Man this is what happens when they all aborted their daughter and hoping for a son. When supply and demand for woman rises, men will spoil them more hoping to mate. Speaking as a full Chinese. This didn't happen in the turn of the century after the 1 child policy.

Wu Zetian might be ruthless but not the most successful at ruling, she gave up her short live empire shortly back. The most successful is her husband that lead the peak of the Tang Dynasty during that Era from religion to art to military; he's so bad ass that Tang Dynasty got to the Turks. When Wu Zetian ruled, that's the mark of the Tang Dynasty going down hill. Throughout Chinese history, dynasties that have woman and Eunuchs participation results in early failure, this is the reason why Qing Dynasty abolish woman and eunuch from participating in politics. In late Qing Dyansty, when empress ChiXi was trying to rule China behind her curtin, China got invaded by the 8 coalition (I called them 8 nation of bandits) partly because she don't want to build a fleet of ship out of iron saying metal don't float and wanted to spend all those money on her summer palace, and China gave up Hongkong to the Brits, and people got addicted to Opium and China went into shit because of her.