Empress Yuwen (宇文皇后, personal name unknown) (died 554?) was an

empress An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

of the

Xianbei The Xianbei (; ) were a Proto-Mongolic ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into th ...

-led Chinese

Western Wei dynasty Wei (), known in historiography as the Western Wei (), was an imperial dynasty of China that followed the disintegration of the Northern Wei. One of the Northern dynasties during the era of the Northern and Southern dynasties, it ruled the wester ...

— a branch successor state of

Northern Wei Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during t ...

. Her husband was Emperor Fei (Yuan Qin), and her father was Western Wei's paramount general Yuwen Tai. The future empress, in her youth, was known for making and displaying the drawings of women, and she was thought to be talented. Yuwen Tai once commented that seeing her always comforted him. While Yuan Qin was

crown prince A crown prince or hereditary prince is the heir apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The female form of the title is crown princess, which may refer either to an heiress apparent or, especially in earlier times, to the w ...

under his father Emperor Wen, he married her as crown princess. After Emperor Wen's death in 551, he became emperor, and he created her empress, although it is unclear whether he immediately did so. It was said that he loved her greatly, and he had no

concubine Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubi ...

s. In 554, Emperor Fei, angry that Yuwen Tai had put the official Yuan Lie (元烈) to death in 553, secretly plotted to kill Yuwen Tai. The plot was discovered, and Yuwen Tai deposed him, and soon had him killed. According to the ''

History of Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the ''Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618, the histories of Northern Wei, Western We ...

'', Empress Yuwen "also suffered death because she was faithful to Wei's imperial house," but did not give greater elaboration as to how or why she died, nor is it completely clear that she died in the same year her husband did.''

'', vol. 13

References

, - style="text-align: center;" , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Yuwen, Empress Northern Wei empresses 554 deaths Year of birth unknown Year of death uncertain 6th-century Chinese women 6th-century Chinese people Yuwen