The stele erected on the peak of Goushan Mountain in Yanshi, on the reverse of which Empress Wu wrote and calligraphed the Stele of Heir Apparent’s Making Transcendents, possesses an unusual history, with rich political implications underlying each stage in its development, which reflects the inner entanglements of Empress Wu during her later reign. This long process can be divided into three parts. First, it was erected in 699, and most of the contents on its front and reverse were completed at that time. Second, in 700, Empress Wu returned from Songshan Mountain to Luoyang. At this time, the “Miscellaneous Verses on Wandering Transcendents” was inscribed on the reverse and top of the stele. Third, in 706, when Prince Xiang and his officials signed their names. Empress Wu copied down the Stele of Heir Apparent’s Making Transcendents during the second lunar month of 699 when visiting the newly completed Temple of Heir Apparent’s Making Transcendents. Within two months, she had this stele erected. On the reverse, she recorded her reminiscences of her eldest son, Li Hong, her establishing Li Xian as the Heir Apparent, and the speed at which she subsequently proclaimed her strong support for the Heir Apparent to the court and the entire state. Despite this, the Wu clan, led by Wu Sansi, through forging a connection between Zhang Changzong, Zhang Yizhi, and the Stele of Heir Apparent’s Making Transcendents, was thus able to successfully eradicate the political implications of this majestic monument. Empress Wu’s “Miscellaneous Verses on Wandering Transcendents” was a product of these machinations. The point in time in which Prince Xiang signed his name was thus exactly when Wu Sansi was framing the five princes. Whether or not Prince Xiang leaving the political center and going to Songshan Mountain is related to this requires further investigation.

The local governments of the Tang Dynasty usually erected temple steles after their prayers for rain or clear skies had been answered. The inscriptions have some commonalities in text creation, that is, advocating deities and praising benevolent governance. However, this is only one aspect of the meanings that the temple steles are intended to express. In fact, literary creation cannot truthfully reflect the complex historical phenomena. There should be a certain historical particularity hidden in those structural words of the narrative. Taking the stone inscriptions at the temples of spring deities as an example, these stone inscriptions reflected such a historical fact: in order to protect the important spring water resources under its jurisdiction, the local governments took advantage of the local people’s strong devotion to the spring deities and completed the protection and control of spring water resources indirectly through praying for rain or clear skies, establishing temples, and erecting steles. The ritual of praying for rain or clear skies is the appearance, but the protection of water resources is the truth. Stone inscriptions played a crucial role in ensuring the long-term viability of these implicit protective measures. The inscriptions not only describe the efficacy of prayers and benevolent governance of the officials according to the narrative structure of temple steles so as to achieve the purpose of advocating deities and praising officials but also selectively represent the concept of official control and grand ceremonies at that time through words. The erection of temple steles reflects the interplay between local government authority and popular devotion during the Tang Dynasty. As an important means for local governments to achieve regional governance, it exhibits the distinct characteristics of the time.

Although the tradition of epigraphy can be traced back to the Song Dynasty in Chinese history, scholars in this field usually focus on the inscriptions on the steles rather than the steles themselves as the markers of the political landscape. As symbols of political authority, these steles were intentionally located in the center of cities throughout China and usually had a giant pavilion built over them. Sometimes a grand ceremony would accompany the installation of a stele. All these are important means to impress upon the common people the power of the state. The benevolent governance stele, as a medium that honors the exceptional officials, is an important symbol of the ideal imperial political order. The award of a benevolent governance stele was strictly regulated in the Tang Dynasty. One of the most important principles was to award officials only after they had left for another post. This was to prevent the formation of local separatist power during an official’s long tenure. After the Rebellion of An Lushan and Shi Siming, while the power of the central government was in decline, the awarding of these steles continued and helped to legitimize the authority of Military Commissioners. The symbolic power of these steles was further strengthened as a result and led to the widespread practice among Military Commissioners in Hebei of erecting monumental steles. The central government, in response, used the timing of the awards to recalibrate and redefine its relationship with the Military Commissioners, and thereby maintained the central authority. The article thus traced the transformation of the benevolent governance steles from a reward for exemplary officials in early Tang to a symbol of the balance of power between the central and local governments in the mid-to-late Tang.

The study of stele inscriptions is an important subject in the research of medieval Chinese history and has, to date, yielded fruitful results. Over the past decade, this field has witnessed several new trends, including the discovery of family genealogies recorded in inscriptions and the examination of their construction process; the confirmation of deviated engravings (or non-standard engravings) and the study of historical writing in inscriptions; and going beyond textual records, the exploration of the political landscape effects of inscriptions from a visual perspective. Compared with the traditional approaches, research reflecting these new trends focuses more intently on examining the inscriptions themselves, thus freeing them from their traditional subordinate status as mere appendages to transmitted historical records under the tradition of epigraphy, and promoting a shift from relatively narrow source criticism to meticulous and comprehensive historical analysis. Nevertheless, such research is limited in circumstances and has its own latent concerns, and therefore cannot replace traditional research. The two approaches should complement each other so that the study of medieval stele inscriptions can be elevated to a higher level.