Empress Mu (Xianzhu) 先主穆皇后

Empress Mu of the First Sovereign was a native of Chenliu. Her elder brother Wu Yi lost his father young, and because Wu Yi's father had long been on old terms with Liu Yan, the whole family followed Liu Yan into Shu. Liu Yan, who harboured ambitions of his own, heard that a skilled physiognomist had read her features and said she would attain great nobility, and since he had his son Liu Mao with him at the time, he took her as Liu Mao's wife. When Liu Mao died, she lived as a widow. Records, Shu 4 §9

After the First Sovereign pacified Yi Province and Lady Sun returned to Wu, his ministers urged the First Sovereign to take her in marriage. When the First Sovereign hesitated because he was of the same clan as Liu Mao, Fa Zheng came forward and asked how, in terms of closeness of kinship, it compared with Duke Wen of Jin and Ziyu. He then took her as his wife. The passage on Wu Yi in the Encomia on the Supporting Ministers of Ji Han, included in the Biographies of Deng, Zhang, Zong and Yang in Records of Shu 15, also records that when the First Sovereign pacified Yi Province he made Wu Yi Protector of the Army and General Who Attacks Rebels and took Wu Yi's younger sister as his wife. Records, Shu 4 §9–10Records, Shu 15 §54

In the 24th year of Jian'an (219) she was made Queen of Hanzhong. In the 5th month, in summer, of the 1st year of Zhangwu (221), the First Sovereign issued a decree saying that, having received the Mandate of Heaven, ascended the most exalted position and come to rule over the myriad states, he now made her empress; he sent the Chancellor Zhuge Liang, bearing the Staff of Authority, as envoy to confer the seal and ribbon on her, and bade her uphold the ancestral temple and be mother to the realm. The Biography of the First Sovereign also records that in this month Lady Wu was made empress and his son Liu Shan crown prince. Records, Shu 4 §10Records, Shu 2 §68

According to the Biography of the Later Sovereign, in the 4th month, in summer, of the 3rd year of Zhangwu (223) the First Sovereign died at the Yong'an Palace, and in the 5th month, when the Later Sovereign succeeded to the throne at Chengdu, he honoured the empress with the title of Empress Dowager. The Biography of Empress Mu records this as the Later Sovereign, on taking the throne in the 5th month of the 1st year of Jianxing, honouring her as Empress Dowager and calling her the Changle Palace. Records, Shu 3 §3Records, Shu 4 §10

Her elder brother Wu Yi rose to the office of General of Chariots and Cavalry and was enfeoffed as a county marquis. In the 8th month, in autumn, of the 8th year of Yanxi (245) the Empress Dowager died, and she was buried with the First Sovereign in the Hui Mausoleum. Records, Shu 4 §11Records, Shu 3 §25

In his assessment of the Biographies of the Two Governors Liu in Records of Shu 1, Chen Shou cited how Wei Bao took Lady Bo into his house after hearing Xu Fu's words and Liu Xin changed his name after seeing the prophetic texts, yet in the end neither could save himself; he then said that Liu Yan set his heart on the land of Yi after hearing Dong Fu's words, sought a marriage with the Wu family after listening to a physiognomist, and hastily had the carriages and robes of the Son of Heaven made in an attempt to steal the sacred vessel of rule, so that his delusion was great. The assessment in Records of Shu 4 cites the Book of Changes, which says that there are fathers and sons only after there are husbands and wives, calls this the beginning of human relations, and says that these records were therefore made in order to investigate the structure of a state. Records, Shu 1 §21Records, Shu 4 §27