When it comes to the first female emperor in the history of China, many people may think of Wu Zetian, but in fact, the first female emperor in China proclaimed himself, not Wu Zetian, but a woman named Chen Shuozhen. Chen Shuozhen proclaimed himself emperor in Yonghui four years (653), 37 years earlier than Wu Zetian.
Compared with Wu Zetian, Chen Shuozhen's life is much more bumpy. Chen Shuozhen's parents died when she was a child, and she and her sister lived a hard life. It was not until her sister was adopted by her neighbors that Chen Shuozhen entered the official job, so that she could have enough to eat. As an adult, Chen Shuozhen married someone, but soon her husband left her and she was alone again.
However, the bumpy fate is still not going to let Chen Shuozhen go, because of one thing, she almost lost her life. Once, there was a flood in Qingxi County, Chen Shuozhen's hometown, and the local government not only failed to provide relief, but also increased taxes, resulting in a large number of people going bankrupt, being displaced, selling their children and girls, and the people living in poverty.
Seeing that many villagers who had helped him would starve to death, Chen Shuozhen ventured to open his master's granary to help the people. Many people were saved, but when the government found out, it beat up Chen Shuozhen and locked her up. Seeing that Chen Shuozhen's life was in danger, the people she helped rushed into the housekeeper and rescued her. After escaping from danger, Chen Shuozhen lived in seclusion in the mountains as a Taoist priest.
After the ordeal of life and death, Chen Shuozhen understood that only resisting the dark and corrupt government was the only way out, so he was determined to rebel. Chen Shuozhen used religion to develop believers and expand his power. During this period, the government arrested Chen Shuozhen and put her in prison. Fortunately, the believers pooled their money to redeem her.
The accident let Chen Shuozhen know that the government has noticed itself and the uprising is urgent. Thus, in the fourth year of Yonghui (AD 653), Chen Shuozhen and his brother-in-law Zhang rose up to revolt. Chen Shuozhen claimed to be the Emperor of Literati, with tens of thousands of soldiers. In ancient China, there were very few women who served as the leader of the rebel army, and Chen Shuozhen was the only woman who was both the leader of the rebel army and the emperor.
After Chen Shuozhen's uprising, the people nearby responded one after another, and the insurgents were once huge, covering many cities. However, Chen Shuozhen's troops were mostly ordinary people without military training, with low fighting capacity and lack of siege equipment, so they attacked Zhou She for a long time. The imperial court took this opportunity to mobilize troops to suppress Chen Shuozhen's insurgents. Due to the disparity in strength, the uprising of Chen Shuozhen was suppressed by the imperial court, and Chen Shuozhen, the emperor of Wenjia, was captured by Tang Jun.
After Chen Shuozhen was captured, the other party stripped her naked, tied her to a pole, humiliated her in public and forced her to surrender. Chen Shuozhen swore and glared at Tang Jun. He was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Finally, the court ordered Chen Shuozhen to be beheaded.
The scale of Chen Shuozhen's uprising was not huge, it only lasted for one month. But as a woman, she set off a vigorous uprising and openly challenged the feudal government. Such courage is admirable. Therefore, although Chen Shuozhen is not an orthodox emperor in a strict sense, Jane Bozan, a modern historian, still calls her "the first female emperor of China".