As Empress
Emperor Wen died in 604—a death that traditional historians generally believe was a murder ordered by Yang Guang, although they admit a lack of direct evidence—and Yang Guang took the throne as Emperor Yang. In 605, he created Crown Princess Xiao empress. He soon turned away from the virtuous living style he engaged in to please his parents, and he lived luxuriously, with tens of thousands of women filling his palaces. He still maintained respect for Empress Xiao, and he made many of her relatives, including her older brother Xiao Cong the Duke of Liang (Western Liang's final emperor) officials in his government. However, Yang Zhao, who became crown prince, died in 606, and Yang Jian lost Emperor Yang's favor in 608 over his use of witchcraft against Yang Zhao's sons. Empress Xiao often accompanied Emperor Yang on his tours around the empire, and she saw that he had lost his virtues. She wrote a circumspect poem to try to get Emperor Yang to change his ways, but he either did not realize that was her intent, or simply ignored the poem.
In 607, when Emperor Yang visited the submissive Qimin Khan, Ashina Rangan, of Tujue, Empress Xiao accompanied him, and she personally visited the tent of Ashina Rangan's wife Princess Yicheng, who was a daughter of a Yang clansman. In 615, when Emperor Yang and Empress Xiao were at the border city of Yanmen (雁門, in modern Xinzhou, Shanxi) and Ashina Rangan's son and successor Shibi Khan Ashina Duojishi made a surprise attack on Yanmen, putting it under siege, it was Empress Xiao's brother Xiao Yu who suggested seeking help from Princess Yicheng (who had, pursuant to Tujue customs, married Ashina Duojishi), who subsequently gave Ashina Duojishi a false report that Tujue was under attack from the north, but subsequently, rather than listening to Xiao Yu's advice to end his campaigns against Goguryeo, Emperor Yang expelled Xiao Yu from his court.
By 618, with virtually entire empire engulfed in warfare from the rebellions against her husband's rule, Empress Xiao was with her husband at Jiangdu (江都), the capital of Yang Province. They were protected (as he believed) by the elite Xiaoguo Army (驍果). However, by this point, even the Xiaoguo soldiers were plotting rebellion, as they missed their families in the north. When a lady in waiting reported the plot to Empress Xiao, she told the lady in waiting, "I will let you report it to the emperor." Emperor Yang, not willing to hear any bad news, however, instead executed the lady in waiting. Later, when other ladies in waiting wanted to report on the plot, Empress Xiao advised them against it, reasoning that there was nothing left that could save the dynasty. Soon, a plot led by the general Yuwen Huaji came to fruition, and Emperor Yang, along with his sons Yang Jian and Yang Gao and grandson Yang Tan the Prince of Yan were killed. Empress Xiao and her ladies in waiting wrapped him in a mat and made caskets for both Emperor Yang and Yang Gao.
Read more about this topic: Empress Xiao (Yang)
Famous quotes containing the word empress:
“The Empress is Legitimist, my cousin is Republican, Morny is Orleanist, I am a socialist; the only Bonapartist is Persigny, and he is mad.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte III (1808–1873)
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)