In feudal societies where imperial power is supreme, emperors are often able to have absolute privileges, can do things according to their own preferences to the greatest extent, and even in order to satisfy their hobbies, they do not mind raising some capable people to meet their preferences.
Since the emperor can do this, not to mention the woman who once overridden the imperial power, Empress Dowager Cixi.
First, the most powerful woman in the late Qing Dynasty
Empress Dowager Cixi's great celebrities are well known.
After the death of the Xianfeng Emperor, Cixi began to bow to the government, holding more than half of the power of the late Qing government.
Originally, she was only the lord of the harem, but once she tasted the taste of power, she had an extreme desire for power, and in order to be able to monopolize power, she did not hesitate to kill the eight ministers appointed by Xianfeng.
Whether it was the Tongzhi Emperor or the Guangxu Emperor, for Cixi, she was just a puppet who gave orders on her behalf, and at that time, Empress Dowager Cixi's will was more powerful than the emperor's holy will.
Later, Cixi, who held great power, gradually lost in various royal privileges, and her heart no longer had stories of serving the country and the people, but instead thought about how to cultivate and treat the best and how to meet her unique preferences.
As the de facto ruler of the late Qing Dynasty, in the special period when the country was in turmoil, she did not do her best to think about how to resist the great powers to defend her family and defend the country, but instead searched for new things every day and forced the harem people to play with her.
It is said that Cixi had many hobbies, and for this reason she also raised many strange people in the imperial palace, each of whom had unique skills.
For example, in terms of eating and drinking on weekdays, in order to show her status and honor, Cixi asked the imperial dining room of the harem for each meal to choose more than 100 dishes from the manchu and Han chinese table for her to enjoy.
These dishes not only require color, aroma and taste, but also have to be done in a different pattern every day, and cannot be repeated.
If these are just these requirements, perhaps for the chefs in the imperial dining room, it is just a large workload, and it is not particularly difficult to complete.
But even more excessively, Cixi also demanded that every meal should have a new dish that had never been tasted before.
In order to be able to satisfy her daily desire to taste the early, Empress Dowager Cixi recruited a large number of local chefs in the private network and recruited them into the imperial dining room.
If Cixi's penchant for dining can only be said to satisfy her appetite, then her penchant for calligraphy and painting, as well as the strange people she has raised, can only be said to be for her face.
II. Cixi's Three "Strange Men"
Legend has it that Empress Dowager Cixi was obsessed with calligraphy and painting all her life, but her own level of calligraphy and painting was somewhat unbearable.
Although she also practiced from time to time on weekdays, no matter what kind of master guidance, it could not improve her level by half a point.
As the most powerful woman in the late Qing Dynasty, whether in diplomacy with the great powers or in the daily life with the ministers, there were countless occasions when she needed her signature inscription.
In addition, there were not a few people who knew that she liked calligraphy and painting, and there were often ministers who begged her for ink treasures.
Forced to be helpless, Cixi thought of a way, she simply raised some calligraphy and painting strangers in the palace as her gunners.
Among the many calligraphers and painters raised by Cixi, three of them are the most famous, they are Qu Zhaolin, Miao Sujun and Ruan Yufen.
Qu Zhaolin is good at calligraphy, the pen is strong and powerful, neat and tidy, and the flowers and birds he paints are also extremely expressive, and he is Cixi's favorite calligraphy and painting stranger; Miao Sujun is good at painting various flowers and feathers, and the vivid images of his paintings are extremely realistic; Ruan Yufen is good at painting flowers, birds, fish and insects, the paintings are meticulous and lifelike, and the classic works are enough to reach the point of being fake and real.
These three strange people can be described as three heavy treasures that Cixi attaches great importance to, and whenever there is a need to sign, inscription, and reward others with ink treasure calligraphy and painting, Cixi will always find the three of them and let the three of them paint and write at the same time according to Cixi's requirements.
After that, Cixi then chose the one she liked the most from the works of the three of them according to her own preferences, and then stamped her own seal and rewarded it to others.
Although they could not put their own names on their own works, Cixi gave them extremely generous treatment, not only did everyone give officials and knighthoods, but also gave a lot of feng lu every month.
However, everything has advantages and disadvantages, and these three strange people can not only paint according to Cixi's preferences, Cixi has established three special rules for them.
Third, the three major rules that stifle creativity
A person who is good at calligraphy and painting, although the style of the work will occasionally change according to the author's different moods, the change in style is often not particularly large.
In order to avoid others seeing that he was looking for a gunman to paint for him, Cixi set three special rules for these calligraphy and painting strangers, and for these three rules, they must also abide by them.
The first rule, Cixi, asked them not to be indulgent when painting; the second rule, Cixi, asked them not to be arbitrary when painting; the third rule, Cixi asked them not to be innovative when painting and calligraphy.
Although these rules seem to be three different rules, they all express the same meaning, that is, to warn these three people that the style of calligraphy and painting should not change too much.
As we all know, if a calligrapher and painter wants to make his achievements further, he will definitely try different styles to improve himself, and cixi's rule undoubtedly limits the improvement space of the three of them.
However, although the three of them were dissatisfied, they could only compromise because of Cixi's position, and they willingly acted as Cixi's gunman.
It was not until the qing government was broken that the three of them were able to paint according to their own wishes, but after all, they were restricted by Cixi for a long time, and their life after leaving the palace was not satisfactory.