Death
in 528, Emperor Xiaoming's favorite concubine Consort Pan bore him a daughter. However, Empress Dowager Hu falsely declared that Consort Pan's child was a son, and ordered a general pardon.
By this time, Emperor Xiaoming, aged 18, was tired of the hold that his mother had on his administration, and he further despised Zheng Yan and Xu Ge. He therefore sent secret messengers to the general Erzhu Rong, who controlled the region around Bing Province (并州, modern central Shanxi), ordering him to advance on Luoyang to force Empress Dowager Hu to remove Zheng and Xu. After Erzhu advanced to Shangdang (上黨, in modern Changzhi, Shanxi), Emperor Xiaoming suddenly changed his mind and sent messengers to stop him, but the news leaked. Zheng and Xu therefore advised Empress Dowager Hu to have Emperor Xiaoming poisoned. She did so, and after initially announcing that Emperor Xiaoming's "son" by Consort Pan would succeed him, admitted that the "son" was actually a daughter, and instead selected Yuan Zhao the son of Yuan Baohui (元寶暉) the Prince of Lintao, two-years in age, to succeed Emperor Xiaoming. Erzhu Rong refused to recognize this arrangement, and soon arrived at and captured Luoyang, throwing Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Zhao into the Yellow River to drown.
Read more about this topic: Emperor Xiaoming Of Northern Wei
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“In the whole vast dome of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom: as soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)