At the emperor's wedding, the "big gift" is to send a lot of things. These things fall into two categories: one is displayed in the Long Ting, which is a gift for the Queen. Temporarily stored in the bride's family, and then transported back to the palace when the queen enters the dowry. For the queen's parents and brothers, put them on the color stalls and call them "gifts". For the Queen's House, you can stay at the Queen's House. The emperor is not stupid. There are many more things for the queen than for her parents, such as two thousand yuan for the queen and five thousand two hundred gold for her parents-in-law. Due to certain etiquette, the emperor can't be present when giving the bride price, so he has to appoint an envoy, that is, "making a big levy as an envoy" and "assisting an envoy". The queen's father will kneel and obey orders.
After the wedding ceremony, the emperor will show his imperial power and must hold a memorial ceremony before he can marry the queen. Change the queen from an ordinary woman into a matriarchal world, so that she can get married when her status changes. Then the emperor will send envoys to confer the title of queen and marry her. Before sending envoys, just as a folk groom wants to marry a bride, he must say hello to his parents first.
In the palace, the emperor will report to the queen mother, and there will be some ceremonies. Emperor Guangxu went to Cining Palace to salute Cixi and told her that I would send envoys, canonize and marry the bride. Later, Guangxu went to the Hall of Supreme Harmony and personally appointed envoys to receive the Queen.
During the period of "Nacai" and "Zheng Da", the emperor did not appear. From the moment of canonization, the emperor appeared. Before the wedding, those envoys were not allowed to pass through the Taihe Gate and the Wumen Gate when they left the Forbidden City. They can only go out from the side door to the Queen's house to hold a ceremony to receive gifts.
Now it has entered the most critical etiquette procedure, and the emperor has appeared in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. These appointed ambassadors will come out from Taihe Gate and Wumen Gate and take the most important passage to the Queen's house to pursue the seal. The queen's sedan chair is called "Yufeng Yinhu Net Exposed by Financial Mirror" and is ready to go in front of Jinshui Bridge.
In the ritual procedure, from conferring, saluting to closing, there are also crossing braziers, saddles and "sitting accounts", but they are relatively small customs.
Admit that the ambassador is welcome to the queen's house, and give it to the queen first. They took the queen's gold seal and books to the queen's home. Give these things to the queen's father first, and then the eunuch will go to the queen's Xifu and give the golden book and seal to the queen. The gold seal is very heavy, made of 503 taels of gold. She thought it marked the end of the ceremony.
In Cixi's view, these contents are all royal secrets, and it is impossible for everyone to know, so the queen has not been seen for the whole wedding year.
The queen's seal is called "the queen's treasure". It is a seal script for Chinese characters and also a seal script for Manchu. After the Queen received the "Queen's Treasure" and the Queen's Gold Book, the conferring ceremony was completed. Then he married her in the palace.
Nowadays, people have never heard of picking up the bride at night when they get married, but in traditional customs, they pick up the bride at midnight. As we all know, there is no word "female" before marriage, which means "fainting" at dusk. Actually, it means night. This custom is still popular in some places in the south. It was not until the Tang Dynasty that people found it inconvenient in such a dark day, so they began to change customs and get married in the morning until the Ming Dynasty. However, as a dynasty ruled by the Qing Dynasty, he felt that some etiquette must be retro and respect the most traditional content of China to show the legitimacy of his regime. So it's midnight.
When to marry the queen. The queen got into the sedan chair, and it was already midnight.
When we were doing an exhibition,
The queen got into a sedan chair at the bride's house. It's already midnight. Like a folk bride, you must wear a headscarf on your head. In traditional weddings, the bride must avoid "three evils", such as green cows and black chickens, so she can't show up directly.
The queen's dress is red, called "Dragon and Phoenix robe", and there is a happy word in the middle, with a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other. This mode was only used when the emperor got married. In the wedding ceremony of the Qing emperor, this pattern was used for bedding, bedspreads and curtains in the bridal chamber of Kunning Palace.