Bu Lianshi

Life

Lady Bu was from Huaiyin County (淮陰縣), Linhuai Commandery (臨淮郡), which is in present-day Huai'an, Jiangsu. She was born sometime in the late Eastern Han dynasty. She was a relative of Bu Zhi. When she was young, her mother brought her from Huaiyin to Lujiang Commandery (廬江郡; around present-day Anqing, Anhui). In 199, Lujiang was conquered by the warlord Sun Ce, who controlled the territories in the Jiangdong region (also called Wu, covering present-day southeastern China), after which Lady Bu moved from Lujiang to Jiangdong. In Jiangdong, Lady Bu was noticed by Sun Ce's younger brother, Sun Quan, for her beauty and she became Sun Quan's concubine. Sun Quan favoured her the most among all his wives. She bore Sun Quan two daughters: Sun Luban (孫魯班) and Sun Luyu (孫魯育).

Lady Bu was known to be very accepting towards Sun Quan's other wives and she did not show any signs of jealousy towards them. As such, she remained in her husband's favour in the long term. In 229, when Sun Quan declared himself emperor and established the state of Eastern Wu, he wanted to instate Lady Bu as the empress even though his subjects nominated Lady Xu to be the empress instead. Sun Quan eventually agreed to his subjects' suggestion. Despite so, in the following ten years or so, the imperial family and everyone in the palace referred to Lady Bu as the Empress. Lady Bu died in 238 and was posthumously honoured as an empress by Sun Quan. She was interred in the Jiang Mausoleum (蔣陵; at the Purple Mountain, Nanjing, Jiangsu).

Lady Bu's personal name was not recorded in her biography in the Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), the authoritative source for the history of the Three Kingdoms period. However, the Jiankang Shilu mentioned that her personal name was "Lianshi", hence she was also known as "Bu Lianshi".

In popular culture

Lady Bu is first introduced as a playable character in the seventh instalment of Koei's Dynasty Warriors video game series. She is referred to as "Lian Shi" in the game.