History is a little girl who dresses up for everyone, especially in some literary works or film and television works. As for the statement of "three thousand beauties in the harem", it contains enough water to fill the whole Pacific Ocean. With a history of 5,000 years, there are quite a few articles or paintings describing the beautiful women in the imperial harem. I don't think this credibility is very great. Why?
Li Bai, who is arrogant, once wrote that "clouds want clothes and flowers to make up, and spring breeze blows the threshold to reveal the wealth of China", saying that this poem must have used exaggerated rhetoric. As for the extent of exaggeration, only Li Bai knows it. There are also some historical records. Imagine that there are three thousand people in the emperor's harem. If you are a historian, are you beautiful or ugly? Can you say that the emperor's harem is full of ugly people? The emperor said it was beautiful, and the minister definitely said it was beautiful. After all, no one dares to joke about it. Everyone says it looks good, and the emperor naturally feels good after watching it for a long time. In fact, being together for a long time is different.
The invention of the camera brought the truth to the surface in the Qing Dynasty. 1846, a Frenchman brought a camera into the palace and became the new favorite of the Qing court. Just like seeing electric lights at the beginning, the eunuchs in the Qing court were full of curiosity about cameras, but they were full of fear. They think that taking pictures is to imprison their souls on paper, and at first they have avoided it.
With the gradual deepening of the understanding of cameras, Lafayette Cixi took the lead in showing strong interest in this new thing and gradually fell in love with taking pictures. This makes the concubines and maids in the court come into public view. When we saw these photos more than a hundred years later, we suddenly realized that the imperial concubine of the Qing Dynasty was like this. And by the way, I also asked a question, concubines in the Qing Dynasty were all selected at different levels. Why are all the pictures so ugly?
This problem is briefly summarized in Bian Xiao. I think there are several main reasons:
The aesthetics at that time was different from that of modern people. Manchu is a jurchen nationality outside the customs, and its aesthetics and lifestyle are necessarily different from those of the Central Plains, and of course they are different from our modern times. In the selection of emperor's harem, birth is more important than appearance. Usually choose Miao Honggen's flag-bearer girl. At this early stage, the emperor has little power to say no. In the emperor's family, it is most important to sit firmly on the throne, so the woman he chooses is either the daughter of a serious official or a niece. At that time, her identity looked much more fragrant than her appearance. After all, the emperor was still young at that time, and the little boy was easy to fool. The emperor himself is not good-looking, and everyone around him says it is. What do you want the emperor to think? It must feel good. Woo ministers, nobles, looks, etc.; Many times, the emperor chose the imperial concubine not because of his own preferences, but because of some other factors. The emperor also needs to have his own team in the imperial court. Without his own team, where can he command others? This is the truth of "once every emperor is a courtier". In order to win over these ministers, it is inevitable to add a layer of relationship, and marriage is the best way to connect two strangers. The emperor only needs to vacate the harem, and the rest will be handed over to "God's will". No one can do anything about it. All the people who took photos were in the late Qing Dynasty, and most of the emperors in the late Qing Dynasty had no power. In the late Qing Dynasty, even the emperor had no dignity, let alone the empresses. Therefore, these concubines in simple photos can't fully represent the quality of the emperor's harem. In my opinion, there must be a few cute ones. Clothes make the horse depend on the saddle. There are no ugly women but lazy women. It is precisely because of the weakness of the emperor's ruling power in the late Qing Dynasty that the resources available to the imperial concubine are getting less and less. In addition, the emperor was not very strong in the late Qing Dynasty, and the mood of the concubines in the harem was not so high, which affected the overall value. Everyone envies the emperor for having the power of life and death and being able to control the life and death of others. In fact, the emperor is not easy. They should always be alert to the actions of generals and soldiers and weigh the forces of various interest groups. For the sake of the throne, all kinds of marriages and even women they don't like have to be brought into the harem, which is undoubtedly cruel to the emperor himself and the women in the harem.
The harem concubines look "patriotic", but this is also a matter of opinion. In fact, how bad can the looks of the ancients and the present be? If today's women don't wear makeup, plastic surgery and beauty cameras, how many such beautiful women can there be?
In fact, we are all misled by the beauty camera. We feel that in the selfie video, we are thin, white and look like fairies. Actually, we're not. Deceived the audience for a long time, and we even deceived ourselves, so the ugly and handsome concubines of the emperor will be more real.