Empress Yang (Song dynasty)

Empress Yang (30 June 1162 – 18 January 1233), formally titled Empress Gongsheng, was a Chinese empress consort of the Song dynasty, married to Emperor Ningzong of Song. She served as the co-regent of Emperor Lizong and ultimately like a de facto empress regnant though not actually one from 1224 until her death in 1233 at the age of 71, having been the de facto ruler of the Southern Song dynasty for 30 whole years. Empress Yang, also known by the name Yang Meizi, is considered "one of the most powerful empresses of the Song dynasty and is allegedly considered the Southern Song dynasty's most powerful Empress at the time"

She was genuinely asserted to have been wise and intelligent, ruthless and at times malicious while she tried to maintain a saintly and liberal acumen she was an astute wielder of power both virtually and actually at court and in the palace, manipulative and strangely enough from an ambiguous background. However contemporary history suggests that she just had most of her history altered for entirely political reasons.

To become a most competent Sovereign she was the second Empress in the dynasty after the Empress Dowager Liu to come from a humble background to become the most powerful woman in the world serving as the de facto ruler of the Southern Song dynasty for 22 years and through political machinations as Imperial Regent de jure for 8 years.