I made a mistake in chapter 1 translation that I have now fixed - it said that it was happening during the “beginning of the reign of empress Wu”, when it should have been “during the first year” of her reign. Obviously she wasn’t the official empress back then, since the ascension is only happening in chapter 6, but I managed to forget that. Still, to be fair, Wu Zetian has been the de-facto ruler of China long before she got the official title by demoting her son.

Also somewhat obviously, the official calendar used was still the lunar calendar. Hence why I used “ninth month” instead of “September”, in real history it was in October.

“Tianshou” literally means “bestowed by heaven”. It’s what is called a “reign title” - a designation for the years when an emperor was on the throne, though typically there are several titles describing different periods of a ruler’s reign. The Tianshou period lasted from October 690 to April 692, when a solar eclipse happened and the Ruyi period started (lit. “according to one’s wishes”). There were a total of 13 reign titles during the rule of Wu Zetian. I’m not sure if those are usually translated or not, but as usual I chose pinyin to save space in the text box.