Princess Meng () was a princess of the

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...

-led Chinese Northern Liang dynasty. Her husband was Juqu Mengxun (Prince Wuxuan). Very little is known about Princess Meng. She was mentioned as Juqu Mengxun's wife in 413, when she thwarted an assassination attempt against him by the

eunuch A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...

Wang Huaizu (王懷祖) and captured Wang. She was probably the mother of his first two

heirs apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

Juqu Xingguo (沮渠興國) and Juqu Puti (沮渠菩提), although this is not completely clear. It appears unlikely that she was the mother of his actual successor

Juqu Mujian Juqu Mujian (; before 420 – 447), named Juqu Maoqian (沮渠茂虔) in some sources, formally Prince Ai of Hexi (河西哀王), was a king of the Xiongnu-led Northern Liang dynasty of China—with most Chinese historians considering him the last ...

. During Juqu Mujian's reign, a princess dowager was mentioned, without any names, and it could have been Princess Meng or Juqu Mujian's birth mother. If it was Princess Meng, then she died in the

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 and Southern dynasties#Northern dynasties, Northern dynasties ...

capital Pingcheng (平城, in modern

Datong Datong is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province in the People's Republic of China. It is located in the Datong Basin at an elevation of and borders Inner Mongolia to the north and west and Hebei to the east. As of the 2020 cens ...

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

) after Juqu Mujian's capital Guzang (姑臧, in modern Wuwei,

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

) had fallen to Northern Wei forces and he had been taken captive, but she was still buried with honors due a princess. The assumption that she survived to Juqu Mengxun's death in 433, but that is conjecture.

References

, - style="text-align: center;" , - , - , - style="text-align: center;" Northern Liang princesses 5th-century deaths Year of birth unknown 5th-century Chinese people 5th-century Chinese women {{China-royal-stub