What was the main purpose of the reforms carried out by Emperor Xiaowen?

The main purposes of the reforms carried out by Emperor Xiaowen

Promoting national integration, reducing ethnic conflicts, learning Han culture, strengthening the country, and consolidating the rule of the Xianbei aristocracy.?

The era of the Wei, Jin and North-South Dynasties was a time of great integration and collision between the nomadic peoples of the northern steppe and the Han Chinese culture of the southern central plains, during which Emperor Xiaowen's Sinicization of the Northern Wei Dynasty-the Xiaowen Emperor's Movement-set off the climax of the great integration of the peoples.

The predecessor of the Northern Wei Dynasty was the Xianbei, a minority nomadic group in the north, which had been in regular contact with the Han since the Eastern Han Dynasty and had not only occupied the Xiongnu homeland, but also had a wide range of lands from Liaodong in the east to Longxi in the west. As a result of the excavation of the Tuoba Clan, the northern part of the country was united, and the Northern Wei Dynasty, dominated by ethnic minorities, was established.

In order to further change the backward ruling system, absorbing and accepting the advanced civilization of the Han people, to learn from the Han people, in the era of Emperor Xiaowen set off the culmination of the Hanization movement, but also become a logical thing.

Expanded Information

Contents of Emperor Xiaowen's Reforms

1, Rectification of Officials

472 A.D. (the second year of the Yanxing era), the government to be appointed for a long period of time, full of one year of promotion one level; even if the performance of the poor even if not long after the inauguration of the office, but also subject to penalties, or even demoted.

2. Changing the tax system

In 475 A.D. (the fifth year of the Yanxing era), in order to change the chaotic situation in which the states, counties, and prefectures competed to collect rents, the government determined that they could be collected only by the prefectures, and prohibited the use of large buckets, long rulers, and heavy scales in the course of collecting rents.

3. Enactment of the Salary System

In 484 A.D. (the eighth year of the reign of Emperor Taihe), the Salary System was enacted, stating that any person who embezzled more than one silk cloth in addition to his salary would be punished by death. In the following year, the equalization of fields order was issued, and it was also stipulated that the local guards could give a certain amount of salary fields according to the level of their official positions. The land granted was not to be bought and was to be handed over to the next official when he left office.

4, the reform of the official system

Taihe year, agreed on the rank of the hundred officials, divided into nine grades, each grade is divided into positive, from. The first of its kind in the Northern Wei Dynasty. Nineteen years, and in accordance with the family history, official title and other standards, will be the generation of the northern Xianbei nobles as the family name, family, family name for the high, family second, which Mu, Lu, He, Liu, Lou, Yu, JI, Lieutenant eight family name. Ban Ding surname clan, so that the Xianbei aristocracy and the Han scholars can be further combined.

5, moved the capital to Luoyang

In order to facilitate the learning and acceptance of advanced Han culture, and further strengthen the rule of the Yellow River Basin, Tuoba Hong determined to move the capital of the country from Pingcheng (present-day Datong, Shanxi) to Luoyang.

In 493 A.D. (the 17th year of Taihe), Emperor Xiaowen of Wei personally led more than 300,000 infantry and cavalry southward from Pingcheng to Luoyang. When Emperor Xiaowen had arranged Luoyang at one end, he sent the king of Rencheng, Tuoba Cheng, back to Pingcheng to publicize the benefits of moving the capital to the princes and nobles there. Later, he went to Pingcheng in person to gather the nobles and officials there to discuss the matter of moving the capital. There were quite a number of nobles in Pingcheng who were against it. They put forward a line of reasoning, all of which were refuted by Emperor Xiaowen.

6. Equalization of fields

In 485 A.D. (the ninth year of the reign of Emperor Taihe), a decree on the equalization of fields was issued, which made detailed regulations on the granting of fields to adult people of different genders, as well as to slaves and plowing oxen. There was a distinction between open fields and mulberry fields. Dew fields were planted with grains, which could not be bought or sold and were returned to the state at the age of seventy. Mulberry fields were planted with mulberry, elm, and jujube trees, which did not have to be returned to the state, but could be sold for the excess and bought for the shortfall. When the land was returned, the young and the old, the disabled and the widowers were given proper care.

7. Creation of the Three Chiefs System

In 486 A.D. (the 10th year of Taihe), the Three Chiefs System was used to replace the Patriarchal Supervisory System, and the organization of township officials of neighbors, li, and party was adopted to restrain the local powerful from harboring a large number of households.

8. Reform of the Rent System

In 486 A.D. (the tenth year of the reign of Emperor Taihe), Emperor Xiaowen reformed the rent system accordingly. The new rent regulation stipulated that a husband and a wife should be the levy unit, and they should pay one piece of silk and two stones of corn every year. Unmarried men and women over fifteen years of age, every eight slaves and maids engaged in plowing and weaving, and every twenty head of oxen were to be levied at a rate equal to the number of husbands and wives, respectively.

9, the ban on the Hu language

Xiaowen emperor to implement the most important policy in the Sinicization, that is, to change the language, the provisions of the Xianbei composite language is no longer spoken, but must be replaced by the monosyllabic Chinese.

10. Change of Chinese surnames

The Emperor ordered that the surnames of the Xianbei people, which were usually compound surnames, be changed to single surnames. For example, Tuoba (the royal family) was changed to the Yuan surname, Dugu to the Liu surname, Qiu Muleng to the Mu surname, Bu Liugu to the Lu surname, He Lai to the He surname, and He to the Lou surname.

11. Honoring Confucius

After Emperor Xiaowen moved the capital to Luoyi, he immediately ordered to intensify the construction of the Temple of Confucius to worship Confucius. He also gave land and silver money to the descendants of Confucius so that they could continue to worship this ancestor.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Tuoba Hong (Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty)