Interview with Emperor Gaozu

Reporter- Good afternoon Emperor Gaozu, thank you for joining me today, how was your trip here?
Gaozu- Thank you for having me, my trip here was okay could of been better, but lets get started!

Reporter- As you were ruling your empire did you believe in Confucianism, Taoism or Legalism?  
Gaozu- In my empire we believed in Confucianism and Taoism. My family claimed to collapse from the family of Laozi. They believed that everything should be equal, and we inherited it from them. When Taoism first came to our empire and we encouraged people to believe in it the agreed with it but some didnt. So overall we accepted Taoism to embody everyone and to consider the bad and good. Now Confucianism is something we all believe in and have a strong trust with, and has been in this dynasty for centuries and will stay until the last emperor. We were inspired by the Han Dynasty to create Confucianism in our dynasty.

Reporter- Do you think Empress Wu was a good emperor?
Gauzo- When it comes to judging other rulers I do not know fully what there intention was as ruler or what they wanted to do, but I do know that Wu ruled with a lot of demands and I also know that she lied to her people. After he husband died she made her second son emperor but she used him because he knew that whatever she told him to do he would. For years this went on and it was pretty much her ruling just with the safety of her son protecting her. In my vision of Empress Wu she controlled with power but the capability of lying to her people. So their for I do not think she was one of the better emperors.

Reporter- If you could go back what would you do differently in your dynasty?
Gaozu- If I could go back there would be one thing that I would change. That one thing would be not to think so much about myself and more for my people. What I mean by this is I made them all change there religion and go to temple all because I believed in Taoism and some of them did but others didn't and those who didn't I pretty much forced them to or they had to pay a consequence. I would change this because looking back now I wouldn't be as harsh and I would let them get more of a say in what they wanted to believe in and not demand them as I did. Ruling a dynasty shouldn't be all about you and you want you need to let your people join in and i wish i had done that.

Reporter- What was your hardest task as being a ruler?
Gaozu- The hardest task for me way trying to bring my dynasty together. I say this because the dynasty was so big and their would be fights happening within the dynasty, their was also the whole situation with the religion changing and my people would think I would be sending out a bad message.. I'm only one person and it was very difficult for me to be and certain places at once, so I would have people deliver my messages but within the traveling and the people the messages went through the message would usually come out wrong in the end unless I wrote it out. With the religion changing, people would change. There would be brawls between Taoist and Confucianism's and it would just make everyone grow more apart from one another. That was probably the hardest thing I wen through within my time of ruling.