In most dynasties in ancient times, "the mother is more valuable than the son." As the mother of the crown prince, her status and treatment were naturally superior to others. However, in the Northern Wei , there was a strange system of "the son is more valuable than the mother," in which the emperor who wanted to establish a prince had to kill his biological mother first, which caused panic among the concubines in the harem.
The founder of the "child is valued until his mother dies" system was the first emperor of the Northern Wei Dynasty Emperor Daowu Tuoba Gui. After he was middle-aged, he took Hanshisan, a poisonous drug, for a long time, which caused a drastic change in his temperament. He killed innocent people indiscriminately, and his physical condition became very poor before he was 40 years old. Therefore, he wanted to establish an heir as soon as possible. Among his eight sons, only the 18-year-old eldest son Tuoba Si and the 16-year-old second son Tuoba Shao were of suitable ages.
However, the Xianbei people who established the Northern Wei Dynasty were nomadic people and originally did not have a clear succession system for the throne. Therefore, the early civil strife in the Tuoba tribe continued. During the civil strife, the mother clan of the contenders for the throne, The wife clan also joined in, exacerbating the complexity of the civil strife. Later, the mother clan and the wife clan would interfere in politics, especially the Helan tribe, the Dugu tribe, and the Murong tribe. These tribes, which were numerous and powerful and often intermarried with the Tuoba tribe, threatened the existence of the royal family.
After Tuoba Gui came to power, although he implemented a series of measures to disperse tribes and weaken his relatives, they were still very powerful. The biological mother of the eldest son Tuoba Si came from the Dugu tribe, and the second son Tuoba Si's biological mother came from the Dugu tribe. Bashao's biological mother was from the Helan tribe. Tuoba Gui was worried that if the eldest son was chosen to inherit the throne, his biological mother Liu would be "valued over the mother and the son" in the future. By virtue of her status as the queen mother, the relatives of the Dugu tribe would also take the opportunity to expand their power in the court, which might cause new unrest in the long run.
In order to eliminate the possibility of this situation happening, Tuoba Gui decided to adopt the "son is valued and mother dies" system. While announcing to his eldest son Tuoba Si that he would be crown prince, he also told him the bad news that his mother had been given death. Tuoba Gui was so sad that he ran away from home and ran into the mountains.
Tuoba Gui was very angry and planned to raise his second son Tuoba Shao instead, and imprisoned his biological mother He, intending to kill her too. He was so frightened that he wrote a letter to his son asking for help. Tuoba Shao immediately bribed the eunuchs in the palace and killed his father to save his mother. Tuoba Si learned about the coup in the palace, so he returned to the palace to crusade, and killed Tuoba Shao's mother and son on the grounds of parricide. Finally, he successfully took the throne, and as soon as he ascended the throne, he immediately named his biological mother the queen.
