Empress Dowager Bo - Later Years

Later Years

After Prince Heng took the throne as Emperor Wen, Princess Dowager Bo was honored as empress dowager, even though she had not previously been an empress. She was largely unassuming as empress dowager, and did not exert anywhere close to the influence that Empress Dowager Lü asserted over Emperor Hui or even her daughter-in-law, Empress Dou, would later assert over her grandson Emperor Jing. The one major instance in which she asserted her influence was in 176 BC. At that time, Zhou Bo (周勃), who had been instrumental in Emperor Wen's becoming emperor and who had by that time retired to his march, was falsely accused of treason and arrested. Empress Dowager Bo, believing in Zhou's innocence, famously threw her scarf at Emperor Wen, stating:

Before you became emperor, Zhou was in control of the imperial seal, and commanded the powerful northern guards. How ridiculous is it that he did not commit treason then, but now plans to use his small march as the base for a rebellion?

It was at least partly due to her influence that Emperor Wen eventually released Zhou.

She either did not try to intercede similarly (as appears more likely) or was ineffective in her intercession, when her brother Bo Zhao killed an imperial messenger—a crime far more serious than ordinary murder—in 170 BC. Even though Bo Zhao was her only sibling, Emperor Wen, although not having the heart to execute him publicly, eventually pressed him into committing suicide.

Empress Dowager Bo married one of her relatives' daughter to her grandson, then-Crown Prince Qi, during her son's reign. After Emperor Wen died in 157 BC and Crown Prince Qi succeeded him as Emperor Jing, Empress Dowager Bo became grand empress dowager. There was no recorded instance of her trying to assert political influence after that. She died just two years later in 155 BC. (This would prove disastrous for Empress Bo, Emperor Jing's wife, as she, now without support, was soon deposed.)

After she died, she was enshrined in a temple of her own, not in her husband's temple, because only one empress could be enshrined in an emperor's temple, and Empress Lü was already enshrined in Emperor Gao's temple. However, later, during Emperor Guangwu's reign, he effectively reversed their positions by enshrining Empress Dowager Bo as "Empress Gao" and demoting Empress Dowager Lü to a separate temple.