Text/Chi
Speaking of Bao Zheng, it is well known. The classic image in the TV series also jumped in my mind. He was upright, honest and impartial, and selfless.
In particular, the image of his face as black as paint and a moon on his forehead is really deeply rooted in the hearts of our modern people. Everyone knows more about Bao Zheng, but we know very little about Bao Zheng's descendants.
There is little historical record of his descendants, and it has been suggested that he may not have had any descendants. Judging from a conversation between him and Song Renzong, it is inevitable that people will have misunderstandings.
In the third year of Jiayou (1058), Emperor Renzong of Song was already 48 years old and had not yet been crown prince. Bao Zheng was then an advisor and concurrently served as a mid-level official, responsible for supervising the hundred officials. He dutifully advised Emperor Renzong to make a prince early.
Emperor Renzong deliberately asked Bao Zheng, which one do you think should be the crown prince? When Emperor Renzong said this, he suspected that Bao Zheng wanted to take advantage of the establishment of the crown prince to gain political capital for his descendants.
There is a suspicious point here, Shi Zaibao was born in 999, which should be 59 years old at this time, but he said that he was 70 years old and did not know where the historical data was wrong. I was less than 60 years old, and I didn't even have a son, and I was worried enough.
According to this record, some people judged that Bao Zheng had no queen. It was not easy to get old, let alone in that era. Fortunately, Bao Zheng had a son when he was 60 years old.
His son was not born of his wife, but of a man.
Bao Zheng had two wives, didn't his wife have a son, why did he choose a lady to continue the incense?
Let's take a look.
Bao Zheng's career can be said to be a straight cloud. Relative to his career, his family is more unfortunate, experiencing more than once the white-haired people sending the black-haired people.
Bao Zheng's first wife was Zhang Shi, who died of illness very early and failed to give birth to a man and a half woman.
Later, Bao Zheng continued to marry Dong Shi (Lady Yongkangjun). Dong was born in a family of officials and eunuchs, studied since childhood, and was reasonable. Behind Bao Zheng's clean and honest life and reputation in the government and the opposition, it is inseparable from the silent support of this xiannaisuke, and Bao Qingtian's honor has half of her credit.
Bao Zheng is a famous filial piety. In order to serve his parents, he resigned from the government and stayed at home for eleven years, and sent his parents to the end of their lives.
There are three filial pieties, and no queen is greater. Fortunately, the Dong clan gave birth to a son and two daughters to Bao Zheng. At the age of 35, Bao Zheng was overjoyed to have a noble son, and finally completed the task of passing on the inheritance. He named his son Bao Qi.
When Bao Qi was 19 years old, he married cui shi, the granddaughter of Lü Mengzheng, the prime minister of the Three Dynasties. In the second year after marriage, Bao Qi suddenly fell ill and died, leaving bao Wenfu, the widow of Bao Wenfu.
The death of his only son can be imagined how big a blow to Bao Zheng was. Unexpectedly, Bao Zheng's grandson Bao Wenfu also died when he was 5 years old.
Bao Zheng was less than 60 years old and had lost his beloved son and grandson. Going back to the previous article, this is why Bao Zheng told Emperor Renzong that he had no descendants.
There is no way out of the sky. At that time, Bao Zheng did not know that his concubine Sun Shi was pregnant. Sun Shi was the dowry maid of Bao Zheng's second wife, Dong Shi, who was about the same age as Dong Shi and loved the same sisters. After Bao Qi's death, dong was worried that the Bao family had broken the incense, so they asked Sun to marry Bao Zheng as a concubine.
Bao Zheng had a hard temper, and once Sun Shi probably did something wrong and was driven back to his mother's house by Bao Zheng. Not long after, Sun found out that she was pregnant. But she was afraid of Bao Zheng and did not dare to go to him.
This brings up Bao Zheng's daughter-in-law Cui Shi. Cui Shi is a virtuous woman, a young widow, but unwilling to remarry, vowing to end up with one. Bao Zheng did not want to go, and persuaded her to find another good family, but she still did not agree.
Cui and Sun get along well, Sun returned to his mother's house, and Cui also felt lonely. She often received sun clan privately, and was overjoyed to learn that Sun shi was pregnant with Bao Zheng's bone blood.
Sun then gave birth to a son and gave the child to Cui to raise. Cui Shi claimed to the outside world that this was a child he had adopted, and Bao Zheng was also in the dark.
Until Bao Zheng held the sixtieth birthday banquet, Cui Shi took advantage of the festive day to take the child out and explain the truth. The Bao Zheng family was surprised and delighted. When it is really a mountain and water, there is no way out, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright and another village.
Old and old, Bao Zheng sighed with emotion, and named the child Bao (later renamed Bao Shou).
In 1062, when Bao Shou grew to the age of five, a generation of famous courtiers Bao Zheng died without leaving any regrets.
Here I have to say about the Cui family, the well-known allusion "long sister-in-law like a mother" is from the "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness", and Bao Zheng's life is related. But the plot in the novel takes place in the real Bao family. For Bao Shou, Cui Shi is not only a sister-in-law, but also an adoptive mother.
Cui Not only raised his little uncle, but also taught him carefully. Bao Shou later became an official to Fenglang and sentenced him to Tanzhou. He was also known for his incorruptibility as an official, and he had a fatherly style. Bao Shou later married two wives and gave birth to 4 sons and 3 daughters.
Among the modern descendants of the Bao family, there are two who are more famous. One is Bao Yugang, chairman of the board of directors of Hong Kong Global International Finance Co., Ltd., also known as the "King of Ships". He is the 29th grandson of Bao Zheng.
In Bao Zheng's hometown of Hefei, Luzhou (present-day Feidong, Hefei), there was also a descendant of him. Among them, Bao Zunliang is the 34th generation grandson of Bao Zheng, because he knows the Bao Zheng family best, and serves as the president of the Bao Gong Descendants Association.
Understanding the beginning and the end, to be fair, in that society where wives and concubines are in large groups, Bao Zheng is really a good man. He took concubines for the sake of succession. Otherwise, a good official like Bao Qingtian will face the danger of extinction.
Bao Zheng's descendants also benefited many people at that time. Their family has been a model home for thousands of years.
References: History of the Song Dynasty, Inheritance, etc