Consort Dowager Liu

Consort Dowager Liu (劉太妃, personal name unknown) (died May 30, 925?) was the wife of Li Keyong, the founder of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period state Jin. However, despite this status, after Li Keyong's son Li Cunxu later defeated Jin's rival Later Liang and established Later Tang as its Emperor Zhuangzong, she was not honored as empress dowager, but only given the lesser title of consort dowager.

It is not known when Lady Liu was born, and all that is known about her background is that she was from the Daibei (代北, i.e., the region around and north of modern Xinzhou, Shanxi) region. It is not known when she married Li Keyong other than that it was before he initially rebelled against the reign of Emperor Xizong in 878. Throughout the campaigns that Li Keyong subsequently waged through the years, both as a rebel against and later as a Tang Dynasty vassal, Lady Liu often accompanied him on campaigns. She was said to be intelligent, dextrous, and capable of strategies; she also often taught Li Keyong's concubines horsemanship and archery.

In 884, when Li Keyong, then a Tang vassal as the military governor (Jiedushi) of Hedong Circuit (河東, headquartered in modern Taiyuan, Shanxi), was on a campaign south of the Yellow River against Huang Chao, Lady Liu accompanied him. One night when Li Keyong was attending a feast that Zhu Quanzhong the military governor of Xuanwu Circuit (宣武, headquartered in modern Kaifeng, Henan) held in his honor at Xuanwu's capital Bian Prefecture (汴州) inside the city, Lady Liu remained outside the city at the Hedong army camp. At the feast, Li Keyong, who became drunk, insulted Zhu in his stupor, and Zhu reacted by having the mansion that Li Keyong was staying at surrounded and attacked. Li Keyong had to fight his way out of the encirclement and out of the city, but his guard commander Shi Jingsi was killed during the attack. While the battle was going on, one of Li Keyong's attendants fled back to the Hedong camp and reported the ambush to Lady Liu. Lady Liu, fearing that the news would leak, executed the attendant while calmly planning a plan to withdraw. Li Keyong was able to fight his way out of the city and arrive back in the Hedong camp in the morning, and he then prepared an attack on Zhu. Lady Liu, pointing out that he would have no way of showing the imperial government that he was the victim of Zhu's treachery if he attacked Zhu, counseled against the attack, and Li Keyong agreed, withdrawing from the area. (This assassination attempt would set in motion the rivalry that Li Keyong and Zhu had for the rest of their lives.)

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