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Fu Hao

Given / Temple NameMu Xin

A Shang woman general confirmed by both oracle bones and archaeology

Souls of the Battlefield · Generals & Commanders
The Shang dynastyMilitary commandYinxu archaeology

Who they are

Fu Hao is the first female commander in China’s documented history with a contemporary written record — a queen of the Shang king Wu Ding, whose name appears in more than two hundred oracle-bone inscriptions: she led an army of thirteen thousand against the Qiang, the largest single conscription recorded in surviving inscriptions; she presided over sacrifices and held her own fief. In 1976 her tomb at Yinxu was unearthed intact, with over four hundred bronzes, more than seven hundred jades, and a great many weapons — the archaeological objects confirming the three-thousand-year-old written record, something without parallel in China’s ancient history.

Key stories

The woman general in the oracle bones

The oracle bones of Wu Ding’s reign repeatedly divine the same kinds of question: "Fu Hao leads the army out — will she win?" "Fu Hao gives birth — will it go well?" Affairs of state and matters of the household were carved on the same batch of turtle shells. One famous inscription records her raising thirteen thousand men to attack the Qiang — in the thirteenth century BC, an army large enough to decide the fate of the state, and its commander was the queen.

The great tomb that was never robbed

In 1976 the archaeologist Zheng Zhenxiang led the excavation of an unremarkable tomb at Xiaotun village; the objects bore the inscription "Fu Hao" again and again — oracle-bone specialists at once realized the occupant was the woman general of the inscriptions. It is the only intact Shang royal tomb at Yinxu: writing, objects, and occupant all matching, turning Shang history from legend into documented fact.

Appears in

Antiquity & the Three DynastiesThe Restoration of Wu Ding and Fu Hao in Command
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