Wu Zetian’s influence across Central Asia helped boost trade, particularly in valuable commodities like silk and tea, which were highly in demand in distant parts of the world.

Though she changed the Li house's Tang Dynasty into the Wu's Zhou Dynasty, she had trouble choosing a successor and finally ordered in her will a return of the throne to the Li house's offspring.

This Personnel policy helped to develop the bureaucratic apparatus at all levels, greatly strengthening the feudalistic power of the early Tang Dynasty. Also buried in Zhaoling were chieftains of ...

"In the Tang dynasty, only plants ... and the level of productivity and technology was much lower than that of modern times," she said. One interesting note is that China has a long history ...