Kangxi was the longest-reigning emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and he was also the emperor with the largest number of concubines, but very few of Kangxi's 55 concubines were able to be canonized. The one I want to talk about today is one of the first batch of concubines of Kangxi, and she is still ranked first among the concubines, but in the end, she ended up with a tragic ending in which no one was alive or dead.
One day at the beginning of the Tenth Year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing court held the Eight Flags Draft, and in this draft, there was a woman from the Zhenglan Banner of the Han Army who was particularly dazzling, she was the granddaughter of Li Yongfang, the granddaughter of Li Yongfang, the chief soldier of the Fuxi Dynasty, and the daughter of the chief soldier Gang Atai.
The Li family was originally a famous and prestigious family in the Liaodong region, and in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the Jurchen leader nurhaci in the Liaodong region rose, and Li Yongfang chose to surrender, thus Li Yongfang became the first famous general to surrender to Jin. After that, the Li family fought on the battlefield for the Houjin and even the Great Qing, and established a great battle achievement, in order to praise Li Yongfang, Nurhaci married his granddaughter (the daughter of Bele Abatai) to him, and from then on, Li Yongfang had one more title: Fuxi E'an.
In the tenth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Li Yongfang's granddaughter Li Shi stood out in the Eight Flags Draft and was included in the harem by Kangxi, at that time, the only famous empress in the Kangxi harem was the Empress Herschel, and no other concubines were crowned.
It was not until the sixteenth year of Kangxi that Kangxi was crowned a concubine for the first time, and in this canonization, the daughter of Qiu Bilong was made empress, and the daughter of tong Guowei, the daughter of tong Guowei, was made a noble concubine. In addition, Kangxi also enthroned seven concubines, namely An Concubine, Jing Concubine, Duan Concubine, Rong Concubine, Hui Concubine, Yi Concubine and Concubine, and the first concubine of the concubines was Li.
At that time, among these seven concubines, there were Duan Concubine, Rong Concubine and Hui Concubine who had already given birth to children, so it can be seen that the reason why An Concubine was able to obtain the status of the head of the concubines was not unrelated to her family background of "Ling Clan Zhongxiang". Of course, it is not excluded that Kangxi really loved the Li clan, and she gained such a status.
However, what is unexpected is that after this canonization, the rong concubines, Hui concubines and Yi concubines who ranked behind them all came later, while the two concubines who were originally ranked in the top two were gone. Going through all the Qing palace archives, or searching all the places where the Kangxi Jingling Concubines slept, there was no information about An Concubine and Concubine Jing, so where did they go?
According to the Qing Palace archives, in the thirty-sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, there were four concubines at that time, and it can be confirmed that the concubines were Duan Concubine and Concubine, and the other two may be Concubine An and Concubine Jing. However, in the forty-sixth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, at that time, only the harem concubines were Duan Concubine, He Concubine and Liang Concubine, and the whereabouts of An Concubine and Concubine Jing were unknown. There are records that prove that An Concubine once had a bust scroll, which was stored in the East Cabinet together with the portrait of Duan Concubine, which shows that these two people were not deprived of existence for making mistakes, so why can't they be found?
Some people say that An Concubine and Concubine Jing lived to the Yongzheng Period, but why did the Kangxi JingLing Concubine Garden bed not have their treasures and tablets? Who did they offend? This can only be guessed by us. These two concubines, who originally had a bright future, were finally annihilated in the harem of the Qing Dynasty, which caused people to lament endlessly!
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Records of the Ancestors of the Qing Dynasty, Easy to Know tombs