Empress Yuan (12 February 528[3] – after 1 April 528), personal name unknown, was briefly an emperor of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty.
Soon after her birth, her grandmother the Empress Dowager Hu, who was also Xiaoming's regent, falsely declared that she was a boy and ordered a general pardon.
[7] To exert her power as the highest ruler of Northern Wei, she addressed herself as Zhen (Chinese: 朕; pinyin: Zhèn), a first-person pronoun reserved for use by the emperor after the Qin dynasty.
[11] Emperor Xiaoming gathered the people to oppose her and executed her lover Yuan Yi (元怿) in 520,[12] causing deep hatred from his mother.
[13] After several failed attempts to overthrow the empress dowager, Xiaoming secretly ordered General Erzhu Rong to send troops to the capital Luoyang to coerce her into handing over the authority.
[16][17] Empress Dowager Hu falsely declared that the child was a son;[16] she issued an edict the following day, ordering a general pardon and changing the emperor's reign title from Xiaochang (孝昌) to Wutai (武泰).
[26] The series of events involving her son's death and the installation of the infant girl and the three-year-old Yuan Zhao on the throne occurred to ensure the continuation of her regency.
[26] Because Empress Dowager Hu replaced the emperor in an unbridled manner, General Erzhu Rong sent in troops to overthrow her, stating that she had deceived Heaven as well as the Imperial Court by letting the infant girl succeed to the throne.
[28] Not long after, Erzhu Rong sent troops to occupy the capital Luoyang, and Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Zhao were held captive.
[36] Researcher Cheng Yang (成扬) believes that the fact that Yuan was the "first female in history to ascend the imperial throne" cannot be denied despite it being a plot by Empress Dowager Hu.