God's way - the story of Empress Bo

In the Bible, the book of Isaiah, it says: "The Lord thoughts are
not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways."

The story of Empress Bo of China demostrates how God chose an
empress, beyond human imagination.

In the 3rd century BC, when the first unified Chinese empire
Qing Dynasty crumbled, the country was in chaos, with Zu and
Han as the two major powers. Among the less powerful
states, there was Wei.

There was a lady in the King of Wei's court named Lady Bo, her
father came from Wu kindom with last name Bo, her mother
followed King of Wei. Lady Bo probably became a concubine of
the King of Wei.

Lady Bo was quiet and conversative, followed LaoTze's naturalistic
phylosophy.

One day Lady Bo's mother consulted a fortune teller about
Lady Bo's future, the fortune teller said Lady Bo's future son will be an
emperor.
King of Wei originally planned to join the Han side to
defeat Zu, but after learned this story about Lady Bo will
be the mother of a future emperor, he decided to stay neutral,
thinking Wei might be emerged as the ultimate victor.

Later Han defeated all adversaries, unified the country, and
established Han dynasty. King of Wei lost the battle and died,
and Lady Bo became a prisoner of war and was sent to the new
dynasty emperor's palace as a knitter.

One day Emperor Han Gaozu, the founding emperor of the new (Han)
dynasty, passing by the knitter's corridor, and discovered Lady
Bo was beautiful, and acquired her as a concubine.

Emperor Han Gaozu had many concubines, and Lady Bo was not one
of the favorite, so for more than one year as a concubine, she did
not have a chance to meet the emperor in person.

When Lady Bo was young, she had two good friends Lady Guang and
Lady Zhao, both of them later became concubine to Emperor Han Gaozu
also, and both found favor with the emperor. One day the two were
chatting in the palace garden and remembered three of them sweared
before that whoever got ahead later would help the other two, and
laughed at Lady Bo's unloved situation. Emperor Han Gaozu passing by and
asked what's funny and they told the emperor about Lady Bo. The emperor
was moved, and had pity on Lady Bo, and asked her to be his
companion that night. That night Lady Bo told the emperor she
had a dream the night before that a dragon was clinging on her belly, the
emperor said this was a lucky sign and they slept together, and Lady Bo
became preganent and had a son, whom would later become King of Dai.
Since Lady Bo was not a favorite to the emperor, the emperor seldom
saw her afterwards.

When Emperor Han Gaozu died, his successor was young, so the power
shifted to Empress Lu, the mother of the young emperor.
Empress Lu hated Emperor Han Gaozu's concubines, and
jailed them one by one. Since Lady Bo was not a favorite before,
Empress Lu did not give her hard time. At that time
Lady Bo's son was assigned as the king of Dai State, far away from the capital,
so Lady Bo asked to join her son in Dai, and was approved by Empress Lu.
This removed her far away from the palace politics, which was terrifying.

Empress Lu 's son, the official emperor, was mentally tortured by
her and became insane, and died young. So Empress Lu
created a few pseudo emperors, all of them young, to keep
herself in power.

When Empress Lu died after 15 years in power, court ministers and generals
decided not to keep any of those pseudo emperors, and elected to choose
from surviving sons of Han Gauzu to be the next emperor. The selection criteria
would be he was a good natured person, preferably older age so to avoid
being manipulated by his mother empress. King of Dai, already a grown up, and
a peaceful person, with conservative mother Lady Bo, emerged as the best
choice, and was crowned as the new emperor. Hence, Lady Bo, the mother
of the new emperor, became Empress Bo.

Empress Bo's great grandson, Emperor Han Wudi, became one of the
greatest emperor in China's history. Today, the majority of
the Chinese call themself Han race, is due mainly to Emperor Han Wudi.