Inside the Zhenshun Gate in the northern section of the Forbidden City's Ningshou Palace, there is a well called Zhenfei Well. This well is no different from other wells in the Forbidden City, but it has become famous after carrying a woman's tragic life.
And this woman was ZhenFei, the concubine of the Guangxu Emperor. It was here, in 1900, when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded the city of Beijing, empress dowager Cixi, the de facto leader of the Qing Empire, fled west with the Guangxu Emperor in a hurry, and just before leaving, the concubine was executed by Cixi's order, and finally she was also named "Zhenfei is young, foreigners enter the city, free from insults", and was forced into this mouth, ending her short life.
And this well became today's Zhenfei well. But if you look closely, people can't help but have a doubt, this wellhead is only 10 inches in size, how did the Cixi people put the adult zhenfei into the beggar?
Zhenfei was the most favored concubine of the Guangxu Emperor. Born from the Red Flag among the Eight Banners of Manchuria, his father Changshu was the former Household Attendant. And such a family background also allowed her to receive a good education since she was a child, and in the turbulent situation of the late Qing Dynasty, when the closed Qing Dynasty was beaten to the head and bloody, the foreign affairs movement, learning from the West, and mastering the art to control yi also became an inevitable choice for people with lofty ideals at that time.
After following master Wenting's study with the intention of innovating and consolidating, and following her uncle Changshan to contact a series of Western cultures in Guangzhou, Zhenfei also had a clear understanding of new things and new cultures.
In the fourteenth year of Guangxu (1889), the Guangxu Emperor was about to take over the government, and Empress Dowager Cixi chose a marriage match for the Guangxu Emperor. The two sisters of Princess Zhen were selected for the palace because of their beauty and intelligence, but although the Guangxu Emperor intended to be a concubine, Empress Dowager Cixi, who held great power, still made her niece Yehenara the empress, and the 13-year-old Concubine Zhen was named a concubine.
At that time, the Guangxu Emperor was also worried about the crisis of the Qing Dynasty, and he was also very respectful of Western cultural knowledge, so that the two had both mutual interests and common hobbies, and also made the Guangxu Emperor very fond of Zhenfei, while Empress Longyu was not loved by the Guangxu Emperor. "Emperor Dezong was particularly fond of him, and he was not very close to the empress" is also.
It was also because of this that on the 60th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, Zhen Concubine and her sister were both given the title of concubine.
But just then, Zhenfei was caught by Cixi with her pigtails. Originally, under the regulations of the Qing Palace at that time, the regular silver of each grade of the harem decreased from the queen to the concubine, and the empress was only 1,000 taels a year, while the zhen concubine could only get 300 taels a year. This is undoubtedly a great survival problem for Zhenfei, who will not save. Therefore, at that time, the wind of selling officials and knights was particularly bad, and Zhenfei also participated in such activities to make up for the deficit.
However, Cixi, who was already dissatisfied with Zhenfei because of her niece's fall of favor, naturally did not let go easily after learning about this. Thus, Princess Zhen was not only stripped of her throne and demoted to a nobleman; she was also given the title of "Cloaked Court Staff." What is the Battle of the Cloak? That is to remove the clothes and then engage in court battles. And this kind of punishment, even in the court to treat the minister is very rare, not to mention the treatment of women in the harem, and the end of the concubine is to be beaten "personnel do not wake up".
At that time, the imperial party led by the Guangxu Emperor and the hou party led by Empress Dowager Cixi were quarreling endlessly over the war and peace of the Sino-Japanese War, and the punishment of Zhenfei was undoubtedly also Empress Dowager Cixi's warning to the Guangxu Emperor. As the sorrow of the Emperor Guangxu Emperor, it is precisely here, without holding great power, naturally I can only end up with fish meat.
After that, the Guangxu Emperor tried to change this situation, and in 1898 adopted the opinions of Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others to carry out the Penghu Reform Law. However, this change of law was not enough during the day and was defeated, and the Guangxu Emperor was even imprisoned himself. As the end of the Guangxu Emperor's favorite concubine, Zhenfei, it was even more tragic, and she was once again stripped of her clothes and then imprisoned in the Northern Sansho.
In the North Three Houses, she had to face the admonitions of the eunuchs and the endless torture. And just after Cixi regained power, Cixi hoped to take advantage of the Boxer Rebellion that was prevalent in Shandong and other places at that time to rebel against the Western powers. Subsequently, under the ignorant deception of "no guns and knives", he declared war on Britain, France and other Western powers.
In the end, the city of Beijing was destroyed, and he only ended up with a hasty escape, so there was also a scene of Wen Zhenfei being executed.
Although Princess Zhen was naturally not willing to end like this, she had argued according to reason, but in the end, the woman's body could not resist Cui Yugui and other eunuchs, and was thrown into the beggar.
So Zhenfei can be thrown into the beggar and have a hard stuffing ingredient? That's nature. But this is not the case for being able to be put into less than 10 inches of wellhead. Rather, the wellhead we see now is not a real wellhead, but a stone well rim is added to the original wellhead, and it is locked through with an iron rod. That is to say, what we see is only a wellhead lock, and the original diameter of the Zhenfei well is far from only 10 inches.