Before the death of Tuoba Hong, emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Northern Wei Dynasty began the first change of power after sinicization. During this change of power, Tuoba Hong appointed six ministers to his successor, Crown Prince Yuan Ke, to ensure that he could take over the power smoothly. However, soon after Yuan Ke ascended the throne, he clashed with Gu Ming's ministers, which not only relieved Gu Ming of his powers, but also triggered a rebellion by Wang Yuanxi of Xianyang, causing turmoil in the political situation in Northern Wei. Judging from the history books, the process of Yuan Xi's rebellion and murder is written in great detail, but the reasons for Yuan Xi's rebellion are confused. Although the mainstream historical circles have various interpretations of this case, many doubts are difficult to believe, so this section can also discuss this case.
The theory of the reason for the Yuan Xi's rebellion has been discussed a lot among scholars of successive dynasties, and the conclusions reached are also divergent opinions. One of the theories is more common, believing that Yuan Xi plotted rebellion in order to compete with foreign relative Gao Zhao, and was killed after the rebellion failed. This statement exists in many history textbooks, and in fact it is indeed a blind interpretation of the date. During the reign of Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei, Yuan Ke did have the phenomenon of favoring his foreign relative Gao Zhao, and he also used Gao Zhao's hand to remove many princes of the Northern Wei clan, including Yuanxun the Prince of Pengcheng, but there was no direct evidence to point to Gao Zhao in the Yuanxi conspiracy case. In fact, Yuan Xi's rebellion was in the early years of Yuan Ke's reign, and the main contradiction in this matter was the contradiction between Yuan Ke and the six ministers who were concerned about their power, which was not directly related to Gao Zhao.
Yuan Ke's reuse of Gao Zhao was arising from the background of the conflict with the other princes of the clan after regaining power in the imperial court and quelling the Yuan Xi conspiracy rebellion. Due to Yuan Xi's rebellion, Yuan Ke was very suspicious of the clan princes of the Xianbei clan, so he reused his foreign relative Gao Zhao, which triggered a series of cases of killing the clan princes later. The Yuan Xi conspiracy case occurred before the reuse of Gao Zhao, so this case has nothing to do with Gao Zhao, let alone oppose the dictatorship of foreign relatives. Therefore, many history textbooks equate the Yuan Xi rebellion with the murder of the later patriarch, which is completely confusing. Judging from the records of historical materials, the Yuan Xi rebellion had nothing to do with the monopoly of power of foreign relatives, and the reason for its occurrence should be the result of the struggle for power between the Gu Ming chancellor group and the new emperor.
Wang Yuanxi of Xianyang was the younger brother of Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong and the first assistant of the appointed Minister of Gu Ming. On his deathbed, Tuoba Hong appointed six ministers, four of whom were his younger brothers, modeled on the rules of the Han court, and Yuan Xi took up the position of first assistant because he was the oldest. Judging from the historical background at that time, there was a great hidden danger in this appointment, and this hidden danger also became the inducement for the Yuan Xi conspiracy case.
During the reign of Tuoba Hong, the Northern Wei Dynasty carried out Sinicization reforms and completed the feat of moving the capital to Luoyang, growing from a foreign regime of the Xianbei people to the Central Plains Dynasty. In this process, in addition to tuoba hong's support from the Han mongol clan, the help of several of his younger brothers in government affairs and military affairs was also inseparable. Among these younger brothers, Tuoba Hong's favorite was not Yuan Xi, but Pengcheng Wang Yuanxun.
Before Tuoba Hong's death, Yuan Xun was the most valued patriarch, reaching the point of overseeing the affairs of the military state. Even before Tuoba Hong fell seriously ill and died, Yuan Xun was a servant who was untied, and he was constantly operating day and night. Originally, Tuoba Hong planned to let Yuan Xun be the first assistant minister, but Yuan Xun repeatedly refused, and finally Tuoba Hong could only give this position to Yuan Xi. Judging from historical records, Yuan Xun's concession is reasonable, but it does not completely solve the hidden dangers caused by the appointment of gu ming ministers. On the one hand, Yuan Xun realized that gu ming's position as chancellor was a hot potato, and even Zhou Gongdan was inevitably criticized, and he sat on it and burned himself. On the other hand, he was the youngest of Tuoba Hong's younger brothers, and it was difficult to convince Yuan Xi, Yuan Xiang and others after he ascended the throne.
Due to Yuan Xun's concessions, Tuoba Hong made Yuan Xi the first assistant of Gu Ming's ministers, and Wang Yuan of Beihai was the second assistant, forming a new team of Gu Ming ministers. However, this group was not harmonious, and Yuan Xi and Yuan Xiang did not have the consciousness of Yuan Xun, but instead used the control of the chancellor to elevate the emperor, and even extended their tentacles into the forbidden army, which made Yuan Ke, who had just ascended the throne, very dissatisfied. Then Yuan Ke regained the power of the imperial government with the help of the father and son of Yu Lie, the leader of the Forbidden Army, and deprived the chancellor of his privileges in the form of a bright ascension and a secret surrender. Yuan Xi, as the first assistant minister, was also promoted to taibao (太保) and took the title of lieutenant( taibao), but was stripped of his military power. After that, Yuan Ke was able to personally appoint his trusted ministers, and his relatives began to take power in the Northern Wei court.
After Yuan Ke took power, he began to liquidate the past of several imperial uncles, and Yuan Xi, as a former chancellor who was the first assistant to take care of his orders, had a lot of black history when he was in power, and became a key target. Judging from the historical records, although Yuan Ke was pro-government at that time, the ministers of Gu Ming still had a lot of power in the dynasty, and his operation was essentially to strengthen the centralization of power. Yuan Xi was not willing to give up the power in his hands, so the contradiction between him and Yuan Ke was the deepest, and finally developed to the point of sending people to assassinate. Because he was denounced after the assassination failed, Yuan Ke issued an edict to put Yuan Xi to death and confiscated his family property as a reward for his trusted ministers. Although this case ended with Yuan Ke's victory, it caused a serious discord between him and the clan prince, and also laid hidden dangers for the subsequent killing.
Judging from the process of Yuan Xi's conspiracy, the most direct reason was the power struggle between Yuan Ke and Gu Ming's ministers. However, from the perspective of the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty, there are deeper reasons. As mentioned above, the system of gu ming ministers is inherently flawed, and it is a temporary ruling group created by the old emperor so that the new emperor can smoothly ascend the throne. The power of the imperial court held by such a group was often monopolized by the ministers, which in turn led to various civil unrest. Similar situations occurred in the Southern Dynasty Liu Song and Southern Qi, and this was the first time that the Northern Dynasty engaged in the gu order minister, and naturally could not escape this historical cycle law. Although Tuoba Hong was the greatest emperor in the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he did not fully recognize this defect in the Han system, so he buried a disaster for future generations.
At the time of Tuoba Hong's death, Yuan Ke was close to seventeen years old, and it was very dangerous to set up ministers at such an age in the Han court, let alone in the court of the Xianbei people. Judging from the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty, pro-government emperors before the age of sixteen abounded, except for Tuoba Hong himself, who was twenty-three years old, other emperors were not later than sixteen years old. Therefore, the seventeen-year-old Yuan Ke could not personally govern after the death of his father, and he still had to face the overhead of six ministers, which he could not bear. Therefore, the contradiction between Yuan Ke and Gu Ming's chancellor already existed at the moment of Tuoba Hong's death, rather than gradually accumulating. During the one or two years that Minister Gu Ming controlled the government, Yuan Ke was very dissatisfied with the gu ming chancellor team headed by Yuan Xi.
Although yuan xun, who was knowledgeable in sinology, knew the hidden dangers involved, he objected to Tuoba Hong by taking the initiative to back down. However, Tuoba Hong did not heed Yuan Xun's advice and insisted on getting this system down. He even emulated Liu Beibai's emperor Chengguo and promised Yuan Xi and others that they would replace him when there was a problem with the emperor's administration. This kind of operation was actually more dangerous, and it also made the ministers more suspicious of Yuan Ke. It can be said that whether from the perspective of centralized power or the perspective of maintaining his own throne, Yuan Ke could not let a few imperial uncles who served as ministers of life live, which was the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. As an emperor, it is understandable that he wants to get rid of this situation, which determines the end of Yuan Ke and Gu Ming's ministers.
Judging from the history of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Tuoba Hong's insistence on implementing the system of gu order ministers is still reasonable. He was mainly worried that after his death, the Sinicization policy could not be continued, and the old nobles who were humble and conservative would make a comeback. This will cause the Northern Wei to withdraw from the Central Plains again and return to the northern frontier, which is also very unfavorable to the long-term development of the Northern Wei. Four of the six Gu Ming ministers were all in favor of the Sinicization policy, so Tuoba Hong wanted to use the Gu Ming Chancellor to force Yuan Ke to adhere to the Sinicization policy. Judging from Yuan Ke's own ruling style, he is different from his brother Yuan Ke. He not only does not oppose Sinicization, but also supports the centralization of power, which can be said to be even more extreme than Tuoba Hong. However, this extreme approach also caused turmoil in the Northern Wei court, which caused frequent chaos in the imperial court and threatened the foundation of the country.