In the seventh year of the Yongyuan era of the Eastern Han dynasty (95 CE), Deng Sui, daughter of the Deng family of Nanyang, entered the palace at the age of fifteen. At the time, Emperor He of Han, Liu Zhao, was a young and capable ruler who used the imperial harem to keep the power of the consort clans in check. In a political game that treated women as pawns, Deng Sui survived by patiently concealing her true abilities. She weathered the witchcraft case involving Empress Yin, Emperor He entrusting his heir to her care, the premature death of Emperor Shang, Zhou Zhang's rebellion, the Qiang uprising engulfing the land, and repeated natural disasters. Ultimately, she rose to the pinnacle of power and ruled from behind the throne for sixteen years.
She used an iron hand to restrain the consort clans, appointed members of the scholar-official families according to strict standards of integrity, supported technology through practical scholarship, and suppressed the Qiang uprising through a combination of force and conciliation. Yet as Emperor An of Han, whom she had raised herself, came of age, the rift between mother and son over the return of power grew ever deeper.
Organized chronologically, with events as its framework, this book follows the course of history to portray how a noble girl survived the rivalries of the imperial harem through patience and restraint, outmaneuvered her opponents at court, and ultimately became a wise empress, only to be left utterly spent at the height of her power.
