For centuries, Chinese stories have preserved the names of women who crossed the boundaries expected of them—women remembered as warriors, imperial consorts, political figures and, in some cases, alleged destroyers of dynasties.
Among the best known are Hua Mulan, Daji and Yang Guifei. Their stories have been retold through poetry, novels, opera, television and film, but the line between history and folklore is often blurred.
A new South China Morning Post feature revisits these famous women and asks a bigger question: why have their stories survived for so long?
The answer is complicated. Some of these women are legendary rather than historically verified, while others were real people whose lives became heavily mythologized after their deaths.
Hua Mulan: the daughter who went to war
Perhaps the most internationally recognizable of the three is Hua Mulan, the legendary woman said to have taken her father’s place in the army.
The earliest surviving literary foundation for the story is the Ballad of Mulan, a relatively short folk poem generally associated with the Northern Wei period, roughly the fifth or sixth century. Columbia University’s Asia for Educators likewise dates the poem to the fifth or sixth century and notes that the historical setting is more complicated than many modern adaptations suggest.
According to the ballad, Mulan’s aging father is called to military service. Rather than allow him to go, she disguises herself as a man and takes his place.
She spends years serving in the military and eventually returns home. Crucially, the traditional poem does not present her primarily as a romantic heroine. Instead, it emphasizes filial duty, courage and her ability to move between the domestic and military worlds.
The historical question surrounding Mulan remains unresolved. There is no firmly established contemporary historical record proving that she was a specific historical individual. Her fame comes principally from the ballad and the centuries of adaptations that followed.
That distinction matters because the Mulan audiences know today—including Disney’s version—represent later interpretations of a much older literary tradition.
Daji: the woman folklore turned into a “monster”
The story of Daji, associated with the final ruler of the Shang dynasty, takes a much darker turn.
Traditional accounts portray Daji as the favored consort of King Zhou of Shang and associate her with the ruler’s alleged cruelty and the collapse of the Shang regime.
But later popular literature transformed her into something far more supernatural.
In the famous Ming-dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods, Daji becomes associated with a fox spirit and is portrayed as a sinister force influencing King Zhou. Modern scholarship has emphasized that this supernatural portrayal belongs to a later literary tradition rather than being a straightforward historical account.
That distinction is essential.
The historical Daji and the fictionalized Daji are not necessarily the same character.
Accounts derived from early historical traditions portray her much more briefly, while later novels dramatically expand her role and attribute fantastical crimes and powers to her.
Even her reputation as the woman who helped destroy the Shang dynasty reflects a much broader ancient pattern: when a powerful male ruler failed, women close to him were often turned into convenient explanations for political catastrophe.
Modern researchers have also questioned the traditional depiction of Daji. Taipei Times, reporting on research from Academia Sinica, noted that Daji is commonly described in historical texts as a favorite concubine and in later legends as an evil fox spirit, while research has explored the possibility that women of Shang royalty could have had military roles.
Yang Guifei: the beauty blamed for a rebellion
Then there is Yang Guifei, one of China’s celebrated “Four Beauties.”
Unlike Mulan, Yang was a real historical person.
Born Yang Yuhuan in 719, she became the favored consort of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Her rise at court became intertwined with the political influence of her relatives, particularly Yang Guozhong.
Her story became inseparable from the An Lushan Rebellion, which erupted in 755 and plunged the Tang dynasty into a devastating period of warfare.
As imperial forces and the emperor’s entourage fled the capital, soldiers blamed Yang’s family for the political crisis and demanded her death. Yang was killed in 756.
But the popular version of her story often goes much further, portraying her beauty and influence as causes of the Tang dynasty’s decline.
That interpretation is historically misleading if presented as simple fact.
The An Lushan Rebellion was a massive political and military crisis involving powerful generals, court politics, regional military forces and structural weaknesses within the Tang state. It did not happen simply because an emperor fell in love with a beautiful woman.
Yang Guifei’s tragic death nevertheless became one of the most enduring stories in Chinese culture.
Why were women blamed for political collapse?
This is where the stories of Mulan, Daji and Yang Guifei become especially revealing.
Their stories are dramatically different.
Mulan is celebrated for courage and filial devotion.
Daji became a symbol of temptation, corruption and supernatural evil.
Yang Guifei became a tragic beauty associated with imperial excess and political catastrophe.
Yet all three stories were shaped by societies in which women had limited access to formal political power.
The South China Morning Post notes that women are significantly under-represented in ancient Chinese literature and that female characters were often used to reflect the moral expectations of their societies.
That helps explain why female figures connected to powerful men could become symbolic representations of much larger political or social anxieties.
The stories changed as China changed
One of the most fascinating aspects of these women is that their identities were never completely fixed.
Mulan’s story began as a folk poem and was subsequently adapted into numerous literary and theatrical traditions before reaching modern global audiences through film.
Daji’s image evolved dramatically from a relatively limited historical tradition into the supernatural villain of Investiture of the Gods.
Yang Guifei, meanwhile, became both a historical figure and a romantic cultural icon whose tragedy inspired poetry, painting, theater and modern screen adaptations.
In other words, these women survived not because their stories remained unchanged—but because each generation found new meanings in them.
History, legend and the danger of taking folklore literally
There is another important lesson in these stories: folklore should not automatically be treated as historical fact.
Mulan’s existence as a specific historical person remains uncertain.
Daji’s notorious fox-spirit identity comes largely from later mythology and literature.
Yang Guifei, by contrast, is firmly historical, but the claim that she personally “brought down” the Tang dynasty oversimplifies a complex political and military crisis.
That distinction makes these stories even more interesting.
Rather than simply asking whether these women were heroes or villains, historians and readers can ask who created those labels, why they were created and what those stories reveal about the societies that preserved them.
Why their stories still matter today
More than a thousand years after many of these events and legends emerged, Mulan, Daji and Yang Guifei remain recognizable names across Asia and increasingly around the world.
They have appeared in movies, television dramas, novels, paintings, operas and popular culture.
But their continued popularity is about more than entertainment.
Their stories touch on questions that remain surprisingly modern:
Can women exercise power without being condemned for it?
Why are women so often blamed when powerful men fail?
Where does history end and mythology begin?
And perhaps most importantly:
What happens when a woman becomes more famous than the men who once controlled her story?
That may be the real reason China’s legendary women continue to fascinate audiences centuries later.
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