.  

Some scholars suggest that even if the baby’s death seemed odd, there’s still no solid evidence linking Wu to any wrongdoing, while others think the whole episode might not describe an actual crime at all but instead serve as a symbolic way to show how far she was ready to go to gain control.

Looking at Her Whole Life

Whether or not this one dark story is true, Wu Zetian did many significant things during her rule—she opened up the civil service exams to more people, hired officials based on skill rather than family background, gave strong support to Buddhism, and kept the empire stable and secure. Sure, she got rid of her enemies when she had to, sometimes in harsh ways, but focusing only on this one rumor misses the much larger and more complex reality of what her leadership actually looked like.

Final Thoughts

The idea that Wu Zetian murdered her own baby just to win the emperor’s love sounds dramatic and shocking, but it most likely isn’t true. There’s no reliable proof from her own time, and the story seems to have been created by later writers who wanted to make her look evil because they didn’t like the fact that a woman had taken the throne.