Zong Qinke

Who was Zong Qinke?

Zong Qinke was an official of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty and Wu Zetian's Zhou Dynasty, serving briefly as chancellor during Wu Zetian's reign. Among other things, he is particularly noted for his role in developing certain innovative Chinese characters of Empress Wu; that is, as part of Wu Zetian's acquisition and consolidation of power by means of literature and religious practices, Zong Qinke worked on developing modified characters to replace the regular forms of characters with particular symbolic importance with newly invented characters intended to support this process, such as the characters for her personal name and the characters for "Heaven" and "Earth".

It is not known when Zong Qinke was born, but it is known that he was from Hedong, and that his mother was a cousin of Wu Zetian's. As of 689, when Wu Zetian was empress dowager and regent over her son Emperor Ruizong, Zong was Fengge Shilang, the deputy head of the legislative bureau of government, and he submitted 12 new characters to substitute for common characters such as Tian and Di. Around the new year 690, she adopted and promulgated the new characters, which were used until at least 705.