In the feudal era, especially after the rise of Zhu Lixue in the Southern Song Dynasty, most women were tied up at home and did not get the opportunity to show their faces. For the royal family, harem women are even more so. Today's historians can only sketch the picture of that time through a few words in the royal records. In fact, all kinds of historical documents are relatively boring, and only cold and stereotypical records make people tasteless. However, in the later years of Kangxi,there was a foreigner who mistakenly saw the young concubine in the harem and recorded it. Although the description of this experience is not much, it is a rare and precious material.
This foreigner, named Ma Guoxian, was an Italian missionary to China. After landing in Macau, he went north to enter the Beijing Division. Kangxi, who had always been very curious about Western affairs, received him and greatly appreciated his painting and carving talents. He not only produced the copperplate engraving "Thirty-six Views of the Imperial Summer Resort", but also completed the "Imperial Public Opinion Overview Map" together with other painters, which was also the first national map with longitude and latitude lines.
Ma Guoxian also wrote a memoir "Thirteen Years of Jingting" based on his experience in the palace. In this book, an interesting thing is recorded. It was in the sixtieth year of the Kangxi Dynasty that Ma Guoxian followed the Kangxi Emperor to the Chengde Summer Resort. On this day, a eunuch XingChong told him that there would be a famous living Buddha face saint who would pass by his residence, and he could stop by to see what the living Buddha looked like.
You know, even if you live in the palace, there are strict rules, and there are many guards in the palace. Usually, Ma Guoxian saw a very limited number of people, and this time he was very happy to see the legendary living Buddha. However, at the appointed time, Ma Guoxian looked in the opposite direction, he did not look north, but instead saw a scene of wonder in the west.
To the west is an artificial lake, where a five-year-old child dressed as a prince falls to his knees and whispers to the woman in front of him. The woman had a good face and a beautiful figure, she was draped in a crimson cloak, and the jewels on the top of her head were dazzling and sparkling. In the sunlight, this woman was like a holy woman, looking at the prince in front of her calmly and peacefully, and occasionally showing an elegant smile.
At this time, Ma Guoxian was extremely shocked in his heart. In his heart, the mysterious culture of the East has always made him incredible. So he turned back to the eunuch beside him and said, "Unbelievably, this is truly a great living Buddha, "such a young and beautiful man who has learned this trick of making a man abnormal" and has made himself worshipped as a god by one of His Majesty's children. ”
The above sentence is excerpted from "Thirteen Years of Jingting", and we can still feel Ma Guoxian's excitement at that moment. However, the eunuch next to him was confused and did not understand what was happening. He looked in the direction Ma Guoxian was pointing, and only then did he realize that the foreigner was looking in the wrong direction. The eunuch corrected himself, and Ma Guoxian saw that the real "living Buddha" was accompanied by several eunuchs and took a boat to see the emperor.
The eunuch also explained to Ma Guoxian that the woman he had just seen was actually a favored concubine, Chen Shi. Because she had been unwell recently, she breathed by the lake, and that child was the twenty-fourth son of the Emperor, Yin Zhi, whom she had born to Kangxi, and the youngest son of Kangxi.
This plot, in fact, is a misunderstanding, which seems insignificant, but it is very valuable qing dynasty harem information. This Chen clan, who entered the palace in the later years of Kangxi, was very favored, and gave birth to Yin Zhi and Yin Yu in the fifty-fifth year of Kangxi and the fifty-seventh year of Kangxi. However, Yin Yu died on the day of birth, so Yin Yu was still the youngest prince.
Although the Chen clan was favored, because of insufficient seniority, he did not become a famous concubine in the fifty-seventh year of the Kangxi Dynasty, and was always just a concubine. It was not until Yongzheng succeeded to the throne that he honored her as the Emperor Kaobai Nobleman, and she had been in poor health, and died in the eleventh year of Yongzheng, which should not be more than thirty years old. No wonder when Ma Guoxian saw her, the eunuch said that he was unwell and came out to breathe.
According to the rules of the Qing court, concubines without a title were not qualified to raise their own princes and had to be handed over to high-ranking concubines. Chen Shi was naturally no exception, she was with Yin Zhi at that time, probably because during her illness, Kangxi allowed his own crown prince to accompany his mother. This may be a trace of warmth in the Qing Palace, which just happens to be seen by foreigners. The woman who should have been nameless, but because of this serendipitous way, is known to future generations, which is also the wonder of history.