6. The Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei was, for a few hours, the first female Emperor of China
The Daughter of Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei, the name of whom remains unknown, was briefly the Emperor of Northern Wei and part of the Xianbei dynasty which ruled Northern China between 386 and 534 CE. Empress Dowager Hu, one of the consorts of Emperor Xuanwu (r. 499-515), was the mother of Xuanwu’s only male heir and consequently, upon his untimely death in 515, the five-year-old Yuan Xu, later known as Emperor Xiaoming, ascended to the imperial throne. Hu, in her capacity as the imperial mother, successfully became regent and ruled in her son’s place, even referring to herself with the imperial first-person pronoun. On February 12, 528, Consort Pan gave birth to a daughter. Hu, instead of recognizing this fact, declared the child to be, in fact, a son. On March 31, despite his young age, Emperor Xiaoming suddenly died in Xianyang Palace, with suggestions of foul play lingering to this day. In response to the death of her son Hu initiated her plan, proclaiming the 50-day-old infant girl as the new emperor and herself as her regent on April 1.
However, just hours later the Dowager Empress changed her mind, issuing an edict revealing the gender of the child and dethroning her. Instead, Yuan Zhao, the three-year-old son of the deceased Yuan Baohui, Prince of Lintao, was installed on the throne by Hu with her, once again, serving as regent. In response to these machinations and deceptions, Xiaoming’s loyal General Rong rebelled against the Dowager Empress claiming that she had deceived the Imperial Court and offended Heaven by allowing a girl to be proclaimed. Attacking the capital, within two months Rong had captured both Hu and the infant puppet emperor and, in 507, declared a son of Xiaowen’s brother Yuan Xie, Yuan Ziyou, as emperor. Rong subsequently purged the Chinese Imperial Court, massacring thousands of officials who had served under the Dowager Empress, as well as their families, in what became known as the Heyin Incident. Hu and Yuan Zhao were both sentenced to death and drowned in the Yellow River for their treason.