In the bitter nights of a troubled age, the empire’s twin pillars turn the tide.
For the sake of all people, a woman of beauty makes her plans; her husband gives everything for the realm.
With graceful brows, she shows what she can do. Through countless near-deaths, she never regrets mending the heavens’ rift.
Her bold ambition wins the hearts of all beneath the skies; the spirit of a hero endures through the ages.
I once came across an online question: “What’s the most impossibly powerful setup you’ve ever seen for a heroine?” One answer was Princess Pingyang of the Tang Dynasty, posthumously honored as Zhao. She was a woman whose real name remains unknown to this day, yet she alone was an army. She cast off her finery, left the seclusion of her inner chambers, took up the tiger tally, and surveyed the world. She forged the famed “Army of the Lady,” becoming the only woman in China’s ancient feudal society to be buried with full military honors. Born into the Li clan of Longxi and married into the Chai clan of Linfen, she wrote a brief but dazzling chapter in the history of women’s struggle amid a chaotic age of warlords and rival ambitions. She carved out a sky of her own. She personally organized an anti-Sui army made up mainly of refugees, bandits, and robbers, and single-handedly won a realm for her father and brothers. Then she quietly vanished from the stage of history, her achievements and fame hidden from view. If every encounter and reunion conceals the workings of fate, then life’s rises and falls hold pivotal choices within them. While other women fought over love and affection, jealous of their rivals and confined to household and palace intrigues, her vision and ambition opened the way for the Tang Dynasty’s vibrant, wondrous, and open-minded women. She set the standard for an independent and confident age. For oneself, cultivate virtue and go far; for family and country, the righteous path is forged through hardship. The tumultuous events of her brief life influenced the course of history, yet the few words recorded in the history books never probe the tender yet steadfast heart of this heroine. She is a true leading lady.
