Background
Yuwen Jue was born in 542 as the son of Yuwen Tai, then the paramount general of Western Wei, and Yuwen Tai's wife Princess Fengyi, the sister of Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei. He was Yuwen Tai's third son, but was largely viewed as Yuwen Tai's likely heir because his mother was both of royal birth and Yuwen Tai's wife, while his older brothers Yuwen Yu and Yuwen Zhen (宇文震) were sons of concubines. In 550, he became the Duke of Lüeyang. He later married Emperor Wen's daughter Yuan Humo the Princess Jin'an as his wife and duchess.
In spring 556, Yuwen Tai was pondering the issue of succession. Yuwen Jue was born of the Princess Fengyi, but Yuwen Yu was older and married to the daughter of one of his chief generals, Dugu Xin (獨孤信). On the advice of Li Yuan (李遠), who argued that the son of a wife always had precedence over the son of a concubine, Yuwen Tai made Yuwen Jue his heir apparent.
in fall 556, while Yuwen Tai was on a tour of the norther provinces, he became ill at Qiantun Mountain (牽屯山, in modern Guyuan, Ningxia). He summoned his nephew Yuwen Hu the Duke of Zhongshan to Qiantun and entrusted the affairs of the state as well as his sons to Yuwen Hu. He soon died, and Yuwen Jue took over his titles (among them, Duke of Anding), while Yuwen Hu took the reins of the state. Yuwen Jue set up his headquarters at Tong Province (同州, roughly modern Weinan, Shaanxi), where Yuwen Tai's headquarters had been.
Around the new year 557, Yuwen Jue gained the greater title of Duke of Zhou.
In spring 557, Yuwen Hu, believing that Yuwen Jue's youth meant that he needed to take imperial title to affirm his authority, forced Emperor Gong to yield the throne to Yuwen Jue (as Emperor Xiaomin), ending Western Wei and starting Northern Zhou.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Xiaomin Of Northern Zhou
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)