Northern Zhou: A Visual History

Northern Zhou (557-581) was founded when the Yuwen family, who had controlled the Western Wei puppet emperors from Chang'an since 535, took the throne. Yuwen Tai's fubing militia system and mixed Xianbei-Chinese aristocracy gave the small state formidable armies. Emperor Wu (560-578) suppressed Buddhism and Taoism to fund the army, conquered Northern Qi in 577 and unified the north. His death left a cruel heir and then a child, and the general Yang Jian, the emperor's father-in-law, seized the throne in 581 as founder of the Sui.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Northern Zhou. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Northern Zhou territory

Timeline of the Northern Zhou

1. 535
   Yuwen Tai sets up Western Wei
2. 557
   Northern Zhou founded
3. 572
   Emperor Wu kills Yuwen Hu
4. 574
   Buddhism and Taoism suppressed
5. 577
   Northern Qi conquered
6. 578
   Emperor Wu dies
7. 581
   Yang Jian takes the throneThe Sui.

Yuwen Tai's system

Yuwen Tai, a Xianbei general from the Wuchuan garrison, set up Western Wei in 535 with a fraction of Gao Huan's resources. He created the fubing system of self-supporting soldier-farmers commanded by 24 generals, revived Zhou-dynasty titles from the classics, and welded frontier Xianbei and Guanzhong Chinese families into a single military aristocracy from which the Sui and Tang rulers would come. His nephew Yuwen Hu had his son crowned as emperor of Zhou in 557.

Emperor Wu

Yuwen Yong killed the domineering regent Yuwen Hu in 572 and took power. In 574 he banned Buddhism and Taoism, secularising monks and seizing monastic wealth for the treasury. He allied with the Turks and in 576-577 invaded Northern Qi, capturing its capital Ye. He died in 578 at 36 while preparing to attack the Turks.

Yang Jian's takeover

Emperor Xuan was violent and erratic; he abdicated to his six-year-old son in 579 and died in 580. Yang Jian, the boy's maternal grandfather and a leading Guanzhong aristocrat, became regent, crushed a revolt by Yuwen loyalists, executed the imperial clan, and in 581 accepted abdication as Emperor Wen of Sui. Eight years later he conquered the south and reunified China.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Northern Wei (386 to 535)
• Northern Qi (550 to 577)
• Sui dynasty (581 to 618)
• First Turkic Khaganate (552 to 603)
• Liang dynasty (502 to 557)
• Tang dynasty (618 to 907)

Wars of the same era and region

• Goguryeo-Sui War (598 to 614)

8 surprising things about the Northern Zhou

1. The Sui and Tang founding families both came from the Northern Zhou's Guanzhong military aristocracy, and were related to the Yuwen by marriage.
2. Emperor Wu's persecution of 574 forced some three million monks and nuns back to lay life, by traditional (inflated) count.
3. The Zhou dynasty name and its archaic official titles were a deliberate revival of the ancient Zhou described in the Rites of Zhou.
4. Yuwen Tai's fubing militia system remained the basis of Chinese armies until the eighth century.
5. The Zhou princess Qianjin was married to the Turkic khagan and later plotted revenge against the Sui for destroying her family.
6. Emperor Xuan gave himself the title 'Heavenly Sovereign' and had five empresses at once.
7. Yang Jian executed 59 members of the Yuwen imperial family within months of taking power.
8. Northern Zhou lasted only 24 years but its institutions shaped China for three centuries.

Sources

• Northern Zhou Wikipedia
• Northern and Southern dynasties Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou Wikipedia
• Mark Edward Lewis, China Between Empires (2009) Harvard University Press

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