Royals › Monarch / Emperor
Yuan Baoju
First emperor of Western Wei, a grandson of Emperor Xiaowen enthroned by Yuwen Tai in 535, whose seventeen-year Datong reign was run by his general
In a side chamber of a palace, a yellow ceremonial robe embroidered with a dragon hangs on a wooden stand, its hem worked with waves and rocks, before a carved folding screen, while a black lacquer chest sits on a low table by a lattice window and no person is in view.
Also known as Emperor Wen of Western Wei
- Roles
- Monarch / Emperor
Yuan Baoju was a grandson of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei and a son of Yuan Yu, Prince of Jingzhao; after his father's failed rising in 508 he was imprisoned as a child, and only under Emperor Xiaowu did he become Prince of Nanyang. When Xiaowu broke with Gao Huan in 534 and fled west to Yuwen Tai at Chang'an, Yuan Baoju went with him, and before the year was out Yuwen Tai had poisoned the emperor. Early in 535 Yuwen Tai made Yuan Baoju emperor under the reign title Datong, beginning the division of Wei into east and west, while Yuwen Tai kept the government and army and fought the Eastern Wei at Shayuan, Heqiao and Mangshan. In 538, to secure a Rouran alliance, he set aside Empress Yifu and married the khagan's daughter, and two years later ordered his former empress, by then a nun, to kill herself. He died in 551 aged forty-five and was succeeded by his son Yuan Qin.
Life and times
Dates 507 CE–551 CE