Unbelievable last words
On September 18, 1953, a humble family living in Beijing's Peicai Hutong was miserable.
The owner of the family works in a nearby cleaning team
Cleaner Liu Zhendong
His wife had collapsed in bed due to heart failure and could not even eat. The couple had no children and the home was deserted.
Pucai Hutong
The wife realized that she was about to die, and seeing Liu Zhendong, who had been guarding her bed for several days, she couldn't help but shed tears and decided to tell her secret that she had hidden for many years:
"Sorry to have hidden you for so long... In fact, I was the last imperial concubine. ”
Liu Zhendong, who heard such a sentence, immediately looked at his wife with a haggard face and showed an expression of disbelief.
They had been married for 7 years, and he only knew that his wife was a newspaper worker, but he did not know that she even had a hidden identity.
So, who is his wife, who claims to be the last imperial concubine?
Cleaners and proofreaders
Liu Zhendong's wife called herself
Fu Yufang
She and Liu Zhendong met in 1946 after being introduced.
The name "Fu Yufang" didn't sound surprising, but she herself had a more resounding name, a name that almost everyone knew and knew in that era
Erdet Wen embroidery
, that is
Imperial concubine of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty
，
The first person in a thousand years who dared to divorce the emperor
、
"Sword Concubine" embroidery
。
Erdet Wen embroidery, that is, Fu Yufang
Fu Yufang knows Liu Zhendong at the age of 38, has long been divorced from Puyi, worked as a proofreader in Beijing's North China Daily, worked very seriously, but never got close to people, especially men.
Her boss liked her meticulous patience at work, and when he learned that she was in her 30s and still single, his boss was a pity and had the idea of finding a good home for her.
It just so happened that there was a cousin Liu Zhendong, who had been playing bare sticks, who was more than 40 years old, but he was loyal and honest, he was still a soldier in Henan, and he was a major rank, and he was a trustworthy person, so he asked Fu Yufang if he would like to look at it.
Fu Yufang did not immediately refuse, but did not agree, but showed a look of wanting to say and stopping, very hesitant. She was very grateful for her boss's care, although she had not seen the man named Liu Zhendong, but just listening to the description, Fu Yufang felt that the other party was not bad.
It's just that Fu Yufang feels that her identity is special, her past is not honorable, she is very inferior, and she was still bound by Puyi when she divorced, and she is not allowed to marry again. Fu Yufang really didn't know if that Liu Zhendong could accept himself.
"The Emperor's Order Is Hard to Break"
Don't look at The current Fu Yufang so inferior, in fact, she also had a beautiful life when she was young.
She was born in
Manchurian aristocratic bureaucrats with yellow flags
The name "Fu Yufang" was a special scientific name when her mother sent her to elementary school.
Embroidery
Wen Xiu's grandfather was once an official to the official Shangshu, which was very brilliant for a period of time. However, Wen Xiu's father was "soft mud can't support the wall", took many imperial examinations, but had no merit, and died early. When Wen Xiu was born, the Erdet family was no longer as prominent as before, and even had to live with his mother in his uncle's house.
In 1921, 10 years had passed since the Xinhai Revolution, and the Qing Dynasty had long ceased to exist. However, when the Republic of China and the Qing Dynasty imperial family signed a clause, Puyi could retain the Title of Emperor of the Qing Dynasty after taking the initiative to abdicate and continue to live in the Forbidden City.
In the spring of 1921,
The little emperor Puyi was 16 years old
In the past, it was the age of starting a family. A group of pedantic old courtiers and concubines who were still attached to the Qing government wanted to choose an empress for Puyi according to the past customs and let him get married as soon as possible.
Puyi in his youth
After the news came out, the fifth uncle who took Wen Xiu and her Han mother was ecstatic, thinking that this was a good time to restore the glory and wealth of the Erdete family in the past, so without asking a question, he sent Wen Xiu's photo to the palace.
Puyi was still bent on resetting the throne, and had no intention of marrying a wife, and after looking through the photos presented by the ministers, he casually made a circle drawing on the photo of Wen Embroidery. The candidate who was circled by the little emperor's imperial pen was the empress, but Princess Duankang did not agree, so
Puyi changed the choice of Duan Kang's concubine Wan Rong, and Wen Xiu became the imperial concubine.
According to the old custom of the Qing court, the concubine entered the palace before the empress, and then went to kneel to greet the empress early the next morning. However, Wen Xiu, who was only 14 years old at the time, performed well in school and had no intention of entering the palace at all. It was only "the imperial order is difficult to violate", Wen Xiu had to give up Fu Yufang's scientific name, enter the palace first, and was canonized
"Lady Concubine"
Lady embroidery
On the wedding night, Wen Xiu performed a great gift of three prayers and nine kowtows to Puyi, but Puyi just looked at her coldly and asked Wen Xiu to rest, while he turned and left their new house. Wen Xiu felt very aggrieved and wondered if it was because he looked too ordinary, so Puyi didn't like her. But the next day Puyi will have
"The First Beauty of Manchuria"
So-called
Grace
After marrying into the palace, he still did not rest in their new house.
Whether it was the empress or the imperial concubine, Puyi even refused to sleep with them, which was indeed a very strange thing. Many years later, new China has been established,
Puyi confessed in his memoirs that he had married 4 wives in his lifetime, but each wife was similar to the decorations in the home, because he was not interested in family life at all.
However, although Puyi is not interested in them, Wanrong regards Wenxiu as a competitor, and every day she thinks of ways to trip up Wenxiu, no matter where she goes, she must overpower Wenxiu. Wen Xiu, on the other hand, had been reading books for 5 years, accepted certain progressive ideas, and occasionally fantasized about the future days before entering the palace, always thinking about the beautiful scenes of monogamy and mutual love. But after being forced into the palace, there was no monogamy, and there was no mutual love, only the bullying of the empress and the indifference of the emperor.
Every day, Wen Xiu would get up on time and early, go to the harem concubines' dormitories one by one to ask for peace, and then return to the Changchun Palace where he lived, doing nothing all day. She missed the days of reading outside in the past, so she carefully asked Puyi to help invite a teacher to come and give her a lesson to relieve her boredom.
Puyi was quite considerate of Wenxiu at this time, agreed to Wenxiu's request, and invited her a female teacher who specialized in teaching English. After that, Wen Xiu went to the palace of the concubines every day to ask for peace one by one, and then returned to the Changchun Palace to have something to do. In addition to learning English with the teacher, WenXiu will also teach the little palace girls to read and write, read a lot of books, and finally have some hope for life.
The first divorce between an imperial concubine and an emperor in history
In 1924, Feng Yuxiang led soldiers to "force the palace", and Puyi was forced to move out of the Forbidden City with his family and live in the palace where his biological father had once lived. Since she was outside the palace, Wen Xiu thought that she could finally get along with Puyi Wanrong and others on an equal footing, but Puyi did not care about her ideas, and only knew that she was dreaming of restoration all day.
At first, Wen Xiu also wanted to persuade Puyi to see the facts clearly, but such persuasion would only make Puyi disgusted. Coupled with the grace that constantly looks for opportunities to bully her, the life that Wen Xiu wants has not come, but has become more miserable.
Prince Of Alcohol's Mansion
After a while, he once served as a political envoy in Hunan Province
Zheng Xiaoxu
Secretly found Puyi.
He came on behalf of the Japanese, and the purpose was to persuade Puyi to defect to the Japanese.
Puyi, who had not really personally handled political affairs, quickly took the bait, naively thinking that the Japanese behind Zheng Xiaoxu could really help him and regain the supreme glory of the former Qing Dynasty.
Puyi is naïve, but Wenxiu is not naïve. After leaving the palace, she kept an eye on the changes that were taking place in the outside world. She knew that during the Russo-Japanese War, countless Chinese innocent victims, and the Japanese did not care about Chinese's life or death, and after realizing Puyi's plan, Wen Xiu ran to persuade him to think twice. However, at this time, Puyi was completely unable to listen to her, and scolded her for not knowing anything as a woman, and became more and more snubbed by her.
After that, the Japanese earnestly invited Puyi and took them to live at the Japanese legation in Tianjin. At this time, Puyi had completely hated Wen embroidery, and during his stay at the legation, he arranged Wen embroidery alone in the room next to the reception room on the first floor, and then lived with WanRong on the second floor, so that he could not see Wen embroidery all day.
Wanrong not only rejoiced, but also burned and poured oil, saying a lot of bad things about Wenxiu in Puyi's ear, so that during the New Year, Puyi only asked Wanrong to accompany him, completely ignoring the Wenxiu who lived on the first floor. But the cheers of their new year celebrations upstairs could still be heard downstairs, and the servants around Wen Xiu also ran to the second floor for the New Year, and she sat alone, suddenly thinking of death.
She grabbed a pair of scissors from the table and without hesitation stabbed herself in the abdomen.
Fortunately, a small eunuch passed by, noticed her actions, and hurriedly took the scissors down, which saved Wen Xiu's life. But when Puyi knew about her attempt to cut herself, she was not moved, and made fun of her for this matter.
The reputation of Wen Xiu's "sword concubine" was thus passed on.
Wen Xiu was completely dead to Puyi. Later her sister
Wen Shan
After coming to see her, he persuaded her to leave here after knowing her situation, and helped Wen Xiu find a lawyer. On August 25, 1929, with the help of his sister, Wen Xiu left the place where they lived and hid in the home of Wen Shan's friend.
The eunuchs who came out to look for him found only lawyers appointed by Wen Xiu and a letter to divorce Puyi.
Puyi family photo, Wen embroidery (front row second from left), Wan Rong (front row, second from right)
Puyi was angry enough to see the letter,
For thousands of years, only the emperor hated the concubines, and no concubine took the initiative to file a divorce with the emperor.
He felt that Wenxiu's move was detrimental to the dignity of the imperial family, but he could not find where Wenxiu was, and at the instigation of people with hearts, the news of the divorce between the concubine and the emperor quickly spread throughout the country, and everyone was looking forward to seeing how this farce ended.
In the end, Puyi still agreed to fight with Wenxiu, but she did not see Wenxiu herself the whole time, only the lawyer she hired. Puyi proposed to reconcile, but Wenxiu resolutely disagreed and must divorce Puyi.
The lawsuit lasted for two months, and finally the two sides took a step back, Puyi agreed to divorce, and paid Wenxiu fifty-five thousand silver dollars as alimony, but in return, Wenxiu could not marry again, in order to maintain the dignity of the royal family. Lawyers from both sides signed on their behalf,
In this way, the first divorce case between the imperial concubine and the emperor in history was successfully concluded.
Incense disappeared
However, the alimony promised by Puyi was not really in place, Wenxiu was forced by his livelihood, and he also worked as a primary school teacher for a period of time, and then had to change jobs because his identity was exposed.
She no longer used wenxiu's name, and finally did Fu Yufang again
Later, he found a job at the newspaper to support himself, and also met Liu Zhendong.
Fu Yufang finally agreed to meet with Liu Zhendong, anyway, Puyi did not abide by the agreement and paid her all the alimony, why should she maintain the ridiculous face of the royal family.
Liu Zhendong fell in love with Fu Yufang almost at first sight, and Fu Yufang also liked Liu Zhendong, and the two soon entered the palace of marriage. After the founding of New China, Liu Zhendong, who had participated in the Nationalist army in the Henan region, under the persuasion of Fu Yufang, took the initiative to find his identity as an organization and confessed, so he was treated leniently, and because of his good performance, he was assigned to the cleaning team.
Fu Yufang and Liu Zhendong moved to Peicai Hutong near the cleaning team and lived a stable little life. Unfortunately, such a day did not last long, on September 18, 1953, Fu Yufang failed to leave a son and a daughter due to heart disease, only to tell Liu Zhendong of his identity, and he died with reluctance to him.
Grief-stricken, Liu Zhendong found a few wooden planks, made a simple coffin for his wife, and buried her in a cemetery outside and outside Andingmen in Beijing, where he never married.
From the fallen noblewoman to the last imperial concubine, and then to the cleaner's wife, Fu Yufang's life was tortured and painful, and although her marriage with Liu Zhendong was short, it was the only happiness and comfort in her life, and in the end, although there were regrets, she could accept it calmly.