Was China’s Empress Wu the richest woman ever? Played by Fan Bingbing in Empress of China, she would have had US$16 trillion today – much more than L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers

• Wu Zetian was the power behind the Chinese throne for decades, inserting and deposing her own sons as emperors, and portrayed in countless movies and TV shows
• She may have killed her own children, but she certainly reshaped China as its only female sovereign, since Empress Dowager Cixi ruled through a nominal emperor