 Yuan Gong also had one younger brother, Yuan Yongye (元永業).Yuan Gong was described to be confident and strong-willed, and also filially pious toward his grandmother Princess Dowager Meng and his father's wife Princess Dowager Zheng (whom, under Confucian doctrines, he was required to treat as a mother).During Yuan Cha's regency over Emperor Xuanwu's son Emperor Xiaoming (i.e., sometime between 520 and 525), Yuan Gong, because of Yuan Cha's corruption and violent tendencies, pretended to be ill and unable to speak, living in the Buddhist Longhua Temple (龍花寺).