In film and television dramas, such scenes are often seen, where the emperor inadvertently meets a small palace girl, resulting in a beautiful love story. In fact, this situation may really be staged in history, for example, the one I want to talk about today is from a small palace girl to the yongzheng Emperor's favorite concubine, she is a humble concubine.
Born in the fifty-third year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Concubine Liu was more than 35 years younger than Yongzheng, and was a clothed woman from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose father was Liu Man.
From the perspective of the family world, Qianfei really has no advantages to speak of, and even has great disadvantages, which can be described as the collar of the coat, that is, the Xinzhiku people we know. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the status of the Xinzhiku people was relatively low, and it is said that Kangxi once disliked the eight brothers Yin Yu's biological mother Liang Concubine as a "Xin Zhi Ku untouchable woman", which may also be one of the reasons why Yin Yu did not have the throne. After Yongzheng succeeded to the throne, although the status of the Xinzhiku people improved, they still belonged to slaves after all.
For example, there is no doubt that a woman of birth like Concubine Liu must participate in the palace women's draft organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In the seventh year of Yongzheng, the 16-year-old Liu Shi participated in the palace women's draft, and stood out because of his outstanding appearance, thus becoming a small palace girl in the Qing Palace.
At that time, Yongzheng was already an elderly man over fifty years old, and originally did not have much interest in a woman like Liu Shi, but somehow Liu Shi seemed to have a magic power to attract the emperor, and finally Liu Shi was favored by the emperor, and soon after entering the palace, he was named a promise.
After that, Liu Shi seemed to be more pleasing to the emperor, which made her be promoted two consecutive ranks in the eighth year of Yongzheng, and she was successively promoted to chang zai and noble. However, the node at which the status of concubines in the harem of the Qing Dynasty has been qualitatively changed is the concubine position, and only when she can be promoted to the concubine can she truly be called the lord of the first palace. But just at this time, Yongzheng had a serious illness, which was very serious and lasted for a long time, and even almost took Yongzheng's life.
However, after some conditioning, Yongzheng still recovered smoothly. Unexpectedly, after recovering, Yongzheng did not forget Liu Shi, still very fond of him, and Liu Shi's stomach was also very contentious, and she gave birth to a young son for Yongzheng in the eleventh year of Yongzheng, that is, Crown Prince Hongyao. At that time, Yongzheng was already 56 years old, old and had children, naturally very happy, a paper order to promote Liu Shi to be a concubine, as such, after unremitting efforts, Liu Clan finally completed the gorgeous transformation from palace daughter to the main throne of the inner court.
After Qianlong succeeded to the throne, he was also very courteous to Liu's mother and son, and made Liu's honorific title as an imperial concubine. Compared with his younger brother Hongyao, who is more than twenty years younger, he was even more spoiled by the heavens, and he was raised in the Yuanmingyuan, so this Hongyao had an additional title: Brother yuanmingyuan.
In February of the third year of Qianlong, Prince Yinli of Guo died of illness, because Yinli had no children under his knees and no one inherited the title, Qianlong passed on his younger brother Hongyao to his uncle Yinli, so Hongyao picked up a prince in vain. However, Hongyao gradually became impetuous when he grew up, and relying on the love of his brother Qianlong, he made some mistakes, and was even stripped of his knighthood, and finally ended up with an early death at the age of 33.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Records of Emperor Shizong of the Qing Dynasty, Imperial Classics