During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Xianbei Tuoba tribe was active in the area of present-day southern Inner Mongolia and northern Shanxi. He established a dynasty state with its capital at Shengle (present-day Inner Mongolia and North Lingle). It was later destroyed by former Qin Jianjian. After the Battle of Shuishui, due to internal contradictions and other problems, Former Qin quickly collapsed, and tuoba chieftain Tuoba Jue took the opportunity to integrate the old department, and in the first month of the eleventh year (386 AD) of emperor Xiaowu of Jin, he took the throne at Niuchuan (present-day Xilamulinhe, Inner Mongolia) in Northern China, and established the Yuan Dengguo. In April, he changed the name of the country to Wei and proclaimed himself the King of Wei.
Subsequently, Tuoba Jue, the King of Wei, marched into the Central Plains, captured the important towns of Jinyang, Zhongshan, and Yi, and destroyed Later Yan, occupying hebei and Shanxi. In July of the third year of the emperor's reign (398 CE), the capital was Set at Pingcheng (present-day Datong, Shanxi). In December, that is, the emperor's throne, changed to Yuan Tianxing, and was historically known as Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei.
From the founding of the State of Tuoba Jue (386 AD) to the unification of the North by Tuoba Tao (439 AD), a total of about 50 years, was the period of military conquest of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Everywhere the Wei army went, they burned and plundered, and forced a large number of households in the occupied areas to move to the Daijing area, some as "military households," some sent to Shubian, and some "counted for the field" to be exploited in military service, or rewarded to military generals, nobles, officials, and soldiers as slaves and subordinate households. In the conquered areas, military towns or military governments were set up for military rule. Therefore, in the early days of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the contradiction between the Tuoba nobles and the people of all ethnic groups in the Central Plains, led by the Han nationality, occupied a dominant position.
During this period, there were thirty-five anti-Wei uprisings in karasuma, Ding Zero, Qi, Qiang, Zahu and Han people in various places.
From Tuoba Tao's unification of the north (439 AD) to the xiaowen emperor Tuoba Hong's move to the capital Luoyang, it was also a transitional period for the Northern Wei regime to change from military plunder to official rule. During this period, on the one hand, military plunder continued. On the other hand, the Northern Wei Dynasty stipulated that each household should pay two horses, two catties, and one pound of silk per household, and the field rent was twenty stones, and there was also a "fee for transfer" of one horse and two horses per household, which was included in the state treasury for demand.
The rent and exploitation of the people of the Central Plains was the basis of the financial revenue of the Northern Wei regime. Moreover, the local officials of the Northern Wei regime, Shi Shi and Taishou, because they did not have public funds, began to openly embezzle and accept bribes and exploit wantonly. The local grassroots government of the Northern Wei Dynasty implemented the "suzerainty supervision and protection system", with many people attached to the yin, "fifty or thirty families are one household", "the yin vassals have no official service, and the strong expropriation is double the public endowment". In this way, it was difficult for the Northern Wei court and local officials to directly control and exploit individual peasants. Most of the anointed and fertile fields in various places were plundered by the hao, while the barren lands were barren and could not be reclaimed. These social ills not only prevented the Northern Wei regime from acquiring a large number of land tenant transfers, but also greatly intensified class contradictions and social contradictions. In the early days of Emperor Xiaowen of Wei, peasant and slave revolts were fought everywhere. In the eighth year of Taihe (484 AD), the Northern Wei Dynasty stipulated that the Hundred Officials should be given to Rectify the Administration of Officials. The promulgation of the Juntian Decree and the Three-Chief System in the ninth and tenth years of Taihe was not only to alleviate the class and social contradictions in the Central Plains, but also to increase the income from renting grain and adjusting silk to meet financial needs.
From Emperor Xiaowen's move to the capital Luoyang (Taihe XVIII, 494 AD) to the split of Eastern and Western Wei (Emperor Xiaojing's first year of Tianping, 534 AD), it was the last forty years of Northern Wei rule. In order to strengthen his effective control over the vast areas of the Central Plains and to resolve the long-standing contradiction between the military center (Pingcheng) and the separation from the economic center (Henan, Hebei, and Guanzhong), Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyang in the eighteenth year of Taihe (494 AD). Before moving the capital to Luoyang, Emperor Xiaowen's reform of the field system, the tax system, and the township political institutions, as well as the vigorous sinicization policy after moving the capital to Luoyang, made the Northern Wei regime quickly become an "orthodox" feudal dynasty that integrated the Sinicized Xianbei nobles and Han door valve landlords.
Emperor Xiaowen replaced the "suzerainty supervision and protection system" with the "three-chief system", which was conducive to cleaning up the household registration, conducting an organized search of shady households, and expanding the targets of exploitation, which was a powerful measure to weaken the "merger of wealth and wealth" and strengthen the centralization of power. However, it did not eliminate the entrenched control of the townships by local separatist forces. The three leaders of the neighborhood, the village, and the party "took the strong and prudent people of the village" as the role, and gave preferential treatment to the "re-conquest", in fact, they still relied on the local magnates (that is, the original "suzerains") and retained their important power.
The equalization system implemented by the Northern Wei Dynasty played a positive role in restoring and developing agricultural production. However, the "Juntian Order" stipulated that slaves were granted to Lutian and Matian like commoners, except that they were not granted to Kuwata, and there was no restriction on the number of slaves who could be granted to the fields. The "Juntian Order" also stipulates that the "Ding Niu" grants 30 mu of land, limited to four heads. At that time, the remnants of slavery were particularly serious, and both the Xianbei nobles and the Han warriors had a large number of slaves, which ensured that the land of the warriors would not be touched. Moreover, although the slaves were granted to Lutian and Matian, they paid seven-eighths less rent than the commoners, which was extremely beneficial to the landlord class to increase their income. At the same time, where the land is wide and the people are scarce, "as far as the power can be, the officials borrow the people to plant the lettuce", and the sangtian "the winner must sell his profit, and the insufficient person must buy what is insufficient" and other provisions have opened the door for the rich to merge land, so land trading has continued to appear after the implementation of the equalization system. Therefore, the Juntian system did not fundamentally change the powerful land ownership system of the Shi clan.
Emperor Xiaowen implemented a series of Sinicization measures, especially the adoption of the Han system of door valves, the formulation of surnames, the transformation of the Xianbei nobles, and the elimination of contradictions and estrangements between the Hu and Han ruling classes, thus greatly strengthening the basis of the Luoyang regime's rule over the people of all nationalities. However, the door valveization of the humble aristocracy has expanded the contradiction and antagonism between the nobles and the commoners in the "relocation of households". Prior to this, although there was a class distinction between nobles and commoners in the "relocation of households", the surname was undecided, and there was no distinction between the clear and muddy, and as the humble commoners of Yulin and Hu Ben, they still retained the right to "not abolish the eunuchs" and "get rid of the partial". After the xianbei nobles were valved, the officials selected talents according to the criteria of the rank of the family name, stipulated the scope of the career path and the scope of exemption from military service, "to inherit the noble with nobility, to attack the lowly", and the humble commoners in "relocating households on behalf of the household", as samurai, their rights to "not abolish the career path" and "partial restoration" were restricted. Therefore, the door valve of the xianbei aristocracy deepened the contradiction between the nobles and the commoners in the "relocation of households".
According to the provisions of the "Equalization Order" on the transfer of field tenants, the burden on the peasants in the household has been reduced. However, while reducing the transfer of land tenants, the number of households has increased the burden of servitude. When the three-chief system was implemented, it was stipulated that the three chiefs should "re-enlist and re-enlist the people", which shows that at this time, the households had already stipulated that there was a "conscription" campaign. The burden of military service in conquest and defense was one of the important reasons for the bankruptcy and exile of the late Northern Wei dynasty.
In short, Emperor Xiaowen's reform is conducive to the restoration and development of the feudal economy, to the stability and consolidation of feudal society, and to the great integration of all ethnic groups, which is in line with the general trend of historical development and reflects the aspirations of the people of all nationalities to a certain extent. However, Emperor Xiaowen's reforms only eased social contradictions for a time, and it was impossible to eliminate social contradictions, especially the situation of the Hu and Han ruling groups concentrating land and competing for labor power has not changed, and the social roots that gave rise to these contradictions still exist, and once the time is ripe, these contradictions will inevitably develop and intensify rapidly.