Yuwen Hu

Biography

Family Background and Early Years

Yuwen Hu was born into the military aristocracy of the Guanzhong-Longxi region in the late Northern Wei. He was the son of Yuwen Hao, the elder brother of Yuwen Tai. Yuwen Hao died early, and Yuwen Hu was raised by his mother, Lady Yan. During the late Northern Wei, the Rebellion of the Six Garrisons broke out, and the Yuwen family moved repeatedly amid the political and military upheaval. Yuwen Hu grew up following his uncle Yuwen Tai and acquired a reputation for decisiveness and toughness in wartime.

After Yuwen Tai took control of Western Wei politics, Yuwen Hu, as a close member of the ruling clan, was brought into core military decision-making. He had already followed Yuwen Tai in campaigns against Eastern Wei and repeatedly won merit, displaying a degree of military ability. Yuwen Tai valued him and gradually promoted him to important military posts.

Entrusted with the Regency and the Founding of Northern Zhou

In 556, the third year of Emperor Gong of Western Wei, Yuwen Tai fell ill and died at Yunyang while on a northern inspection tour. Because his sons were still young, he entrusted affairs after his death to Yuwen Hu and ordered him to manage the government. After accepting this charge, Yuwen Hu faced a difficult political situation: Yuwen Tai's sons were young and lacked the prestige needed to command obedience, while senior ministers such as Zhao Gui and Dugu Xin had their own ambitions and political loyalties were unsettled.

Yuwen Hu concluded that power had to be secured while Yuwen Tai's authority and influence were still strong. He forced Emperor Gong of Western Wei, Tuoba Kuo, to abdicate and in 557 enthroned Yuwen Tai's legitimate eldest surviving son Yuwen Jue as Heavenly King, thereby founding Northern Zhou. This made Yuwen Hu the principal figure in the establishment of the new dynasty. He was appointed Grand Marshal and enfeoffed as Duke of Jin. The same process, however, also laid the foundations for his later monopoly of power and repeated killings of rulers.

Monopoly of Power and Three Regicides

After the founding of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Hu controlled the left and right Twelve Military Headquarters and dominated the court. Grand Tutor Zhao Gui and Grand Protector Dugu Xin resented his concentration of power and plotted to remove him. Yuwen Hu struck first, executing Zhao Gui and forcing Dugu Xin to commit suicide. To consolidate his rule, he also had Emperor Gong of Western Wei and members of the former imperial house killed, the first of the three ruler-killings attributed to his period in power.

Yuwen Jue had been placed on the throne by Yuwen Hu, but he too resented Yuwen Hu's dominance and tried to arrange a palace banquet at which Yuwen Hu would be killed. The plot was exposed. Yuwen Hu deposed Yuwen Jue, reduced him to Duke of Lüeyang, placed him under confinement, and soon had him killed. This was the second regicide. Yuwen Hu then installed Yuwen Tai's eldest surviving concubine-born son Yuwen Yu as emperor, known as Emperor Ming of Northern Zhou. After Yuwen Yu's accession, Yuwen Hu ostensibly returned authority to the throne, in part to test the emperor's response. Yuwen Yu accepted the return, but Yuwen Hu then became intent on killing him. In the fourth month of 560, the second year of Wucheng, he ordered Li An, an official of the imperial kitchens, to place poison in a sugar cake and thereby poisoned Yuwen Yu. This was the third regicide. Before dying, Yuwen Yu dictated an edict naming his fourth younger brother, Duke of Lu Yuwen Yong, as successor; Yuwen Yong became Emperor Wu.

Final Years and Fall

After Yuwen Yong ascended the throne, he learned from the fate of his two elder brothers. Outwardly he treated Yuwen Hu with great deference, allowed him to retain military and civil power, and pretended to take little interest in government. Secretly, however, he plotted with Yuwen Zhi, Prince of Wei, to eliminate him. Believing that Yuwen Yong had no intention of challenging him, Yuwen Hu gradually relaxed his guard.

On the fourteenth day of the third lunar month of 572, the seventh year of Tianhe, Yuwen Hu returned to Chang'an from Tongzhou, now Dali in Shaanxi. Yuwen Yong told him that the empress dowager drank excessively and asked him to read the “Announcement on Alcohol” from the Book of Documents to admonish her. Unaware of the plot, Yuwen Hu began reading it in the empress dowager's chambers. Yuwen Yong suddenly struck him from behind with a jade tablet, knocking him down. He then ordered the eunuch He Quan to kill Yuwen Hu with a blade. He Quan, terrified, failed to strike a fatal blow, whereupon Yuwen Zhi, who had been hiding in the room, rushed out, killed Yuwen Hu, and severed his head. Yuwen Hu's sons were all put to death, and his political associates were swept away. In 574, the third year of the Jiande era, Emperor Wu issued an edict restoring the former titles of Yuwen Hu and his sons, assigned Yuwen Hu the posthumous title Dang, and had him reburied.

Family, Military Service and the Charge of Regent

In 524, when Yuwen Hu was twelve, his father Yuwen Hao died, and he lived with his third uncle Yuwen Luosheng and his fourth uncle Yuwen Tai; in 531 he came from Jinyang to Pingliang at nineteen, and since Yuwen Tai's sons were all still young, he was entrusted with managing the household; the next year, when Yuwen Tai went out to hold Xiazhou, Yuwen Hu was left to attend him. In 534, when Hebayue was killed by Houmo Chenyue at Hequ, Yuwen Tai went to Pingliang, made Yuwen Hu a commander and took him to Shuiluocheng in the campaign. Early in the Datong era he was given the offices of cavalier attendant-in-ordinary and general of the conquest of the caitiffs, and for his part in settling the ceremonial music was enfeoffed as a duke with a thousand households. He once took enemy generals alive with Yuwen Tai, and later, having been dismissed for the withdrawal of the army, was soon restored. In the campaigns in the south he took the frontier towns one by one and captured the Liang scouting cavalry, pressing to the walls of Jiangling, where "the defenders had not expected the great army so soon and were thrown into confusion"; he sent two thousand horse to cut the river crossings and collect boats for the reinforcements, and when the main army came up it invested and took Jiangling, for which he was enfeoffed as duke of Jiangling. On the return march he crushed the rising of the Xiangyang barbarian chief Xiang Tianbao and more than ten thousand with him who "trusted to the steep ground and made trouble."

In 556, Yuwen Tai, on an inspection tour in the west, fell ill at Qiantun mountain and sent post-haste for Yuwen Hu; meeting him at Jingzhou, Yuwen Tai said: "I am now at the point of death and shall not be long in the world. My sons are all young, and the enemies without and the troubles within are not yet settled; henceforth the government of the state is entrusted to you, and I hope you will labour at it and complete my purpose." Yuwen Hu, weeping, accepted the charge; at Yunyang Yuwen Tai died. He kept the death secret and made it public only at Chang'an, where, with Yuwen Tai's eldest son by the principal wife still young, powerful enemies about them and men's minds unsteady, he managed affairs at home and abroad and soothed the civil and military officers, "and men's minds gradually settled." Yuwen Tai used often to say that "I have the strength of the Hu," and men had not understood until then that he meant Yuwen Hu. When the burial was done Yuwen Hu, on the pretext that the mandate of heaven had its owner, sent men to persuade Emperor Gong of Western Wei, Tuoba Kuo, to abdicate, and the next year brought about the abdication and the founding of Northern Zhou. When Zhao Gui and others, refusing to accept his sole rule, plotted to kill him, Yuwen Hu seized Zhao Gui on his way to court and put to death all who were implicated, and was presently made grand minister, holding the government alone.

The Deposition and Killing of Emperor Xiaomin

The emperor's close ministers Li Zhi and Sun Heng, with the palace earls Yifu Feng, Zhang Guangluo, Hebati and Yuan Jin, refusing to accept Yuwen Hu's sole rule, encouraged Yuwen Jue to destroy him, urging the emperor that "since Yuwen Hu put the general Zhao Gui to death his prestige and power have grown daily, and the veteran ministers and counsellors vie in attaching themselves to him, and all business great and small is decided by him... we beg Your Majesty to take thought in good time," and adding that "if even the late king, sage as he was, entrusted the government to Li Zhi and Sun Heng, why should the matter fail now if we support one another? Besides, Yuwen Hu often says that in supporting Your Majesty he means to imitate the Duke of Zhou... can Your Majesty imagine Yuwen Hu behaving like the Duke of Zhou after seven years?" The emperor believed them the more and often led armed men to practise seizing men in the rear garden. Yuwen Hu, learning of it secretly, sent Li Zhi out as governor of Liangzhou and Sun Heng of Tongzhou to head off their plans; but the emperor, missing them, wished again and again to recall them, and Yuwen Hu pleaded tearfully that "among the closest of men there are none closer than brothers; if brothers are at odds with one another, others are the harder to bring near... I am both the emperor's elder brother and the state's chief minister; what other ambition could I have? I beg Your Majesty to examine my heart and not be misled by petty men." The emperor, however, still suspected him. Yifu Feng and the rest, in greater fear, pressed their plan to seize and kill Yuwen Hu at a banquet of the dukes, but before it could be carried out Zhang Guangluo informed on them. Yuwen Hu struck first, sending Yuchi Gang into the palace to summon Yifu Feng and the others to a council and, as they came out, seizing them one by one and sending them to his own house; he then dismissed the guards on duty and sent Helan Xiang to force the emperor to abdicate, confining him in his former residence. Gathering all the ministers, he said weeping: "Taizu rose from common life and for thirty years faced the battles and laboured at government, and now, with the bandits unsubdued, he has suddenly died. I am Taizu's nephew and received his charge myself... today I would rather wrong the duke of Lüeyang than wrong the state," at which the ministers all said that "this is your family matter; we obey your arrangement." Yifu Feng and the others were beheaded outside the gate, Li Zhi and Sun Heng killed, and soon after Yuwen Jue himself was put to death, Yuwen Hu going to Qizhou to install Yuwen Yu as Emperor Ming.

The Poisoning of Emperor Ming and His Power under Emperor Wu

In 559 Yuwen Hu memorialized asking to return the government to Emperor Ming, who granted it, though great matters of war and state were still entrusted to him; the emperor "was by nature intelligent, with insight and courage," and Yuwen Hu feared him. In 560 Yuwen Hu secretly had Li An poison the emperor's food, and Emperor Ming fell ill and died; he then installed Yuwen Tai's fourth son Yuwen Yong as Emperor Wu — three depositions and killings in all. Thereafter "the twelve armies of the guard were all under Yuwen Hu's control, and no troops could be moved without his written order"; he kept soldiers in his own residence, "guarded more closely than the imperial palace," and decided all matters great and small before reporting them. In 561 he was made commander of military affairs at home and abroad, with the five offices under the celestial ministry. Men who wished to please him said that the Duke of Zhou had been of great virtue, that Lu had built a temple to King Wen, and that Yuwen Hu's merit matched the Duke of Zhou's, so that the rites of Lu should be applied to him, and an edict had a temple to Emperor De built at his residence at Tongzhou. In 563 Emperor Wu issued an edict that "the grand minister and duke of Jin, Yuwen Hu, helped Us complete the imperial enterprise and nourished the people of the empire, with merit beyond compare; henceforth in edicts and official documents his name shall not be spoken directly," and Yuwen Hu memorialized several times declining the honour. In the same year Northern Qi returned his mother, and grateful for that kindness he did not wish to go to war at once, yet feared that to break faith with the border peoples would bring trouble on the frontier, and so had no choice but to ask for the eastern campaign.

The Futile Eastern Campaign and His Death in the Hanren Hall

In the ninth month of 563 an edict ordered Yuwen Hu to lead a great army against Qi: troops from twenty-four armies, from the military households about the capital, from Qin, Long and Ba-Shu, and from the tributary states were called up, "two hundred thousand in all"; in the tenth month Emperor Wu handed him the axe. Reaching Tong pass the army advanced by separate roads, and Yuwen Hu "joined the camps together and moved slowly." But "Yuwen Hu had no military talent, and the campaign was not of his own wish, so that though his troops were long in the field he achieved nothing": he had ordered the roads at Heyang cut to block Qi reinforcements and meant then to concentrate on Luoyang, but his generals, thinking the Qi would not dare come to the rescue, posted only scouts on the Heyang road; with days of fog and cloud, the Qi cavalry charged straight in and the army besieging Luoyang quickly broke, and only the duke of Qi, Yuwen Xian, holding the passes of Mount Mang with the generals, brought the whole army back; Quan Jingxuan, having taken Yuzhou, withdrew when Luoyang was relieved, and Yang Piaopiao died at Zhi pass. Having achieved nothing, Yuwen Hu and the generals knocked their heads together in apology, and Emperor Wu did not reproach them. In 569 he inspected the northern frontier towns as far as Lingzhou. The histories say he "was by nature easy and mild, yet without a sense of the larger matter... Those he appointed were none of them equal to their posts, and his sons were all greedy, indulging their followers and relying on his prestige, so that there was none who did not ruin the government and injure the people." In 572 Emperor Wu, because of Yuwen Hu's violence and arrogance, plotted secretly with the prince of Wei, Yuwen Zhi: coming to the Wen'an hall and meeting Yuwen Hu, he led him into the Hanren hall to see the empress dowager and said to him, "the empress dowager is advanced in years and much given to drink... today, since you are her elder kinsman, I hope you will admonish her again," and taking from his breast the "Announcement on Wine" gave it to him to read to her. Yuwen Hu read it as asked, and the emperor struck him from behind with a jade tablet, so that he fell to the ground; the emperor then ordered the eunuch He Quan to cut him with the imperial sword, and He Quan, in fear, did not wound him, whereupon the prince of Wei, Yuwen Zhi, who had been hidden in the chamber, rushed out and killed him. His sons Yuwen Xun, Yuwen Shen, Yuwen Jing, Yuwen Qianjia and the rest, with his partisans the pillar of state Houfu Hou Long'en and others, were also cleared away. In 574 Emperor Wu issued an edict restoring Yuwen Hu and his sons to their former fiefs, adding to him the posthumous name Dang, and reinterring him. The historians judge his life: "Hu was scant in learning and intimate with petty men; majesty and blessing lay with himself and campaigns issued from himself. He had the heart of a subject without a lord and did what a ruler cannot bear. Loyalty and filial duty are the great principles, and he broke them without hesitation; deposition and regicide are the extreme of rebellion, and he did them without regret. In the end his body and head were parted and his wife and children slain — was it not fitting?"

Major Activities

Founding Northern Zhou

At the critical end of Western Wei, Yuwen Hu forced Emperor Gong to abdicate and installed Yuwen Jue, completing the transfer of power from Western Wei to Northern Zhou. This ended Western Wei rule and established the political framework from which Northern Zhou later developed. Linghu Defen wrote in the Book of Zhou that “in the end, it was through Hu's strength that Wei was transformed into Zhou and danger was brought back under control.”

Three Regicides

During his time in power, Yuwen Hu ordered the deaths of Emperor Gong of Western Wei, Emperor Xiaomin Yuwen Jue, and Emperor Ming Yuwen Yu, making him an exceptional example in Chinese history of a powerful minister associated with repeated regicide. He also killed three senior Pillar-of-State ministers: Zhao Gui, Minister of Palace Affairs; Dugu Xin, Grand Minister of Ancestral Affairs; and Houmochen Chong, Minister of Education. His methods were widely regarded as ruthless.

Military Campaigns

In his early career, Yuwen Hu followed Yuwen Tai in wars against Eastern Wei and won repeated military merit. In 549, the fifteenth year of the Datong era of Western Wei, he followed Yu Jin in capturing Jiangling and taking Emperor Yuan of Liang prisoner, contributing to Western Wei territorial expansion. During the Baoding era of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Hu also led an expedition against Northern Qi and attacked Luoyang, but in 564, the third year of the Heqing era, his forces were defeated at the Battle of Mount Mang by the Northern Qi general Gao Changgong, and the campaign ended without success.

Sixteen Years in Power

From 556, when Yuwen Hu received Yuwen Tai's final charge during the third year of Emperor Gong of Western Wei, until his death in 572, the seventh year of Tianhe, he exercised supreme power for sixteen years. During this period he rose to Grand Tutor and Minister of Palace Affairs and served as commander-in-chief of all military forces. He dominated the court and was the de facto supreme political leader of early Northern Zhou.

Sixteen Years of Government, Merit and Crime Together

Yuwen Hu held power in Western Wei and Northern Zhou for sixteen years, and the histories set out his merit and his crime side by side. Of merit: at the moment when Yuwen Tai died suddenly, his eldest son young and powerful enemies about them, he "managed affairs at home and abroad and soothed the civil and military officers," so that the regime passed through the change without upheaval; he then brought about the abdication of Western Wei and the founding of Northern Zhou, establishing the Yuwen house, and extended Western Wei's power into the Jiang-Han basin — the taking of Jiangling and the crushing of the Xiangyang barbarians being his military achievements. Of crime: he was "scant in learning and intimate with flatterers, and deposed and killed again and again": he deposed and killed Emperor Xiaomin, poisoned Emperor Ming, and installed Emperor Wu in their place, so that the duty of ruler and minister was broken, which is what the historians mean by "the heart of a subject without a lord and what a ruler cannot bear." Though he claimed to be preserving the Yuwen house, and insisted at the depositions that he "would rather wrong the duke of Lüeyang than wrong the state," the accomplished fact of a subject deposing his lord and a nephew killing his uncle left his rule without any ground of legitimacy.

His limitations in war deserve note too. With two hundred thousand men against Northern Qi he might have invested Luoyang and cut the enemy's communications, but because "he had no military talent and the campaign was not of his own wish" he moved slowly with his camps joined and slackened his guard, and when the three Qi armies of Duan Shao, Gao Changgong and Hulü Guang came suddenly he was routed along the whole line and returned with nothing, afterwards knocking his head with the generals in apology while Emperor Wu did not reproach him. The contrast between the emperor's forbearance and his later lightning stroke shows that Yuwen Hu's power, though "majesty and blessing lay with himself and campaigns issued from himself," rested throughout on Yuwen Tai's dying charge and on family ethics: once Emperor Wu was resolved to take back the authority, Yuwen Hu's many partisans could not save him. Northern Zhou's government thereafter passed into the emperor's own hands, and that Yuwen Hu himself was restored to his fiefs in 574, given the posthumous name Dang and reinterred may be seen as the court's compromise settlement of his merit and his crime.

Personal Relations

• Uncle: Yuwen Tai, posthumously honored as Taizu of Northern Zhou.
• Father: Yuwen Hao, Duke Hui of Shao.
• Mother: Lady Yan.
• Cousins: Yuwen Jue (Emperor Xiaomin), Yuwen Yu (Emperor Ming), Yuwen Yong (Emperor Wu), and Yuwen Zhi (Prince of Wei).
• Sons: Yuwen Xun, Yuwen Hui, Yuwen Zhi, Yuwen Jing, Yuwen Shen, Yuwen Qianjia, Yuwen Qianji, Yuwen Qianguang, Yuwen Qianwei, Yuwen Qianzu, and Yuwen Qianwei.
• Wife: Lady Yuan of Henan, daughter of Yuan Zijun.
• Daughters: Princess Xinxing, who married Su Wei; Princess Yicheng, who married Yu Yi; and a Lady Yuwen, who married Daxi Guo.
• Tuoba Kuo, Emperor Gong of Western Wei: forced by Yuwen Hu to abdicate and later killed.
• Yuwen Jue, Emperor Xiaomin: deposed and killed by Yuwen Hu.
• Yuwen Yu, Emperor Ming: poisoned on Yuwen Hu's orders.
• Yuwen Yong, Emperor Wu: devised the plot that killed Yuwen Hu.
• Zhao Gui: Grand Tutor; executed after opposing Yuwen Hu's monopoly of power.
• Dugu Xin: Grand Protector; forced to commit suicide.
• Houmochen Chong: Minister of Education; killed by Yuwen Hu.
• Heruo Dun: governor of Jinzhou; forced to commit suicide after expressing resentment.

Historical Assessment

Northern Zhou through Sui and Tang

• Linghu Defen wrote in the Book of Zhou: “At the beginning of Zhou's receipt of the mandate, Yuwen Hu truly shared in the hardships. When Taizu died, his sons were young, the great lords entertained thoughts of equality, and all under heaven were uncertain where to place their allegiance. That Wei was in the end transformed into Zhou and danger brought under control was Hu's achievement.” The same assessment also criticized him for lacking learning, associating with petty men, monopolizing rewards and punishments, and launching campaigns on his own authority, concluding that his violent death and the destruction of his family were fitting consequences.
• The Book of Zhou also described him as lacking suspicion toward those around him while entrusting affairs to petty favorites and concentrating power in his own hands, emphasizing his limited political foresight and learning.
• Historians of the Sui and Tang periods generally treated Yuwen Hu as a classic example of a rebellious and usurping minister and compared him with powerful figures such as Huo Guang and Wang Mang.

Song and Yuan Periods

• Sima Guang's Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance gives a detailed account of Yuwen Hu's three regicides and uses him as a negative example of the arrogance of powerful ministers.
• Hu Sansheng, in his commentary on the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, condemned Yuwen Hu's conduct as the extreme of rebellion and disorder for killing the sons of his uncle through the power he had inherited from that family.
• Yuan historians, when compiling works such as the History of Liao and History of Jin, sometimes invoked Yuwen Hu as a historical point of comparison for ministers who monopolized power.

Ming and Qing Periods

• The Ming thinker Li Zhi placed Yuwen Hu in the “Biographies of Treacherous Ministers” in Cangshu, arguing that killing three rulers made his crimes beyond forgiveness.
• Qing historian Zhao Yi, in Notes on the Twenty-Two Histories, analyzed the relationship between Yuwen Hu's dominance and the weakness of imperial authority in Northern Zhou, describing him as one who “used the intimacy of imperial kinship to carry out the reality of usurpation.”
• Qing scholar Wang Mingsheng, in Critical Discussions of the Seventeen Histories, wrote that although Yuwen Hu had merit in founding the state, his crime of regicide could not be forgiven.

Modern Assessments

• Modern historian Lü Simian, in History of the Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, viewed Yuwen Hu's dominance as a product of the immature political structure of early Northern Zhou. In this interpretation, his three regicides reflected both personal ambition and internal power struggles within the Guanzhong aristocratic bloc.
• Tian Yuqing, when mentioning Yuwen Hu in Politics of the Great Clans in the Eastern Jin, compared him with the Eastern Jin strongman Huan Wen and argued that Yuwen Hu lacked Huan Wen's political foresight and military ability.
• Japanese scholar Aida Daisuke, in a reexamination of Yuwen Hu's period of rule, reassessed his political measures and argued that Northern Zhou enjoyed relative internal stability under his regency, which helped create conditions for later unification.