With the fire of Qing Palace dramas in recent years, people know more and more about the women behind Kang Yongqian's prosperity, and they are more curious about how the concubines in Bauhinia City lived hundreds of years ago, and even the people who did not know much about history also knew the names of Kangxi's brothers through these dramas, sighing at the cruelty of the nine sons and wives.
From the biography of Zhen Huan in previous years, to the recent Yanxi Raiders, and then to the Ruyi Transmission, people relish watching the concubines stir up trouble in the harem, fighting with each other, often there are concubines accidentally killed in small births, young sons are accidentally killed and die early, even if they are lucky to grow up, they may become victims in the process of competing for the throne, but this is all a later story, the premise is that they live past the age of fifteen.
When the son of Concubine Dong of the Shunzhi Emperor was born, Shunzhi was extremely happy and pardoned the world, but unexpectedly died within a few months, that is, on the twenty-fourth day of the first month of the following year, and was posthumously crowned Prince Rong, and the funeral was overstepping, and Shunzhi personally wrote an epitaph for his son.
The first four sons of Kangxi all died before the age of three, because of the inordinate teeth of the young, so the eldest son of the emperor that we often see in the TV series is the eldest brother Ai Xinjue Luo Yinzhen, the eleven sons after Kangxi have not grown up, and the first three sons and eldest daughters of Yongzheng also died prematurely.
The two sons born to The Qianlong Emperor's "White Moonlight" Empress Xiaoxianchun did not grow up, the second brother Yonglian and the seventh brother Yongzhen, and it is a pity that the Qianlong Emperor secretly ordered Crown Prince Yonglian to make Yongjun the crown prince after the Zhengda Guangming Plaque in the Qianqing Palace, and qianlong's concubines all died prematurely.
Jiaqing's eldest son and eldest daughter did not live to be three years old, Daoguang also had five children who died early, and Xianfeng also had a son who died young.
According to incomplete statistics, in the 274 years since entering the customs from Shunzhi to Xuantong, there have been more than 200 concubines with titles living in the Forbidden City, except for the last three people of Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Xuantong, who have no heirs, the other emperors have more than 100 children, of which nearly half died at the age of fifteen.
Royal children, born into the royal family, should have the best medical level and the best nutritional conditions, why do most of them die early?
Reading the Qing history manuscript, you will find that the Qing Dynasty royal family married prematurely, they became husbands and fathers at the age of thirteen or fourteen, wives and mothers, thirteen or fourteen years old, in fact, the physical development is not very complete, and the children conceived are also congenitally underdeveloped, which leads to their first few children dying early.
In the eighth year of Shunzhi, the fourteen-year-old Shunzhi Emperor married Xiaozhuang's niece his own cousin Borjigit as empress, and the big marriage was in August, and the pen Shihe who had one son and two daughters for Shunzhi was pinched Fujin, and the first birth was indeed in November of the eighth year, that is to say, Shunzhi was fourteen years old or maybe thirteen years old, although the eldest of these sons and daughters was only six years old.
At the age of twelve, Kangxi and Empress Xiaochengren completed a great marriage, and in the sixth year of Kangxi, that is, when he was fourteen years old, he had his first son.
Later emperors were all married when they were still emperors, and they were all married for them when the previous emperor was in power, so they were not as anxious as their ancestors, so very early, but generally between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, which was a normal marriageable age at that time.
There may be two reasons why the emperors of the early Qing Dynasty got married prematurely.
First, in order to pro-government as soon as possible, during the Qing Dynasty, only the emperor could pro-government after the big marriage;
Second, in order to stabilize the situation and stabilize his own position, if the emperor has no heirs, someone will always say something behind his back.
The marriage age stipulated by the government of the Qing Dynasty is the traditional rule since the inheritance of the Tang Dynasty, the man is sixteen years old, the woman is fourteen years old, it reaches the legal age of marriage in the country, you can listen to the fate of the parents, the word of the concubine, this provision is already very early for modern people, because in the Qing Dynasty, the population was not so much, the mortality rate of newborns at that time was high, the rulers wanted the population to increase, and the increase in population could also make the country strong. Therefore, the state introduced such a policy to encourage early marriage and early childbearing, and the emperor, as a feudal ruler, could not comply with it, and they could also marry a few years earlier.
At the age of twelve or thirteen, their own physical development is not complete, their physical function is not very good, giving birth to children is likely to be born insufficient, defects will be many, no matter how good the medical level, no matter how good the careful care can not leave them in the world, it is no wonder that the first few children of the royal family are either weak or die early.
Moreover, in order to stabilize their political position, the Qing Dynasty royal family mostly married close relatives, such as Shunzhi who married his cousin Empress Xiaozhuang's niece, Nalan Rongruo's first love, that is, Kangxi's cousin, was also included in the harem, such examples abounded at that time, whether it was the empress, the empress, or other concubines' matriarchal clan always had to go to the palace, and the marriage of close relatives was a very common phenomenon at that time.
Moreover, not only the royal family, within the Eight Banners, other families are also close relatives, which leads to the family's descendants of the children are getting weaker and weaker, in the modern medical view, close relatives are not suitable for marriage, which will make the probability of the outbreak of diseases carried in the genes increase, and the medical level at that time was not so advanced, they did not know the reason for the marriage of close relatives, and has continued this tradition.
And those palace fight plots in modern TV dramas, most of the concubines at that time must not have dared, because plotting to kill the imperial heir is a major crime of raiding the family and exterminating the clan, and it should be punished with capital punishment, once discovered, not only one person's life can be offset, but it affects the relatives, they dare not gamble on the fate of their own family to risk, these concubines, this is the family sent into the palace to stabilize their own position, if they are favored, they can win glory for the family, if they are fortunate enough to have children, they have to rely on, if they do not wait for favor, There can only spend a lifetime in peace and security in the harem, the imperial heir is so golden, how dare the concubine easily do it.
At that time, many small diseases could take the life of the prince, such as the son of Concubine Dong and the seven princes of Empress Fucha, who died of smallpox, that is, today's chicken pox, in today's view, this is just a small disease, but at that time, it was also fatal, there should also be many imperial heirs, but because of very small diseases and early death, which is closely related to their innate inadequacies, and those imperial heirs who died in the Palace Fight in the Qing Palace Drama, most of them were just fateful in the history, and did not complain about others.
Text: Rumors
References: Zhao Ersun's "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" 1927, Li Yin's "Shi Shu Qing Harem" 2010?, Li Minglin's "Emperor Taiji: The Founding Hero / Qing Taizong" 2010
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author