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The Eastern Wei was the eastern of the two courts into which the Northern Wei broke in 534.[1] From its capital at Ye, it held the plain of northern China. It lasted until 550, when the Gao house took the throne as the Northern Qi.[1] It had one emperor, Xiaojing, and one master, Gao Huan. Gao Huan governed in the emperor’s name from Jinyang.[2]

Foundation (534)

In the summer of 534 the emperor Xiaowu broke with Gao Huan. He went west to Yuwen Tai at Chang’an.[2] In the tenth month Gao Huan raised Yuan Shanjian, the son of Yuan Dan, Prince of Qinghe, and the era was renamed Tianping.[1] Gao Huan judged Luoyang too exposed, because it lay near the west and the Liang and far from Jinyang. He therefore moved the court to Ye. Four hundred thousand households set out within three days of the edict.[2] The emperor reached Ye in the eleventh month.[1]

The Rouran

The two Wei courts competed for the Rouran khan Anagui.[3] The annals of the Eastern Wei in the Wei Shu are not Wei Shou’s own text throughout. The chapter was lost and rebuilt from the Bei Shi and two other works, with a few entries of the original left in it.[4] In 533 the emperor Xiaowu had promised a princess to Anagui’s eldest son, but he went west before the wedding.[3] The west moved first. It married a princess to Anagui’s brother Tahan and made Anagui’s eldest daughter its empress. Anagui kept the envoy of the eastern court, Yuan Zheng, and sent no answer.[3] In 538 the Rouran raided the east. In the fifth month they came from Fanyang as far south as the Yi river, and in the ninth month they raided around Xiurong. Anagui had Yuan Zheng killed.[3]

Anagui changed course after the death of the western empress in 540.[3] Gao Huan’s envoy won him over, and the east then married him into its house. In 541 a princess of the imperial clan, styled Grand Princess of Lanling, went north as the wife of Anagui’s son Anluochen. Anagui had sent a thousand horses as betrothal gifts.[3] In 542 his granddaughter, Princess Linhe, came to Jinyang as the wife of Gao Huan’s son Gao Zhan. In 546 Gao Huan took Anagui’s favourite daughter.[3] The annals of the emperor Xiaojing list the Rouran among the bearers of tribute in almost every year.[1] According to the Bei Shi, the eastern frontier was quiet from then on to the end of the Wuding era.[3]

Wars with the west

The east had the larger population and the richer land. It spent them in a war with the west that neither side won. Gao Huan lost at Shayuan in 537. In 542 and 546 he besieged Yubi in vain. In 543 he won at Mangshan.[2] The campaigns are told in the Hegemony Wars.

Map of Asia in 545: the embassy of the Western Wei under An Nuopantuo from Jiuquan to the Ashina in the Altai, subjects of the Rouran, who rule the eastern steppe with the Tiele as further subjects, beside the Western and Eastern Wei, the Liang, the Tuyuhun, the Hephthalites, Sasanian Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire
545: Yuwen Tai, chancellor of the Western Wei, sends An Nuopantuo, a Sogdian of Jiuquan, to the Göktürks in the Altai, who are still subjects of the Rouran. It is the first embassy of a Chinese state to the Ashina. Modern map; the road is drawn, the source names no route.
© Emre-E Yavuz 2026

End (550)

Gao Huan died in 547, and his son Gao Cheng took over the government.[1] In the fifth month of 550 the emperor Xiaojing abdicated to another of Gao Huan’s sons, the emperor Wenxuan. Xiaojing was made Prince of Zhongshan.[1] The Rouran connection passed to the Qi. When the Göktürks destroyed Anagui in 552, Anluochen fled to them.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wei Shu, juan 12
  2. ^ a b c d Bei Qi Shu (Book of Northern Qi), juan 2
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 98
  4. ^ 内田吟風 1937, p. 535

Sources

Literature

  • Uchida Ginpū 内田吟風, 魏書の成立に就いて (1937)

Related

What links here10

Persons
Anagui · Empress Yujiulü · Princess Linhe
States
Western Wei
Battles & Events
Rise of Anagui Khan · The Rouran Marriage Refusal (546) · Western Wei embassy of 545
Lineages
Fufuluo
Customs & Pastimes
The Chile Song
Sources
Tomb of Princess Linhe

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Eastern Wei.” Turkic Atlas, revised 20 October 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/polities/eastern-wei/

Last revised: 20 October 2026