Feng Xiaolian

Favorite consort of the Last Ruler of Northern Qi, whose allusion "jade body laid bare" is linked to the fall of Northern Qi.

Life

Pipa-playing maid

Feng Xiaolian was originally a maid of the empress of the Last Ruler of Northern Qi. Clever, skilled at the pipa and able to sing and dance, she was made Consort Shu by the Last Ruler and favored beyond compare; he always sat on the same mat with her and rode side by side with her when going out.

"One more hunt"

In 576 Northern Zhou attacked Pingyang. According to the History of the Northern Dynasties, the Last Ruler was hunting with her at Tianchi; messengers bearing urgent reports arrived one after another from morning to noon, and when he wanted to return, she asked for one more round of hunting. After Pingyang fell, the Last Ruler led a counteroffensive, but when the city was about to fall he halted the assault to wait for her to come and watch, missing his chance.

After the fall of the state

After Northern Qi fell, Emperor Wu of Zhou gave her to Yuwen Da, Prince of Dai; she later passed through other hands and in the end killed herself. Li Shangyin wrote in a poem: "On the night Xiaolian's jade body lay bare, word came that the Zhou army had entered Jinyang."

Legacy

Feng Xiaolian was regarded by later generations as the archetypal "beauty who ruins the state," but the fundamental cause of the fall of the Northern Qi lay in the ruler's folly and his destroying his own Great Wall, and the historians' narrative is also biased.

Did you know? Both of Li Shangyin's poems titled "Northern Qi" mention her.

Key dates

• 571Made Consort Shu (approx.)
• 576"One more hunt" before the Battle of Pingyang
• 577Northern Qi falls, captured