Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei

Moved the capital to Luoyang and carried out Sinicization reforms.

Life

Empress Dowager Feng's Reforms

Emperor Xiaowen, Tuoba Hong, took the throne at the age of five. In the early years his grandmother, Empress Dowager Feng, held court and introduced the equal-field system, the Three Elders system and official salaries. After Empress Dowager Feng died in 490 CE, he began his personal rule, determined to carry out even more thorough reforms.

Capital moved to Luoyang

In 493 CE he led his army south under the pretext of a southern campaign. On reaching Luoyang, taking advantage of the endless autumn rains and his ministers' objections, he announced the campaign was called off and the capital would move to Luoyang. He then banned Xianbei clothing and language, changed Xianbei compound surnames to Han ones (Tuoba became Yuan), encouraged intermarriage with Han gentry clans and set up a hierarchy of aristocratic families and an official system modeled on the Southern Dynasties.

Sinicization and Its Cost

The reforms met opposition from the old Xianbei nobility, and Crown Prince Yuan Xun, who plotted to flee back to Pingcheng, was deposed and killed. He campaigned south against Qi several times and died with the army in 499 CE, aged only thirty-three. The move of the capital and Sinicization sped up ethnic integration, but the widening gap between Luoyang and the Six Garrisons in the north also sowed the seeds of the later Six Garrisons Rebellion.

Legacy

The Reforms of Emperor Xiaowen were a key moment of ethnic integration in Chinese history, laying the institutional and demographic groundwork for the Sui-Tang unification; but the rift they opened within the Xianbei elite was also one of the reasons the Northern Wei later split apart.

Major works & achievements

• Capital moved to Luoyang
• Banned non-Han dress and speech, adopted Han surnames
• Built the Longmen Grottoes

Did you know? The Longmen Grottoes began to be carved only after he moved the capital to Luoyang.

Key dates

• 471Takes the throne; Empress Dowager Feng holds court
• 485Introduced the equal-field system
• 490Death of Empress Dowager Feng; begins personal rule
• 493Capital moved to Luoyang
• 496Changed the Tuoba surname to Yuan
• 499Died on a southern campaign