Big Lo was a Chinese crime boss and the leader of the Saio Triad from 1985 to 2016.
Biography[]
Big Lo during the late 1980s
Big Lo was born in China, and he was descended from several generations of Saio Triad leaders. His father had helped supply Chinese cheap labor for Iwami Shipbuilding to build the Yamato Mark II at the end of World War II, thus making him privy to the "Secret of Onomichi". Big Lo was raised unaware of the secret, but, just before his father died in 1985, Lo was given a microfilm by his father giving him clues as to how he could uncover the secret and thus destroy the Yomei Alliance's ties to the Japanese political establishment. At around that same time, he had two sons, Jimmy Lo and Yuta Usami, the latter of whom he sent into exile in Japan as a heihaizi, while having Koji Masuzoe and Shu Tatsukawa spy on him and groom him to be his backup heir.
Big Lo in 2015
Big Lo was cautious about expanding into Japan even as the yakuza were weakened by anti-gang laws, as he did not want to risk Heizo Iwami discovering that he knew nothing of the true nature of the Secret of Onomichi. Instead, he forced the Yomei to give him sizeable hush money payments from a distance. In 2015, however, his son decided to go behind Lo's back and work with Tsuneo Iwami to bring the Saio into Tokyo by having the Tojo-kai stage a fire in Little Asia that would enable the Saio to take over the neighborhood, go to war with the Tojo, and result in the present Tojo leadership being imprisoned and replaced by Tsuneo's puppets. Big Lo was reluctant to go along with his son's plan, but Tsuneo Iwami revealed that Jimmy had drunkenly admitted that Big Lo knew nothing of the secret, casing Tsuneo to blackmail Big Lo into going along with the Saio's big move.
Big Lo announcing his retirement
As Lo predicted, Tsuneo turned on the Saio when he no longer had a use for them, and Tsuneo hired the Jingweon Mafia to kill Big Lo and his son. Big Lo, who was always on the move, evaded assassination, but his son was killed, causing him to vow to reveal the "Secret of Onomichi". Heizo Iwami sent Toru Hirose to warn Lo to leave Japan and take the secret with him, lest he turn his son Yuta against him by revealing Lo's plans to murder his illegitimate son Haruto Sawamura to preserve the Saio bloodline. When Lo did not take action, Hirose proceeded to reveal to Yuta the Saio's plot to murder his son. At the same time, Lo attempted to form an alliance with Kazuma Kiryu, who came to Little Asia to investigate the Saio's murder of Tatsukawa - whom he believed to be Haruto's father - for treason. Kiryu won Lo's trust by thwarting Takumi Someya's assassination attempt on him, so Lo revealed that Tatsukawa was not the boy's father.
After Hirose broke the news of the Saio's plot to Yuta, Kiryu, and the rest of the Hirose Family, Kiryu and Yuta headed back to Kabukicho, intent on persuading Lo to call off the search for Haruto. Yuta slipped into Little Asia by himself, intent on killing himself and his father to end the Saio bloodline, and he set the Saio headquarters on fire with a petrol bomb. Kiryu arrived in time to rescue Yuta and Big Lo, the latter of whom revealed that he had already called off the search for Haruto. Big Lo then revealed Hirose's manipulation of Yuta and asked him to reveal the Secret of Onomichi as an act of revenge against the manipulating Yomei. While Yuta remained bitter towards his father, Big Lo quietly disinherited Yuta, thus ending his bloodline and forcing his own resignation. Sure that his successor would send an assassin to kill him to prevent him from making a future attempt to return to power, Big Lo gave Kiryu his father's microfilm and bade him reveal the Secret of Onomichi before he went into hiding.