Empress Liang (梁皇后, personal name unknown) was an empress of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Xia. Her husband was the founding emperor, Helian Bobo (Emperor Wulie).
Very little is known about Empress Liang. She was not Helian Bobo's first wife, as prior to his becoming emperor he had married the daughter of the Xianbei chief Mo Yigan (沒奕干). However, when he rebelled against Later Qin in 407 and established Xia, he made a surprise attack on Mo, who was then a Later Qin general, and killed him, and presumably either before or after that point Lady Mo was either killed or divorced. In 414, he created Lady Liang, who was by then described as his wife, empress. No further direct reference to Empress Liang exists in history. In 427, when Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei entered the Xia capital Tongwan (統萬, in modern Yulin, Shaanxi) after forcing Helian Bobo's successor Helian Chang to flee, he was mentioned as having captured Helian Bobo's and Helian Chang's empresses, and presumably the person referred to as Helian Bobo's empress was Empress Liang. The succession table below assumes that she survived her husband.
| Chinese royalty | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by None (dynasty founded) |
Empress of Xia 407-425 |
Succeeded by Helian Chang's empress |
| Preceded by Empress Qi of Later Qin |
Empress of China (Northern Shaanxi) 407-425 |
|
| Preceded by Yao Hong's empress of Later Qin |
Empress of China (Eastern Gansu) 416-425 |
|
| Emperor of China (Central Shaanxi) 418-425 |
||
Famous quotes containing the word empress:
“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)