In feudal society, successive emperors have attached great importance to the problem of heirs and descendants, because the feudal dynasty is the family world, except for the special period of imperial change, the inheritance of the imperial throne is generally the succession of fathers and sons, so most emperors in order to ensure that their throne is inherited, they are concubines and have more children.
The Xianfeng Emperor was the ninth emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the last emperor in China to have actual ruling power, he had 18 wives and concubines in his lifetime, but at the time of his death he had only one son, the later Tongzhi Emperor Zaichun, why was the Xianfeng heir as emperor so thin?
The Xianfeng Emperor's name was Yixuan, the fourth son of the Daoguang Emperor, who ascended the throne in the thirtieth year of Daoguang (1850) and changed the name of the country to Xianfeng the following year. His reign was one of the most complicated years in Chinese history, externally, the Qing Dynasty's closed country was opened by the cannons of the great powers, and the Western powers invaded China; internally, the Taiping Rebellion broke out. In the face of internal and external difficulties, although Xianfeng intended to rule, but in the face of the complicated situation in the late Qing Dynasty, it was also a lack of skill, after the Gengshen Rebellion, the Anglo-French coalition army attacked Beijing, Xianfeng fled to Rehe, and in 1861 died of illness at the Chengde Mountain Resort, yanbo Zhishuangdian died of illness at the age of 31, reigning for 11 years, succeeded by his only son Zaichun.
In fact, Xianfeng had two sons and a daughter in his lifetime, namely the eldest daughter, Princess Rong'an Gulun, born to Concubine Li, the eldest son of the Emperor Zaichun, the birth mother Yifei, who was later the famous Empress Dowager Cixi, and the second son of the Emperor, The King of Mercy County, but this child died after birth, and did not even have a name. Therefore, Xianfeng had only one son when he died.
Xianfeng was not infertile, and there were so many concubines, it was reasonable to say that there should be many heirs, but the Xianfeng Emperor was weak and sick all his life, congenital deficiencies and acquired vices, resulting in his thin heirs, and finally died young.
The Daoguang Emperor had nine sons, but the first three died relatively early, so Yixuan was his eldest son before Daoguang died of illness. According to legend, when YiXuan's mother, Empress Xiao Quancheng (then Quan Guifei), was pregnant, Concubine Xiang (the biological mother of the fifth son of the Emperor) was also pregnant, and the expected date of delivery was even earlier than that of Empress Xiao Quancheng, at this time the son of the Daoguang Emperor died early, and whoever had a child, if it was a male, would be the de facto eldest son. In order to add a chip to her son's ascension to the throne, Empress Xiao Quancheng forced Tai to use medicine to induce labor, and eventually she gave birth to her son a few days earlier than Concubine Xiang. So Xian Feng became a premature baby, so it is not surprising that he was born insufficient and his fertility was low.
In addition to the reasons for congenital deficiency, Xianfeng himself also has many bad living habits. He coveted beauty, even if he fled to chengde to escape the summer mountain, he often took his concubines to parade in the garden, leaving the national events behind and placing his love on sound. Legend has it that there was a widow in Shanxi, who was very beautiful, "beautiful and beautiful, and her feet were very small", xianfeng heard about it and summoned her to the palace, and she loved her the most. The emperor, who liked women so much, ended up having only one son, which showed that it was indeed a problem of his body.
Salty and greedy, and the amount of alcohol is not good, as soon as you drink, you are drunk, the wine is not bad, and when you are drunk, you play drunk. After getting drunk, he often beat and scolded the palace eunuchs. A person who is born with insufficient, every day is hollowed out by wine, for a long time, the body will not collapse is strange.
During Xianfeng's reign, opium was introduced to China in large quantities, and Soon after Xianfeng took the throne, he began to smoke opium, and also called opium "Yishou Ruyi Paste". Everyone knows the harm of opium, not only damage people's physical health, but also destroy people's will, Xianfeng often smoked opium to anesthetize himself when he was in Rehe, and finally died.
Xianfeng, who was born with insufficient wine and opium, made his ability to produce offspring low, and the medical level at that time was poor, resulting in the death of the King of Mercy County, and in the end, it was understandable that the Xianfeng Emperor had only one son.