Yuan Zhao (Chinese: 元釗) (526[2] – May 17, 528[3]), also known in historiography as Youzhu of Northern Wei (北魏幼主; literally "the young lord"), was briefly an emperor of the Xianbei-led Chinese Northern Wei dynasty.
In 528, Emperor Xiaoming was poisoned to death by his mother Empress Dowager Hu 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.
Less than two months after Yuan Zhao was declared emperor, Erzhu had captured Luoyang and put Empress Dowager Hu and Yuan Zhao under arrest.
The official history of Northern Wei, the Book of Wei, written during the succeeding Northern Qi, 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,[4] a term reserved for the deaths of emperors and empresses.