HSIAO-WEN TI

died 499, China Pinyin Xiaowen Di (posthumous name, or shih), personal name (hsing-ming) T'o-pa Hung, or Yan Hung, temple name (miao-hao) Wei Kao-tsu emperor of the Northern Wei dynasty (386534/535), which dominated much of North China during part of the chaotic 360-year period between the end of the Han dynasty (206 BCAD 220) and the founding of Sui rule (581618). Hsiao-wen Sinicized his tribal kinsmen, making the Northern Wei into a Chinese-style dynasty. He also instituted a land-reform program that has persisted in its basic form into modern times. When Hsiao-wen ascended the throne in 471, the nomadic T'o-pa tribal state he ruled had become so well acculturated to its area of North China that he could take the Chinese surname of Yan; move the site of the capital to Lo-yang, which had been the location of the capital of the Eastern Han dynasty (AD 25220); make Chinese the official language of the court; and order the nobles to adopt Chinese dress and family names. In 485 he instituted a chn-t'ien (equal-field) system of agriculture, in which every peasant family was assigned 140 mou, or about 19 acres of land. A small portion was kept permanently by the farmer and his family, but most of the land reverted to the state for redistribution upon death or retirement. To implement his policy, Hsiao-wen divided the population into groups through which the people would supervise one another. Five families formed a lin, or neighbourhood; five lin constituted a li (village), and five li a tang (association). Each tang functioned under a chang (chief). This system greatly reduced the selling off of land by peasants to large landholders; it thus reformed the policy that had destroyed the Han and provided the fiscal basis for the formation of the Sui and T'ang (618907) dynasties. In the short run, Hsiao-wen's reforms caused great resentment, and the tribal forces under his command revolted and seized the capital, causing the emperor to die of starvation in the capital. The Northern Wei dynasty survived for another 36 years, at which time it was divided among the leading generals.