Empress Liu Fang was an empress of the Chinese

History of China

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...

/Xiongnu

Xiongnu

The Xiongnu were ancient nomadic-based people that formed a state or confederation north of the agriculture-based empire of the Han Dynasty. Most of the information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources...

 state Han Zhao

Han Zhao

The Han Zhao , or Former Zhao, or Northern Han , was a Southern Xiongnu state during Sixteen Kingdoms period coeval with the Chinese Jin Dynasty...

. She was Liu Yao

Liu Yao

Liu Yao , courtesy name Yongming , was the final emperor of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Han Zhao. He became emperor in 318 after most other members of the imperial Liu clan were massacred by Jin Zhun in a coup. However, the empire was soon divided in half, as the general Shi Le declared...

's third empress. It was likely that she was ethnically Han

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

, because if she were Xiongnu, Liu Yao would not likely have married her due to the prohibition against endogamy

Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...

 given that they had the same family name.

Liu Fang was the cousin of Liu Yao's second empress

Empress Liu (Liu Yao)

Empress Liu , formally Empress Xianlie was an empress of the Chinese/Xiongnu state Han Zhao. She was Liu Yao's second empress....

, also named Liu. When the older Empress Liu neared her death in 326, she recommended Liu Fang to Liu Yao as his next empress, praising her as beautiful and virtuous. After her death, Liu Yao married Liu Fang and created her empress. Nothing further is said about her in historical records, and it is not known whether she survived to, or survived, Han Zhao's destruction by Later Zhao

Later Zhao

The Later Zhao was a state of the Sixteen Kingdoms during the Jin Dynasty in China. It was founded by the Shi family of the Jie ethnicity...

 in 329.
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