Marry a Dugu, and You Will Rule China: The Three Empress Dugu Sisters | Tea with Amy

Today there is a popular modern saying that goes 得独孤者得天下 which means he who obtains Dugu also obtains the world. This saying refers to three sisters of the Dugu family who married into successive ruling families eventually becoming three empresses of three different dynasties. And they're the same Dugu sisters that appeared in the Xi drama The Legend of Dugu. They were the daughters of the great general Dugu Xin. I guess you can say he had a really good eye for sons-in-law. They were from the kingdoms of Western Wei and Northern Zhou which was before the Sui and Tang dynasties. First, his eldest daughter would become Empress Mingjing of the Northern Zhou dynasty. Next, his youngest daughter Dugu Qieluo would become the first empress of the Sui dynasty as Empress Wenxian. She would form a legendary monogamy oath with her husband which would end in disaster. And then his fourth daughter would marry into the noble Li family and her son would become the founding emperor of the Tang dynasty where she would be posthumously named as Empress Yuanzhen. Hey everyone and welcome to Tea with Amy. Today we're following the Dugu sisters through their stories an incredible anomaly in Chinese history. It is rare for any family to produce even one empress and for one family to produce three empresses across three consecutive dynasties is unique and unparalleled. The story of the Dugu sisters began in a world of violence and instability. China was fractured into several competing kingdoms including Western Wei and Eastern Wei in the north and the Liang dynasty in the south. The eldest Dugu sister is a woman history knows primarily by her posthumous title Empress Mingjing. While her personal name was never recorded in the historical records modern stories such as the sea drama The Legend of Dugu gave her the name Dugu Banruo which we will use for our story. Just remember that it was probably not her real name. Dugu Banruo was born around 536 CE in the early years of the Western Wei. Just as her father Dugu Xin was rising to become one of the most powerful men in the realm. By the mid 550s the emperor of Western Wei had lost control of the kingdom and a great general Yuwen Tai was the one calling the shots. Yuwen Tai had built strong relationships with the top officials and generals of Western Wei such as Dugu Xin and wanted to build his own kingdom. So to further strengthen the bond between the Yuwen family and the Dugu family Dugu Banruo married Yuwen Yu the son of Yuwen Tai. But then in 556 CE Yuwen Tai passed away before he could realize his dream. He had successfully consolidated power but hadn't yet officially declared himself emperor. He left his titles and his massive army to his 15-year-old son Yuwen Jue. And because Yuwen Jue was still young the Yuwen family relied on his older and more experienced cousin Yuwen Hu to help run things. Under the leadership of Yuwen Hu the last emperor of Western Wei was forced to abdicate and the Northern Zhou was established in 557 CE. He installed Yuwen Jue as the new emperor and named himself regent. The new Northern Zhou was a fragile kingdom and Yuwen Hu became suspicious of anyone else with enough influence to challenge his authority. He began to fear the prestige held by Dugu Xin and implicated him for treason forcing the general to take his own life. In an instant the Dugu family was ruined and most of the family members were stripped of their ranks and exiled to remote regions. But then Yuwen Hu ran into a new problem. The new emperor Yuwen Jue had started to fight back against his authority which could not be tolerated. So Yuwen Hu went for the simplest fix. He deposed Yuwen Jue and killed him. So now he needed a new puppet. He looked at his family and chose Yuwen Yu as the second emperor. Yuwen Yu was known for being a quiet scholar who loved books and Yuwen Hu thought that he would be easy to control. And in January 558 CE Dugu Banruo became the new empress. Unfortunately her time as empress was tragically brief. In April 558 CE she passed away after being empress for only three months. The official records are vague about her cause of death but it seems that she gave birth to a son right before her death leading some modern historians to believe that she died from complications during childbirth. But unfortunately for Yuwen Hu the scholarly Yuwen Yu turned out to be a brilliant and popular emperor. He began making smart policy decisions and gained the genuine respect of the officials and the military. He has started to quietly undermine Yuwen Hu's authority. And on top of that the birth of a crown prince meant that Yuwen Yu now had a legitimate heir. And Yuwen Hu knew that he had to act before the emperor grew too strong. So in 560 CE Yuwen Hu had emperor Yuwen Yu poisoned and it is believed that the newborn crown prince met a similar tragic fate. On his deathbed Yuwen Yu knew his son would never survive against Yuwen Hu so he used his final breath to name his younger brother Yuwen Yong as his successor hoping that he would stand a better chance. In the end Dugu Banruo's life became a cautionary tale for her sisters. She had become empress in the most tragic way possible unable to protect or save anyone that she could have cared about. Not much is recorded about the life of the fourth Dugu sister. She was known posthumously as Empress Yuanzhen. Her personal name was also never recorded in the official records. We will refer to her as Dugu Mantuo for today's video. That's the fictional name sometimes used in modern stories. Dugu Mantuo was likely born around 541 CE. She grew up in the final years of the Western way. She would have spent her childhood in the luxury of the capital but her teenage years were defined by the same regency of blood that claimed her sister and father. Around the time the northern Zhou was established in early 557 CE the teenage Dugu Mantuo was married to Li Bing. It was a marriage that would change her life and the future of Chinese history. A few months later her father Dugu Xin was forced to death but she escaped the purge by already being a part of the Li family. However, she wasn't entirely safe. She had to live the next several years in the capital as the daughter of a traitor in a court ruled by the man who killed her father. Some modern historians speculate that this social pressure contributed to the severe and harsh personality she will become remembered for later in life. In 566 CE during the reign of the third northern Zhou emperor Yuwen Yong she gave birth to a son named Li Yuan who would later become the founding emperor of the Tang dynasty. It is said that she suffered from a chronic debilitating illness that often left her bedridden and in critical condition. However, her temperament was so harsh that most of her daughters-in-law were terrified of her. The records state that they would often claim to be ill themselves just to avoid having to wait on her and face her stern judgment. There was only one woman in the household who could handle her. The wife of her son Li Yuan, Lady Dou, the future empress Tai Mu. The Old Book of Tang praises Lady Dou's devotion to her difficult mother-in-law. Lady Dou served Dugu Mantuo and was known for her filial piety. Dugu Mantuo had long suffered from a frail illness and at times her spirit and temperament were severe and harsh. Because of this, all of the other daughters-in-law made excuses that they were ill, withdrawing and not daring to enter her presence. Only Lady Dou served her day and night, not changing her clothes or shoes, often for an entire month. We don't know exactly how or when Dugu Mantuo passed away, but historians estimate it to be between 590 and 600 CE, before the forming of the Tang Dynasty. Even though historical records describe Dugu Mantuo as being strict and harsh, it also says that she had a strong relationship with her son Li Yuan. In 618 CE, Li Yuan officially established the Tang Dynasty as Emperor Gaozu. And the bond between the emperor and his mother was captured in a famous historical anecdote. In this story, one day, during an imperial banquet, grapes were served. At the time, grapes were a rare and exotic luxury. One official, Chen Shuda, held his grapes but refused to eat them. When Emperor Gaozu asked why, the official explained that his own mother loved grapes, but he couldn't afford them. He wanted to take them home to her. Hearing this, the emperor began to weep. He realized that while he was now the most powerful man in the world, he no longer had a mother to whom he could offer such gifts. He was moved by this memory and gave the official a massive reward of silk to buy things for his mother. One of Li Yuan's first acts after becoming emperor was to honor his mother with her title. According to the Old Book of Tang, in 618 CE, the emperor's deceased mother, Lady Dugu, was posthumously titled Empress Yuanzhen. While the records focused on her harshness, I think Dugu Mantuo's real legacy was how she impacted the Li family. By maintaining a household defined by strict discipline and high expectations, she shaped the Li family into that image. Maybe this household culture set the foundation that fostered a tradition of strong Li women, such as the princess-general, Pingyang, and the formidable princess, Taiping. But we jumped ahead a little in the timeline. What happened between the Northern Zhou and the Tang dynasty? Well, that brings us to the third sister, the first empress of the Sui dynasty. While her sisters represented the tragedy of the past and the seed of the future, the seventh and youngest sister, Dugu Qieluo, known to history as Empress Wenxin, would become the most powerful woman of her time. She was born to Dugu Xin and Lady Cui in 544 CE. She was given the Buddhist name Qieluo, which is a transcription of a foreign term meaning insect wood. The history of Northern dynasties praised her intellect, stating that Dugu Qieluo was fond of reading and possessed a deep understanding of both ancient and modern times. In 557 CE, she married 17-year-old Yang Jian. It was a match made by her father, Dugu Xin, who saw something extraordinary in the young man. But only a month after the wedding, the Dugu family was purged. Her father was dead, her siblings were in exile, and her new husband, Yang Jian, was marked as a threat by the tyrant Yuwen Hu. It was during this period of unrest that they made their famous monogamy oath, as documented in the Book of Sui. When Yang Jian was in his early years, he was deeply attached to Dugu Qieluo. He swore an oath that he would have no children by any other woman. They swore to be each other's only partners. This wasn't just a romantic gesture. It was a political survival strategy. In a world where families were torn apart by internal feuds and rivalries, they would be a single, unbreakable unit. In 560 CE, Yuwen Yong became the new emperor of the Northern Zhou as Emperor Wu. He was a brilliant and disciplined ruler, but he knew that he had to lay low to protect himself against the regent Yuwen Hu. For the first years of his reign, Emperor Wu was a puppet. Finally, in 572 CE, Emperor Wu had secured enough influence and power. He lured Yuwen Hu into the palace under the guise of reading a text to the Empress Dowager. While Yuwen Hu was reading, the emperor struck him from behind with a jade tablet, and his guards finished the job. The man who had destroyed the Dugu family was gone at last. In 573 CE, Emperor Wu arranged a marriage between the crown prince Yuwen Yun and Dugu Qieluo's eldest daughter Yang Lihua, effectively naming her the future empress. Emperor Wu knew that Yang Jian was a noble with deep military roots, but he also knew that Dugu Qieluo came from a family that had been persecuted by Yuwen Hu. He believed that they would be fiercely loyal to him because he was the one who had finally restored their family's honor and safety. Once he had total control, Emperor Wu turned his eyes toward Northern Qi, the rival kingdom to the east, eventually capturing the territory in 577 CE. This was the first time in nearly 50 years that Northern China was unified under one ruler. Yang Jian served as an important general in these campaigns, earning massive prestige and the emperor's trust. But then, less than one year later, Emperor Wu suddenly passed away, and the stability of the kingdom shattered. Emperor Wu was succeeded by the crown prince Yuwen Yun as Emperor Shun. The new emperor was arguably one of the most unstable rulers in Chinese history. Historians describe him as a man who viewed the world with extreme paranoia and delusions of grandeur. Emperor Shun broke all historical protocol by naming five women as empress at the same time, including his primary wife, Yang Lihua. This wasn't just about lust. It was a political move to humble the noble families and keep them fighting each other. And just a year after being named emperor, he didn't want to do the work of an emperor anymore and abdicated the throne to his six-year-old son, naming him Emperor Jing. He granted himself the title of Heavenly Emperor of the Great Beginning, Tianyuan Huangdi, and claimed to be a divine being who had descended to earth. He treated the imperial court like a temple where he was the god, and he kept a black book of every official's perceived mistakes. If an official did something slightly wrong, they were beaten nearly to death as divine punishment. He spent his time traveling in massive gold-plated carriages pulled by hundreds of men. He used these tours to indulge in extreme excess, spending the kingdom's treasury on massive parties. But he was terrified and deeply suspicious of his father-in-law, Yang Jian. He needed to be free of Yang Jian. In 580 CE, Emperor Shen accused his empress, Yang Lihua, of being disrespectful and ordered her to take her own life. This wasn't just a cruel attack on his wife. If Yang Lihua died as a criminal, Emperor Shen would have the excuse he needed to send soldiers to arrest Yang Jian as a part of familial exterminations. This was the idea of lián zuò, collective responsibility, which I talked about more in a previous video. In order to save her family, Dugu Qieluo did the unthinkable. Dugu Qieluo went to the palace gates to offer her apologies, kneeling and bowing until her head bled. Emperor Shen was shocked by the sight of his mother-in-law bleeding at the palace gates. He rescinded the order for Yang Lihua to end her life, and the immediate threat to the Yang family was paused. For Dugu Qieluo, having to mutilate herself and beg for the life of her child from a radical son-in-law was the ultimate humiliation. It proved that no matter how much loyalty they showed, they were never safe under the Yuwen family. Some historians often point to this specific moment as the reason why she was so adamant in supporting her husband to seize the throne later. But Emperor Shen wasn't going to just let them go. He decided to order Yang Jian out of the capital to be a provincial governor, likely planning to have him assassinated on the road. And then something ridiculous happened. Just as Yang Jian was preparing for his journey, Emperor Shen suddenly fell into a coma. Two of the emperor's closest aides were actually secretly friends with Yang Jian, and they immediately summoned him into the palace. They forged an imperial edict naming Yang Jian as the grand chancellor and regent for the seven-year-old Emperor Jing. Historical records describe that Yang Jian was hesitant at first, fearful of the backlash from the Yuwen family. He was standing on the edge of treason, and it was Dugu Qieluo who pushed him past the point of no return. She sent a message to him inside the palace that said, the situation is already like riding a beast. There is no getting off. You must continue. Her words stripped away any illusion of safety. It was either the throne or the executioner's block. Strengthened by his wife's resolve, Yang Jian seized control. Emperor Shen passed away later that night, and Yang Jian quickly took control of the palace guards and the imperial seals. He had transformed from a man on his way to an assassination into the most powerful man in the empire overnight. Using the forged edict, Yang Jian summoned the most powerful Yuwen princess to the capital, claiming they were needed for the emperor's funeral. Over the next few months, Yang Jian found evidence of various conspiracies and eventually executed all of the powerful Yuwen princess and their sons. In 581 CE, Yang Jian established the Sui dynasty, becoming Emperor Wen. Three days later, he officially crowned Dugu Qieluo as his empress. The girl who had begun her marriage as the daughter of a traitor was now the mother of a new empire. With the founding of the Sui dynasty, Empress Dugu Qieluo became one of the most influential women in Chinese history. She was not a consular who stayed hidden in the inner court. Instead, she and Emperor Wen governed as a partnership so equal that the court gave them a unique title of the Two Saints. The history of Northern Dynasty records that the empress was intelligent and wise, often assisting the emperor. She was particularly frugal and not petty, and she was greatly valued by the emperor. Their daily routine was a testament to the shared power. Every morning, Empress Dugu would accompany the emperor to the gates of the palace. While he handled the formal assembly, she remained just outside the hall, sending eunuchs back and forth to monitor the proceedings. If she felt the emperor was making a mistake or losing his temper, she would send immediate word to correct him. This partnership led to a period of prosperity. Empress Dugu was a champion of extreme frugality. When an expensive basket of pearls was offered to her, she rejected it, stating that the money would be better spent rewarding the soldiers defending the borders. Under her influence, the palace expenses were reduced, and the burden on the common people was lightened. Emperor Wen eventually had five sons and five daughters, all born with her, fulfilling their marriage oath. She took great pride in this, and the emperor famously boasted to his officials that he had no children by concubines. However, her commitment to her principles was ironclad, even when it came to her own blood. When her maternal cousin Cui Changren committed a crime punishable by death, Emperor Wen wanted to pardon him. The empress refused. According to the Book of Sui, she said, how can I allow personal feelings to disrupt the law of the state? And so, her cousin was executed, proving to the empire that the empress valued justice over nepotism. She also took an active interest in the education and morality of the nobility. She frequently summoned highly educated women to the palace to discuss the classics and history. She believed that the strength of the empire rested on the moral integrity of its leading families. By the peak of the Sui dynasty, Empress Dugu was the co-architect of a unified China. But the very monogamy oath and the rigid moral standards that had built her family would soon become the source of its undoing. For decades, Emperor Wen had remained faithful, but in his old age, he finally faltered. In 599 CE, he became attracted to a young woman from the Yuchi family. In a moment of desire, the emperor broke his oath and spent the night with her. When the empress found out, she was furious. This was a betrayal of the very foundation of the relationship and the empire they had built together. Her reaction was swift and brutal. While the emperor was at court, she sent her attendants and had the young woman killed. When Emperor Wen found out, he didn't scream at her. Instead, he was overwhelmed by the realization that he was trapped by his own wife. So he fled the palace. He mounted a horse and rode blindly into the mountains, refusing to return. His top ministers had to gallop after him, eventually catching him in a mountain valley. It was here that he wept and cried out, I am the son of heaven, yet I have no freedom. Though they eventually reconciled, the spark of their legendary romance had dimmed. The emperor began to resent the iron cage that his wife had built around him. And the empress became increasingly withdrawn. Her heart heartened and her focus shifted toward the survival of her legacy through her children. She became suspicious of any men who indulged in favoring concubines, including her own sons. But the crown prince Yang Yong was indulgent and had many concubines. More importantly, his primary wife died suddenly and rumors spread that Yang Yong had allowed his favorite concubine to poison her. Empress Dugu was disgusted by her son's many concubines, which contrasted with her own values. Meanwhile, her second son Yang Guang faked a life of perfect morality to win her over. He lived frugally, pretended to love only his wife and acted the part of the dutiful son. The empress was convinced and she pressured the emperor to strip the eldest son of his title and named Yang Guang as the new crown prince, not knowing that this would be one of the most controversial decisions in her life, as we will see later. In 602 CE, at the age of 59, Empress Dugu passed away. Her death was a shock to Emperor Wen. They had spent nearly every waking hour together for decades. Without her sitting behind a curtain or riding in a parallel carriage, the rituals of being emperor felt hollow and terrifying to him. Some modern historians suggest that his extreme grief was fueled by the guilt of the incident with Lady Yuchi. The emperor was so devastated that he ignored the warnings of his astrologers and insisted on personally accompanying her funeral carriage for hundreds of miles through the winter cold. When his worried officials begged him to turn back and preserve his own health, he silenced them. According to the Book of Sui, the emperor said, I cannot forget the empress. If the soul has awareness, let us be reunited beneath the earth. She was buried in the Zhaohe Mausoleum and was granted the title Wenxian. Wen, which meant civil and cultured, to match the emperor's own title and Xian, which was a reference to her intellectual contribution, a recognition of her part in their empire. And the emperor did more than just weep. He ordered the construction of the massive Chanding Temple, ensuring that monks would chant her name Deyi in an attempt to ensure her soul's comfort in the afterlife. After her death, the emperor's health and judgment rapidly declined. In 604 CE, while the emperor was on his deathbed, he realized the true nature of his successor, discovering that the new crown prince, Yang Guang, had only been faking his moral purity for years. In that final moment, Emperor Wen realized that the empress's rigid morality had allowed them to be manipulated. He ordered his ministers to recall his eldest son, but it was too late. Yang Guang's soldiers moved in, the palace was locked down, and the emperor died shortly after. Many historians believe he was smothered or poisoned. After his death, Emperor Wen was buried with his empress in the same imperial mausoleum. As he had claimed two years earlier, they were finally reunited beneath the earth. Tragically, without the two saints, the Sui dynasty lasted only 14 more years. Their son, the new emperor Yang, would be remembered in history as a tyrant and will quickly cause the empire to collapse, leading to the rise of the Tang dynasty. Ironically, the founders of the Tang dynasty were the descendants of Dugu Qieluo's sister, Dugu Mantuo, ensuring that while the Sui dynasty fell, the bloodline of the Dugu family would continue to rule China for another three centuries. The memory of Dugu Qieluo has been filtered through the lens of the historians who came after her. To the scholars of the Tang dynasty, she was often painted as the ultimate cautionary tale. The jealous empress, whose behavior and meddling in succession led to the ruin of the Sui dynasty. According to the Book of Sui, the empress possessed the virtue of a wise woman. Yet her heart was not impartial. She indulged her jealousy to displace the rightful heir, nearly toppling the state. How regrettable. The Tang dynasty historians had a clear motive to criticize her. By framing her jealousy and her misjudgment of Yang Guang as the reason for the Sui dynasty's collapse, they provided a moral justification for the Tang dynasty to take power. They even applied the ancient warning from the Book of Documents to her, which states, the hen does not announce the morning. The crowing of the hen at dawn indicates the subversion of the family. Ancient scholars like to use this warning to argue that when a woman is taking a man's role, it was a sign of impending disaster. But was she truly the architect of her empire's downfall, or was she a visionary political partner ahead of her time? In the chaotic century before the Sui dynasty, many dynasties were destroyed by succession wars between half-brothers and the rivalries of different mothers. By insisting that all of the emperor's children be born from one mother, maybe Dugu Qieluo was attempting to build a stable, unified imperial core. And also, Dugu Qieluo couldn't have changed the crown prince on her own. Emperor Wen still had to agree after all. So maybe they should be equally responsible for letting Yang Guang take the throne. Now let's talk about the jealousy part. This is where things get really interesting. Right after the empress died, Emperor Wen filled the ranks of his harem, naming three consorts and over a hundred lower-ranked concubines. It is believed that most of these were in name only, but there were two that he definitely favored, consort Shen Hua and consort Rong Hua. Historical records suggest that Emperor Wen spent a lot of time with these two consorts, finally free to do what the empress had forbidden. And so he is remembered as the emperor who tried to be monogamous and failed at the very end. But this is also exactly why some historians suggest that maybe Emperor Wen and Empress Dugu did not have a happy marriage after all, that he was so stifled by her controlling and jealous nature that he immediately found new consorts after the empress's passing. But the historical records try to explain that he was lost without his empress and was trying to find someone to replace her or to escape her memory. According to the history of northern dynasties, the emperor was by nature grave and upright and was not the type of man to indulge in or be infatuated with concubines. He only deeply valued and respected Empress Dugu. When the empress passed away, he was as if he had lost his soul. It was only because of this that the two ladies, Shen Hua and Rong Hua, began to receive his favor. And some historians also like to point out that Emperor Wen technically didn't break his oath, as his oath was to have no children by any other woman, which he didn't. What do you think about that? Unfortunately, we will never know the truth of their relationship, but Dugu Tieluo's contributions to the Sui dynasty and Chinese history cannot be ignored. I think she was definitely a great empress. And you know, most great people were probably not nice people. Through these Dugu sisters, we see the evolution of an entire civilization. The eldest sister, Dugu Banruo, represented the brutal, unstable transition of the Northern Zhou. The youngest sister, Dugu Tieluo, acted as the co-architect of a unified China under the Sui dynasty. And the fourth sister, Dugu Mantuo, provided the iron world foundation for the Tang dynasty. For over 300 years, the throne of China was defined by the daughters of Dugu Xin. What do you think of these three sisters? And what do you think about Dugu Tieluo's relationship with Emperor Wen? Let me know in the comments. If you enjoyed today's topic, don't forget to like and subscribe. Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.