Women can be as a strong a leader then a man in times of peace and war in several ways. It doesn’t matter what your gender.
When the Emperor is madly in love with the empress like in Theodora and Julius’s case, he will listen to her, when he wanted to runaway she said no, and because he was in love with her, he stayed and fought off his enemies. And when the empress is over powering the emperor he won’t kill her because he loves her so much and she can carry on making mall the rules.
Another reason is that women don’t fight. Someone attacks the village, she sends soldiers to go fight back and they will without the empress getting harmed at all. Also they can send men to conquer more land so they are more powerful.
The last reason is that women can relate. They can relate to other women suffering and they can makes rules or help them out so they can live a bit better, I’m not saying make them one of the royal family, but when they are having a baby they can give them shelter or give them food. They can change the cycle of men being in power all the time, if Anna does become empress at the end of the story I’m sure she would try as hard as she could to change some of the rules such as, ‘ first born is always empress/ emperor, no matter boy or girl. Women empresses can also relate because men take advantage of women, when they see a women walking in the street they will use her and then just leave.
So it doesn’t matter what your gender women can be as a storing a leader then men in times or peace and war, women can be weaker than men, but if they work they can be just as strong as men.