In the above article, we talked about how Qianlong then embarked on a road of no return, and in this article we will talk about the concubine Ling, who made the greatest profit in the Qianlong follow-up haircut case, that is, Empress Xiaoyichun.
First, let's look at the family lineage of concubines.
Concubine Ling's ancestor was named Sui'en, han name was Wei Guoxian, Wei Guoxian was a native of Shenyang, Liaodong Province, originally a qianhu under the late Ming general Mao Wenlong, Mao Wenlong was killed by Yuan Chonghuan, and followed Geng Zhongming to Dengzhou, Shandong, and later Wei Guoxian crossed the sea with Geng Zhongming to return to the Later Jin Emperor Taiji, and was immediately incorporated into the Yellow Banner of the Han Army.
After Geng Zhongming's death, Wei Guoxian's zuoling was assigned to Geng Zhaozhong (Geng Zhongming's second grandson), because Geng Zhaozhong had been a hostage in The Capital division and had not been implicated in the San Francisco Rebellion. However, later, Wei Guoxian violated the law of desertion in the process of conquering The Southern Ming, and as a result, Wei Guoxian's family was changed from the Zhenghuang Banner of the Han Army to the Zhenghuang Banner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that is, the XinZhiku.
After that, the members of the Lingfei family basically served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for example, Lingfei's grandfather Wu Shiyi (51, Han name Wei Jiuling) became the governor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in November of the third year of Yongzheng, but Wu Shiyi died more than a month after taking office, and Concubine Lingfei was not yet born at this time and had not seen her grandfather. The samurai had two wives, namely the Nian clan and the Chao clan, and this Nian clan was most likely the same family as the Noble Concubine of The Tun Su Emperor, so it can be seen that this grandmother of Concubine Ling was born very well, from the family of official eunuchs.
Concubine Ling's father, named Qing Tai (Chinese name Wei Minglu), served as a consul in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and his wife was Yang Jiashi, and Concubine Ling's grandmother and mother served as female officials in the Yongzheng Dynasty who read the book of the crowned concubine.
This is the specific family lineage of Concubine Ling, and it can be seen that although the Lingfei family belongs to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Xinzhiku people), most of its family members serve in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and belong to a middle-class bureaucratic family, which is still relatively good.
On the ninth day of September of the fifth year of Yongzheng, Concubine Wei was born, she was 16 years younger than Qianlong, and on July 18 of that year, Qianlong (then the crown prince) married the yellow-flagd Fucha clan as Concubine Fujin, who was later Empress Xiaoxian.
Concubine Ling first appeared in the harem in the tenth year of Qianlong, a year in which Concubine Ling was first made a nobleman, then a concubine, becoming the head of the three concubines, and the other two concubines were Shu Concubine and Yi Concubine.
There are three problems here: First, in the ten years of Qianlong, Lingfei is already 19 years old, and it is obvious that she has passed the age of drafting, so Lingfei should not have entered the palace in the ten years of Qianlong, and the time she entered the palace should be between the fourth year of Qianlong and the eighth year of Qianlong.
Second, did Concubine Ling have a history as a palace maid? In Qianlong's imperial poem, it is mentioned that Concubine Ling had been taught by Empress Xiaoxian and that Empress Xiaoxian had made them a partner, so there is a possibility that Concubine Ling had served as a palace maid by Empress Xiaoxian's side in her early years, or that Concubine Ling had been recommended by Empress Xiaoxian to Qianlong (Note: The Empress of the Qing Dynasty had the custom of recommending beautiful people to the emperor).
Third, in the ten years of Qianlong, the Wei clan, who had been born without a name before, actually rose two levels in a row, becoming the head of the three concubines, and even overshadowed the famous Shu concubine, which showed that Qianlong was very fond of the Wei clan. This was verified in the thirteenth year of Qianlong and the sixteenth year of Qianlong.
In the thirteenth year of Qianlong, Empress Xiaoxian died, and Qianlong ordered that Wei be promoted to Lingfei, and three years later, Qianlong again ordered that the Lingfei family be changed from the yellow flag to the collar, thus freeing the concubine family from untouchable status.
At this time, although Concubine Ling had a certain position in the harem, she had not yet given birth to children for Qianlong, and the key to the concubine's foothold in the palace was to give birth, but Concubine Ling did not seem to be worried, she had been brewing, and a wild storm of fertility was coming.
From the twenty-first year of Qianlong to the thirty-first year of Qianlong, Concubine Ling was out of control, pregnant with a dragon fetus seven times, and successfully gave birth to six children (once a small birth), during this ten years, except for Concubine Xin who gave birth to two daughters (six princesses and eight princesses) for Qianlong, Qianlong's other children were from Concubine Ling, the favor of Concubine Ling, which can be seen.
With the birth of her children, Concubine Ling was first promoted to a noble concubine in the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong, and then promoted to an imperial concubine in the thirty years of Qianlong, becoming the head of the six palaces.
At this point, Princess Ling's glory seemed to have reached its peak, but there was one thing she hadn't expected. Just after the winter solstice of the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong, Qianlong secretly made the fifteenth brother Yongyan, who was only 14 years old, the crown prince, and Yongyan was the son born to Concubine Ling. However, what Ling Fei also did not expect was that her life was about to come to an end.
At the end of the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong, Lingfei, who had just returned from a tour of the Rehe River with Qianlong, fell ill, seemingly in order to comfort Aifei and let her recover, and just after the New Year, Qianlong ordered that the Lingfei family be carried into Manchuria with a yellow flag by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this still failed to save Aifei's life, and Lingfei died on the twenty-ninth day of the first month of the fortieth year of Qianlong (1775), at the age of 49, and Qianlong gave her the title of Lingyi Emperor's noble concubine and buried her in the Yuling Underground Palace.
After Concubine Ling's death, it was not until the sixty years of Qianlong, in which Qianlong was no longer made empress, imperial concubine, or noble concubine, and in September of the sixtieth year of Qianlong, Qianlong revealed Yongyan's status as crown prince and announced that his birth mother Wei Shi was posthumously honored as Empress Xiaoyi.
In July 1928, the East Window incident of the Tanglin Robbery, Qianlong Yuling was not spared, and when the underground palace was subsequently cleaned, the royal family found an incorruptible female corpse between the two coffins on the west side of the coffin bed, saying that it was "undamaged and lost... Respect its appearance, chin wrinkles, teeth are not fully off, like fifty or sixty years old, and the skin and bones are still there, the slightest is not rotten, the smile is round, like the ancient Buddha, sincere and strange things also", after inspection and analysis, this incorruptible female corpse is Jiaqing's mother, Empress Xiaoyi, that is, Concubine Ling.
Regarding the reasons for the incorruptible concubine after death, there is still no conclusion, and its "smile round appearance" is also very strange, why does the concubine smile after death?
The author speculates that Qianlong most likely revealed to Concubine Ling before her death that she had made the fifteenth brother Yongyan crown prince, that her son would inherit the throne, and that she herself would also receive the title of empress. Of course, this is just a guess, as for the real reason, only LingFei herself knows.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Records of Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty, Manuscript of the Concubines of the Qing Dynasty, General Genealogy of the Eight Banners Clan