The harems of several emperors of the Qing Dynasty had sister flowers, such as The Imperial Taiji Harem's Concubines and Concubine Zhuang, the Shunzhi Harem's Empress Xiaohuizhang and Shuhui Concubines, the Kangxi Harem even had four pairs of sister flowers, the Qianlong Harem also had Yi Concubines and White Nobles, and the Guangxu Harem had Concubines Jin and Zhen Concubines. Today, I want to talk about a pair of sister flowers in the Xianfeng Harem, they are Xuan Concubine and Jade Concubine.
First of all, let's look at the family lineage of the sisters of Xuan Concubine and Jade Concubine.
Concubines and Concubines are surnamed Yehenara, Manchurian White Banner people, and their father is Guixiang, a member of the Wailang. The two sisters, one was born in the twenty years of Daoguang, and the other was born in the twenty-third year of Daoguang.
You can find that the concubines and jade concubines have the same surname as Empress Dowager Cixi, so what is their relationship? The answer is that it doesn't matter, they just have the same surname.
Empress Dowager Cixi's Yehenara clan belonged to the Manchurian Blue Banner, and the family status was not high, while the Yehenara clan of Concubines and Jade Concubines belonged to the Manchurian Zhengbai Banner, and they were descendants of the Yehebu lords of the Nurhaci period, but they were far from the blood relationship with the last lord of the Yehebu state, Jintaishi. Jintaishi was the brother of Empress Xiaocigao, emperor Taiji's biological mother, and the branch of Concubine Xuan and Concubine Yu belonged to Jintaishi's cousins, and this branch produced a major figure in the Kangxi Dynasty, namely Suksaha, the assistant chancellor in the early years of Kangxi.
In the fifth year of Xianfeng, Concubine Xuan participated in the Eight Flags Draft as a Manchurian White Flag Showgirl, entered the court, and was named a nobleman. Xiao Xuan's three-year-old sister Yu Concubine entered the palace in the eighth year of Xianfeng, due to the lack of draft files, some people think that the jade concubines and Qi concubines who entered the palace this year were directly sent to the palace without going through the draft, but from the perspective of the ancestral system of the Manchu Qing royal family, the possibility is relatively small.
The fifth year of Xianfeng and the eighth year of Xianfeng were the beginning of the middle and late period of Xianfeng harem, respectively, and these two sisters also became the representative concubines of the late xianfeng harem. However, although these two sisters were rooted in red miaozheng and were born noble, they could not enter the eyes of the Xianfeng Emperor, and in the later period, Xianfeng was more favored by those palace girls of low birth, represented by the legendary "Four Spring Niangniang".
The unsatisfactory life of the harem and the lack of favor from the Heavenly Son of the Qing Dynasty made the two sisters of Xuan Concubine and Yu Concubine depressed and depressed, which may be one of the important reasons for their early death.
In the eleventh year of Xianfeng, Xianfeng, the 31-year-old Tianzi of the Qing Dynasty, died of illness at the summer resort. After the Tongzhi Emperor succeeded to the throne, the empress dowagers Ci'an and Cixi of the two palaces ordered that the two sisters, Xuan Concubine and Yu Concubine, be honored to the concubine. However, what is unexpected is that only one year later, the younger sister of the two sisters, Yu Concubine, died of illness at the age of 20. Her sister Concubine Xuan did not live long, and she died of illness in the Qing Palace in the thirteenth year of Tongzhi at the age of 35.
It can be said that the concubines and jade concubine sisters are the typical representatives of the unloved concubines in the harem of the Qing Dynasty, even if they are surrounded by the lustful prince Xianfeng, they still do not get half of the favor, there is no male and half-female, in addition to adding some glory to the family, there are basically no deeds that people remember.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Records of Emperor Wenzong of the Qing Dynasty, Four Genealogies of the Qing Imperial Family