It was five years after the death of Emperor Kao-Tsung when the Empress Dowager summoned all of the Wu clan to the Imperial Palace to allow them to show her their favor. She had recalled them from exile years before and appointed her nephew, Shensi, Secretary to the Board of Rites so that she could elevate her kin above that of the T’ang. When Prime Minister Payi objected to her petition for posthumous honors to be placed upon her ancestors, Wu Chao overruled him and merely replied, “Awww. The dead could not possibly endanger the living.”

After the dinner with her clan, Shensi told her, “Your Majesty, your nephew heard that many in court are staunch supporters of Prince of Virtue. They deplored his exile to Pachou and regard him as the only prince who can face up to Your Majesty.” She had indeed exiled her second son, Prince of Virtue, years prior for his allegiance to his late father, Kao-Tsung. He pined away for his father’s noble T’ang heritage to be protected. Chao knew the time had come for him to be silenced entirely. That night, she sent General Chur on a secret mission to Pachou to offer the prince Shih-Pai, honorable suicide in lieu of public execution. The silk scarf that Chur flung at Virtue was red: the color of blood and death. He said to the prince, “This is a gift from the Empress Dowager. Be grateful that it is silk and not steel.”

Two years later, Chao told Shensi, “The hundred-names believe a sovereign is predestined. You shall fabricate a succession of divinations to prove that I am ordained by the gods to found a new dynasty.” Soon after, a stone was found in the Lo River bearing an inscription, verified as divine: “A Holy Mother has descended to earth to establish an everlasting dynasty.” A temple was erected. An augury was presented in the Great Cloud Sutra, stating that the Empress Dowager was the female reincarnation of the Buddha Maitreya. The nation became rife with omens, and a petition for the House of Wu to become the Imperial House was accepted.