Please check out Stephen Guerra's The History of the Papacy Podcast at http://www.atozhistorypage.com
We continue our look at Northern Wei at the dawn of the 6th century. The imperial bookends will be Xiaowen - the chief proponent of sinicization among the Tuoba Xianbei - and his son Xuanwu, a placeholder in just about every sense of the term. The real drama will unfold around two of Xuanwu's wives... and whether or not one killed the other in a murder mystery 1500 years old.
Period Covered:
499-515 CE
Major Figures:
Yuan Hong [Emperor Xiaowen] (r. 467-499)
Yuan Ke [Emperor Xuanwu] (r. 499-515)
Empress Yu (~488-507)
Prince Yuan Chang (506-506)
Consort/Empress Gao (d. 518)
Gao Zhong, Prime Minister (d. 515)
Empress Dowager Hu (d. 528)
Crowned Prince Yuan Xu [Emperor Xiaoming] (r. 515-528)
