Since ancient times, jewelry has the function of beautifying people, showing off social wealth and showing social status. The emperor owns the wealth of the whole world. Empress and concubines, as the spouses of the emperor, will naturally be rewarded with the wealth of the emperor, including jewelry, according to their status, status and favor.

These jewels are not only for the emperor to dress up and serve himself, but also reflect the functions of status and etiquette decoration. In other words, jewelry can even directly reflect political status and significance. So we can't simply treat jewelry as a plaything that the emperor gave to his empresses.

Specifically, in the Qing dynasty, according to the regulations of the Qing palace, all the things of the queen and concubines, including jewelry, were given by the emperor, so the queen and concubines only had the right to use jewelry, but not ownership. These treasures were given by the emperor, so they can't be worn casually before death, and they have no right to dispose of them according to their own wishes after death. Generally speaking, empresses are still very sad, because everything is in the hands of the emperor, and they have no right to dispose of their relics.

As for how to distribute jewelry after the death of the emperor, according to the archives of the Qing court, the following information can be obtained:

1 The Ministry of Internal Affairs is responsible for the internal affairs of the Qing Dynasty. It consists of manufacturing department, Chu Guang department, four deacons warehouse and other departments, which are responsible for managing, creating and collecting the daily necessities of the court and the emperor, including the jewelry of the queen and concubines. After the death of Empress Dowager Cixi, her property will be counted, and the House of Internal Affairs will sort out the list and give it to the emperor. Under the guidance of the emperor, some jewels will be collected or simply melted to cast new jewels. For example, after the death of Emperor Qianlong, the court handed over some of her jewelry to the fourth deacon's treasury for safekeeping.

Some representative jewels of the emperor's favorite concubines will be carefully presented in the palace to show their thoughts and condolences. For example, after the death of Emperor Huixian of Qianlong, according to the records of the Internal Affairs Institute, her golden phoenix ornaments were put in Changchun Palace by Qianlong, and Qianlong would go to collect incense and miss her during the Chinese New Year holiday.

Changchun feng' an imperial palace

Huixian concubines are inlaid with pearls, gold and phoenix.

Jinfeng five-branch mosaic 15 east column, including eight secondary columns and seven tertiary columns.

Seventy-one ordinary pearls, five rubies, one sapphire, one ruby, three broken rubies and seventy-five.

Twelve fake pearls are embedded in the green flowers in front of mother-of-pearl.

A golden flower is inlaid with five fourth-class pearls, two rubies and one ruby.

The nine branches of Little golden phoenix are inlaid with nine fourth-grade pearls, including 338 rubies, 10 burnt rubies, 1 sapphire, 11 Bikou, 5 hibiscus stones, 3 white jade treasures, 6 coral treasures, 5 turquoise treasures and 15 Shi Bao.

Three. The emperor will give some concubines' jewels to colleagues (other concubines), family members or future generations to commemorate and cherish the memory of the deceased. For example, after the death of Emperor Qianlong, Emperor Qianlong gave some of her relics to the Queen Mother and her relatives. After the death of Gan Long's beloved princess, Gan Long gave some jewels to his daughter-in-law Xiaoxiao and Ruyi Queen.

These jewels are used for funerals. Some of them were buried with the Queen as funerary objects, while others were burned as ceremonial objects at the funeral. For example, Rong Fei's coffin was buried with clothes and jade jewelry, and the other part was burned.