Wu Zetian occupation empress regnant
During the reign of Emperor Gaozu of Tang (618-626):
Lady Wu (from 624)
During the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang (626-649):
Talented Lady (才人; from 637), 17th rank consort
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (649-683):
Imperial Concubine Zhaoyi (昭儀; from 650), 6th rank consort
Empress (皇后; from 655), 1st rank consort   
Heavenly Empress (天后; from 674), 1st rank consort
During the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (684-684):
Empress Dowager Wu (武皇太后; from 683)
During the reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang (684-690)
Empress Dowager Wu (武皇太后; from 684)
During her reign as the Empress Regnant of the Zhou Dynasty (690-705):
Holy Emperor (聖神皇帝; from 690)
Holy Golden Emperor (金輪聖神皇帝; from 693)
Holy Golden Goddess Emperor (越古金輪聖神皇帝; from 694)
Holy Golden Emperor (金輪聖神皇帝; from 695)
Emperor Tiance Jinlun (天策金輪大帝; from 695)
Emperor Zetian Dasheng (則天大聖皇帝; from 705)
During the second reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (705-710):
Empress Zetian Dasheng (則天大聖皇后; from 705)
During the second reign of Emperor Ruizong of Tang (710-712):   
Heavenly Empress (天后; from 710)    
Holy Empress (大聖天后; from 710)   
Empress of Heaven (天后聖帝; from 712)
Holy Empress (聖后; from 712)
During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (713-756):   
Empress Zetian (則天皇后; from 716)
Holy Empress Zetianshun (則天順聖皇后; from 749)Plenipotentiary regent for Emperor Ruizong
Wu had her youngest son Li Dan made emperor, known as his temple name Ruizong. She was the absolute ruler, however, both in substance and appearance. Wu did not even follow the customary pretense of hiding behind a screen or curtain and, in whispers, issued commands for the nominal ruler to formally announce, and so her reign was fully recognized. Ruizong never moved into the imperial quarters, appeared at no imperial function, and remained a virtual prisoner in the inner quarters. Although Emperor Ruizong held the title of emperor, Empress Dowager Wu firmly and exactly controlled the imperial court, and the officials were not allowed to meet with Emperor Ruizong, nor was he allowed to rule on matters of state, and she, not Emperor Ruizong, was the one that officials reported to, with Emperor Ruizong not even nominally approving official actions. Thus, all matters of empire were ruled on by Empress Dowager Wu. Soon after Emperor Ruizong took the throne, Empress Dowager Wu carried out a major renaming of governmental offices and banners. She, who disliked the capital Chang'an, also elevated Luoyang's status, making it a co-equal capital with Chang'an. At the suggestion of her nephew Wu Chengsi, she also expanded the ancestral shrine of the Wu ancestors and gave them greater posthumous honors, and made Wu's ancestral shrine the size of the emperors ancestral shrine.Soon thereafter, Li Ji's grandson Li Jingye, the Duke of Ying, who had been disaffected by his own exile, started a rebellion at Yang Prefecture (揚州, roughly modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu). The rebellion initially drew much popular support in the region, however, Li Jingye progressed slowly in his attack and did not take advantage of that popular support. Meanwhile, Pei suggested to Empress Dowager Wu that she return imperial authority to the Emperor and argued that doing so would cause the rebellion to collapse on its own. This offended her, and she accused him of being complicit with Li Jingye and had him executed; she also demoted, exiled, and killed a number of officials who, when Pei was arrested, tried to speak on his behalf. She sent a general, Li Xiaoyi (李孝逸), to attack Li Jingye, and while Li Xiaoyi was initially unsuccessful, he pushed on at the urging of his assistant Wei Yuanzhong and eventually was able to crush Li Jingye's forces. Li Jingye fled and was killed in flight.By 685, Empress Dowager Wu began to carry on an affair with the Buddhist monk Huaiyi and during the next few years, Huaiyi would be bestowed with progressively greater honors. In 686, Empress Dowager Wu offered to return imperial authorities to Emperor Ruizong, but Emperor Ruizong, knowing that she did not truly intend to do so, declined, and she continued to exercise imperial authority. Meanwhile, she installed copper mailboxes outside the imperial government buildings to encourage the people of the realm to report secretly on others, as she suspected many officials of opposing her, and also all the reports of betrayal were read by her personally. Thus, exploiting these beliefs of hers, secret police officials, including Suo Yuanli, Zhou Xing, and Lai Junchen, began to rise in power and to carry out systematic false accusations, tortures, and executions of individuals.In 688, Empress Dowager Wu was set to make sacrifices to the deity of the Luo River (洛水, flowing through the Henan province city of Luoyang, then the "Eastern Capital"). Wu summoned senior members of Tang's Li imperial clan to Luoyang. The imperial princes worried that she planned to slaughter them and secure the throne for herself: thus, they plotted to resist her. Before a rebellion could be comprehensively planned out, however, Li Zhen and his son Li Chong, the Prince of Langye rose first, at their respective posts as prefects of Yu Prefecture (豫州, roughly modern Zhumadian, Henan) and Bo Prefecture (博州, roughly modern Liaocheng, Shandong). The other princes were not yet ready, however, and did not rise, and forces sent by Empress Dowager Wu and the local forces crushed Li Chong and Li Zhen's forces quickly. Empress Dowager Wu took this opportunity to arrest Emperor Gaozong's granduncles Li Yuanjia (李元嘉) the Prince of Han, Li Lingkui (李靈夔) the Prince of Lu, and Princess Changle, as well as many other members of the Li clan and she, forced them to commit suicide. Even Princess Taiping's husband Xue Shao was implicated and starved to death. In the subsequent years, there continued to be many politically motivated massacres of officials and Li clan members.In 690, Wu took the final step to become the empress regnant of the newly proclaimed Zhou dynasty, and the title Huangdi. Traditional Chinese order of succession (akin to the Salic law in Europe) did not allow a woman to ascend the throne, but Wu Zetian was determined to quash the opposition and the use of the secret police did not subside, but continued, after her taking the throne. While her organization of the civil service system was criticized for its laxity of the promotion of officials, nonetheless, Wu Zetian was considered capable of evaluating the performance of the officials once they were in office. The Song dynasty historian Sima Guang, in his Zizhi Tongjian, commented:
Even though the Empress Dowager excessively used official titles to cause people to submit to her, if she saw that someone was incompetent, she would immediately depose or even execute him. She grasped the powers of punishment and award, controlled the state, and made her own judgments as to policy decisions. She was observant and had good judgment, so the talented people of the time also were willing to be used by her.Modified Chinese characters
In 690, Wu's cousin's son Zong Qinke submitted a number of modified Chinese characters intended to showcase Wu's greatness. She adopted them, and took one of the modified characters, Zhao (曌), to be her formal name (i.e., the name by which the people would exercise naming taboo on). 曌 was made from two other characters: Ming (明) on top, meaning "light" or "clarity", and Kong (空) on the bottom, meaning "sky". The implication appeared to be that she would be like the light shining from the sky. (Zhao (照), meaning "shine", from which 曌 was derived, might have been her original name, but evidence of that is inconclusive.) Later that year, after successive petition drives started by the low-level official Fu Youyi began to occur in waves, asking her to take the throne, Emperor Ruizong offered to take the name of Wu as well. On 18 August 690, she approved the requests. She changed the state's name to Zhou, claiming ancestry from the Zhou dynasty, and took the throne as Empress Regnant (with the title Empress Regnant Shengshen (聖神皇帝), literally "Divine and Sacred Emperor or Empress Regnant"). Ruizong was deposed and made crown prince with the atypical title Huangsi (皇嗣). This thus interrupted the Tang dynasty, and Wu became the first (and only) woman to reign over China as empress regnant.
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