Liu E (969-1033), Empress Zhang Xianming Su, the third empress of Zhao Heng, Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, and the first female leader of the Song Dynasty who was called by the imperial court, was often referred to as "Empress Lv of the Han Dynasty and Empress Zhiwu of the Tang Dynasty", and later generations called him "a talented person without the evil of Lv Wu".
Liu E was an orphan girl in Shu, and later came to the capital. At the age of 15, she was admitted to the residence of the third prince, Zhao Heng (later known as Song Zhenzong). After Song Zhenzong ascended the throne, in the first year of Jingde (1004), Liu E was granted the title of beauty. In the fifth year of Dazhong Xiangfu (1012), she was crowned Queen.
Since the founding of the Song Dynasty, there was no precedent for female leaders to face the imperial court. In the later period of the Zhenzong Dynasty, Liu E gradually took control of the power of the government. Song Zhenzong was upset. The party headed by the Prime Minister Kou Zhun was not allowed for Liu E to monopolize the government. Liu E formed Ding Wei, Cao Liyong and other foreign friends to defeat the forces of Kou Party who opposed her dictatorship.
In the first year of Qianxing's reign (1022), Song Zhenzong died, and Liu E was named after him. Liu E found the right moment to banish the powerful minister Ding to Yazhou. Zhao Yuanyan, the most famous eight kings of the Zhao family (one of the prototypes of the art image "Eight Sage Kings" in later generations), pretended to be crazy and claimed that he was ill. The government of the Song Dynasty was completely in the hands of Liu E.
Liu E was facing the imperial court, "shaking the world". In the second year of Tiansheng (1024), Liu E wore the imperial dragon robe to participate in the coronation ceremony of the Song court. A minister wrote to Liu E asking her to "follow the story of Empress Wu", and Cheng Lin also presented the Painting of Empress Wu Facing the Imperial Court, implying that Liu E would become emperor. Liu E tore up the memorial that encouraged her to claim the throne, threw it on the ground, and said, "I will not do such things that are unfair to the ancestors of the Song Dynasty!"
In March of the second year of the Ming Dynasty (1033), Liu E died with the posthumous title of "Empress Zhang Xianming Su".
Liu E loved to wear imperial clothes all her life, but refused to return to the government of Song Renzong until her death, which attracted criticism from the government and the public. After the Song Dynasty, with the wide spread of literary and artistic works such as "Civet Cat for Prince", Liu E was stereotyped in the folk as being narrow-minded, jealous, cruel, and even trying to capture the image of "a generation of traitors and concubines" in the Song Dynasty, which is far from the historical image of the characters.