During the Wei and Jin dynasties, the world was divided, and various regimes emerged in an endless stream, among which the Northern Wei was more famous. Although this regime established by the Xianbei people only existed in the history of our country for 148 years, it was still full of talents, the founding prince Tuoba Jue, who was brave and good at war, the Xianwen Emperor Tuoba Hong, who worshiped the Buddha all his life and integrated Buddhist culture into Chinese civilization, and tuoba Hong, a history book who implemented a sinicization policy and promoted the Northern Wei Zhongxing. However, in the memory of the Northern Wei people, in addition to these several emperors who have made a difference, there is another woman worth mentioning, she was once a princess of the fallen country, and her status after coming to the Northern Wei Dynasty was even comparable to that of the Qing Dynasty's filial piety.
This woman is Empress Feng, although born as a woman, she fought against fate by her own strength, and finally won the admiration and trust of the people of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which can really be described as the writer of a legendary story. Empress Feng was originally the granddaughter of the Northern Yan monarch of the Five Hu and Sixteen Kingdoms. However, northern Yan existed for only 29 years in history, and was annihilated by the Northern Wei regime in one fell swoop, resulting in Feng Shi, who should have been born with a golden spoon, finally becoming a fallen princess.
As a remnant of a hostile dynasty, the young Feng clan was recruited into the Northern Wei Imperial Palace and became a small maid in the palace. It should be said that it is worthy of being a descendant of the royal family, Feng's face is good, her behavior is generous, and she is very outstanding among all the maids, so she is looked at by Tuoba And decided to include her in the harem.
Speaking of Feng's husband Tuoba Mao, he had to add something. Tuoba Mao was the fifth emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Emperor Wencheng, who adopted many reform measures conducive to the development of the nation during his reign, and was a veritable good monarch. However, since he was able to ascend to the throne, it showed that he was also a man with means, and when he was only a prince, there was a powerful eunuch in the dynasty, named Zong Ai, who once supported Tuoba Yu to ascend to the throne. Tuoba Yu, as Tuoba Yu's nephew, was very dissatisfied with his uncle's inaction during his reign, so he once again used Zong Ai to depose Tuoba Yu and establish himself as king. After succeeding to the throne, he was jealous of Zong Aike's direction of the imperial court, so he used all means to put him to death. It only took Tuoba Li a year to complete this series of events, and he was only thirteen years old at the time.
This is Tuoba Mao's fierce political means, but the hero is sad to be beautiful, tuoba Mao took the throne, by the way, he married the twelve-year-old Feng, first made her a nobleman, and then crowned her as an empress, it can be seen that Tuoba Mao is indeed deeply in love with Feng. Empress Feng was not a vase for Tuoba Mao, and as mentioned earlier, her status in the Northern Wei Dynasty was comparable to that of Xiaozhuang in the Qing Dynasty, and naturally there was a reason for it.
Empress Feng and Xiaozhuang had similar experiences, both of whom had undergone three changes of imperial power and assisted two emperors. Empress Xiaozhuangwen was a famous empress dowager in Chinese history, married Emperor Taiji and accompanied him until his death, and then spent her life training and assisting the shunzhi and Kangxi emperors. We all know that the Shunzhi Emperor died early, and the eight-year-old Kangxi Emperor was able to successfully take over the great rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty with the help of Xiaozhuang.
Empress Feng also stood behind Tuoba Mao and witnessed his deeds in his lifetime, accompanying him until his death at the age of twenty-six. Later, Tuoba Hong, the son of Tuoba Mao and other women, succeeded to the throne, honoring his mother Empress Feng as empress dowager, and inviting her to assist her in handling political affairs. However, Tuoba Hong also died young, and at the age of twenty-two, he hurriedly handed over the throne to his five-year-old son Tuoba Hong. When Emperor You came to power, Empress Feng once again came forward as a regent, providing a good political environment and sufficient space for Tuoba Hong to show his hands and feet in the future.
The emperors who grew up from the eyes of Empress Feng and Xiaozhuang were all famous monarchs in history. Therefore, we can speculate that these two women are also not simple female politicians, they are always behind the scenes, but their hearts are always concerned about the country. During the difficult period of the Qing Dynasty's entry into the customs, Xiaozhuang single-handedly maintained the unity of the Qing imperial family, and also protected and cultivated the two historical Ming emperors of Shunzhi and Kangxi, which played an indelible role in promoting the reunification of China at that time.
After Empress Feng interfered in the government, she actively adopted three measures to enable Northern Wei to have a longer-term stability. These three measures are: the implementation of the official Feng Lu: In fact, before Tuoba Hong came to power, the Northern Wei always used the administrative management system of the nomadic people, resulting in officials having no fixed income, so the phenomenon of wanton expropriation and embezzlement and bribery was very serious, so Empress Feng presided over the establishment of the official Feng Lu and standardized the administrative management system; improved the land system: After Empress Feng regented, she ordered people to count and nationalize the barren land, and distributed land to the people according to the population, so as to improve the efficiency of the use of the land. At the same time, the people gradually adapted to a stable agricultural life; strict management of administrative divisions: in order to put an end to the concealment of the displaced population in the border areas.
With the efforts of Empress Feng, the governance system of northern Wei gradually matured and improved. At the same time, we can also see from this that Empress Feng's political foresight is very commendable. Obviously, Empress Feng and Xiaozhuang are two equally excellent empresses, but we will now praise Xiaozhuang, but rarely mention Empress Feng. The reason for this is that we have to talk about the nature of the two dynasties, the Qing Dynasty is a unified dynastic state, and when the Northern Wei Dynasty exists, there are still many large and small regimes around it, so compared with the two, the northern Wei where Empress Feng is located is not as good as the Qing Dynasty where Xiaozhuang is located. At the same time, the history of the Qing Dynasty is several times that of the Northern Wei, and there are a large number of historical records for the creation of modern works, so many can more or less explore the ins and outs of the Qing Dynasty, but the Northern Wei is not. To sum up, it is not advisable to passively accept knowledge, and China's vast and profound history and culture still need to be consciously explored.