Eastern Wei in the context of "Book of Wei"

The Tuoba (Chinese) or Tabgatch (Old Turkic: 𐱃𐰉𐰍𐰲, Tabγač), also known by other names, was an influential Xianbei clan in early imperial China. During the Sixteen Kingdoms after the fall of Han and the Three Kingdoms, the Tuoba established and ruled the Dai state in northern China. The dynasty ruled from 310 to 376 and was restored in 386. The same year, the dynasty was renamed Wei, later distinguished in Chinese historiography as the Northern Wei. This powerful state gained control of most of northern China, supporting Buddhism while increasingly sinicizing. As part of this process, in 496, the Emperor Xiaowen changed the imperial clan's surname from Tuoba to Yuan (元). The empire split into Eastern Wei and Western Wei in 535, with the Western Wei's rulers briefly resuming use of the Tuoba name in 554.

A branch of the Tanguts also bore a surname transcribed as Tuoba before their chieftains were given the Chinese surnames Li (李) and Zhao (趙) by the Tang and Song dynasties respectively. Some of these Tangut Tuobas later adopted the surname Weiming (嵬名), with this branch eventually establishing and ruling the Western Xia in northwestern China from 1038 to 1227.

Yuwen Tai (Chinese: 宇文泰; pinyin: Yǔwén Tài) (505/7 – 21 November 556), nickname Heita (黑獺), formally Duke Wen of Anding (安定文公), later further posthumously honored by Northern Zhou initially as Prince Wen (文王) then as Emperor Wen (文皇帝) with the temple name Taizu (太祖), was the de facto ruler and paramount general of the Xianbei-led Chinese Western Wei dynasty, a branch successor state of the Northern Wei. In 534, Emperor Xiaowu of Northern Wei, seeking to assert power independent of the paramount general Gao Huan, fled to Yuwen's domain; when Gao subsequently proclaimed Emperor Xiaojing of Eastern Wei emperor, a split of Northern Wei was effected, and when Yuwen subsequently poisoned Emperor Xiaowu to death around the new year 535 and declared his cousin Yuan Baoju emperor (as Emperor Wen), the split was formalized, with the part under Gao's and Emperor Xiaojing's control known as Eastern Wei and the part under Yuwen's and Emperor Wen's control known as Western Wei. For the rest of his life, Yuwen endeavored to make Western Wei, then much weaker than its eastern counterpart, a strong state, and after his death, his son Yuwen Jue seized the throne from Emperor Gong of Western Wei, establishing the Northern Zhou dynasty.

The Qimin Yaoshu, translated as the "Essential Techniques for the Welfare of the People", is the most completely preserved of the ancient Chinese agricultural texts, and was written by the Northern Wei Dynasty official Jia Sixie (zh) (賈思勰), a native of Shouguang, Shandong province, which is a major agricultural producing region. The book is believed to have been completed in the second year of Wu Ding of Eastern Wei, 544 CE, while another account gives the completion between 533 and 544 CE.

The text of the book is divided into ten volumes and 92 chapters, and records 1500-year-old Chinese agronomy, horticulture, afforestation, sericulture, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, breeding, brewing, cooking, storage, as well as remedies for barren land. The book quoted nearly 200 ancient sources including the Yiwu Zhi. Important agricultural books such as Fàn Shèngzhī shū (氾勝之書) and Sì mín yuè lìng (四民月令) from the Hàn and Jìn Dynasties are now lost, so future generations can only understand the operation of agriculture at the time from this book.