Dowager Luo

Who he is

Name

Luo (personal name not known to me); styled Zhangxian Qinci after death

Title

Empress dowager (huang taihou), widow of Renzong and mother of Huanzong

Since

Dowager since 16 October 1193; empress of Renzong earlier (after the Wang empress died in 1167 or 1168)

Born

not known

Family

Luo clan; Chinese Wikipedia has a separate article on her (Luo huanghou, Xia Renzong) which we could not read

Confidence

medium

English Wikipedia (Renzong, Xiangzong), Chinese Wikipedia (Xixia).

Overlord

The emperor, her son.

What it holds

• A dowager's household and revenue at Xingqing (not itemised in any source we read)
• Patronage of the Luo kin in office; they are not named

How it was acquired

Elevated empress after the Wang empress died (1167 or 1168); empress dowager from October 1193.

Allies and rivals

Son: the emperor. Cousin of her son: Li Anquan, whom she backs in 1206. The chancellor and the Weiming princes.

How things stand that morning

Alive and at court. How she shares power with the chancellor and the young emperor is not pinned. Treat her as the leading voice in the palace and as someone with her own preferences about the succession.

Wealth

Not recorded.

Military

None of her own.

Threats

• Her son's favour; the princely quarrel.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 1 March 1206 (after 1200)She supports Li Anquan's coup against her son Huanzong.Depends on: Huanzong's refusal of Anquan's request for his father's title, and the Luo party's interests. Stopped by: A different settlement of the princely succession.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry has no record for her. An earlier memory of an 'Empress Cao' of Renzong is not supported by the English Wikipedia page, which names only the Wang and Luo empresses.

Evidence: Two English Wikipedia pages and one Chinese; no chronicle read.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: No land of her own is recorded.

Primary sources for Great Xia

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
• Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
• Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
• History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
• History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
• History of the Song, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345, from the Song veritable records, state histories and the Huiyao). The official history of the Southern Song, which ruled from Lin'an (Hangzhou) in 1200. Read online

5 more in the sources library for The Tarim, the Uyghurs and Xia.