[UNKNOWN]: You
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the most of the confidence here is the podcast where we don't know everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, just the motherfuckin' bearer and we have our confidante favorite most requested fun badass segment here for you today.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, we got our one and only HTH our whole throughout history and you'll know what this segment is all about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we are here too.
[SPEAKER_00]: reclaim the narrative of unsung heroes that were women, gays and days, rebels, straight-up rulebreakers, who made history blush and we don't hear enough about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget, I went to public school, so this is kind of like me reclaiming my education.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could rewrite the history books, whew, what I would include.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this one is a fun long one.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna get right into her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this week we are stepping off this continent and going over to some Western Eastern.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eastern history into the glorious chaos of 7th century China to meet the one, the only, the baddest bitch to ever sit on the dragon throne, Empress Wu Zitan.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was China's first and only
[SPEAKER_00]: female emperor not Empress consort not Empress doagger whatever that means not some side chick to the dynasty okay she took the throne and let me tell y'all go good odds
[SPEAKER_00]: She rolled pretty ruthlessly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know if she's the villain, if she's the hero, but she did some baller crazy chaotic shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And can we have a balanced person in such power back then?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's up for us to decide.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was brilliant, she was sensual, she was suspicious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of read all of her bios, stuff as much as I could watch and consume.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, okay, so this is if like, Cersei Lannister had a baby with Makaveli and raised it on feminist scrolls, only to write her own horror ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is kind of like what Cersei did, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, it's been a while since we watched Game of Thrones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, now was she a tyrant or just a queen who played the patriarchy's game better than the men who wrote the rules?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh!
[SPEAKER_00]: Did she okay now stay with me confidence?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did she kill her own baby in a power grab or
[SPEAKER_00]: was this just sexist propaganda and rumors.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because the people who were starting these rumors might have been the man that didn't really like her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did she seduce her way into power with monks, teenage lovers, and all whole ass religious rebrand like a freaking spiritual influencer?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, no, maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's dive right in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, chapter one, I called this one the pretty girl problem child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wu Zhao, which was her birth name, was born around 624 CE in Shane C. Province during the Tang dynasty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her family was wealthy, educated, and unbothered by traditional gender rules.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, her dad ran a timber business, and her mom,
[SPEAKER_00]: Good read, which in 7th century China was basically like being a fricking witch, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lil Wu was given a full education.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she came from a family that was like, we're going to set you up for success, baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't believe in all this nonsense.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be rebels ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was taught Confucian classics, poetry, politics, and probably a solid
[SPEAKER_00]: By age 14, she entered the Imperial Court of Emperor Saisong, as a concubine, and I was like, what does that word mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically like the ancient version of a royal situation ship.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're technically dating the Emperor, but so are 50 other chicks, and they all are hot, and perfect posture, and questionable morals, and they all want job security.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was a real position.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, woo was ranked solo in the concubinus that her main duty was likely like keeping up with the feminine tasks as they called them like the laundry and cleaning.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't probably the first playboy bunny in bed every night is how I took it.
[SPEAKER_00]: but she, she paid attention, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: She was at the low ranks, but she was looking up, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: She saw the ladder that she could climb.
[SPEAKER_00]: She watched who got promoted, who got punished, and how the power moved behind clothes doors, because she got the BTS that no one else could see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just have to imagine me at 14 like learning how to drink parrot bay in a parking lot with friends without getting caught and she was learning how to like survive in a palace full of
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe that's what happens when you don't grow up with cosmopolitan.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say your site's on something larger.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Emperor Saisong died in 649, concubines were expected to shave their heads and retire to Buddhist
[SPEAKER_00]: Convents.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is basically like a non-retreat for ex-girlfriends of the Royal King.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know who the fuck started that rule, but that's insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be like all the side chicks gotta go to.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he goes y'all gotta get out here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want you for the next guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go find business elsewhere, which really is truly
[SPEAKER_00]: precious job and security, because you're like, how old is the motherfucker?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like being, oh my god, this is exactly like you have never.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's our holy Madison.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I got to stop compared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so we went, but she didn't stay at the non-factory, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Emperor, that's where we enter Emperor Gauzong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say Zong's son.
[SPEAKER_00]: and rumor has it that while daddy was still alive, who in the prince had already been collaborating with their body parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Gaye Gauzong entered the throne, he sent for his boo.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, get her out of those nanny trenches, get her back here.
[SPEAKER_00]: She got that good good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, who was now sleeping with the son of her former boss, technically?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yes, he was the Emperor.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was employed by him, but I think she actually really liked the disguise, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The dad was just like what she had to do to get where she is.
[SPEAKER_00]: She basically went from a side check to First Lady within two Dynasties, casual.
[SPEAKER_00]: but Gauzong probably was here, he had a wife, Empress Wang, and a favorite concubine, Zao Xufei.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here he had a number one and a number two.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Wu, she started, she went, she befriended the wife, Wu, that's nasty, and then accused the mistress Zao Xufei of witchcraft.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: She turned against our own girlies.
[SPEAKER_00]: She really saw how can I get them out of their positions of power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do the classic befriended enemy then turn on her and make sure that this I check we probably should team up and like make it's on like she's doing witchcraft.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which again, don't love that for us, girlies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't love that, but soon the table's turned, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: She became the Emperor's new favorite and by 65, his official Empress, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So rumors say that the side piece is out of way didn't survive that demotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it sounds like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Wu was not here to lean in.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was there to take over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's where the legend gets a little messy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember I was telling you, like, I don't know if y'all are gonna see her as a villain or a knight, but like it's just listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, one account claims that Wu got pregnant and then killed her own infant daughter to blame Empress Wang.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and used that scandal to get her to post.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like let's pause, okay, because this story also remember comes from a whole bunch of his story and who lived after her reign, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, you know, they same men that were like, women shouldn't be able to read.
[SPEAKER_00]: So do we really trust him?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, some scholars were like, maybe the baby just died of illness, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Infant mortality was brutal back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then maybe the rumor was weaponized later
[SPEAKER_00]: She did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or she did it and it would have been a full on Netflix documentary series in 2025, which is kind of crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you have a daughter by your main emperor and then the wife who you've befriended, you say, oh, your wife actually killed my baby, we need to depose of her, dispose of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to depose and dispose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so another thing I like was reading, and I feel like we've done some hose on some hose in history is about these kinds of women that were married to men who like killed off their entire family, sustained power, or like their cousins or relatives, and so like if a man does it.
[SPEAKER_00]: he's making power moves, but if a woman doesn't, I know it's a tricky subject because we're talking about, you know, often babies here, but still, uh, just something to think about, okay, uh, when Gazong suffered a series of strokes, a rough role.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wu stepped in to handle the empire.
[SPEAKER_00]: She started attending council meetings after you would have a stroke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is chewing edicts and basically like running the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she didn't ask for permission, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you do when the emperors wife has been disposed of because of this crazy rumor from the first side check?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she also shows up to the meetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to be the one that raises your hand and it's like
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, are you supposed to be here?
[SPEAKER_00]: You just shut up and not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not like our Emperor was completely incapable of doing his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: She just was slowly starting to take over his responsibilities every time he got sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: problem is, our boy, our emperor, he didn't last very long.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did die and, uh, most Empresses, you know, the sidepiece would be in mourning, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, no, I, I don't know what to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to let these men tell me who's in power and who was like, LOL, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, she first installed her sons as emperors, so she did have more children.
[SPEAKER_00]: First one and the other and kind of like ruled behind them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so Cersei Lannister Row.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so like, do this son, do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you love your mama, you'll do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she didn't like what she was saying with them and they got a little too cocky so she ended up firing both of them, which is very funny, she's like stage mom who then's like, let me just do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, don't send my two idiotic teen sons to do a job that I should've been doing all along.
[SPEAKER_00]: So by 690, she stopped pretending, and she declared herself Emperor of freaking China.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not Empress Emperor.
[SPEAKER_00]: The official term back then was Huang Di, and she was the only woman in Chinese history to ever claim it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you think art girl with all that power is gonna do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so our girl is now in power.
[SPEAKER_00]: We was like, I am the head bitch in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the only one to ever do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's never been done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she decided to basically find found her own dynasty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: She founded the zoo dynasty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it ruled for 15 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: She commanded armies.
[SPEAKER_00]: She reformed government exams.
[SPEAKER_00]: And built temples where she was like, you're going to build this and you're going to include statues of me and I'm going to look hot as fuck okay so make sure you get the proportions right make sure I'm in stone forever so people can come look at me and be like wow what a bad bitch she was not playing around.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was also very good at PR.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I think she would have slayed as a spiritual influencer in 2025.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew that confusion, scholars hated seeing a woman in charge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck y'all's religion and whatever you're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna turn to Buddhism, which was a very progressive religion at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: and claimed that she was a living.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to try and say this word right, Bodhi Stava, which is essentially saint on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's leveled herself up even more.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, oh, you don't like that I'm in power.
[SPEAKER_00]: Watch me literally implore this religion upon all my people and then tell them that I am like the saintiest highest of power that you can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, she to use this divine branding to say, if heaven didn't want a woman to rule, why am I doing it so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at me in power.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've made my way up here and y'all can't do nothing about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and while she ruled with an iron scroll, she also enjoyed her pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, our girl was a sensual ruler.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had lovers,
[SPEAKER_00]: This may be Giggle, a pair of young brothers, Zeng Yizhi and Zeng Chaizong, who served as her, quote, bodyguards quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're doing some kind of garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's just like legendary, truly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we know the men were doing that show back then, and we never hear about the ladies doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that that's just so baller, because she's like, yeah, you see these men's that will chop your heads off if you try to come for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're also giving me that good D. Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were brothers.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a little suspicious on their own, but hey, who am I here to judge, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: But different times, different strokes, different folks back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was also like a pretty good ruler according to her people.
[SPEAKER_00]: She flipped the script with promoting officials based on actual merit, not favoritism in family or birthright.
[SPEAKER_00]: She would give lower class scholars a path to power.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was performing education and that terrified old money elite.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, as bad as what she did to get there
[SPEAKER_00]: frowned upon.
[SPEAKER_00]: She also did a lot of good with what she was given once she was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: She also, okay, created a secret police.
[SPEAKER_00]: A cab set this one to keep the patriarchy in check or in prison, depending if she did or didn't like them.
[SPEAKER_00]: That brings up the age-old divine question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are we just as bad as men if we flip the patriarchy completely 180?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or is it our time to rule?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what would we do with all that power?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it still dictatorship if your sex life is that inclusive as what I'm trying to say?
[SPEAKER_00]: So here we go, woo, ruled well into her 80s, which is wild, considering the fact that medieval life expectancy was like fucking 25 back then, as long as you didn't like a choke on your feast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in 705 after decades of absolute power, ministers forced her to abdicate to resign.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just like, but you go and live for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't like the way your handle like things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've let you go all this way, but you're old.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're frail.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're in your 80s.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can we can be you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So either resign or we'll we'll do it for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will resign, but I'm also going to die.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, if I can't be in power, I'm going to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm out here taking it on my own time.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I can't be in power, give me death.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's rumored that she took her own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's rumored they killed her.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was rumored that her not being in power any longer killed her.
[SPEAKER_00]: She just couldn't stand being a regular appointed person.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had no more power and she was like, I got to be out
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and she was actually buried beside her husband at a mausoleum.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her tombstone left completely blank.
[SPEAKER_00]: No inscription, just like a massive blank tomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some say, again, she ordered it that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were like, let the deeds speak for themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others believe that
[SPEAKER_00]: the people who buried her like didn't know how to describe her because she was doing basically all the things that Amanda did and she ruled like a man and yet they didn't know how to give her her flowers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were just like, we kind of can't think of anything else and we don't want etch this in little overall stone and not be able to take it back to these because that's going to be expensive so we're just going to leave it blank.
[SPEAKER_00]: and some people like fought over that being like she was mid because of all of the things she did to get there but she also was a powerhouse and paved the way for a lot of things to change so we should give her her flowers and everyone else looked mid in comparison.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for centuries after Confucian historians called her unnatural, manipulative and blood thirsty, because she dared to do what the men were doing at that time every single dynasty elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did she execute rivals and run a surveillance state, but it was off her own doing right it reminds me of a book I read early this year where women Rule the world like 99% of it and they kept one person around just to pro-create But they kept them like engages and stuff and I was like, listen
[SPEAKER_00]: If a woman's going to rule, we got to decide what to do with all these men anyway, so what do we do with them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Where are we?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we treat them?
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was basically like, look, I'm going to include y'all in my police force, okay, but you work for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your spies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, how cool about us, brag about it, but all the information comes for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I monitor all your doings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, baller, slavery, I don't know, y'all make your own decision on that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: She also strengthened China's bureaucracy, remember she transformed education for the lower class,
[SPEAKER_00]: And she also did put some women in positions of power for the first time that some of these visitors, instead of her had women in power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And modern scholars, okay, bringing up to today, view her as one of China's most capable and savvy rulers, someone who understood the optics of being in charge while still having loyalty and messaging centuries before PR firms ever existed, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who knew you could rebrand yourself?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like if Trump came out and was suddenly like you know what I'm actually gonna be liberal Could you guys believe and everyone was like wait But we supported your beliefs, but we are also like fan girls of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like if people just decided to stay with him no matter what he believed like that's how beloved She was by the people even if the men in power did not love her
[SPEAKER_00]: So she wasn't, you know, a footnote.
[SPEAKER_00]: She wasn't a consort.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was the mother-fucking emperor and the aunt won and only to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She outlived her rivals by a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: She outsmitered her enemies and she reshaped what women in power looked like for China.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think frankly, people were just scared of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that when you look at her story, again, she was educated and people feared women that were educated from the jump like to be that young and see, okay, yes, I do need to sleep my way up to the top for a little bit, but once I'm there, I'm going to do as much good as I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: And was she really evil?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did she really kill her own baby or was that just like an
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know, but you caught a handed tour that she had to be one bad-ass hoe to be able to succeed in doing all of what she did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, confidants, don't be afraid to be called a hell, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because remember, Empress Lou was one and, you know, she's in the fucking history books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so that is our home this week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you know, I, again, I always find it so fascinating every time I hear about someone new, because I'm just like shook it that I didn't hear about them before that I never knew that they existed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get angry for myself for all of the women that I probably still haven't discovered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also love when you guys give me suggestions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have someone that you want me to do, I don't, I can't remember if we had done
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we done Cleopatra?
[SPEAKER_00]: I just feel like her story is so complex and already so well documented.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what am I going to tell you guys that you already know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also found that like a lot of the women I want to include were very involved in the art.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of like writers and poets and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want more like sword swing and bitches.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have any suggestions, let me know.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, we're, I cannot believe it's already October.
[SPEAKER_00]: What the actual?
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it already Halloween?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we definitely need to do a Halloween giveaway for this season.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got some like cool makeup and PR stuff that I'm not going to use.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like I should do that giveaway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So make sure you go over to confidently pod on IG to check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, in the meantime, I hope your fall weather is changing and not making you two sad sad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you're enjoying the pumpkin season.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I start to get this ad, I always try to lean into like some fall behavior, you know, go to try some apple cider somewhere, go just be outside in the fall foliage, go do an art and craftstake, because it's always like a little bit moody or those days.
[SPEAKER_00]: So take care of yourself, babies, coffee donts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will see you next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ta-ta!