The Tibetan Matriarch

Xiao Zhen took the place of her younger half-sister, Xiao Hu, and accompanied Princess He'an to marry into Tubo.

The King of Tubo assigned her as a wife to the three Chen brothers of Xingyu City.

Among Tubo's noble families, it was common for brothers to share a wife, ensuring that their property would not be divided when the brothers split up.

Xiao Zhen crossed snowy mountains and grasslands with the wedding procession and arrived at the fertile Baima River, where she met her first husband, Dongzan.

He stood at the city gate, elegant and refined despite his illness. Reaching out from beneath his thick snow-fox cloak with a cold hand, he gently took hers and led her into Xingyu City.

Legend said he was one of the most intelligent men in all of Tubo. At fifteen, he took over a crumbling Xingyu City from his grandfather, and in just eleven years, turned it into the richest tribe in Tubo.

Yet even he, a man of almost supernatural wisdom, seemed unable to escape the fate that befalls those who are too clever.

After Dongzan died, Xiao Zhen married his second younger brother, Mangbojie's. He was the bravest general beneath Kunlun Mountain and the most handsome man on the banks of the Baima River. He didn't like his Han Chinese wife. Before they had even met, the thought of having such a frail wife, as he'd heard, had already made him frown.

He came to resent Xiao Zhen, much as he resented and envied the King of Tubo for Xingyu City's wealth, and feared him for his powerful army.

Alongside his elder brother Dongzan, one a man of letters and the other a man of arms, he protected the people of Xingyu City.

According to The Tang-Tubo Chronicle, the Han woman Xiao Zhen accompanied a princess's marriage procession to Tubo and married into the Chen family of Xingyu City. After the upheaval among the twelve tribes of Tubo and the Battle of Baima, she joined her husband Chiluo in uniting Tubo, which had been riven by decades of internal strife. She became Chiluo's only queen.

Countless poems and temples have been dedicated to her in folk tradition.

Theme: Wherever the light shines, all things sparkle.