Liu Cong's later empresses

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The Han-Zhao emperor Liu Cong, after his third wife Empress Liu E's death in 314, became involved in the unorthodox practice of creating multiple empresses, against the Chinese tradition of having one empress at one time. Several women therefore carried the empress titles during his late reign, either entirely simultaneously or in an overlapping manner, and four of them survived to the time of the brief reign of his son Liu Can in 318. Liu Can was said to have engaged in affairs with all of them (which was considered incest under Chinese tradition, even though he had no blood relations with them), all of whom were described as younger than 20 in age. In addition to these empresses with formal titles, Liu Cong was said to have had several other consorts who also carried empress seals, but not official empress titles.