Gao Zhao

Gao Zhao (高肇) (died 515), courtesy name Shouwen (首文), was a high-level official of the Chinese/Xianbei dynasty Northern Wei. He was a maternal uncle of Emperor Xuanwu, and he became increasingly powerful during Emperor Xuanwu's reign, drawing anger from other high-level officials not only for his powerplay (including involvement in the death of the highly regarded imperial prince Yuan Xie) and corruption, but also because he was a mere commoner before Emperor Xuanwu's reign and not from the aristocracy and might have been Korean in origin. After Emperor Xuanwu died in 515, the other officials set a trap for Gao Zhao and had him killed.

Gao Zhao claimed that his ancestors were from Bohai Commandery (勃海, roughly Cangzhou, Hebei), and that his fifth generation ancestor Gao Gu (高顧), in order to flee the wars during the times of Emperor Huai of Jin, fled to the Korean Peninsula. Gao Zhao's father Gao Yang (高颺) defected to Northern Wei during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen and was given a minor general title and created the Viscount of Hejian. Emperor Xiaowen also took Gao Yang's daughter as an imperial consort, and she gave birth to his second son, Yuan Ke in 483. Yuan Ke was initially not crown prince, but became crown prince in 497 after his only older brother Yuan Xun was deposed from that position in 496, and his mother Consort Gao, whom Emperor Xiaowen initially left in the old capital Pingcheng (平城, in modern Datong, Shanxi) and did not bring to the new capital Luoyang when he moved the capital in 494, was welcomed to the new capital, but on the way, she died suddenly. (Historians largely believe that Emperor Xiaowen's wife Empress Feng Run, who wanted to raise Yuan Ke on her own, murdered Consort Gao.) Gao Zhao and his brothers never had any actual contact with Yuan Ke during his youth. Despite the fact that Gao Yang did have a minor noble title, it appeared that his family was essentially treated as commoners and regarded as uncultured.

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