At the Rehe Mountain Resort in 1861, a six-year-old child dressed in a dragon robe sat on a dragon chair unwell, and this was the first time he had accepted the prostrations of so many ministers, and he seemed very panicked. And behind him, behind a bright yellow curtain, two young women were muttering something.
Only to see that with a loud muttering, one instruction after another was relayed by the eunuch to the ministers present, which was the famous scene in history of "the empress dowager of the two palaces hanging the curtain to listen to the government". The two women behind the curtain were the two most powerful women in the Qing Dynasty at this time, Empress Dowager Ci'an and Empress Dowager Cixi.
In fact, the two people who seem to be calm and calm have already buried their own thoughts in their hearts at this time. How could the two of them, as the last laughers in the harem of the feudal dynasty, have a deep friendship with each other? Above this seemingly stable court, there are actually open and dark struggles everywhere, and every step is frightening.
The harem is up and down
In 1837, the Qing Dynasty Manchurian yellow flag Niu Hulu clan gave birth to a daughter, because the family door yin this girl was destined to live her life in the ordinary as soon as she was born. At the age of 15, she was favored by emperor Yixuan and entered the harem. And it was also among the same group of people that a girl named Xing'er was also favored by the emperor to enter the palace.
After only half a year, the Xianfeng Emperor made Niu Hulu a concubine, and a month later he was promoted to a noble concubine, and this summer, the 16-year-old Niu Hulu clan became an empress, creating a miracle of half a year from concubine to empress.
The rise of the Niu Cobalt Lu clan has aroused the envy of everyone in the harem, and the most touching of them is the apricot who was selected into the harem with her. At this time, Xing'er was already 18 years old, but she was still only a nobleman, not only in terms of status and the queen of four levels, but also in terms of age compared with the empress, she was also called an "older" concubine.
For Xing'er, this little "Lan Guiren" was by no means the ultimate goal of her trip to the palace, and she turned to play other "slippery heads" after losing her age advantage.
During one of emperor Xianfeng's outings, Lan Guiren heard about the emperor's movements to the eunuchs in advance, and personally put on heavy makeup and whispered softly in the corner of the emperor's necessary road. Sure enough, the ignorant Xianfeng Emperor was deeply attracted by her posture, and the two completed a romantic encounter.
However, at this time in the Qing Dynasty, a huge Jintian Uprising broke out in the south, and the Xianfeng Emperor was handling important internal affairs, even if Lan Guiren did everything in his power, the emperor was only occasionally fortunate to her. Just as the so-called harem beauty three thousand, concubines like Lan Guiren Xianfeng Emperor were not lacking at all.
Soon, the Xianfeng Emperor, who had freed his hands, placed his favor on Li Gui and a group of Han concubines, and he placed a group of beauties in the Yuanmingyuan, so that they could play in the garden after handling political affairs every day. Lan Guiren was very annoyed when he saw it, so he complained to Empress Niu Cobalt Lu.
However, although the empress was young, she was no less shrewd than the elder Lan Guiren in terms of shrewd city government. Her attitude toward Lan Guiren was: Since the emperor likes other concubines, how can I influence it? When you complained to me at this time, you undoubtedly wanted me to blow the pillow wind to the emperor so that the emperor would dislike us.
She also took out the majesty of the empress and said to Lan Guiren, who had made the report: "The harem is a place where each of you competes for favors, do you have complaints to speak directly about the emperor, doesn't the emperor also like your cleverness?" This undoubtedly gave Lan Guiren, who loved to be in the limelight, a heavy dismount.
The head of the six houses
In fact, although the Empress Niu Cobalt Lu clan is young, she has a maturity beyond her age. In order to let the harem concubines restrain each other, as long as any concubine offends the emperor, she will come forward to mediate, and the harem beauties are all obedient to her, grateful to Dade, even if their heads are broken and bleeding, the empress is still the operator of the entire chess game.
Under the influence of the empress, Lan Guiren also slowly learned to be calm, calm, and intellectual, attracting the Xianfeng Emperor like a magnetic field, and was named a concubine because of his frequent luck, and the empress at this time began to sit still.
One day in 1855, the Xianfeng Emperor delayed the early dynasty because of the luck of the concubine the night before, and when the empress learned of it, she dressed up and personally went to the yi concubine's palace to kneel down and recite the ancestral precepts outside the door. After the Xianfeng Emperor listened, he was suddenly drowsy, and hurriedly sorted out his clothes and put on the crown.
After the emperor left, the empress pulled Yi Concubine back to her palace and scolded her with a straight face. However, shortly after this incident, Concubine Yi gave birth to the only prince of the Xianfeng Emperor, and her status also jumped two levels, becoming a noble concubine, second only to the empress.
But at this time, the empress's position in the heart of the Xianfeng Emperor was still the head of the six palaces, and no one could shake it.
With the passage of time, the power of the Southern Taiping Heavenly Kingdom grew larger and larger, and the Western powers once again aimed their spearheads at the Great Qing, and the complicated government affairs suppressed the Xianfeng Emperor. At this time, Princess Yi Guifei began to assist the Xianfeng Emperor in government affairs by virtue of her literacy and reading, and she gradually felt the pleasure of power.
In 1860, the British and French forces invaded Beijing, burned the Yuanmingyuan, and the Xianfeng Emperor, who fled to the Rehe Mountain Resort, felt powerless to return to heaven and pushed the government affairs to Yi Guifei to deal with, while he himself fell into a drowsiness every day, hanging the four characters of "and Ledaoren" on the beams of the house.
When the empress learned of this, she personally confronted the holy rebuke and ordered someone to remove the plaque and smash it, ci'an's behavior was completely beyond the vision of a 23-year-old woman, and it was precisely in this way that she was able to stay in the right position at a young age.
A battle between the two houses
In 1861, the Xianfeng Emperor, who was seriously ill, made a will, entrusting the power to the empress and Yi Guifei, and appointing eight people, including Zaiyuan, Duanhua, and Sushun, as the ministers of the orphans, and passing the throne to Zaichun, the son of Yi Guifei. After Zaichun ascended the throne, Empress Dowager Nu was made Empress Dowager Ci'an, and her birth mother Yehenara was Empress Dowager Cixi.
However, the good times did not last long, and soon after the death of the Xianfeng Emperor, the contradiction between the eight ministers of Gu Ming and the empress dowager of the two palaces became increasingly prominent. The two sides were not only dissatisfied with each other's summons, but even repeatedly began to scold each other, and ci'an, who had a mild personality, was repeatedly defeated, but the powerful Cixi scolded the eight ministers back.
In 1869, Cixi's favorite eunuch An Dehai went south out of the palace in the name of procuring the emperor's pro-government ceremony, and along the way he was a mighty blessing and swagger. When he arrived in Shandong, he was investigated and dealt with by Ding Baozhen, the governor of Shandong, and when he submitted it to Empress Dowager Ci'an without saying a word, he agreed to Ding Baozhen's resolution to destroy the ancestral system and bring him to justice on the spot.
At this time, Cixi did not participate in the illness, and only after the initial recovery of the serious illness did she learn that her confidant was executed by Empress Dowager Ci'an, and she lost all face.
After the Tongzhi Emperor was elected, Ci'an and Cixi had another dispute. Cixi's favorite Fucha clan was beautiful in appearance and witty, just like herself at that time, but she did not get Yu Ruyi, but it was Ci'an's favorite Arut clan that was coveted by the Tongzhi Emperor.
Although The Tongzhi Emperor was Cixi's biological son, he never had a good feeling for his powerful mother, but instead became close to the meek Empress Dowager Ci'an. With An Dehai's death, the post-election dispute, and the estrangement of Emperor Tongzhi, Cixi and Ci'an formed a grudge.
Cixi's dissatisfaction with Ci'an was not directly apparent, so she transferred her anger to her son and daughter-in-law. Not only did he count the emperor in front of everyone at once, but he also often slapped the queen.
In the end, the Tongzhi Emperor died of syphilis after escaping from the imperial palace and living in the Qinglou all day, at the age of nineteen; empress Arut also committed suicide at the age of twenty-one because she could not bear to humiliate the hanging beam. After the death of the Tongzhi Emperor, the empress dowager of the two palaces made the young Zai Xiang emperor for the Guangxu Emperor. The two men once again bowed to the government.
On April 8, 1881, the always robust Empress Dowager Ci'an died in the palace at the age of forty-five. Such a sudden shock shocked the government and the public, and the sea attracted attention, and rumors spread for a while. One theory is that Ci'an committed suicide by taking poison after a big fight with Cixi.
But for the empress dowager of a country who had experienced the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the invasion of the Anglo-French coalition army, and the threat of the Eight Ministers, how could she choose to commit suicide because of a quarrel? Therefore, some people speculate that Ci'an died of a sudden and vicious disease.
According to records, Ci'an suddenly fell ill at the age of 26, so that he could not speak, and was treated by the Tai Doctor for a month. At the age of 33, he relapsed again, unconscious, and was rescued after being rescued.
According to modern medicine, Empress Dowager Ci'an's illness is likely to be cerebral hemorrhage, and due to the sudden onset of the disease and the limited medical conditions, it makes sense for Ci'an to die violently in one day.
Some people have also put forward different views, Cixi and Ci'an have a long-standing grudge, it is likely that Cixi secretly ordered people to use poison to murder Ci'an, but why did Cixi, who was scheming and calculating, choose ci'an to poison when he was unharmed? When Ci'an is sick, won't he take advantage of the opportunity to do it without leaking?
In the end, regardless of the cause of Empress Dowager Ci'an's death, two things can be determined: First, her death was indeed too sudden, appeared strange, caused people to disagree, and deepened the shadow of her and Cixi's confusing relationship.
Second, after Ci'an's death, the Qing Dynasty changed from "two palaces hanging curtains to listen to the government" to "one palace hanging curtains to listen to the government", and Cixi's greed for power no longer had any scruples.