Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei

Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei ((北)魏孝明帝) (510 – March 31, 528), personal name Yuan Xu (元詡), was an emperor of the Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei (386-535). He ascended the throne in the age of five (515), so governmental matters were dominated by his mother Empress Dowager Hu (with an intervening regency by the official Yuan Cha from 520 to 525). In 528, Emperor Xiaoming tried to curb his mother's powers and kill her lover Zheng Yan (鄭儼) by conspiring with the general Erzhu Rong. As a result, 18-year-old emperor was poisoned by his mother, who was soon overthrown by Erzhu. From that point on, Northern Wei royal lineage had no actual power. The next ruler, Emperor Xiaozhuang (507-531) was established by Erzhu. Since Erzhu's rival, general Gao Huan, enthroned another royal offspring, the country was soon split in two rival polities, Eastern and Western Wei, both of which did not hold long on the political map of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Yuan Xu was born in 510. He was the only son of Emperor Xuanwu to be alive at that point. (Emperor Xuanwu had other sons before him, but each died in infancy or childhood, and only one of them, Yuan Chang (元昌), the son of Emperor Xuanwu's first wife Empress Yu, is known to historians by name.) Yuan Xu's mother was Emperor Xuanwu's concubine Consort Hu. As the only male offspring of Emperor Xuanwu, Yuan Xu obtained much of his father's attention: Emperor Xuanwu selected several experienced mothers to be Yuan Xu's wet nurses, forbidding his second wife Empress Gao and Consort Hu to be near him, perhaps because popular opinion at the time believed Yuan Chang to have been murdered by Empress Gao's (and Emperor Xuanwu's) uncle, Gao Zhao.

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