Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei
emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei
467 CE to 499 CE
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei (October 13, 467 – April 26, 499), personal name né Tuoba Hong, later Yuan Hong, is an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei from September 20, 471 to April 26, 499.
Emperor Xiaowen implements a drastic policy of sinicization, intending to centralize the government and make the multi-ethnic state more easy to govern.
These policies include changing artistic styles to reflect Chinese preferences and forcing the population to speak the language and to wear Chinese clothes.
He compels his own Xianbei people and others to adopt Chinese surnames, and changes his own family surname from Tuoba to Yuan.
He also encourages intermarriage between Xianbei and Han.
In 494, Emperor Xiaowen moves the Northern Wei capital from Pingcheng (in modern Datong, Shanxi) to Luoyang, a city long acknowledged as a major center in Chinese history.
The shift in the capital is mirrored by a shift in tactics from active defense to passive defense against the Rouran.
While the capital is moved to Luoyang, the military elite remain centered at the old capital, widening the differences between the administration and the military.
The population at the old capital remains fiercely conservative, while the population at Luoyang are much more eager to adopt Xiaowen's policies of sinicization.
His reforms are met with resistance by the Xianbei elite.
In 496, two plots by Xianbei nobles, one centered around his crown prince Yuan Xun, and one centered around his distant uncle Yuan Yi.
By 497, Xiaowen has destroyed the conspiracies and forced Yuan Xun to commit suicide.
Unfortunately for Emperor Xiaowen, his sinicization policies have their downsides, leading to incompetent nobles being put into positions of power, with capable men of low birth not being able to advance in his government.
Further, his wholesale adoption of Han culture and fine arts causes the nobles to be corrupt in order to afford the lifestyles of the Han elite, leading to further erosion to effective rule.
By the time of his grandson Emperor Xiaoming, Northern Wei is in substantial upheaval due to agrarian revolts, and by 534 has been divided into two halves, each of which will soon be taken over by warlords.
One of Xiaowen's enduring legacies is the establishment of the equal-field system in China, a system of government-allotted land that will last until the An Shi Rebellion in the mid Tang Dynasty (618–907).
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The ruler of the nomadic Tuoba tribal state in Northern China adopts a Chinese surname; he will reign over Northern Wei as emperor Xiao Wen Di until his death in 499.
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei institutes an "equal-field" system of agriculture, assigning each peasant family about nineteen acres (one hundred and forty mu) of land, of which a small portion is to be kept permanently by the farmer and his family with the rest reverting to the state upon his death of retirement.
To make sure that the people supervise each other in implementing the new system, he divides the population into groups, with five families constituting a neighborhood (Jin), five neighborhoods a village (Ji), and five villages an association (tang) headed by a chief (chang).
The land-reform system will discourage farmers from selling off their properties to large landholders and will be continued in essence for well over a thousand years.
Emperor Xiaowen begins adopting a sinicization policy as well as various reforms.
He marries Feng Qing, who becomes empress of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
The Northern Wei Dynasty moves its capital from Datong to Luoyang in 494.
Emperor Xiaowen makes Chinese the official language of his court and orders his nobles to adopt Chinese names.
After this move, …
…work on the bas-reliefs and statues at Yungang’s Buddhist caves becomes intermittent.
Emperor Xiaowen builds the Shaolin Monastery for the monk Batuo, a dhyana master who had come to China from India in 464 to spread Buddhist teachings.
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei starts a Sinicization process by changing his clan name to the Han Chinese surname Yuan.
Tuoba Ke was born in 483, as the second son of Emperor Xiaowen.
His mother was Xiaowen's concubine Consort, Gao Zhaorong. (As he was born the same year as his older brother Tuoba Xun, he was probably born just briefly after Tuoba Xun, whose mother was Consort Lin.)
Little is known about his childhood, including whether he was raised by his mother Gao or not.
Xiaowen in 496 changed the name of the imperial clan from Tuoba to Yuan, and thereafter he would be known as Yuan Ke.
Yuan Xun, who was in autumn 496 crown prince, but who could not endure the hot weather of the capital Luoyang after Xiaowen moved the capital there from Pingcheng in 494, plotted to flee back to Pingcheng with his followers, but his plot was discovered.
Xiaowen deposed him, and in 497 created Yuan Ke crown prince to replace Yuan Xun. (The creation was in Luoyang, but it is unclear whether prior to his creation, Yuan Xun was at Luoyang or Pingcheng.)
Gao, who was in Pingcheng, traveled south later that year to rejoin her son in Luoyang, but she died on the way.
Historians generally believe that she was murdered by Xiaowen's wife, Empress Feng Run, who wanted to raise Yuan Ke herself.
Whether she was actually able to do so is unclear, but after she is discovered to have carried on an affair with her attendant Gao Pusa in 499, she is put under house arrest, and Xiaowen orders Yuan Ke to have no more contact with her.
Xiaowen, while on a campaign against rival Southern Qi later in 499, grows ill and dies.
Xiaowen's brother Yuan Xie the Prince of Pengcheng is placed in command of the withdrawing army on an emergency basis, and Yuan Xie keeps Xiaowen's death a secret while summoning Yuan Ke to join the army.
Yuan Ke's attendants largely suspect Yuan Xie of wanting to take the throne himself, but Yuan Xie, once he meets Yuan Ke, shows great deference to his nephew, persuading Yuan Ke of his loyalty.
Yuan Ke, at age sixteen, now assumes the throne as Xuanwu at Luyang (in modern Pingdingshan, Henan), before the army can return to Luoyang.
Xuanwu initially wants to make Yuan Xie, who is popular and well-regarded, prime minister, but Yuan Xie refuses, and is made a provincial governor instead.
The governmental affairs are largely in the hands of six officials: Xiaowen's brothers Yuan Xi the Prince of Xianyang and Yuan Xiang the Prince of Beihai, Xiaowen's cousin Yuan Cheng the Prince of Rencheng, Xiaowen's distant uncle Yuan Jia the Prince of Guangyang, and the officials Wang Su and Song Bian, although Yuan Cheng was soon stripped of his post because he falsely arrested Wang on suspicion of treason.
Xuanwu, once he returns to Luoyang, posthumously honors his mother Gao as an empress, and he createdshis maternal uncles Gao Zhao and Gao Xian, as well as his cousin Gao Meng, none of whom he had previously met, dukes.
Gao Zhao, in particular, will become increasingly powerful during Xuanwu's reign.