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The Northern Zhou Emperor Yuwen Yun can be described as "a strange flower" among the emperors, who took the throne from June 578 (lunar calendar) to his death in May 580 (lunar calendar), just two years as emperor.
Within two years, Yuwen Yun did whatever he wanted, not only deposing the Xianchen, but also defeating the Northern Zhou Dynasty; Moreover, he also made five queens unprecedented.
Originally, the scene of "many queens standing side by side" was enough to make people "open their eyes"; However, Yuwen Yun felt that it was not enough, and he was particularly fond of changing the titles of the concubines, which were once changed to be dazzling and full of stars.
If the reader does not have to think about it, it is easy to be wrapped up in those "similarly named concubine titles", not only can not distinguish the difference between Yuwen Yun's concubines, but also easily confuse Yuwen Yun's concubines with the "empress" of the previous generation or the "little empress" of the next generation.
I also discovered this problem when I was reading the Zizhi Tongjian; When I began to read the titles of these Northern Zhou Concubines, it can be said that it was very hard to read, the clouds and mountains were foggy, and I didn't know who was "whose concubine".
It wasn't until I carefully combed through the relevant deeds that I had a general idea, and it was so!
Below, in a relatively relaxed tone, I will sort out the title changes of "three generations and a total of eight concubines" related to Yuwen Yun in two parts, and restore my reading ideas at that time.
The first part is restored from the reading process of the Zizhi Tongjian and is the main part; The second part is from the reading experience of the later concubines in the Book of Zhou, which is a supplementary part.
I think that reading the "chronicle history books" and the "chronicle history books" together in order and in order is in line with the law of reading, and it will be more enlightening to sort them out in this way.
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1. Read the Zizhi Tongjian first
01 At the beginning of the accession to the throne
Yuwen Yun succeeded to the throne in June 578, and at the beginning of his reign, he first honored his concubine "Ashina" as the empress dowager; Later, he also referred to his birth mother Li Shizun as "Empress Dowager".
At the same time, he crowned his wife Yang Lihua (Yang Jian's daughter) as empress.
From this time, the titles of the concubines are still very clear and will not be confused.
However, as Yuwen Yun passed the throne to his son and enjoyed himself as emperor, the titles of the empresses began to go a little around.
02 Be the Emperor
In February 579, after about 9 months on the throne (there was a leap month), Yuwen Yun took the initiative to pass the throne to his son Yuwen Yan (Emperor Jing), and he himself became emperor taishang, calling himself "Emperor Tianyuan".
At this time, the title problem of the concubines began to be cumbersome, because Yuwen Yun became the emperor, so the concubines of the previous generation, the same generation, and the next generation related to him for a total of three generations were facing the change of "title".
For the sake of organization, let's first refer to the change in the title of Yuwen Yun's "mothers", and the honorific title of his concubine Ashina was changed from "Empress Dowager" to "Empress Dowager Tianyuan"; His birth mother, Li Shi, changed her title from "Empress Dowager" to "Empress Dowager".
Then, let's talk about the change in the titles of Yuwen Yun's "wives", what is the change in the titles of Yuwen Yun's wives?
We know that before, Yuwen Yun only had Yang Lihua, an empress, who was a bridesmaid and the wife he was marrying. However, the "Zizhi Tongjian" does not record the change of Empress Yang's "title" at this time, and we have doubts about whether to call Yang Lihua "Empress".
It is worth noting that at this time, Yuwen Yun began to establish his second empress, and he promoted his concubine Zhu Shi to the title of "Empress Tianyuan".
Speaking of this, Yuwen Yun also had a conscience, and he did not forget the Zhu family. Zhu Shi was originally a southerner, born in a humble way, ten years older than Yuwen Yun, but he gave birth to a prince Yuwen Yun (Jing Emperor, who was already a little emperor at this time), so his mother became the second empress by virtue of her son, which was very lucky.
Finally, we can see from The title of Yuwen Yun's "next generation" concubine, who at this time also gave the little emperor Yuwen Xian, found a wife, and accepted the empress, who was the daughter of the general Sima Quenan, called "Empress Zhengyang Palace", and "Zhengyang Palace" was the residence of the little emperor.
By combing through the titles of the above five concubines, we found some naming logic:
According to common sense, with Yuwen Yun becoming emperor, Yuwen Yun's two mothers should have been able to be called "Empress Dowager Tai", but Yuwen Yun did not call them that way. Because Yuwen Yun claimed to be the "Emperor of Tianyuan" and claimed to be "Tian", he simply added the word "Tianyuan" or "Tian" to the honorific titles of the two "Empresses" to indicate that this was his mother.
In the same way, Yuwen Yun's two empresses should have been able to be called empresses, but Yuwen Yun still called them empresses, but the word "Tianyuan" was matched in front of the empress title, although we can't know whether the prefix "Tianyuan" was also added before Yang Lihua's title through the book "Zizhi Tongjian", but Zhu Hou did add it.
In this way, when people hear the title of "Empress of Tianyuan" of the Zhu clan, they can immediately judge that this is Yuwen Yun's "empress" and will not mess up the generations.
Because Yuwen Yun's son Yuwen Yan had also become emperor and had adopted the empress Sima Shi, Sima Shi may have been called "Empress Zhengyang Palace" at that time, as stated in the Zizhi Tongjian, and that was the person who should be called empress in common sense.
We combed here, there may be some readers are already impatient, of course, here should not be around, the real dazzling should be the back, because Yuwen Yun is about to be crowned empress again.
03 Four queens
In July 579, Yuwen Yun created two more empresses.
One is the Yuan clan (the daughter of the great general), called "Empress Tianyou"; The other was chen (the daughter of another great general), called "Empress Tianzuo".
At the same time, Yuwen Yun changed the former Zhu clan from "Empress Tianyuan" to "Heavenly Empress"; As for Yang Lihua, there is still no specific title in the Zizhi Tongjian, so we have doubts or simply call her Yang "Empress".
In this way, in addition to the title of Empress Yang, we do not know whether there has been a change, the titles of the other three empresses, the prefix only added the word "tian", not the word "yuan", but "left, middle and right" to distinguish.
At this time, the four queens seemed to be on an equal footing.
It is said that once, Yuwen Yun's imperial driver was going to Luoyang, and all four empresses followed. On the way, Yuwen Yun made a rule for the empresses, requiring the four empresses to drive in line with their own Tianzi car driving, to drive side by side, and once anyone was ahead or behind, they had to be disciplined. As a result, it makes people turn over on their horses, tired, and quite funny.
However, this is not the end, the change of "title" is still continuing.
04 Re-change the number
By February 580, it was possible that Yuwen Yun felt that the "titles of the concubines" were not "complicated" enough, or that he also felt that the "previous titles" were a bit too "strange", so there was another "wide-ranging" title change, a little return to common sense.
We still say from three generations:
First, Yuwen Yun changed the honorific titles of the two mothers again, changing the honorific title of his birth mother (Li Shi) from "Empress Dowager Emperor" to "Empress Dowager Tianyuan", and changing the honorific title of his concubine (Ashina) from "Empress Dowager Tianyuan" to "Empress Dowager Tianyuan", in fact, one or two words were added before the original honorific title, and there was not much change.
The second is to change his title of "four empresses", this time Yuwen Yun is happy, neat and uniform, all renamed "too empress", probably because he is "too high emperor", added a "too" word, finally returned to the convention.
As for whether there were any "prefixes" before the titles of these four "Empress Tai", there is no record in the Zizhi Tongjian, so we have doubts.
Third, after a series of changes, Yuwen Yun finally let his son Yuwen Yan's "Empress Zhengyang Palace" not talk so hard, and the edict could only be called "Empress" directly, which was also a return to common sense.
Then, the fifth empress beckoned to Yuwen Yun.
05 Five-post side-by-side
In March 580, yuwen Yun, after much consultation, made a decision to appoint another empress: Wei Chishi.
Wei Chi, the granddaughter of the veteran general Wei ChiYi, was already married to someone else (also the clan of the Yuwen family), and as a result, after a clan banquet, Yuwen Yun seized the love of the people (and caused a rebellion for this) and made Wei Chi a noble concubine.
In order to give Wei Chi a promotion, Yuwen Yun can be said to be quite "attentive", in addition to the four "Empresses", he also added the post of "Empress of Tianzhong", he first granted this title to another Empress Chen, and then changed the position of "Empress Tianzuo" vacated by the Chen clan to Wei Chi.s.
At this point, we can probably know that the titles of the other three people, Yang Lihua, Zhu Shi, and Yuan Shi, should also have a "prefix", but the Zizhi Tongjian is not recorded.
So the reading of the chronicle history book ended, and we supplemented it with the chronicle history book.
2. Take the Book of Zhou as a reference
01 Queen Concubine's name
The Book of Zhou has a biography of the concubines, and the deeds of each concubine are recorded in a concentrated manner, and the records are relatively complete, although they are also recorded in chronological order, but unlike the "Zizhi Tongjian", the deeds of a concubine should be scattered among the deeds of many people.
And the "Book of Zhou" has an advantage, that is, it basically and clearly records the names of the concubines, except that Yuwen Yun's concubine Ashina is a Turkic princess, we do not know her name, the name and lineage of the 7 concubines involved in the text, we are all clear.
For example, Yuwen Yun's birth mother, Li Shi, was named "Li Ezi".
For another example, Yuwen Yun's five empresses were named Yang Lihua, Zhu Manyue, Chen Yueyi, Yuan Leshang, and Wei Chi.
For another example, Yuwen Yun's daughter-in-law was named "Sima Lingji".
Of course, these are not the main points of our discussion, we still have to sort out their title changes.
02 Doubts solved
Through the reading of the biography of the concubines of the Book of Zhou, I made a very comprehensive table, and then we took this table and compared it with the previous combing (when reading the Zizhi Tongjian), and solved two doubts:
First, there are doubts about Yang Lihua's title: after Yang Lihua was made empress in 578, with Yuwen Yun's ascension to the throne (proclaiming himself Emperor Tianyuan), Yang Lihua's honorific title also changed to "Empress Tianyuan" (we had doubts before, guessing that the title had not changed, it was wrong).
In the title change in February 580, Yang Lihua became "Empress Tai of Tianyuan", rather than the "Empress Tai" without the prefix that we had doubted before.
Second, in the title change in February 580, the titles of the four "Empresses" were prefixed with "indeed" prefixes.
Regarding the title of Yang Lihua, we will not repeat it. Regarding the title of Chen Yueyi, we actually knew it before, called "Empress Tianzuo Tai".
What we didn't know before was the titles of Zhu Full Moon and Yuan Leshang, Zhu Full Moon's title was "Tiantai Empress", and Yuan Leshang's title was "Tianyou Tai empress".
epilogue
I said so much, I am almost clear, I don't know if the readers are confused? Haha, just kidding!
To put it bluntly, I was confused in the process of reading Yuwen Yun's deeds, so I began to sort out the "changes in the titles of the three generations and eight concubines" related to him, without this introduction, I am afraid I would not have the patience to sort out these things.
However, there is probably no useless experience in the world, and by combing through Yuwen Yun's frequent changes to the title of queen concubine, we may be able to feel Yuwen Yun's willfulness and absurdity.
One by one unreliable thoughts, staged a scene of unreliable burlesque, without the constraints of his father, Yuwen Yun began to release himself, in just two years, and established five empresses, history can be described as "unparalleled"!
But how could the great Northern Zhou be supported by an unreliable person?
He once had two poems circulated: "Knowing that you are destined to die, you will travel by candle at night."
The strange emperor, the game is himself, the game is also the Northern Zhou, he died in the most beautiful years (22 years old), taking away the young self, but also took away the young empire.
The demise of Northern Zhou seemed to be in the hands of his son Yuwen Xian, but in fact, the root was in him.
Main references: Zizhi Tongjian, Book of Zhou
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