In some Qing palace dramas such as "The Biography of Zhen Huan", the harem battle has become an endless war without gun smoke, in fact, the harem battle began as early as the Shunzhi Dynasty, and today the author wants to talk about the one who was imprisoned by Empress Xiaozhuang for 33 years because of her participation in the harem battle, she is shunzhi concubine Chen.
The harem of the Shunzhi Dynasty was the domain of Mongolian women, because the Qing court was very dependent on the Mongol tribes at that time, coupled with the existence of Empress Xiaozhuang, the harem of the Shunzhi Emperor accounted for the vast majority of Mongolian concubines, most of whom were in high positions. However, Shunzhi was not interested in these Mongolian women, and did not even want to look at them, so the Mongolian concubines, including empress dowager and Empress Xiaohuizhang, became poor people who guarded the boudoir alone.
Unlike those high-ranking Mongol concubines, those Han concubines with low births were more favored by Shunzhi, and Concubine Chen was also one of them. Regarding the family lineage of the Chen family, there is no record in the historical records, and there are two possibilities speculated, the first Chen is a clothed woman from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the second Chen is a Han woman who is not in the flag, but in any case, the Chen family has Han ancestry.
At that time, the empress of the Shunzhi Dynasty was Empress Xiaozhuang's niece Borjigit (Mengguqing), who was born noble and intelligent and beautiful after entering the Guanguan Ingunate, but she was at odds with Shunzhi and often quarreled. Therefore, those low-ranking palace ladies in the Shunzhi harem had a chance, and Chen Shi was one of them.
On March 15 of the ninth year of Shunzhi, the Chen clan gave birth to the eldest daughter of the emperor for Shunzhi, although not a prince, but after all, she was the first daughter of the Heavenly Son of the Dynasty, and the significance was extraordinary, but the eldest daughter of the emperor died the next year. Subsequently, a great tremor occurred in the Shunzhi harem, the Empress Borjigit clan was deposed, and Empress Xiaozhuang selected an empress for her son from the Mongolian Horqin, later Empress Xiaohuizhang.
However, Shunzhi still did not like this cousin (Empress Xiaohuizhang was Shunzhi's cousin) and was bent on pampering Concubine Dong, and at the same time, the Chen clan could also get a trace of rain and dew, which was not bad, which proved that chen was also a woman with a lot of beauty.
On the fourth day of November in the fourteenth year of Shunzhi, the Chen clan gave birth again, gave birth to the fifth son of the emperor, Chang Ning, and was able to give birth to the prince of the Qing Dynasty, which was very difficult for a woman of low birth like the Chen clan, and it was reasonable to say that this was a good opportunity for the Chen clan to change their fate. However, at this time, Chen Shi was overwhelmed by fertility and did a shocking thing.
At that time, Shunzhi favored Concubine Dong E, and the Chen clan, who had just given birth to a crown prince, could not see it, so he used ancient spells to curse Concubine Dong E, which was discovered by Empress Xiaozhuang, so Xiaozhuang ordered that Chen be imprisoned in the Liren Palace, and ordered that Chen be forbidden to meet with his son Changning.
After Kangxi succeeded to the throne, although Chang Ning, the son of the Chen clan, was given the title of Prince of Heshuo Gong, his treatment was very different from that of Fuquan the Prince of Yu.
In the twenty-ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Chang Ning was appointed as the General of Anbei and went out to conquer the Dzungars, that is, in this year, the concubine Chen Shi completed her life in the Liren Palace, from the fourteenth year of Shunzhi to the twenty-ninth year of Kangxi, the Chen clan was imprisoned for 33 years, which can be called a typical representative of the failure of the palace battle in the harem of the Qing Dynasty.
After Chen's death, Kangxi remembered that he was the concubine of the former emperor and gave birth to his fifth brother Chang Ning, so he ordered that Chen be posthumously named a concubine.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Records of the Ancestors of the Qing Dynasty, Four Genealogies of the Qing Imperial Family