Reese (n.d.) who has a masters in history from Stanford University, describes the early life of Zetian and how she came to power. She describes that the good Zetian did for China outweighed the bad. Empress Wu Zetian. The first and only female to ever rule china. She had done it for nearly half a century. At first behind the scenes then officially when she declared herself Empress. After her death there were many awful stories about her and her reign of terror. Dash (2012) hints that many of the stories that have been told about Zetian are far from the truth. There is a story of how she killed her own infant daughter to rise to power. When her daughter was born she died shortly after. The cause of her death is uncertain some say the empress