Gao Wei

Biography

Imperial Background and Succession Gao Wei was the son of Gao Zhan and Empress Hu. The biography cited by Gao Wei and his half-brother Gao Chuo were born on the same day, but Gao Wei was regarded as the elder because he was the legitimate son. When Gao Zhan was Prince of Changguang, Gao Wei was made heir to that princely title. In 562 （2nd year of Taining, Northern Qi）, Gao Wei was made Crown Prince. In 565 （4th year of Heqing）, Gao Zhan transferred the throne to Gao Wei and the era name was changed to Tiantong. Because Gao Wei was still young, Gao Zhan, as retired emperor, continued to control major military and state affairs, and important court matters were still reported to him. Thus, during the first years of Gao Wei's reign, he was emperor in name without exercising full personal rule. Gao Wei underwent the capping ceremony in 568 （3rd year of Tiantong）. Only after Gao Zhan died in 569 （4th year of Tiantong） did Gao Wei begin directing government on his own. ### Personal Rule and Court Politics After Gao Wei began personal rule, government became increasingly influenced by the inner palace, attendants, and favored courtiers. The full one account account states that the conferral of offices and ranks lost regular standards: recipients included palace women, attendants, merchants, and performers, while high-ranking titles such as kaifu and yitong became widely distributed and some official documents were signed or reviewed only perfunctorily. The account also records satirical stories in which horses, hawks, and dogs were supposedly granted official designations and refers to the mocking phrase "a Qi chicken made a kaifu." These passages reflect later historical criticism of indiscriminate appointments and should not be treated as if every anecdote were an independently verifiable administrative fact. Sources also describe breakdowns in court communication through details such as officials fearing audiences and memorialists withdrawing hurriedly. Gao Wei gave limited sustained attention to government, allowing Lu Lingxuan, Mu Tipo, Zu Ting, and others to exert considerable influence in court politics. In 571 （2nd year of Wuping）, Gao Yan's faction forged an edict to kill He Shikai and then stationed troops at the palace gates. Gao Wei mobilized imperial guards to resolve the confrontation and had several participants killed. Later that year, Gao Yan was summoned to the palace and put to death. After the relationship between Empress Dowager Hu and the monk Tanxian came to light, Gao Wei confined the empress dowager in the Northern Palace. These conflicts show that decrees and personnel decisions were often contested sharply among a small circle of intimates and members of the imperial family. ### Finance, Court Life, and Belief The Book of Northern Qi and other historical works, as well as the full one account account, describe heavy taxation and corvée under Gao Wei, depletion of the population's resources, and growing strain on the treasury even as palace construction and expansion continued. The sources particularly describe repeated building, demolition, and reconstruction of palaces and gardens at Jinyang, consuming labor and materials. the source also records large palace establishments, clothing expenses, court entertainments, and Gao Wei's participation in simulated markets and mock siege games in palace gardens. Specific figures and anecdotal details are not independently consistent across all sources and are therefore not treated here as precise statistical conclusions. The the source account records that Gao Wei issued a ban on brewing alcohol and dates the order to 570 （1st year of Wuping）, presenting it as an attempt to restrain drinking while also portraying a contrast between court extravagance and increasing burdens on commoners. During droughts and other unusual natural events, Gao Wei also adopted fasting, prayers, and apotropaic rites. Stories about magical suppression, prophecy, and auspicious omens often reflect contemporary belief or later elaboration and cannot by themselves establish causal relationships. Gao Wei was not entirely without cultural activity. The the source account states that he later developed an interest in literature, established the Institute of Literary Scholars, and gathered writers to participate in literary work. At the same time, historical sources state that he disliked receiving court officials and had difficulty speaking fluently. The establishment of the institute and the criticism that he neglected government therefore coexist in the sources; his literary interests should not automatically be equated with effective state cultural administration. ### Northern Zhou's Invasion, Abdication, and Death Hulü Guang was killed in 572 （3rd year of Wuping）, and Gao Changgong was ordered to die the following year (4th year of Wuping). Both were important Northern Qi commanders, and their deaths weakened the court's military resources against Northern Zhou. The detailed plots, rumors, and memorials surrounding the two cases come mainly from historical narratives. This article summarizes the events from the checked sources without treating later literary elaboration as uncontested eyewitness fact. In 576 （7th year of Wuping）, Northern Zhou launched a large-scale invasion, and Northern Qi suffered successive defeats at Pingyang, Jinyang, and elsewhere. Gao Wei at times took part personally in military operations and was also criticized by historians for court entertainments and repeated reversals of decision. On January 24, 577 （20th day of the 12th month, 7th year of Wuping）, he convened senior officials to discuss abdication and decided to transfer the throne to Crown Prince Gao Heng. On February 4（1st day of the 1st month, 2nd year of Longhua）, Gao Heng ascended the throne and Gao Wei became retired emperor. Gao Wei subsequently arranged for Gao Heng to abdicate in favor of Gao Jie, Prince of Rencheng, while Gao Wei called himself Supreme Retired Emperor, but the abdication edict had not yet reached its destination when the Northern Qi regime collapsed. In 577 （2nd year of Longhua）, Gao Wei fled south with Gao Heng and their entourage, intending to seek refuge with the Chen dynasty. They were captured by Northern Zhou forces around Qingzhou and sent to Chang'an. Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou granted Gao Wei the title Duke of Wen. Later, Gao Wei was accused of plotting rebellion with the Yizhou regional inspector Mu Tipo and was ordered to die. Another account gives a possible Gregorian death-date range from October 28 to November 25, 577, both corresponding to the tenth month of the 6th year of Jiande but with differing day records. one account places his death in the tenth month of 577, while the Book of Northern Qi as quoted there gives "7th year of Jiande," creating an internal difference among the cited materials. This article therefore states only that he died in 577 （6th year of Jiande, Northern Zhou）, with the exact month, day, and year notation disputed. Yang Jian, Grand Councillor under the Sui, later approved Gao Wei's burial, and historical records say that he was buried at Hongduchuan on the northern plain outside Chang'an.

His Early Years and His Accession by Abdication

Gao Wei, courtesy name Rengang, whose ancestral home was Tiao county in Bohai commandery, was the eldest son of Emperor Wucheng, Gao Zhan, his mother being the empress Wucheng, lady Hu. He was good and well-behaved from childhood and of handsome appearance, and was especially loved by Emperor Wucheng, who made him heir of the princely house; he also loved letters and, when grown, learned to compose, setting up the Wenlin library to treat men of letters with courtesy. On the fourteenth day of the first month of the second year of Taining Gao Wei was made heir apparent. In the fourth year of Heqing the grand astrologer memorialised that the appearance of a comet was the sign of sweeping away the old and making new, and that a new emperor should appear; and on the twenty-fourth day of the fourth month Gao Zhan, to accord with the heavens, sent the grand steward Duan Shao as concurrent grand commandant with the tally to hand over the imperial seals to the heir apparent, proclaiming an amnesty and changing the era to the first year of Tiantong, with the hundred officials advanced or punished by degrees, and decreed the heir's consort, the lady Hulü, empress. And so the ministers gave Gao Zhan the title of emperor over-emperor, and all matters of army and state were reported to him. On the tenth day of the twelfth month of the fourth year of Tiantong Gao Zhan died, and on the fifteenth Gao Wei proclaimed a general amnesty and raised the officers of the nine provinces by four grades and all officials within and without by two; and on the seventeenth the court gave the empress dowager Hu the title of empress dowager, and Gao Wei took the government himself.

The Rising of Gao Yan

Gao Yan was Gao Wei's younger brother by the same mother and the third son of Gao Zhan, and Gao Zhan loved him exceedingly and many times let him enjoy honours beyond his station. By the old rule of Wei, when the censor-in-chief went abroad the road was cleared and he went by a separate road from the heir apparent, and the princes and ministers must halt their carriages far off, unyoke the oxen and lay the yoke on the ground to await his passing, and any who were late or disobeyed were beaten with the red staves; but after the capital was moved to Ye this ceremony had gradually lapsed, and Gao Zhan, loving Gao Yan, restored it wholly after Gao Yan became censor-in-chief, letting him alone enjoy the censor's state. Gao Yan's dress, food, dwelling and playthings were the same as those of the heir apparent Gao Wei; and when Gao Yan in the southern palace saw Gao Wei eating fresh plums kept in ice while his own palace had none, he asked in anger why he had not what his brother had, and from then, if Gao Wei got some new and strange thing before him, the household officers and craftsmen would be punished. Gao Yan often stayed in the palace, sitting in the Hanguang hall to transact business, and his uncles all bowed to him; and when Gao Zhan went on tour to Bingzhou, Gao Yan went to see him off, and Gao Zhan at the halfway point could not bear to let him return but took him along to Jinyang before sending him back to Ye. In the fourth year of Heqing, when Gao Zhan passed the throne to Gao Wei and took the title of emperor over-emperor, Gao Yan was much displeased and told Gao Zhan that his elder brother was weak and how could he bear such a charge; and Gao Zhan thought Gao Wei the inferior and at one time meant to depose him for Gao Yan. In the second year of Wuping Gao Yan was moved out of the palace and allowed to see the empress dowager Hu only once in five days; and Gao Wei pretended to make him grand guardian and stripped him of most of his other offices. Then the attendant censor Wang Ziyi and Gao Yan's own household staff, the prefect Gao Shelüo and the palace eunuch Liu Pijiang, told Gao Yan that he had been estranged precisely through the slander of Shikai. Feng Zicong wished to depose Gao Wei and set up Gao Yan, and approved the matter; and Gao Yan had Wang Ziyi memorialise impeaching Shikai and asking that he be punished with death, and Feng Zicong slipped the memorial in among other papers, and Gao Wei, idle in government, checked it off without reading it. Then Gao Yan told the commander of the guards Kudi Fulian that by the emperor's order he should arrest Shikai; and Kudi Fulian, finding it sudden and suspicious, asked Feng Zicong about it and begged to memorialise again, and Feng Zicong said that since the prince of Langya acted by decree there could be no doubt and no further memorial was needed. On the twenty-fifth day of the seventh month of the second year of Wuping Kudi Fulian with fifty men brought Shikai to the censorate, and Gao Yan had Feng Yongluo kill him with a single stroke. Gao Yan meant to stop there, but his men told him he had already committed the crime of killing without authority and could not stop now; so Gao Yan with more than three thousand of the capital garrison camped at the Qianqiu gate. Gao Wei, hearing it, sent Liu Taozhi with more than eighty of the guards to summon Gao Yan, and Gao Yan had Liu Taozhi bound; and Gao Wei sent Feng Zicong to summon him, and Gao Yan said that Shikai deserved ten thousand deaths, having made his father abdicate and his mother become a nun, and that he had killed him in the emperor's name; that if his brother wished to kill him he would not flee his guilt, but that if he were to be spared he begged that his sister be sent to bring him in. The prince of Guangning, Gao Xiaoheng, and the prince of Ande, Gao Yanzong, came from the west meaning to help Gao Yan, and asking why he did not enter; and Liu Pijiang said that the troops were few, and Gao Yanzong turned to the crowd and said that Emperor Xiaozhao had killed Yang Zunyan with but eighty men, and that now they had several thousand, so how could it be few. Gao Wei in terror wept and took leave of the empress dowager Hu, saying that if fate allowed they would meet again and if not this was farewell forever; and both Gao Wei and Gao Yan urgently summoned Hulü Guang to help them. Hulü Guang, hearing what Gao Yan had done, laughed aloud and said that a dragon's son did things in a way that was never like other men's; but he chose to go to Gao Wei in the Yong lane. Gao Wei wished to lead four hundred armoured foot and horse against Gao Yan, and Hulü Guang said that such a child would break his ranks at the first clash, and that as the proverb had it a slave's heart died at the sight of his master, so that the emperor need only show himself in person at the Qianqiu gate and Gao Yan would not dare to move. Gao Wei thought him right, and coming with Hulü Guang to the Qianqiu gate, Hulü Guang called out as he walked that the emperor had come, at which Gao Yan's soldiers all fled in fear; and Gao Wei stood on the bridge and called Gao Yan to come over, and Hulü Guang going up to Gao Yan said that the emperor's brother had but killed a man and there was no great matter in it, and taking his hand dragged him forward, asking the emperor to pardon him since the prince of Langya was young and light in his conduct and would do so no more when grown. Gao Wei beat Gao Yan hard about the head with the ring of his sword and after a long while let him go. He had Kudi Fulian and Gao Shelüo, Wang Ziyi, Liu Pijiang and the commander Zhai Xiangui seized in the rear garden, shot them himself with arrows and then had them beheaded and dismembered and their bodies exposed in the streets. Gao Wei wished to kill all the officers connected with Gao Yan, but Hulü Guang, considering that most of them were sons of powerful and noble ministers, advised against it, and Zhao Yanshen too cited the Spring and Autumn rule of blaming the leader; and so those connected with Gao Yan were punished by degrees. The empress dowager Hu questioned Gao Yan, who laid all the blame on Feng Zicong; and the empress dowager in great anger sent men who strangled Feng Zicong with a bowstring in the inner offices and had his body carried home in a treasury cart. At the fourth watch of the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month of the second year of Wuping Gao Wei sent for Gao Yan, who was suspicious and would not come at once, and Lu Lingxuan told him that his brother had called him and how could he refuse; and no sooner had Gao Yan entered the Yong lane than Liu Taozhi, lying in wait, seized him. Gao Yan, finding he had been tricked, cried out that he begged to see his mother and his brother, and Liu Taozhi stuffed his mouth with his sleeve and covered his head with his robe and carried him out, his face covered with blood, to the Daming palace, where he was killed at once.

The Killing of Hulü Guang, the Poisoning of the Prince of Lanling, and the Setting up and Casting down of Empresses

In the third year of Wuping Wei Xiaokuan of the Northern Zhou made a rumour and had a children's song sung in Ye, that a hundred sheng would fly to heaven and the bright moon shine on Chang'an, and another that the high mountain would fall of itself without pushing and the oak stand of itself without propping; and Zu Ting, hearing it, added of himself that the blind old man had a great axe on his back and the gossipy old mother could not speak, and had children sing it in the streets. Mu Tipou heard it and told his mother Lu Lingxuan, who took the gossip to mean that Hulü Guang was abusing her and the blind old man to mean Zu Ting; and so she and Zu Ting reported the songs to Gao Wei, saying that the Hulü had been great generals of the court for generations, that Hulü Guang's name shook the west of the pass and Hulü Fengle's awe ran among the Turks, that a Hulü woman was empress and a Hulü man had married a princess, and that the rumour abroad was very much to be feared. Gao Wei asked Han Changluan, who thought it wrong, and the matter dropped; but later Gao Wei told Zu Ting that he had meant to deal with Hulü Guang and had been stopped by Han Changluan, and He Hongzhen told Gao Wei that if he had no mind to kill Hulü Guang it did not matter, but that if he had, he should carry it out, for if it leaked out the matter would grow. Gao Wei said that He Hongzhen was right. And it happened that the assistant of the chancellor's office, Feng Shirang, sent a secret memorial saying that when Hulü Guang had returned from his western campaign the emperor had ordered his troops disbanded and he had marched them against the capital intending treason, stopping only when it failed; that he kept crossbows and armour at home and had thousands of slaves, and often sent men to the house of Hulü Fengle and others to plot; and that if he were not dealt with early the matter would be past reckoning. The memorial's words about troops pressing on the capital fitted Gao Wei's former suspicion, and he told He Hongzhen that he had suspected him of treason and now it was as he thought. Gao Wei had He Hongzhen gallop to summon Zu Ting, who said that they should send him a fine horse with word that the emperor would go to the eastern hills on the morrow and the prince of Xianyang might ride it with him, and seize him when he came to give thanks. On the twenty-eighth day of the seventh month of the third year of Wuping Hulü Guang was brought into the Liangfeng hall, and Liu Taozhi attacked him from behind; and Hulü Guang did not fall but turned and said that Liu Taozhi was always doing such things and that he himself had never betrayed the state. And Liu Taozhi and the others strangled him with a bowstring at fifty-eight. As to the prince of Lanling, Gao Changgong, son of Gao Cheng and Gao Wei's cousin, his confidant Wei Xiangyuan asked him why, having the court's heavy charge, he was so greedy of wealth; and Gao Changgong gave no answer, and when Wei Xiangyuan asked whether it was not that he feared the emperor's jealousy after the great victory at Mangshan and wished to besmirch himself, Gao Changgong said it was so. And Wei Xiangyuan said that if the court were jealous, this very offence would the more easily be made a charge, and that he was not avoiding calamity but inviting it; and he advised him to plead illness and stay at home, and Gao Changgong followed the plan but did not succeed in retiring. In the fifth month of the fourth year of Wuping Gao Wei sent Xu Zhifan with poison to him, and Gao Changgong told his consort the lady Zheng that he had served his sovereign with loyalty and by what guilt he had incurred Heaven's wrath that he should be given poison; and the lady Zheng asked why he did not seek to see the imperial countenance, and Gao Changgong said that countenance could not be seen, and so drank the poison and died.

In the inner palace the empress Mu, whose name was Xieli, had been a maid of the empress Hulü and found favour with the sovereign, and was called within the palace the great overseer of relics; and Lu Lingxuan, a female palace attendant, learning of her favour, took her as a daughter and recommended her as the lady of Hongde. Lu Lingxuan wished to make her empress but the empress dowager Hu would not agree, and Zu Ting asked Gao Wei to set up the daughter of the prince of Longdong, Hu Zhangren, as empress; and she was set up. Her mother then used sorcery and cursing, and the empress Hu became dazed and would talk strangely, so that Gao Wei came gradually to fear and hate her. Lu Lingxuan made a treasure tent and set in it jewels and rare toys, and dressed Mu Xieli in the empress's robes and set her in the tent, and then invited Gao Wei to see, saying that a holy woman had appeared and she would have the emperor look at her; and Gao Wei, seeing her, felt her more lovely than before, and Lu Lingxuan said that if such a one did not become empress, who should. Then Lu Lingxuan told the empress dowager Hu that the empress Hu being her own niece, how could she say such things; and the empress dowager asking what was said, Lu Lingxuan at first would not say, and being pressed told her that she was said to say at court that the empress dowager did many unlawful things and could not be a model. The empress dowager in great anger called the empress out, had her hair shaved off at once and sent her home to the Hu. On the twenty-first day of the twelfth month of the third year of Wuping the empress Hu was reduced to commoner. On the ninth day of the second month of the fourth year of Wuping Mu Xieli was made empress. There was then a song in Northern Qi that the yellow flower was about to fall and the clear cup was full for drinking, the yellow flower being Mu Xieli's childhood name, meaning that she would not long be empress. Gao Wei spent a great sum on a pearl skirt for her; and when the emperor of Zhou suffered mourning for his empress dowager, Gao Wei sent the palace attendants Xue Gu and Kang Mai as envoys of condolence, with merchant Hu carrying thirty thousand bolts of brocade along, wishing to buy pearls to make a seven-treasure carriage for the empress; and though the men of Zhou would not trade, the seven-treasure carriage was made after all. From the setting up of Mu Xieli as empress Gao Wei began to drink constantly and without measure. Afterwards he got the honoured consort Feng, Xiaolian, a maid of the great empress Mu, who, her mistress's love being on the wane, gave her to him on the fifth of the fifth month, calling her the life-extender; and Feng Xiaolian was clever and could play the pipa and was skilled in song and dance, and Gao Wei was bewitched by her, sitting with her on the same mat and riding with her on the same horse, and wishing to die and live in one place with her.

The Eastern Campaign of the Northern Zhou and the Fall of Qi

In the eighth month of the sixth year of Wuping the Zhou army entered the Luochuan and camped at Mangshan, pressing on Luoyang, and the court of Northern Qi sent fire ships to burn the floating bridge over the Yellow River and cut the road; and on the intercalary month the right chancellor Gao Anaqu went from Jinyang against them and the Zhou army fled by night. On the eleventh day of the tenth month of the seventh year of Wuping Gao Wei was hunting at Qilian lake, and the Zhou army attacked Jinzhou; on the eighteenth he returned to Jinyang, the next day the Qi army marched out and gathered at the Jin shrine, on the twenty-fifth Gao Wei set out from Jinyang, and on the twenty-eighth he marched in array and climbed Jixiyuan and stood opposed to Yuwen Xian until nightfall without fighting, and the Zhou army withdrew. Presently Yuwen Yong reached Jinzhou and sent Yuwen Xian with twenty thousand picked horse to hold the Queshu valley, Yuwen Chun with twenty thousand foot and horse to hold the Qianli path, Daxi Zhen with ten thousand to hold the Tongjun river, Han Ming with five thousand to hold the Qizi ridge, Yin Sheng with five thousand to hold the Guzhong post, Xin Shao with five thousand to hold the Pujin pass, the prince of Zhao, Yuwen Zhao, with ten thousand from Huagu against the cities of Fenzhou, and Yuwen Sheng with ten thousand to hold the Fenshui pass, sending the internal scribe Wang Yi to oversee the six armies against the city of Jinzhou, while Yuwen Yong camped at Fenqu and the prince of Qi, Yuwen Xian, took the two cities of Hongtong and Yong'an. Yuwen Yong came to the lines in person and went daily beneath the wall to urge the fighting, so that the Qi soldiers were in terror; and the left assistant of the Qi travelling office, Hou Ziqin, went over to Zhou; and the inspector of Jinzhou, Cui Jingsong, holding the northern face of the wall, secretly sent envoys by night to the Zhou camp, and the Zhou sent Wang Gui with troops to support him, and before dawn the Zhou troops climbed the wall with shouting and the Qi host broke, and the Zhou took Jinzhou and captured the commander of the city, Wei Xianggui, and sent eight thousand armoured men to the passes. In the eleventh month Gao Wei came from Bingzhou with a great host to relieve Jinzhou, and Yuwen Yong, avoiding battle, decreed that the armies return and sent Yuwen Xian as rear guard, and the Qi lord invested Jinzhou and attacked it day and night. Afterwards Mu Tipou went over to Zhou, and Gao Wei made Gao Yanzong chancellor of state and charged him with the defence, and Gao Yanzong accepted the charge with tears; and Gao Wei cut his way out of the Wulong gate by night meaning to go to the Turks, and most of his followers and officers scattered, and the commander Mei Shenglang remonstrated with him holding his horse, so that he agreed to return to Ye. At first he had but a dozen riders with him, and afterwards the prince of Guangning, Gao Xiaoheng, and the prince of Xiangcheng, Gao Yandao, came up, so that some dozens went together. On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month of the first year of Longhua Gao Yanzong, following the general voice, took the throne at Jinyang and changed Longhua to the first year of Dechang; the next day Gao Wei entered Ye, and two days later Gao Yanzong fought the Zhou army at Jinyang, was heavily beaten and taken. On the twentieth day of the twelfth month Gao Wei brought the civil and military officers of the first rank and above into the Zhuhua gate and gave them food and drink and paper and brushes and asked their plans against Zhou, and the ministers differed each in his own way with many opinions; and Gao Wei also called in Gao Yuanhai, Song Susi, Lu Sidao and Li Delin, meaning to discuss the abdication in favour of the heir. And as some watcher of the vapours had said that there would be a change in the realm, Gao Wei at last, after the precedent of Tiantong when Gao Zhan had passed the throne to him, gave it to the heir Gao Heng. On the first day of the first month of the second year of Longhua Gao Heng took the throne at eight, changed the era to the first year of Chengguang and proclaimed a general amnesty, honouring the empress dowager Hu as grand empress dowager, Gao Wei as emperor over-emperor and the empress Mu as empress over-empress. On the eighteenth day of the first month the Zhou army came to Ye, and the next day Yuwen Yong ordered the city invested, and the Qi army coming out to hold it was beaten, and the Zhou entered Ye. On the twenty-first Gao Wei crossed the Yellow River into Jizhou, and the same day Gao Heng abdicated in favour of the grand chancellor, the prince of Rencheng, Gao Xie. Afterwards the Zhou army came to Qingzhou, and Gao Wei in dire straits meant to flee to Chen, and putting his bag of gold behind his saddle fled with Han Changluan, Feng Xiaolian and a dozen riders; and coming to Deng village south of Qingzhou he was taken by the Zhou general Yuchi Gang and sent to Ye, and Northern Qi perished. Yuwen Yong received him with the courtesy of host and guest and sent him with the empress dowager Hu, Gao Heng and the several princes of Qi to Chang'an, enfeoffing Gao Wei as duke of Wen. When Gao Wei reached Chang'an he asked Yuwen Yong to give him back Feng Xiaolian, and Yuwen Yong said that he looked on the realm as no more than a cast-off shoe and would not grudge a man an old woman, and gave her to him. In the tenth month of the sixth year of Jiande of the Northern Zhou Gao Wei was falsely accused of plotting rebellion with Mu Tipou, and Gao Wei, Gao Heng, Gao Yanzong and several dozen others, young and old alike, were all put to death by Yuwen Yong, of Gao Huan's descendants only one or two in ten surviving; and at the end of the Daxiang period Yang Xiuzhi and Chen Dexin and others petitioned the grand chancellor, the duke of Sui, to gather and bury them, which was granted, and they were buried at Hongduchuan on the northern plain of Chang'an.

Major Activities

Disorder in Appointments and Administration The relevant one account text specifically describes indiscriminate conferral of offices and noble ranks, frequent promotions among the elite, perfunctory document processing, and officials' reluctance to present matters fully before Gao Wei. These were not merely generalized accusations of "favoring sycophants" but descriptions of concrete problems in the late Northern Qi administration. Phrases such as "a Qi chicken made a kaifu" are satirical and are best understood as evidence of contemporary or later criticism of disorder in appointments, not as literal administrative records. ### Taxation, Corvée, and Palace Construction Sources describe heavier taxation and corvée, exhausted labor resources, and a depleted treasury during Gao Wei's reign while palace construction and inner-palace expenditure remained large. Repeated work on the Jinyang palace complex is one specific example. The historical narratives clearly juxtapose fiscal difficulty with court consumption, but this article does not expand that juxtaposition into a claim that palace spending alone caused Northern Qi's fall. ### Institute of Literary Scholars and Literary Interests Gao Wei's establishment of the Institute of Literary Scholars and recruitment of writers are identifiable cultural activities of his reign. This activity coexists in the sources with criticism that he neglected state affairs. The available materials do not justify describing the institute as a comprehensive and sustained state cultural reform with clearly defined institutional results. ### Alcohol Ban and Ritual Responses Gao Wei issued an alcohol prohibition and used fasting, prayer, and other ritual responses during natural anomalies. The first was a clear administrative order; the latter reflected the political and religious assumptions of the period. Stories about magic, prophecies, and auspicious signs should be distinguished from verifiable orders and military events. ### Deaths of Key Commanders and Northern Qi's Military Decline During Gao Wei's reign, Hulü Guang was killed in 572 （3rd year of Wuping） and Gao Changgong was ordered to die in 573 （4th year of Wuping）. The two principal source traditions and the historical works cited by them treat these deaths as losses of major Northern Qi military pillars. Their effects should be considered together with Northern Zhou's military pressure, Northern Qi's internal politics, and battlefield defeats rather than presented as the sole direct cause of the dynasty's collapse.

The Disorder of His Government

In Gao Wei's time the slaves of the several palaces, the eunuchs, the merchants, the Hu households, the miscellaneous households, the singers and dancers and the ghost-seers who gained wealth and honour without deserving them numbered nearly ten thousand; commoners enfeoffed as princes were more than a hundred and past counting, those with the honours of the three excellencies more than a thousand and those of equal rank to the three excellencies past numbering; and the office of commander of the guards was held at one time by twenty men. The documents of the time did not even bear names, so that often none knew who had written them, and the ancestors of the favoured were given posthumous offices advanced one grade a year until the highest was reached. He was slow of speech and did not like to meet the court officials, and except for the most intimate attendants he would seldom speak with any man; and if anyone looked at him more than a little he would be angry and reprove him, and when memorialising, even a man of the three excellencies might not raise his eyes to him, but would state the gist of the matter and hurry out. His oxen, horses, dogs and fowl ranked with the ministers: his favourite horses were given the titles of the three excellencies and of ladies of commanderies, and his fighting cocks too were styled bearers of the honours of the three excellencies, and his dogs sat on cushions on horseback to be carried.

His Extravagance

Gao Wei made every palace maid a lady of a commandery, and of the palace women there were more than five hundred dressed in jewelled robes and fed on delicacies, one of whose skirts was worth ten thousand bolts of cloth and one mirror stand a thousand pieces of gold; he raised great works in the capital Ye and built twelve palaces at Jinyang more splendid than those of Ye, adding to the gardens and building the terrace of sheathed arms and cultivated letters, and in the palaces of his consorts erecting the hall of mirrors, the hall of treasures and the hall of tortoiseshell, whose painting and carving were the finest of the time; but he was often dissatisfied with the palaces at Jinyang and many times had them destroyed and rebuilt. He built a village of the poor in the Hualin garden and dressed himself in rags playing the beggar in it; he set up a market for poor children and traded in it himself; and he had cities built in the style of the western frontier and had his guards dress in black as Qiang soldiers, draw up in array and charge with shouting in a sham siege, while Gao Wei himself led his attendants to "resist" them, sometimes shooting at men with real arrows; and he often went on progress east from Jinyang, riding alone, returning with his clothes open and his hair loose. He loved to play the pipa himself and made the song Without Sorrow, and his attendants who joined in numbered a hundred, so that the people called him the emperor without sorrow. He greatly loved puppet shows and called them Lord Guo, and men of the time made the song of Lord Guo to mock him. In his eating and drinking he once asked Gao Chuo, whom he had summoned, what was the greatest pleasure in his province, and Gao Chuo answered that it was to take many scorpions and mix them with maggots and watch them; and Gao Wei that night had a dou of scorpions sought, and by dawn only two or three sheng were found, and these he put in a bathing tub and had a man lie naked in the tub, and the man cried out and writhed with the stings while Gao Wei and Gao Chuo looked on and laughed without ceasing; and Gao Wei reproached Gao Chuo for not having sent a courier post-haste to tell him of such a pleasure, and Gao Chuo was from this greatly favoured by Gao Wei, made a grand general and was with him in sport morning and evening.

His Superstition and Portents

When calamity or strange omen, banditry, flood or drought came upon Northern Qi, Gao Wei would often hold a fast in the palace, hoping by sorcery and prayer to succeed. In the last years of Northern Qi there were many strange matters held to portend the fall of the state: the Wucheng emperor in the last year of Heqing dreamed that a great hedgehog broke into Ye, and so sought hedgehog fat throughout the realm to destroy it, men of insight taking it that the name of the heir chanced to agree with the hedgehog and that it was a sign of the ruin of Qi; and the women all cut and shaved their hair to wear false buns, whose tilted and perilous shape was like a flying bird, and when facing south the heart of the bun turned due west, beginning in the palace and spreading to the four quarters, as if Heaven meant that the head should be shorn and the perilous and slanted should go west; and those who made knives made all their blades narrow and fine, calling them the exhausted force; and the children at play would take a cord in both hands, sweep it to the ground and leap up, singing "the end of Gao," which was taken to mean the end of the fortune of the Gao.

Personal Relations

• Gao Zhan: father; Emperor Wucheng of Northern Qi, transferred the throne to Gao Wei in 565 （4th year of Heqing） and died in 569 （4th year of Tiantong）.
• Empress Hu (Empress Dowager Hu): mother; Gao Zhan's empress, later confined by Gao Wei in the Northern Palace.
• Gao Chuo: elder half-brother; sources state that he and Gao Wei were born on the same day and that Gao Wei was regarded as the elder son because he was legitimate. - Gao Yan: full younger brother and Prince of Langya; took part in the killing of He Shikai in 571 （2nd year of Wuping） and was later executed by Gao Wei.
• Empress Hulü: one of Gao Wei's empresses; daughter of Hulü Guang and later deposed.
• Mu Huanghua (Mu Xieli): empress; mother of Gao Heng.
• Feng Xiaolian: Consort Shu; Gao Wei's favored consort, later dealt with by Northern Zhou after Northern Qi's fall.
• Gao Heng: son; succeeded as the young last emperor of Northern Qi in 577 （2nd year of Longhua）, shortly before the dynasty fell.
• Gao Ke: son; later made Prince of Dongping and adopted into Gao Yan's line.
• Lu Lingxuan: wet nurse and court intimate; exercised significant influence at Gao Wei's court.
• He Shikai: favored courtier; killed in 571 by Gao Yan's faction acting under a forged edict.
• Mu Tipo: intimate courtier; after Northern Qi's fall, was accused of rebellion together with Gao Wei.
• Zu Ting: Northern Qi official; participated in court struggles and is described in historical sources as influencing the case against Hulü Guang.
• Hulü Guang: Northern Qi general and senior official; killed on Gao Wei's orders in 572.
• Gao Changgong: Prince of Lanling and Northern Qi general; ordered to die by Gao Wei in 573.
• Yuwen Yong: Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou; destroyed Northern Qi, captured Gao Wei, and later granted him the title Duke of Wen.
• Gao Jie: Prince of Rencheng; Gao Wei arranged for the young emperor Gao Heng to abdicate in his favor, but the edict did not arrive before Northern Qi fell.

Anecdotes

The “Wuchou Son of Heaven” The Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance records that Gao Wei liked to play the pipa and composed a tune called Wuchou (“Without Sorrow”), which hundreds of attendants joined in singing. The people were said to have called him the “Wuchou Son of Heaven.” This later historiographical account carries a satirical tone; it cannot by itself establish Gao Wei’s actual state of mind or represent the shared opinion of all Northern Qi subjects. ### The “Qi Chicken Kaifu” The Book of Northern Qi says that Gao Wei bestowed titles such as yitong and junjun on favored animals, including horses and dogs, and that a fighting cock was called a kaifu. The history uses such exaggerated examples to satirize disorder in the court’s distribution of offices and ranks. This is presented as a story recorded in the history: the fighting cock is not treated as having received an office through a regular administrative process, and the satire is not used as a literal list of established offices.

Historical Assessment

Historical Records The Book of Northern Qi and History of the Northern Dynasties connect disorder in Gao Wei's government, the favor shown to close attendants, disturbed penal and administrative practice, and the fall of Northern Qi. The Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance narrates his decisions, abdication, and flight during Northern Zhou's offensive in chronological form. These assessments were written after Northern Qi's destruction and combine accounts of political failure with a traditional historiographical framework that explains dynastic success or failure partly through the ruler's conduct. This article does not treat later satirical songs, prophecies, or dramatized anecdotes as independent evidence. Specific governance problems supported by the available material include disorder in the conferral of offices and ranks, imbalance between taxation and palace spending, the influence of intimate courtiers over government, and the military losses caused by the deaths of Hulü Guang and Gao Changgong. Northern Qi's fall nevertheless resulted from the combined effects of military invasion, internal politics, and fiscal and social conditions and should not be reduced to the actions of a single individual.