The Long Song Returns to Tang

“The more you want to live, the more you must hide like a shadow within the light.” She was Empress Xiao, whose life was swept along by divination and prophecy. From an orphaned girl in Western Liang to the empress of Emperor Yang of Sui, then a Turkic khatun, she finally returned to Chang'an to spend her remaining years. This is a true account of a woman's struggle to survive in a turbulent age. Seeing through the nature of power, she urged Yang Guang to take his own life in Jiangdu and preserve his dignity; she learned to wield poison and political intrigue in the Turkic royal court; and in Chang'an, she reached an understanding with Li Shimin. Across three marriages and countless upheavals, she used the value of her claim to “legitimacy” to maneuver among rival powers. When the splendor had faded, she was laid to rest alongside Emperor Yang of Sui at the age of eighty. Strip away the romanticized legend and see how a formidable woman, through wisdom and restraint, forged her own epic song amid the grand sweep of history.