Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty was an outstanding minority politician and reformer.
He advocated Chinese culture, practiced sinicization, banned Hu Fu and Hu Yu, changed weights and measures, promoted education, changed surnames and banned burial, which improved the cultural level of Xianbei people. It is the summary of ethnic integration after the northwest ethnic groups entered the Central Plains one after another, and it has played an important role in China.
Wang Zhiyu's Comment on the Traditional View of Emperor Xiaowen in the Northern Wei Dynasty (History Teaching No.2) focuses on the investigation and analysis of the traditional view of Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong. He believes that Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty is an outstanding minority reformer in the history of our country. He has made positive contributions to promoting historical development and should be fully affirmed. However, his reform was influenced by the feudal Confucian tradition, copying the ruling thought and mode of the feudal landlord class in the Central Plains, which affected the effectiveness of the reform and could only be adapted to the Confucian tradition in the Central Plains. Wang Yun's "On the Subjective Motivation of the Sinicization of Emperor Xiaowen" (Journal of Liaocheng Normal University, No.2) holds that Emperor Xiaowen has long been influenced by Chinese culture with Confucianism as the core and has a strong desire for advanced culture. Therefore, compared with other Hu emperors, Emperor Xiaowen has the firmest determination, the most decisive action and the most thorough measures to enter the Central Plains. He made outstanding contributions to China's national integration. On the other hand, Li Gaocai and Gao Ping's On the Mistakes of Emperor Xiaowen's Moving to Luoyang (No.6 of Jinyang Academic Journal) hold that Emperor Xiaowen's policy of moving the capital and overall sinicization is one of the important reasons leading to the decline of the Northern Wei Dynasty and a major mistake in political decision-making.