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 Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei. Due to his young age (five) when he ascended the throne at 515, governmental matters were dominated by his mother Empress Dowager Hu (with an intervening regency by the official Yuan Cha from 520 to 525), whose overly lenient attitude toward officials' corruptions spurred many agrarian rebellions that threw essentially the entire state into war. 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, and Empress Dowager Hu killed him. Soon, Erzhu overthrew her, and from that point on, Northern Wei emperors no longer had full actual authority.
Read more about Emperor Xiaoming Of Northern Wei: Background, First Regency of Empress Dowager Hu, Regency of Yuan Cha, Second Regency of Empress Dowager Hu, Death, Era Names, Personal Information
Famous quotes containing the words emperor and/or northern:
“The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Our ancestors were savages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who were.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)