But in fact, before Wu Zetian, there was a rebel female leader who once proclaimed herself emperor. She is Chen Shuozhen of Tang Gaozong era. Chen Shuo, a native of Zhejiang, was an orphan since he was a child. What's more, she has a younger sister. In the ancient society where the poor had no welfare guarantee, Chen Shuozhen was doomed to have a hard time.
Even unable to support himself, Chen Shuozhen had to entrust his sister to others for foster care, while he found a maid in an official's house and finally got a full meal.
Qingxi, Zhejiang, where Chen Shuozhen is located, is a rare place for hating the rich in the Tang Dynasty, which means higher taxes than other places, and unexpected things have happened. This year, Qingxi was hit by a big flood, which meant nothing was gained. According to the routine operation, the Tang court will certainly distribute relief food at this time, but this time, not only did it not distribute relief food, but also there were many taxes, which drove the people to collapse and had to sell it.
Because working in an official's home, even if natural disasters lead to poor harvests of ordinary people, it is not a problem for Chen Shuozhen to eat enough, but Chen Shuo really grew up with hundreds of families and benefited ordinary people. Chen Shuozhen has the kind nature of ordinary people. It is unbearable to see the villagers starving, so he secretly distributed the food in the owner's granary to the villagers. A little girl dares to do such a big thing, which shows that Chen Shuozhen is also a courageous and resourceful person.
Open the owner's granary, and the owner will definitely quit, so Chen Shuozhen was arrested and beaten. After the villagers learned that Chen Shuozhen was arrested, they spontaneously organized to save her.
Chen Shuozhen, who escaped, had to flee to Fuchuan Mountain at the junction of the three counties in order to avoid the arrest of the government, where he disguised himself as a Taoist to cover up his identity.
During this period, she thought that only by overthrowing the imperial court could the villagers have a way out. How can we organize villagers to overthrow the court? She thought of what the ancients had done, so she declared that she came to Xuan Nv for nine days to save everyone and gather many people to follow her.
In the fourth year of Yonghui in Tang Gaozong, Chen Shuozhen officially revolted, claiming to be "Emperor Wenjia", becoming the first woman in the history of China to claim the title of emperor. When Chen Shuozhen was the most powerful, there were tens of thousands of insurgents. Of course, most of them are ordinary people without any training, and their combat effectiveness can be imagined. At this time, the loyalist strength of the Tang Dynasty was still very strong, so the final outcome of Chen Shuozhen can be imagined.
In fact, before Chen Shuozhen, there was a less formal female emperor, that is, Miss Yuan of the Northern Wei Dynasty. After the death of Ming Chengzu, he inherited Yuan, who was born more than a month ago, and became a prince. However, on the same day, Hu Taihou deposed Miss Yuan and established Yuan as Emperor Zhao. In view of the fact that Miss Yuan has been in office for less than a day and is only a temporary puppet of Hu Taihou, her status as emperor has not been recognized.