Empress Wu Zetian Commands the Spring to Bloom
And is obeyed!
Announcement of a Royal Visit to the Palace Park on the Occasion of the End-of-Year Sacrifices Empress Wu Zetian Tomorrow morning, we shall view the park. Inform the Spring: send urgent word ahead. Tonight the flowers must begin to bloom. No waiting for the sunrise and the wind.
Wu Zetian was an empress who became so powerful that she actually founded her own dynasty in the middle of the Tang (the Zhou Dynasty, 690-705).
Two different levels of story swirl around this little poem. On the mythic level, the story is that Wu Zetian, Empress of the newly-established Zhou Dynasty, commanded the very Spring to obey her wishes, and Spring obeyed. The next day, the only flower in the park which had not opened on her command was the peony, and as a punishment, she banished the malingering plant to Luoyang.
On the political level, the story goes that in the first year of her reign, senior ministers plotted against the Empress Wu. They wanted to show her unworthiness to rule by arranging for her to walk in a bare palace park. Wu caught wind of this plot and defeated their efforts by having some loyal courtiers put in a hard night’s gardening. The following morning, all of her court arrived to find flowers blooming in midwinter for the new empress: proof positive that she was destined to rule.
That second story might even be true! But whether true or not, it seems likely that the story was preserved as a piece of political propaganda: gods aside, Empress Wu is worthy of the throne because she’s capable of outsmarting even the wily politicians of the court.
武则天 腊日宣诏幸上苑
明朝游上苑，火急报春知。
花须连夜发，莫待晓风吹。