How beautiful is Cixi?
How beautiful is Cixi? In her own triumphant description, it is "imperial secretary regards me as a beauty", and her appearance is enviable. Now we can still see some portraits of Cixi in her later years. Even from today's aesthetic point of view, Cixi can still be called dignified. Two women had close contact with Cixi in her later years: one was De Ling, who became the first waitress of Empress Dowager Cixi because of her familiarity with foreign languages. She commented on Cixi's appearance like this: "When Empress Dowager Cixi was in her prime, she was indeed a charming and radiant girl, and was often praised by the palace people; Even if Iraq is gradually squeezed out by the years, she still retains some touching beauty after entering the old world! "
The other is Carl, an American female painter, who entered the Qing court in August 1904 and painted the Empress Dowager Cixi. She spent nine months with Empress Dowager Cixi and recorded her personal experience in The Portrait of Empress Dowager Cixi. In the book, she wrote, "I regard the Queen Mother in front of me as a very beautiful and kind woman. I guess her age is at most forty years old, and the beauty of her temperament makes people fall in love at first sight. " "Empress Dowager Cixi's body parts are extremely commensurate. Her beautiful face, soft hands, slim figure and shiny black hair are in harmony and complement each other. She smiled, full of gesture and natural joy.
However, the beautiful women in the harem are all excellent, and they are all carefully selected beautiful women. Empathy is common when the emperor is in it. For Cixi, there must be irreplaceable potential to maintain and consolidate the special favor of the emperor. Among them, Cixi had unparalleled ability among the concubines in the harem: she could read and write Chinese, which was extremely valuable among Manchu women at that time. Therefore, Cixi is a "bilingual" model in which concubines in the palace can master Manchu and read and write Chinese.
Empress Dowager Cixi's strict requirements did not make him fully understand his mother's good intentions. Instead, he formed a strong rebellious attitude towards his mother and sought adventure and excitement outside the palace. During this period, there were two people who had a great influence on the Tongzhi emperor. A man is the eldest son of Prince Gong. After the death of Prince Hui, who was in charge of the emperor's study, Yi Xiang and Yi Xun both ended their study life with the emperor. Later, Cixi appointed the eldest son of Prince Hui to study with the emperor. Cixi only saw Zaihu's intelligent and cheerful personality, but what she didn't know was that Zaihu's life was bohemian and everything was exquisite.
The "Bandu" carefully selected by Cixi eventually became the "guardian" of the Tongzhi emperor.
The other is Wang Qingqi, the tutor of Hanlin College. Wang Qingqi, a Shuntian, was the son of a noble family who grew up in the capital. Wang Qingqi is a "obsequious person" who works hard and is good at flattery. Emphasized Chu's study, and the emperor liked it very much, giving him five titles and two titles. Yuqing Palace walks and dotes on his peers, which is unparalleled. " Wang Qingqi's knowledge should be good, because it is enough to show that he can enter the learning place of Emperor Tongzhi in Hongdetang as an academician. He is beautiful and elegant, and is good at flattery. For inexperienced Tongzhi emperors, there are many temptations. Under his guidance, Emperor Tongzhi actually slept with Wang Qingqi and maintained an extremely ambiguous relationship.
Cixi was very worried when she learned that Emperor Tongzhi was ill with fever and rash. After a night's observation, the next day, Emperor Tongzhi began to have obvious rash symptoms: "rash exposure, mixed with epidemic pox" and "particle exposure". From this, the physician judged that Emperor Tongzhi was infected with smallpox.
Cixi did not dare to neglect, while ordering the physician to make a full diagnosis and treatment, she carefully followed the rules handed down by her ancestors, for fear of negligence and mistakes, which was not conducive to her son's smallpox survival.
First of all, supply the acne god. Cixi ordered the Empress Dowager Acne, who had been worshipped by Emperor Tongzhi since she became ill, to be invited to hall of mental cultivation. The palace is covered with red carpets and couplets, creating a jubilant atmosphere, expecting the goddess of acne to restore the smallpox sown earlier. Three days later, a grand ceremony was held outside the door to welcome the goddess of acne in Daqing. The dragon boat tied with paper, gold, silver, jade and silk was set on fire, which made the Qite girl ascend to heaven in the soaring flame, hoping to take away the chicken pox and tide over the disaster safely.
Secondly, pray for ancestors and gods. I went to Jingshan Shouhuang Hall with Cixi Ci 'an, which is dedicated to ancestors. Since the Qianlong period, it has been designated as a special hall of "Imperial Palace", praying for the protection of ancestors and gods and the safety of sons.
Since then, Emperor Tongzhi has been suffering from acne, and began to close the pulp and scab off. It seems that everything is developing in the direction that Cixi expected. However, after165438+1October 20th, Emperor Tongzhi's condition suddenly deteriorated, and he began to develop toxic sores, and his waist festered like a hole, with constant pus, pain, swollen cheeks and bad breath. "Wet toxic waist, abscess fester. After acne, the residual poison is wet. " After that, although the acne scab fell off, and the waist was perforated, the left and right hips were perforated
On December 5th, 13th year of Tongzhi, Emperor Tongzhi died in Dongnuange, hall of mental cultivation. Cixi's mother lost her son.
In the feudal society of China, according to the status and position of Cixi, it should be slightly inferior to Ci 'an, and it will also be reflected in the provisions of the mausoleum, so as to reflect the grade difference. However, in view of the special status of Cixi, the mausoleum originally designed is no less than Ci 'an in terms of regulation and quality, and she should have been very satisfied. But Cixi was not satisfied. Her inflated arrogance and uncontrollable greed made her unwilling to compare with Ci 'an. Since the choice of burial place must be subordinate to Ci 'an, it is necessary to surpass Ci 'an in the construction and decoration of the mausoleum to show her uniqueness.
Ciling's reconstruction project lasted for thirteen years until her death. The rebuilt Long 'en Hall and Dongxi Hall, with their expensive building materials, exquisite workmanship and luxurious decoration, ranked first in the Qing Dynasty's queen's tomb. Even compared with the imperial tombs of the Qing Dynasty, some imperial tombs are not as good as hers. The luxury of her funerary objects is also jaw-dropping and breathtaking. Cixi's funerary objects are divided into two parts: the treasure placed in the golden well in the tomb before his death and the treasure buried with him.
According to the records in The Chronicle of Empress Dahan's Ascension, the archives of the Qing Palace, Cixi put six batches of treasures into Jinjing before her death. How much treasure did they bury with them? His confidant eunuch Li personally attended the burial ceremony of Cixi's coffin. According to "Notes on Love Moon Xuan" written by him and his nephew in 2006, before Cixi's body entered the coffin, there were three layers of gold beaded brocade mattress and one layer of pearls at the bottom of the coffin, with a total thickness of one foot. The first part of the head is a emerald lotus leaf; Put the pink tourmaline lotus at your feet. Wearing a crown bead, the largest pearl on the crown is as big as an egg, and its value is100000 silver. There are twenty-seven Buddha statues carved with gold, precious stones, jade and emeralds.
On both sides are jade watermelons, melons and cabbages, and there are more than 200 peaches, plums, apricots and dates made of precious stones. Put a Yu Lian on the left and a jade coral tree on the right. In addition, there are eight jade horses and eighteen jade arhats, totaling more than 700 pieces. After the burial, four liters of pearls and two thousand two hundred precious stones were poured into the coffin. According to the book of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the number and types of jewels and jades buried in the coffin are extremely amazing, almost the complete works of jewels and jades.
Nineteen years after her death, the warlord Sun Dianying shelled her "Yongle Land", which not only exposed and humiliated her bones, but also robbed all the buried treasures. The "Lafayette" who enjoyed the splendor of the world left only a lonely wasteland for future generations to comment on.
As a woman, Cixi is both
Fortunately, she got a position that was hard for women to get at that time. Cixi is not from a noble family, but from a hairpin and a bell. She is only the daughter of an intermediate standard bearer. How different would her fate be from that of thousands of ordinary girls in Qian Qian, Qian Qian, if she hadn't entered the Forbidden City at the age of seventeen with a chance of a draft, and thus established a political platform against Gan Kun? Cixi rose step by step, from nobility to concubines, and was lucky enough to give birth to the only prince of Xianfeng Emperor, so that she was promoted to princess and imperial concubine until Empress Dowager Cixi took this opportunity to "listen to politics" for 47 years.
Cixi was unlucky again. Her misfortune is that as a wife and mother, she lost her husband when she was young and her son when she was middle-aged. Although she has the supreme power, so that countless princes and ministers fall at their feet, she can't get the love of men and women that an ordinary woman can get, and she can't get the happiness of her children and grandchildren that a normal mother has. It is hard for us to imagine how she spent long days and nights alone in the forbidden palace surrounded by high palace walls.
During the Xianfeng period, there was a beautiful princess who was also a minor celebrity in unofficial history. In the interpretation of various TV dramas, she and Empress Dowager Cixi, who is more famous than her in the future, are often regarded as representatives of love and hate. As long as they appear at the same time, they are a pair of enemies. Even described the death as the Empress Dowager Cixi followed the example of the Han Dynasty in persecuting Mrs. Qi, cutting off her hands and feet and putting them in a jar to persecute her to death. What is the real Li Fei like in history? Is it like what is depicted in the real film and television drama?
According to historical records and archives of Qing Dynasty, Emperor Xianfeng had 19 empresses, and Li Fei was one of them. She is the daughter of Qing Hai, born on February 27th, 17th year of Daoguang. She is 6 years younger than Emperor Xianfeng, 2 years younger than Cixi and the same age as Ci 'an. After his death, he was posthumously sealed twice, namely Li He and Princess Zhuang Jing.
According to legend, in the first year of Xianfeng, Li Fei and Nora were selected together and made nobles. The princess is outstanding in beauty and won the favor of Emperor Xianfeng. In the fourth year of Xianfeng, Li Gui Ren became pregnant and named her Li's wife, while Lan Guiren's wife Nora was Iraq's wife. Judging from the time recorded in Wife Sealing Ceremony, Li's wife sealing ceremony was nearly one month later than Yi's. There is no explanation in historical materials, which is still unknown. On the seventh day of May in the fifth year of Xianfeng, CoCo Lee gave birth to the eldest daughter of Emperor Xianfeng. Three days later, she was promoted to a beautiful princess and held a grand ceremony to seal the princess. On March 23rd, the sixth year of Xianfeng, the married wife and concubine gave birth to the eldest son of the emperor, the later Tongzhi Emperor Zai Chun, and was promoted to Yifei on the same day. The two men were promoted almost in tandem, and finally they were equal.
But as a concubine of the harem, it is inevitable to compete for favor. Li He Yifei is the emperor's concubine. In order to compete with each other, there are bound to be contradictions between them. The extent of this contradiction is unknown. According to historical records, when Lan Guiren Nara and Li Gui Tata were promoted to "Yi's wife" and "Li's wife", Wan's wife was also promoted. In other words, the struggle for family ties will be more than just a struggle between these two people. However, from some indications, Li Fei is in the lead. First, she was pregnant before other concubines, and she was the first of these concubines to be promoted to concubine; In addition, Yi's wife has been living far away, and Xianfeng only brought her roommates who lived in the back camp of Xianfu Palace. In this way, Xianfeng loved Li Fei more than other concubines at that time. However, God does not always care for a person. When Li Fei gave birth to her daughter, Yifei was pregnant, but she gave birth to the emperor's eldest son, and her mother was more expensive than her son. After several rounds, Li Fei and Yifei only tied, and there was no disparity in their identities.
In the seventh year of Xianfeng, Yi Fei Nala's family was promoted to G.
At this point, Li Fei was sickly and had no threat to Yi Guifei. Ye He Na Laplace regarded her as a thorn in the side.
On November 15th, 16th year of Guangxu reign, Li Fei died at the age of 54, and was buried in the Princess Garden of Dingling, Dongling, Qing Dynasty. Emperor Guangxu personally worshipped and investigated. There are 15 Baoding in the backyard of this palace, which are divided into three rows. Princess Li's treasure top is in the middle of the first row, which is the most distinguished position in this garden. It seems that Cixi is still good to her. In addition, Li Fei, the eldest daughter of Emperor Xianfeng, was also deeply loved by the Empress Dowager. Cixi named her "Princess Rong 'an Gulun". You should know that the daughter born to concubines can only be called Princess Heshuo, and the daughter born to the Queen can only be called Princess Glen. This shows that Cixi is not thin about beautiful concubines and daughters. There is no more reliable evidence about the legend that Li Fei was victimized by Cixi in unofficial history, so Li Fei continues to attract people's attention.