CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Empress Wang (Yang Pu)

empress of Wu

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ6717275 ↗
Source-derived summary

Empress Wang (王皇后, personal name unknown), known as Empress Rang (讓皇后, "empress of the emperor who yielded") during Southern Tang, was the wife and empress of Yang Pu (Emperor Rui), the final ruler of the Chinese Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Wu. As he was the only ruler who claimed the title of emperor, she was the only person to carry the title of empress during Wu.

Very little is known about her. It is known that she initially carried the imperial consort title of Defei (德妃). In fall 933, Yang Pu created her empress. It is not known whether any of his known children were born of her. After he yielded the throne to the powerful regent Xu Gao in 937, he was subsequently moved out of the Wu palace at the Wu capital Jiangdu (江都, in modern Yangzhou, Jiangsu) into a heavily guarded Danyang Palace (丹陽宮) at Run Prefecture (潤州, in modern Zhenjiang, Jiangsu), and subsequently died there, it was said that it was not known what happened to her.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Empress Wang (Yang Pu)” is empress of Wu. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Empress, Wang and Yang, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 174-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Empress, Wang and Yang is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “empress of Wu” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6717275. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Empress Wang (Yang Pu)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Empress Wang (Yang Pu) primary sources, Empress Wang (Yang Pu) archive and Empress research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Empress Wang (Yang Pu)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Empress Wang (Yang Pu)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.