Xiao Tong - Birth and Childhood

Birth and Childhood

Xiao Tong was born to Xiao Yan, then a Southern Qi general nearing final victory in a civil war against the cruel and violent emperor Xiao Baojuan, in winter 501. He was born at Xiao Yan's power base of Xiangyang, to Xiao Yan's concubine Ding Lingguang (丁令光). (Xiao Yan's wife Chi Hui (郗徽) had died in 499, and from that point on he had only concubines and never made any of them his wife.) After Xiao Yan's victory later in 501, he forced Emperor He of Southern Qi, whom he had supported as a rival claimant to the Southern Qi throne, to yield the throne to him in 502, ending Southern Qi and starting Liang Dynasty (as its Emperor Wu). The officials requested that he make Xiao Tong, then an infant, the crown prince, and while Emperor Wu initially declined on account that the empire had not been pacified, he did so in winter 502, when Xiao Tong was only one year old. After Xiao Tong was created crown prince, his mother Consort Ding, while not made empress, was given a special status co-equal with her son.

Xiao Tong was said to be intellilgent, kind, and obedient to his parents from his childhood. As per customs of the time, in 506, he was housed in the Yongfu Mansion (永福省), the residence for the crown prince, in his childhood, but he missed his parents, and so every few days or so Emperor Wu would spend several days at Yongfu Mansion. (Whether Consort Ding did the same is not recorded in history.) In 515, he went through his rite of passage and was declared an adult, and Emperor Wu bestowed him a crown.

Read more about this topic:  Xiao Tong

Famous quotes containing the words birth and/or childhood:

    That was the birth of sin. Not doing it, but KNOWING about it. Before the apple, [Adam and Eve] had shut their eyes and their minds had gone dark. Now, they peeped and pried and imagined. They watched themselves.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Toddlerhood resembles adolescence because of the rapidity of physical growth and because of the impulse to break loose of parental boundaries. At both ages, the struggle for independence exists hand in hand with the often hidden wish to be contained and protected while striving to move forward in the world. How parents and toddlers negotiate their differences sets the stage for their ability to remain partners during childhood and through the rebellions of the teenage years.
    Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)