Li Yu mentioned in "Huan Xi Sha": The beauty dances a little gold and sneaks, and when the wine is evil, it is necessary to pick flowers and sniff. The meaning of this sentence is that the emperor's harem has countless beauties, and there are also some beauties who walk unsteadily when they get up in the morning, it is estimated that it was caused by drinking a lot of wine last night, and the harem beauties often picked a gorgeous flower and put it in front of the nose to sniff it, so as to make themselves more awake, and the figure of the bed-snuggling flower looks really beautiful.
In the life of the emperor, in addition to the countless beauties in the harem, there are many details that are a kind of life scene that the ancient people are extremely envious of. However, during the Qing Dynasty, a phrase often spoken by the princes and nobles was that the ancestral family law was mentioned. However, in addition to the many requirements in the details of life, the ancestral family law also has a lot of content in the content of governing the country, so the rulers of the Qing Dynasty often took the laws of the ancestors to heart.
But if the angle is small, in terms of the emperor's diet and living, then what role does the laws of the ancestors play? The emperor of the Qing Dynasty needed to test the poison before eating, which was also one of the rules left by the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty. Since 1636, every emperor of the Qing Dynasty has been very particular about feasting according to the ancestral family law when eating. For example, each meal will be prepared in a different dish, a total of 100 dishes.
Although it is one thing for the emperor to eat or not to eat, the daily work of the imperial dining room is like this, paying attention to the royal majesty, starting from every aspect of the details of life, so every 100 dishes must be completed in time, and in order to be able to maintain a better taste and stand room, there will be a special cubicle to provide a small fire to slowly keep these dishes warm.
However, due to the clear provisions in the old ancestral family law, the emperor should use silver needles to test the poison when eating, and then let the personal eunuch test the poison, this series of processes went down, and finally the dishes could enter the emperor's mouth. However, due to the complicated process, even if there is a small fire in the imperial dining room to keep the dishes warm, there is no way to ensure that each dish is just right under a long delay. Especially in winter, the temperature in Beijing becomes even lower, and the heat preservation can no longer maintain the temperature of the dish.
Therefore, in the early Qing Dynasty, the emperor personally went to the imperial dining room to eat, so as to ensure the temperature of the meal. However, with the development of the times, some Qing emperors were no longer willing to go to the imperial dining room to eat, and would pass on the dishes of the imperial dining room to where they wanted to go. However, when the dishes were already cold when they could eat them, the emperor was not willing to go to the imperial dining room to eat without changing the rules of the ancestors, so he could only eat cold rice and cold dishes.
In 1722, the Yongzheng Emperor ascended the throne, and after the Yongzheng Emperor ascended the throne, many concubines in the harem would personally go down to the kitchen to cook and send them to the emperor to show their cooking skills. Then this habit slowly landed on the ground, so from the Yongzheng Emperor onwards, there would be many concubines in the harem who insisted on using their own small stoves. Because the harem ladies are more careful and purposeful than the chefs of the imperial dining room, they will find ways to make new tricks to please the emperor, so the temperature problem of the dishes will be solved at this time.
In August 1871, the Guangxu Emperor ascended the throne. However, in the era of the Guangxu Emperor, when the harem concubines went to the kitchen to cook, it had become a common phenomenon in the harem. The Guangxu Emperor was an emperor who often ate concubines to cook, and in addition to the concubines' fondness to cook for the Guangxu Emperor, Empress Dowager Cixi often ordered people to give the Guangxu Emperor some food.
Therefore, later folklore said that Empress Dowager Cixi added some poison to the meal sent to the Guangxu Emperor, which led to the early death of the Guangxu Emperor. In fact, a large part of the reason is because the later Qing Dynasty harem slowly established a small stove, although slowly reduced the problem of cold dishes, but also less than a lot of harsh drug test links, which led to many emperors in a dangerous environment, the Guangxu Emperor is the best example.