Emperador Gaozu de Tang

A Sui aristocrat and garrison commander at Jinyang who rebelled as the Sui collapsed, took Chang'an in 617 and declared the Tang in 618. He ruled eight years, set up the legal code and land system the dynasty would run on, and then lost the throne to his second son in the coup at the Xuanwu Gate.

The traditional account, written down under the son who succeeded him, has Li Shimin pushing a reluctant father into rebellion. Modern historians give Li Yuan more of the plan. Either way the founding institutions are his: the Tang Code, the equal-field land allocations and the militia system that let the dynasty field armies without a standing one.

In 626 Li Shimin killed his elder brother, the heir apparent, and his younger brother at the Xuanwu Gate of the palace. Li Yuan abdicated within two months and lived nine more years as retired emperor, in a palace, with nothing to do.

His wife Dou died in 613, five years before there was a dynasty for her to be empress of. She was given the title posthumously, as Empress Taimu — the first of many women in this collection who held the rank only after death.