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Empress Murong (慕容皇后, personal name unknown), formally Empress Daowu (道武皇后), was an empress of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei Dynasty. Her husband was the founding emperor Emperor Daowu (Tuoba Gui).
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty, during the king Wu Ding's reign, who was recorded as the twenty-first Shang king by the written records of Shang dynasty unearthed. Ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian and the Bamboo Annals describe a Xia dynasty before the Shang, but no writing is known from the period, and Shang writings do not indicate the existence of the Xia. The Shang ruled in the Yellow River valley, which is commonly held to be the cradle of Chinese civilization. However, Neolithic civilizations originated at various cultural centers along both the Yellow River and Yangtze River. These Yellow River and Yangtze civilizations arose millennia before the Shang. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and is regarded as one of the cradles of civilization.
The Xianbei were an originally nomadic tribal confederation residing in what is today's eastern Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeast China. Along with the Xiongnu, they were one of the major nomadic groups in northern China from the Han Dynasty to the Northern and Southern dynasties. They eventually established their own northern dynasties such as the Northern Wei founded in the 4th century AD by the Tuoba clan. During the Uprising of the Five Barbarians they became categorized as one of the Five Barbarians by the Han Chinese.
Emperor Daowu of Northern Wei ( 魏道武帝) (371–409), personal name Tuoba Gui (拓拔珪), né Tuoba Shegui (拓拔渉珪), was the founding emperor of the Northern Wei. He was the grandson of the last prince of Dai, Tuoba Shiyijian, and after the fall of the Dai state to Former Qin in 376 had been presumed to be the eventual successor to the Dai throne. After Former Qin fell into disarray in 383 following its defeat by Jin forces at the Battle of Fei River, Tuoba Gui took the opportunity to reestablish Dai in 386, but soon changing the state's name to Wei and declared himself a prince. He was initially a vassal of Later Yan. However, after he defeated the Later Yan emperor Murong Bao in 397 and seized most of Later Yan's territory, he claimed imperial title in 398.
She was the youngest daughter of the Later Yan emperor Murong Bao (Emperor Huimin). When Northern Wei launched a major attack against Later Yan in 396, causing Murong Bao to abandon the capital Zhongshan (中山, in modern Baoding, Hebei) in 397, she was unable to follow her father in flight, and when Zhongshan fell to Northern Wei later that year, she was captured by Tuoba Gui and made one of his consorts. In 400, after he had declared imperial title, he considered whom to create empress. He had favored Consort Liu, the daughter of the Xiongnu chief Liu Toujuan (劉頭眷) the most, and she also bore his oldest son Tuoba Si. However, the Tuoba Tribe's traditions dictated that when the ruler were to consider whom to make his wife, he was to make the candidates try to forge golden statues by hand, as a way of discerning divine favor. Consort Liu was unable to forge a golden statue, while Consort Murong was able to, and so was created empress. Her mother Lady Meng, also captured by Northern Wei, was created the Lady of Piaoyang.
The Later Yan was a Murong–Xianbei state, located in modern-day northeast China, during the era of Sixteen Kingdoms in China.
Murong Bao, courtesy name Daoyou (道佑), formally Emperor Huimin of (Later) Yan ( 燕惠愍帝), temple name Liezong (烈宗) or Liezu (烈祖), was an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei state Later Yan. He inherited from his father Murong Chui a sizable empire but lost most of it within a span of a year, and would be dead in less than three, a victim of a rebellion by his granduncle Lan Han. Historians largely attributed this to his irresolution and inability to judge military and political decisions. While Later Yan would last for one more decade after his death, it would never regain the power it had under Murong Chui.
Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) southwest of Beijing. At the 2010 census, Baoding City had 11,194,372 inhabitants out of which 2,176,857 lived in the built-up area made of 3 urban districts and Qingyuan and Mancheng counties largely being conurbated, on 1,840 km2 (710 sq mi). Baoding is among 13 Chinese cities with a population of over 10 million, ranking seventh.
Nothing more is known about Empress Murong. She was implied to be still alive in 402, when Later Qin's emperor Yao Xing rejected Emperor Daowu's overture to marry one of his daughters, because Yao Xing's refusal was based on his information that Emperor Daowu already had Empress Murong as empress.
The Later Qin, also known as Yao Qin (姚秦), was a state of Qiang ethnicity of the Sixteen Kingdoms during the Jin dynasty (265-420) in China. The Later Qin is entirely distinct from the Qin dynasty, the Former Qin and the Western Qin.
Yao Xing, courtesy name Zilüe (子略), formally Emperor Wenhuan of (Later) Qin ( 秦文桓帝), was an emperor of the Chinese/Qiang state Later Qin. He was the son of the founding emperor Yao Chang. For most of his reign, he did not use the title of emperor, but used the title Heavenly Prince. During his reign, he destroyed the rival Former Qin and proceeded to expand his hegemony over nearly all of western China, as he temporarily seized all of Western Qin's territory and forced Southern Liang, Northern Liang, Western Liáng, and Qiao Zong's Western Shu (西蜀) all to at least nominally submit to him, but late in his reign, defeats on the battlefield, particularly at the hands of the rebel general Helian Bobo, and internecine struggles between his sons and nephews greatly damaged the Later Qin state, and it was destroyed soon after his death. Yao Xing was an avid Buddhist, and it was during his reign that Buddhism first received official state support in China. The monk Kumarajiva also visited Chang'an at Yao Xing's request in 401.
