Empress (Dowager) Feng (馮皇(太)后) (442 – 17 October 490), formally Empress (Dowager) Wenming (文明皇后, literally "the civil and understanding empress") was an empress of the Xianbei-led Northern Wei dynasty of China. Her husband was Emperor Wencheng. After her husband's death in 465, she overthrew the autocratic regent Yifu Hun in 466 and became regent over her stepson Emperor Xianwen and remained as such until his adulthood in 467. She subsequently had a falling-out with Emperor Xianwen (who had then become retired emperor) over his execution of her lover Li Yi (李奕), and she assassinated him and resumed regency over his son Emperor Xiaowen in 476. While Emperor Xiaowen assumed imperial powers upon adulthood, he remained very deferential to her, and she was highly influential until her death in October 490. An enduring legacy of her regency was a series of reforms that led to political recentralization for Northern Wei and future imperial dynasties.
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👉 Empress Dowager Feng in the context of Equal-field system
The equal-field system (Chinese: 均田制度; pinyin: Jūntián Zhìdù) or land-equalization system was a system of land ownership and distribution in China used from the Northern Wei dynasty to the mid-Tang dynasty.
By the Han dynasty, the well-field system of land distribution had fallen out of use in China though reformers like Wang Mang tried to restore it. The equal-field system was introduced into practice around 485 AD by the Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei under the support of Empress Dowager Feng during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. The system was eventually adopted by other regimes, and its use continued into the Sui and Tang dynasties.During the Northern Wei dynasty, the government implemented the equal-field system (jūntián zhì, 均田制) in conjunction with the Three Elders system (sānzhǎng zhì, 三长制). This policy weakened the power of local hereditary aristocratic clans (shìjiā ménfá, 世家门阀), curtailed widespread land annexation, and strengthened the emerging landlord class based on self-cultivating farmers (zìgēng nóng, 自耕农).
Empress Dowager Feng in the context of Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei
Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei ((北)魏孝文帝) (October 13, 467 – April 26, 499), personal name Tuoba Hong (拓拔宏), later Yuan Hong (元宏), was an emperor of China's Northern Wei dynasty, reigning from September 20, 471 to April 26, 499.
Under the regent of Empress Dowager Feng, Emperor Xiaowen enacted a new land-tenure system named the equal-field system in 485, which was aimed at boosting agricultural production and tax receipts. The implementation of the equal-field system was largely due to the court's desire to break the economic power of local magnates who sheltered residents under their control living in fortified villages. Under this system, all land was owned by the state, and then equally distributed to taxpaying farmers. This system successfully created a stable fiscal infrastructure and a basis for universal military conscription for the Northern Wei, and continued well into the Tang dynasty. The equal-field program was coupled with another initiative, the "Three Elders" system, aimed at compiling accurate population registers so that land could be distributed accordingly.