Wei Youzhu ((北)魏幼主)
Family name Chinese name Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Most noticeably, a Chinese name is written with the family name first and the given name next, therefore "John-Paul Smith" as a Chinese name would be "Smith John-Paul"... :	Yuan (元, yuán)
Given name Chinese name Personal names in Chinese culture follow a number of conventions different from those of personal names in Western cultures. Most noticeably, a Chinese name is written with the family name first and the given name next, therefore "John-Paul Smith" as a Chinese name would be "Smith John-Paul"... :	Zhao (釗, zhāo)
Posthumous name Posthumous name A posthumous name is an honorary name given to royalty, nobles, and sometimes others, in East Asia after the person's death, and is used almost exclusively instead of one's personal name or other official titles during his life... :	None

Yuan Zhao (元釗) (526

526

Year 526 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Olybrius without colleague...

 – May 17, 528), also known in history as Youzhu (幼主, literally "the young lord"), was briefly an emperor

Emperor

An emperor is a monarch, usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife or a woman who rules in her own right...

 of the Chinese

History of China

Chinese civilization originated in various regional centers along both the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys in the Neolithic era, but the Yellow River is said to be the Cradle of Chinese Civilization. With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world's oldest...

/Xianbei

Xianbei

The Xianbei were a significant Mongolic nomadic people residing in Manchuria, Inner Mongolia and eastern Mongolia. The title “Khan” was first used among the Xianbei.-Origins:...

 dynasty Northern Wei

Northern Wei

The Northern Wei Dynasty , also known as the Tuoba Wei , Later Wei , or Yuan Wei , was a dynasty which ruled northern China from 386 to 534 . It has been described as "part of an era of political turbulence and intense social and cultural change"...

.

Yuan Zhao was a son of Yuan Baohui (元寶暉) the Prince of Lintao, who was a grandson of Emperor Xiaowen

Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei

Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei , personal name né Tuoba Hong , later Yuan Hong , was an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei....

 and therefore cousin to Emperor Xiaoming

Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei

Emperor Xiaoming of Northern Wei , personal name Yuan Xu , was an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei...

, the reigning emperor at the time of Yuan Zhao's birth in 526

526

Year 526 was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Olybrius without colleague...

. In 528

528

Year 528 was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Sabbatius without colleague...

, Emperor Xiaoming was poisoned to death by his mother Empress Dowager Hu

Empress Dowager Hu (Xiaoming)

Empress Dowager Hu , formally Empress Ling , was an empress dowager of the Chinese dynasty Northern Wei. She was a concubine of Emperor Xuanwu, and she became regent and empress dowager after her son Emperor Xiaoming became emperor after Emperor Xuanwu's death in 515...

 after trying to curb her power and trying to kill her lover Zheng Yan (鄭儼). Emperor Xiaoming was sonless, and while Empress Dowager Hu initially tried to pretend that Emperor Xiaoming's daughter, by his concubine Consort Pan, was actually a son, she soon realized that she could not carry on the deception, and she named Yuan Zhao emperor -- selecting him due to his young age so that she could control him. The general Erzhu Rong

Erzhu Rong

Erzhu Rong , courtesy name Tianbao , formally Prince Wu of Jin , was a general of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei...

, with whom Emperor Xiaoming had conspired against Empress Dowager Hu, refused to recognize Yuan Zhao as emperor, quickly descending on the capital Luoyang

Luoyang

Luoyang is a prefecture-level city in western Henan province of Central China. It borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north, and Jiaozuo to the northeast.Situated on the central plain of...

 with his troops and declaring a son of Emperor Xiaowen's brother Yuan Xie

Yuan Xie

Yuan Xie , né Tuoba Xie , courtesy name Yanhe , formally Prince Wuxuan of Pengcheng , later posthumously honored as Emperor Wenmu with the temple name of Suzu , was an imperial prince of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei...

, Yuan Ziyou

Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei

Emperor Xiaozhuang of Northern Wei , personal name Yuan Ziyou , was an emperor of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei. He was placed on the throne by the general Erzhu Rong, who refused to recognize the young emperor Yuan Zhao that Emperor Xiaoming's mother Empress Dowager Hu placed on the...

, emperor (as Emperor Xiaozhuang). Less than two months after Yuan Zhao was declared emperor, Erzhu had captured Luoyang and put Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Zhao under arrest. After Empress Dowager Hu tried, unsuccessfully, to defend her actions before Erzhu, Erzhu had her and Yuan Zhao thrown into the Yellow River

Yellow River

The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

 to drown.

Traditional historians treat Yuan Zhao ambiguously, and subsequent Northern Wei emperors never explicitly officially declared whether he was an emperor or not. He was not given an imperial posthumous name

Posthumous name

A posthumous name is an honorary name given to royalty, nobles, and sometimes others, in East Asia after the person's death, and is used almost exclusively instead of one's personal name or other official titles during his life...

 or temple name

Temple name

Temple names are commonly used when naming most Chinese, Korean , and Vietnamese royalty. They should not be confused with era names. Compared to posthumous names, the use of temple names is more exclusive...

, but nor was his imperial status declared null. The official history of Northern Wei, the Book of Wei

Book of Wei

The Book of Wei is a classic Chinese historical writing compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and serves as an important historical text describing the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 550....

, written during the succeeding Northern Qi

Northern Qi

The Northern Qi Dynasty was one of the Northern dynasties of Chinese history and ruled northern China from 550 to 577.-History:The Chinese state of Northern Qi was the successor state of the Chinese/Xianbei state of Eastern Wei and was founded by Emperor Wenxuan...

, did not list Yuan Zhao in its imperial biographies (and indeed, did not have a biography for him or his father at all), listing the events during his brief reign under the biography of Emperor Xiaoming, but used the term beng (崩) to describe his death, a term reserved for the deaths of emperors and empresses.