[A Desperate Situation from the Start]
I transmigrated and was reborn as a beggar woman on the brink of death, holding in my arms a future wise ruler, feverish and delirious. Seeking a chance to survive, I stopped Minister Li Siyuan’s carriage and revealed the secret that would decide the fate of a chaotic age in a single sentence: “Father! Shi Jingtang will betray the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun!”
[My Grand Game for the Realm]
From then on, I worked behind the scenes, moving the pieces in a world of chaos. I brought the heroes of the Five Dynasties under my control and planned every step, founding the state of Zhou and naming the era Changning.
[The Imperial Lineage]
Li Siyuan (Emperor Mingzong of Later Tang), my birth father, who gave me legitimacy and my first chessboard.
Liu Zhiyuan (Emperor Gaozu of Later Han), my husband, who wielded a sword for me and swept across the lands in every direction.
Guo Wei (Emperor Taizu of Later Zhou), my sworn younger brother, a pillar of the state who laid the foundations of the realm.
Chai Rong (Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou), my own son, the perfect heir forged from a lifetime of my devotion.
Zhao Kuangyin (Emperor Taizu of Song), my sworn son, who rose from a valiant vanguard to a peerless warlord and became the final piece I had to place with my own hand.
One after another, they ruled the realm, made their names in the annals of history, and shone through the ages.
Yet none of them knew that from the night the wind and snow began, the hand overturning the realm and linking all their fates had always been mine.
[The True Mandate of Heaven]
I served as regent twice, and twice I handed power back.
Each time I withdrew, the realm fell into chaos.
I took the dragon throne, yielded it, and took it again, not out of greed for power, but because I was the one pillar holding this realm together.
When I finally ascended the throne, with the Mandate of Heaven upon me, I proclaimed laws to the world that would resound through all ages:
I shall take no empress and no consort in this life. Future generations may choose their own state names and rites, but from this day on, I shall write the rules of the realm!
What I seek to end is not only the wars of the Five Dynasties, but also the thousand-year-old dream of treating the realm as a family inheritance. This is the heavenly law I have established, and none may defy it!
