This biography, written by Johanna Strong, is shared with permission from Team Queens, an educational history blog run by a collective of historical scholars. All rights reserved; this material may not be republished without the author’s consent.
Born: 20 May 1402, China
Died: 5 December 1443
Country most active: China
Also known as: Empress Gongrangzhang, 胡皇后, Hú húanghòu
Hu Shanxiang was born around 1400 in Jining (modern-day Shandong Province), China. Her father was company commander Hu Rong, though her mother remains unknown.
In 1417, she married Zhu Zhanji, the future Chinese Emperor Xuanzong, and became his first Empress upon his ascent to the throne. Xuanzong often complained that Hu Shanxiang gave him unsolicited advice about his travels, and this, in addition to their lack of sons, soured their relationship.
When Xuanzong’s consort Sun gave birth to a son in the late 1420s, he decided to put Hu Shanxiang aside and asked her to abdicate as empress, with his consort Sun becoming the new empress. In spring 1428, Hu Shanxiang was sent to Chang’an Palace and was given the title ‘Immortal Teacher of Quietude and Motherly Love’, a title traditionally given to empresses who had been ordered to become Daoist nuns, though she does not appear to have taken religious orders.
Empress Dowager Zhang, Xuanzong’s mother, sympathised with former-empress Hu Shanxiang and often invited her to the Qingning Palace and placed her in a position higher than Empress Sun. Once Zhang died in 1442, however, Hu Shanxiang was listed as a consort and when she died in 1443 she was buried at Jinshan with the rites traditionally bestowed on a concubine.
At Empress Sun’s death in 1462, Empress Qian urged her husband, the new Emperor Yingzong, to restore Hu Shanxiang’s title of Empress. It was with the status of an empress that Hu Shanxiang was reburied in a mausoleum in 1463.
Hu Shanxiang remains an empowering figure in China and has appeared in historical television series such as ‘Ming Dynasty’, released in 2019.
Recommended Reading
Lauralee, “Hu Shanxiang – The Gracious Yet Deposed Empress,” History of Royal Women, 2021. https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/hu-shanxiang/hu-shanxiang-the-gracious-yet-deposed-empress/
Lily Xiao Hong Lee and Sue Wiles, eds., Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume II: Tang Through Ming, 618-1644 (London: Routledge, 2014).