In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei. Historians do not know her birth name or in what year she was born ...

The empress, like many other rulers at the time, legitimized her reign through Buddhism, portraying herself either as a ...

Stephanie Balkwill, University of California, Los Angeles (THE CONVERSATION) In sixth-century China, a woman known to history as Empress Dowager Ling ruled over an empire called the Northern Wei.