Liu Bei — Emperador Zhaolie de Shu Han
Hijo de un tejedor de esteras que reclamaba ascendencia imperial distante y pasó treinta años perdiendo batallas sin nunca desaparecer del todo. Cuando Cao Pi tomó el trono Han en 220 Liu Bei declaró que la dinastía continuaba en él, gobernó desde Chengdu durante dos años, y destruyó su propio ejército intentando vengar a Guan Yu.
劉備 · 昭烈帝
简体 刘备 · 昭烈帝
“Claimed the Han succession from a corner of Sichuan”
A mat-weaver's son who claimed distant imperial descent and spent thirty years losing battles without ever quite disappearing. When Cao Pi took the Han throne in 220 Liu Bei declared that the dynasty continued in him, ruled from Chengdu for two years, and destroyed his own army trying to avenge Guan Yu.
His reputation — the ruler who wins loyalty rather than battles — is largely the work of the fourteenth-century novel, but the loyalty was real enough: Zhuge Liang held the state together for a decade after his death on the strength of a deathbed conversation.
The Shu Han silk holds the empresses of both its reigns: Liu Bei's Empress Wu, and the two daughters of Zhang Fei who were married in turn to his son. When Chengdu fell in 263 the imperial family went north as prisoners.
The empress of this reign
Painted on silk in gemstone mineral pigments by Xiang Li.
About this page
Written for this site to place Liu Bei's reign around the paintings. For the full biography, the dynastic histories and the scholarship behind them, start at Wikipedia.