Hulü Guang
In 572, Empress Hulü gave birth to a daughter, and Gao Wei, wanting to please Hulü Guang, initially claimed that she gave birth to a son, but eventually had to admit that the child was a daughter. By this point, Hulü Guang was in serious conflict with the powerful officials Zu and Mu. He disliked Zu, and he often complained to his generals that Zu rarely consulted military generals. Once, when he was resting at a governmental building, Zu, who had blinded during a period of imprisonment during Emperor Wucheng's reign, rode past him without realizing that Hulü was there, and never got off the horse as demanded by customs of the time. Hulü angrily stated, "Who does he think he is?" Zu, realizing that Hulü disliked him, bribed Hulü's servant and asked the servant about Hulü's opinion of him. The servant stated, "Ever since you came into power, the Minister Prince [a reference to Hulü, as Hulü carried the title of Prince of Xianyang] each night sighed and stated, "With a blind man in power, the empire will surely be destroyed." Meanwhile, Mu had once requested to marry Hulü's daughter by a concubine, but Hulü refused. Further, when Mu requested that Gao Wei grant him the public fields at Jinyang, Hulü publicly opposed the action as being detrimental to the grazing of the army's horses. Zu and Mu therefore both despited Hulü. They therefore fostered suspicion of Hulü in the emperor's mind, and that suspicion was exacerbated by the fact that Empress Hulü was not favored by Gao Wei.