History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
The two sisters have appeared many times in the history of the Qing Dynasty, such as the concubines and concubines of the Imperial Taiji Harem, the Concubines and Concubines of the Qianlong Harem, the Concubines and Concubines of the Guangxu Harem, and even four pairs of sister flowers in the Kangxi Harem. Today, I want to talk about a pair of sisters in the Shunzhi harem, the sister has been the empress dowager for 56 years, and the younger sister has been alone in the empty house for 52 years, they are Empress Xiaohuizhang and Shuhuifei.
In fact, the entry of Empress Xiaohuizhang and Concubine Shuhui into the palace has a certain degree of accident, which has a lot to do with the only post-abolition incident in the history of the Qing Dynasty.
It is said that Empress Xiaozhuang had four brothers, the eldest named Wu Keshan, the second named Chahan, the third named Sonomu, and the fourth named Manzhu Xili. In the year of Shunzhi's pro-government, Empress Xiaozhuang married the daughter of her eldest brother Wu Keshan to her son Shunzhi, who knew that shunzhi and borjigit were at odds after marriage, and only two years later, Shunzhi deposed the Borjigit clan.
As a result, the Shunzhi Middle Palace was suspended.
Judging from the national situation at that time, the Qing court was unstable in the Central Plains and still needed the support of the Mongol tribes, plus Empress Xiaozhuang sat in the harem, so the next empress of Shunzhi still had to come from the Mongolian Horqin Department. Therefore, Empress Xiaozhuang selected a pair of sisters from her mother's family, these sisters were the granddaughters of Empress Xiaozhuang's second brother Chahan, that is, the nieces of Empress Xiaozhuang and the cousins of Shunzhi after the abolition of Shunzhi, and these sisters were sent to the Qing Imperial Palace in May of the eleventh year of Shunzhi, and were initially named as concubines.
After only a month, the older of the sisters was made empress, she was Empress Xiaohuizhang, and her younger sister was Shuhuifei.
However, Shunzhi had no interest in the Mongol empress dowager at all, and was bent on favoring Concubine Dong E, and even after deposing her again, he made Dong Efei empress, and this matter was only terminated under the opposition of Empress Xiaozhuang and Concubine Dong herself. However, Empress Xiaohuizhang and The Sisters of Concubine Shuhui were just decorations of the harem, and they had no chance to sleep at all, so how could they give birth to children for the emperor?
Soon after, a series of tremors occurred in the harem of the Qing Dynasty, first the death of the fourth son of the emperor, who was called "the first son of Shunzhi", then the death of Concubine Dong'exiang of the sixth palace, and finally the death of the 24-year-old Shunzhi Emperor who contracted smallpox. Shunzhi's death completely changed the fate of the Hyo hye sisters, and their identities changed immediately, with Empress Hyohye being honored as empress dowager and Princess Shuhui being called princess consort.
However, what is rare is that during the decades of Kangxi's reign, Empress Xiaohui's sisters have been very healthy, and Empress Xiaohui has been the empress dowager for 56 years, and died of illness in Kangxi's fifty-six years, and Princess Shuhui stayed alone in the empty house for 52 years, and died in the fifty-second year of Kangxi.
These two sisters can be said to be people with high life, if there is anything unsatisfactory, that is, they cannot have a beautiful love, nor can they have their own children, which is the biggest regret for a woman.
Moreover, the sisters were also buried together after their deaths, and after Empress Xiaohui's death, she was buried in Shunzhi Xiaodongling, in addition to Empress Xiaohui, Xiaodongling also buried 29 concubines of Shunzhi, including Shuhuifei.