Jade cabbage is not a dish, it is the treasure of Taipei's 'National Palace Museum'' and is carved from jade.
Since its introduction to the Qing Dynasty court, Yunnan green jade has been deeply loved by the upper-class officials and nobles, and some jade masters have delicately interpreted Chinese culture on a small piece of green jade, especially in the late Qing Dynasty.
In ten polls in Taipei, jade cabbage ranked first among the "10 national treasures", and its value is immeasurable.
In folklore, jade cabbage is even more mysterious and legendary. It occurred under the great changes of the late Qing Dynasty, and was related to the palace disputes at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the death of Guangxu's favorite concubine. It also attracted the attention of many people.
This jade cabbage is 18.7 cm long, 9.1 cm wide and 5.07 cm high. Small national treasure, but the price is immeasurable.
Everyone who sees this exquisite jade cabbage will marvel at the carving skills of Chinese craftsmen and praise the profundity of Chinese culture. Emerald cabbage is not only one of the cultural relics that mainlanders must visit to reach Taipei, but it has even gone abroad and set off a frenzy in Japan.
Pictured above is the last day of its exhibition in Japan, and the rain still can't stop people's enthusiasm. It can be seen that it is widely welcomed in both China and the world.
Now, let's uncover the three protagonists of this court drama.
The first, Empress Dowager Cixi.
This woman is not unfamiliar to us, if her palace fighting strength appears in "The Biography of Zhen Huan", it should be comparable to Zhen Huan, not necessarily who becomes the ultimate boss, she is also high in the peak level that women can mix in Chinese history in the past thousand years. Cixi not only intervened in the harem, but also inserted her hand into the court.
Behind Cixi's expansion of power is a man, that is, the Xianfeng Emperor.
After the death of the Xianfeng Emperor, he gave power to the two empresses, Cixi and Ci'an, supplemented by the eight ministers. However, Cixi soon removed Emperor Xianfeng's eight vassals with the help of Prince Gong Yi?. In the end, he unloaded and killed the donkey, and deposed Yi in the name of losing the Sino-French War. et al. However, Ci'an's personality was too soft and introverted, and he had no intention of ruling the government, and in the late period, the power of the government was basically decided by Cixi.
Since then, this woman has been in power and firmly controlled the court of the Qing Dynasty until her death. She turned the clouds and rained, the whole empire trembled under her hands, the two emperors before and after her were her puppets, and even so, there was a woman who actually stepped forward and challenged the authority of the most noble empress dowager of the Qing Dynasty. Who is this woman? And who gave her the power and guts?
When we think of her, we have to start with a well.
In the Forbidden City, there are many wells. But an inconspicuous well inside the Zhenshun Gate has become one of the must-see attractions for visitors to the Forbidden City today. That's right, this well is the 'Zhenfei Well''.
This person who dared to argue with Cixi was naturally Zhenfei.
ZhenFei, he Tara clan, a Manchurian with a red flag, Guangxu thirteen years and his sister together from Guangzhou to the north, to send a draft girl. She and her sister were elected at the same time as the Guangxu Emperor's election of empress, and her sister was Concubine Jin.
It is said that Guangxu fell in love with Princess Zhen at first sight and even wanted to give her the position of empress. However, Empress Dowager Cixi shouted loudly: ''Emperor! The involuntary emperor could only stop and give the empressship to Cixi's niece, later Empress Longyu.
The empress was plain-looking and a little hunched over, and Guangxu really didn't like this old sister. It is reasonable to say that how can a woman with a poor temperament become the empress of the mother's world, is not it a disgrace to the face of the Qing Dynasty?
There is no way, this matter is Cixi's decision, and the unworthy emperor can only promise. From the first day she appeared around, Empress Longyu had not received even a single favor from Guangxu.
But Zhenfei is completely different, the facial features are exquisite, not only good looks, because of her birth in Guangzhou, the atmosphere is civilized, and her personality is more lively and frank, which adds thousands of lights to the dark heart of the Guangxu Emperor. It can be said that the brightest day of the Guangxu Emperor's life was the time spent with Zhenfei.
This intelligent woman was wonderful at Hanmo and had been exposed to Western learning since she was a child. One day, she and the Guangxu Emperor were paired. Guangxu jokingly said: "'Zhenfei Apple Face'", Zhenfei immediately blurted out: ''Swiss Portugal''. After saying that, the two looked at each other and laughed. Such a warm love is rare in ordinary people, let alone in the emperor who is evenly wet with rain and dew.
But such love does happen to the lovers. But the love between the two is destined to become a tragedy.
Zhenfei is like a flower of interpretation, she understands tianzi's ambition to rejuvenate and her desire to change the law and maintain the unity of the country. He was very supportive of the Guangxu Emperor's new Ren Kang Youwei's move to carry out the restoration and change of the law, and even ran forward and backward, personally acting as a liaison.
At that time, the inward-looking forces were strong. On the surface, the government was returned to the emperor, but in fact, the powerful Empress Dowager Cixi was even more repulsive to the new law. When the diehards of the imperial court petitioned Empress Dowager Cixi for the abolition of the Guangxu Emperor, the reformists made a risky move, contacting the righteous people of the world, safeguarding the authority of the king, and wanted to act in advance, and after the garden was abolished, they took away Cixi.
However, these literati did not know clearly, none of them were good at calculation, and actually found Yuan Shikai, who had two sides and three knives--the front foot should be sent by Noweixin to support justice, and the back foot was informed to Cixi. Cixi was furious and staged a coup d'état.
It was also this coup that made this eighteen-year-old woman step by step to the end of her life, until she was buried in the well that later took her name.
After the Restoration faction was suppressed, Cixi ordered the emperor to be imprisoned, and even Zhenfei was imprisoned. During the period of captivity, the couple of the imperial family remained as loving as ever, and they lived through a difficult but happy period.
But the crisis came two years later. Under the oppression of the Westerners, Cixi always felt that these foreigners wanted to find something to take her down and restore Guangxu's rule, and she had a fever in her head, and even tried to use the Boxers to fight against foreign forces, and even more desperately declared war on the great powers at the same time.
When the Eight-Nation Alliance army reached the Forbidden City, Cixi hurriedly fled with the Guangxu Emperor, and before leaving the capital, she summoned Zhenfei, and the life of this flower girl was frozen at this time.
According to the palace people's recollection, Zhenfei first bowed to Cixi according to the ceremony. Cixi then thought that Princess Zhen was beautiful, fearing that she would be defiled by foreigners and lose her great Qing system, she ordered the emperor to avoid it, so that Princess Zhen would be allowed to cut herself off.
Princess Zhen could no longer hold back her anger, and said sarcastically: You can avoid it, you can leave the emperor to sit in the capital and maintain the overall situation.
These few words can be said to have poked the old lady's heart socket. What she is afraid of is that the emperor colludes with foreigners to regain the power of the big power, and you are not clearly satirizing her for setting up the emperor and interfering in the politics of the dynasty? Cixi immediately turned her face over and shouted loudly, saying that you are on the verge of death, and you dare to talk nonsense. Then he asked Cui Yugui and Wang Dehuai to push and drag together, pushing Zhenfei into the well inside the Zhenshun Gate.
At the last moment of death, Princess Zhen was still shouting loudly, Emperor, repay the favor in the next life!
Why did Empress Dowager Cixi have to use the chaos of the situation as an excuse to kill Zhenfei, most historians believe that Zhenfei's excessive interference in the affairs of the dynasty may be the main reason for touching Cixi's rebellious scales. Although Cixi has always controlled the government, she has actually always hated the emperor's iron and steel, and in her heart, she is actually unwilling to go against the norms, hoping that the emperor can provoke the girder.
For the zhen concubine who violated the ancestral precepts of "the harem must not interfere in politics", Cixi naturally did not have a good feeling, and what was even more hateful was that this woman was still behind her back to encourage the Guangxu Emperor to change the law and restore the new, seize her power, and even take her own old life, Cixi naturally could not tolerate Zhenfei.
When Guangxu received the news of Zhenfei's death, the grief in his heart undoubtedly increased. He quietly came to Zhenfei's bedchamber and took away an old tent that had once hung at the head of Zhenfei's bed. In the years that followed, he was often obsessed with this tent. I believe that at this time, the Guangxu Emperor and Li Longji "How to be the son of heaven in all seasons, it is not as good as the peasant family's worries" Are extremely similar in heart, and they are only willing to be an ordinary person and guard the side of the people they love.
The tragedy of the love between Zhenfei and Guangxu was created by the times. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was about to run out of qi, and the Guangxu Emperor was helpless to be at the mercy of the feudal forces, coupled with his hesitant and cowardly temperament, and eventually became a puppet, and even the beloved woman could not be saved.
May their next life no longer be victims of power struggles, no longer face the complexity of the political arena, and only be an ordinary couple who love and keep things together.
Having said all that, the next step is to reveal today's third protagonist.
That is, Princess Jin who is competing with Zhenfei for the national treasure jade cabbage.
Jade cabbage is a dowry left by the mother of Zhen and Jin to her daughter Zhenfei. Carved from half-white and half-emerald emerald, this piece symbolizes a mother's blessing for her daughter to have many children and a happy marriage.
Zhenfei and Jinfei are biological sisters, but their personalities are also very different. Sister Concubine Jin was jealous and wanted to compete for the limelight in everything.
It is conceivable that the night before the two sisters entered the palace, Princess Jin found that her mother did not give her jade cabbage as a dowry, and she cried and made a lot of noise, thinking that her mother was eccentric. In fact, the mother still made some painstaking efforts for the dowry of the two sisters. My sister liked treasures, so she gave her a lot of gold and silver jewelry. The younger sister likes to read, but the dowry is too shabby to send books, so she uses jade cabbage as a dowry.
Of course, despite her sister's incessant quarrels, Zhenfei could not send out the only valuable thing in the dowry, after all, this is also the heart of her parents.
But Princess Jin has always coveted this jade cabbage. When Zhenfei was killed by Cixi, Princess Jin superstitiously believed that Zhenfei was favored because of the protection of jade cabbage, and secretly instructed the palace maid to steal it back.
The favor of the Guangxu Emperor naturally would not be transferred because of this jade cabbage, and after Princess Jin got this treasure, she did not wait for the emperor's patronage.
There is also another theory, that is, Zhenfei could not stand the begging of her sister Concubine Jin before she died, and had already given the jade cabbage to Concubine Jin and placed it in the Yonghe Palace where she lived.
After Princess Jin got the jade cabbage, she was overjoyed, for the convenience of viewing, it was really a bit of a violent thing, Princess Jin actually let people plant jade cabbage into enamel pots, and also matched it with ganoderma lucidum. It is ridiculous that something so elegant can be made into such a worldly feeling.
On September 24, 1924, Princess Jin died of illness in the Yonghe Palace, only 41 days later, on November 5, Feng Yuxiang's Lu Zhonglin and other soldiers drove Puyi and other former Qing royals out of the Forbidden City, I don't know if it was in a hurry, or because Princess Jin did not dare to enter the house not long after her death, or because the weight was too heavy, or simply did not think it was worth anything, this cabbage in the Yonghe Palace was not taken away by Puyi.
In 1925, when the staff of the Palace Museum was counting cultural relics, they saw this jade cabbage for the first time in the Yonghe Palace where Princess Jin lived, it was exquisite and clear, and the staff fell in love with it at first sight, and took out the jade cabbage alone to display, and it also became famous in one fell swoop, and was well-known at home and abroad. In 1949, it was transported to Taiwan along with many treasures of the Forbidden City.
What's even more surprising is that there is not only one jade cabbage. It is said that among the dowry gifts given by Cixi's mother's family in that year, there was also a jade cabbage, which was later lost, and it is not known whether it is related to the theft of treasures from sun dian Dongling.
Of course, that cabbage is not as delicate and widely known as the jade cabbage of the National Palace Museum in Taipei today. Moreover, the jade cabbage of the National Palace in Taipei does not belong to the funeral object like cixi's piece, but has long existed in the Forbidden City, witnessing the political changes in the late Qing Dynasty, witnessing the love between Zhenfei and Guangxu, and witnessing the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
Therefore, it is no longer just a cultural relic, but truly a symbol of history.
Walking into the National Palace Museum in Taipei today, we seem to be able to see the legendary woman of Zhenfei through the jade cabbage, and it is like experiencing the history of the three women in the late Qing Palace, and tasting the poignant love story of Guangxu and Zhenfei.