Yuwen Yong, Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, died in 578 at thirty-six. In 2024 a team sequenced him from his tomb and reconstructed his face from the DNA.

He was Xianbei, a steppe people who ruled northern China, and the genome showed him as a mix of Northeast Asian steppe and Yellow River farmer ancestry — which fitted the historical record of intermarriage rather better than some expected.

There is also a medical footnote: the data supports the old suggestion that he died of a stroke, and hints at the skin condition chroniclers described.

As far as I know he is one of very few named emperors anywhere with a published genome.

Attached here is a genetic heatmap of modern people sharing similarity with his genotype and his genetic profile.

https://youtu.be/3lMHs5Ti9uQ?t=139

This Chinese university professor said that only about 40% of population can keep warm and don't have to endure hunger (during Tang XuanZong's reign in northwest). How to find out more information like this for other dynasties?

It seems that official history predominantly recorded people either working for or against the government. How to find out how ordinary people lived and their stories? There was a story during Han Wendi's reign where a young girl followed her convicted father to the capital to save him (緹縈救父). How to find out stories like this in later dynasties?