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Lo Bu, also known as the Boy Too Bold By Half, is an historical figure mentioned in The World of Ice and Fire. He was a God-Emperor of the Golden Empire of Yi Ti and the 43rd and last ruler of the Scarlet Emperors dynasty, best known for his merciless genocidal campaign against the Jogos Nhai people (a race of people with pointed skulls who rode zorses).
History
Lo Bu was a member of the Lo family of the Scarlet Emperors, the 9th dynasty to rule Yi Ti . Every time a ruling dynasty fell, the new one ruled from a new capital city. The Scarlet Emperors moved the capital to the city of Si Qo, located right in the heart of Yi Ti's jungle. They were also the founders of this city.
Lo Bu's father was the God-Emperor Lo Han, the 42nd ruler of the dynasty. Three times Han led his armies into the Plains of the Jogos Nhai (a universe's analogous to real world Mongolia), home of the nomadic zorse-riding people who are sworn enemies of the YiTish people. Like the Dothraki, they are free proud raiders who prize freedom above all and are never content to remain in once place for long. Like every neighboring nation of the Jogos Nhai, the Golden Empire of Yi Ti have often been target of the Jogos Nhai depredations.
Raids into the empire are a way of life for the zorse-riders, and a source of the gold and gems that decor the arms and necks of moonsingers and jhats as well as of the slaves that serve them and tend their herds. Over the past 2,000 years, YiTish cities, towns, farms, and fields beyond count have been reduced to ruins and ashes. Many imperial generals and three God-Emperors have led armies to bring the nomads to heel but have seldom ended well and soon the raids began anew, even when jhats were compelled to vow eternal fealty to the God-Emperor and foreswear raiding forever. So Lo Han had personally led 3 invasions to destroy these nomads once and for all, to the point that handfuls of jhats came to swear fealty to him and forswear raiding forever.
Instead, when Lo Han died the Jogos Nhai had become bolder and more rapacious than when he had first donned the imperial regalia and carried out worse raids and caused larger destruction of Yi Tish places. God-Emperor Lo Bu succeeded his father and became the forty second ruler of his dynasty. When he ascended to the throne, the warmongering Jogos Nhai were a real problem and a challenge to the Empire's strength.
Lo Bu carried out his father's goal to end the Jogos Nhai culture, and as a response to their provocations, he started a new invasion of the Plains of the Jogos Nhai, seeking to exterminate its people forever and leaving no survivors or accepting no surrender. The young Emperor punished his enemies by leading a host 300,000 strong to the Plains burning everything they saw, every camp and all the lands. No prisoners were made and no women or children were spared from Lo Bu's wrath and revenge. His goal was the extinction of the Jogos Nhai and he meant it.
The stronger imperial Yi Tish army turned much of the Plains of the Jogos Nhai into a burning wasteland and Lo Bu remained unswayed by tributes, hostages, oaths of fealty or offerings of peace from his enemies. According to the history of Essos, at least one million of Jogos Nhai have been slaughtered by the boy's forces.
Having no chance to defeat the Yi Tish in strength, the Jogos Nhai resorted to strategy and used their traditional tactic of melting away before an army. Lo Bu divided his host into thirteen smaller and sent them to hunt down the nomads. At this point, the zorse-riders knew they had to unite all of their clans if they could hope to defeat the Emperor. They were united and raised up by the jhattar known as Zhea (or Zhea the Barren, Zhea the Cruel, Zhea Zorseface).
Born a woman who had chosen the life of a male warrior, Zhea wore man's mail and used strategy to destroy Bu's massive forces. Lo Bu was courageous and skilled at arms like no other, yet he was not as cunning as Zhea, who isolated each of the emperor's armies one by one, slaying their scouts and foragers, starving them, denying them water, leading them into wastelands and traps. After 2 years of this strategy, Zhea's riders fell upon Lo Bu's failing army and slaughtered it, killing the boy emperor as well.
Lo Bu's severed head was presented to Zhea, who commanded that the flesh be stripped from the bone and his skull be dipped in gold and made into her drinking cup. Since that day, the cup has been passed from jhattar to jhattar through generations and every jhattar has drunk fermented zorse milk from the gilded skull of Lo Bu, who is remembered as the Boy Too Bold By Half. Zhea is remembered in the Golden Empire as an infamous historical figure, where mothers whisper her name to frighten misbehaving children into obedience.
After Lo Bu's death, the dynasty of the Scarlet Emperors fell and was overthrown and succeeded by another dynasty. As usual the capital of the Golden Empire was replaced and the city of Si Qo is now long fallen and overgrown in the jungle. The Azure Emperors are the current ruling dynasty of Yi Ti, ruled by Bu Gai, the 17th God-Emperor of the family, who's challenged by the rivals Pol Qo and the sorcerer lord of Carcosa.
