eijing: Zhonghua, 1997), 98.1007）The Quan Tangwen includes a work of Wu Zhao, the final stanza of a twelve-verse poem for a sacrifice to supreme deity Haotian shangdi that makes further reference to "Golden Tower":Use the supernal path, Open the door to the heavens;Revolve around the solar chariot, moving vestments of cloudAscend the Golden Tower, enter Purple TenuityLook toward the immortal carriage, gaze up at the regal mercy seat式乾路，辟天扉。回日驭，动云衣。登金阙，入紫微。望仙驾，仰恩徽。[61]（[61] QTS 5.53. In Offerings of Jade and Silk, Howard Wechsler describes Haotian shangdi as an "all-embracing, universal Heavenly deity who belonged not to one family but to all the empire" (x).）
Clearly, the names held by the two sisters of Tushan, Jade Capital and Golden Tower held a tremendous Daoist resonance. As Daoism was closely linked to the founding ancestor of the Tang, Laozi, Wu Zhao's attitude toward Daoism was decidedly tepid in the years immediately preceding and following the inauguration of her Zhou dynasty. However, during her waning years, Wu Zhao's thoughts turned to the promises of longevity and immortality offered by Daoist elixirs, and she looked to Daoism for inspiration.[62]（[62] Barrett, Taoism under the T'ang (London: Wellsweep, 1996), 44-5）And as Mount Song loomed larger in the wake of the feng and shan sacrifices, both the Mother of Qi and her younger sister developed into important divinities within the Daoist pantheon.
ConclusionsWu Zhao's connection with the Mother of Qi was but a single link in a wider web of associations, a calculated concatenation of links that affiliated her with many Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian women and divinities from the past. While the emergence of the cult of the Mother of Qi during Wu Zhao's reign was not, in itself, a pivotal, or even a particularly significant, part of the female emperor's political legitimation, the rise of this little known divinity was motivated by a series of complex and interrelated political and religious concerns. First, the Mother of Qi was part of Wu Zhao's conscious affiliation with a wider network of female deities, a strategy that helped buttress and validate her person in her unique role as female emperor. The roles of Jade Capital and Lady Goldtower, assigned to the Mother of Qi and her younger sister, respectively, marked the ascent of these Tushan sisters into a pantheon of Daoist divinities. This strategy, reinforced in rhetoric and propaganda, provided a normative sense that women always had been and always would be politically eminent. As Howard Wechsler argued in Offerings of Jade and Silk, political legitimacy was contingent "more upon the ruler being linked to a great tradition of virtuous political ancestors than being blood successor to a private familial birthright." Second, the Tushan Girl and her sister were associated with the Greater Room, the Lesser Room and Yangdi, sites on or proximate to Mount Song. Along with Divine Capital Luoyang, Mount Song was the sacred ground of her Zhou revolution. In addition to the summer palaces, the ceremonies and the Buddhist and Daoist temples that dotted greater Mount Song, her connection to these women helped make manifest her ties to this sacred landscape. Third, when Gaozong was still alive and in the years immediately following his death, exalting Qi's mother served to accentuate the role of the mother, of women, in continuing the ancestral line and enhancing a clan's virtue. Naturally, once Wu Zhao became Emperor, this aspect of Qi's mother was de-emphasized. Fourth, her manufactured connection with the mother of Qi can be understood as part of Wu Zhao's effort to reclaim tradition and antiquity, to define them as hers and recast them in her own image. Finally, in Wu Zhao's propaganda there are references to the music of Tushan. While in antiquity the son Qi was credited for possessing the Heavenly music, in Wu Zhao's propaganda the music resonated for mother rather than son.
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