Born on the third day of the second month of the second year of Guangxu, Zhenfei was the daughter of the former Hubu Right Attendant Changshu, who grew up in Guangzhou since she was a child, so she was influenced by Western thought at a very young age, so she was more civilized.
She has a cheerful personality, lively and active, and has a strong sense of curiosity, although she was named a precious concubine after she entered the palace, she was actually not happy, because she hated life in the palace very much, disgusted by the red tape and dull lifestyle in the palace, especially for the palace's deceitfulness and intrigue, she liked new things, liked to live an unrestrained life, but everything she wanted could not be achieved in the palace.
It turned out that fate did not favor her, but took her life early, when she was only 25 years old.
On July 20, 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance army came to the city of Beijing, the form was very critical, some people advised to stick to it, some people advised to leave, and then Cixi still decided to leave, decided to take Guangxu and other people to leave Xi'an, at this time they all changed into the cloth clothes of the common people, before leaving Cixi suddenly hesitated, and then with "Zhenfei is young and beautiful, will be insulted by foreigners, ashamed of the ancestors." As an excuse, the strong word took away Zhenfei inconveniently, leaving and afraid of provoking right and wrong, so it was decided to throw Zhenfei into the well, Zhenfei resisted and refused to die, and as a result, the eunuchs forced her into the well. In this way, Zhenfei, who was only 25 years old, died, which made Guangxu extremely sad. Because Guangxu likes Zhenfei very much and loves Zhenfei very much, it is said that Guangxu personally selected 1,000 pearls in order to spoil Zhenfei, and then ordered someone to make a pearl shawl and gave it to Zhenfei, which shows Guangxu's love for Zhenfei.
So why did Cixi execute Concubine Zhen?
First, in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, it was already extremely corrupt, and it was even more common for officials to sell officials and buy officials in the official field, different officials had different prices, coupled with the reparations of the Qing Dynasty for many years, the treasury was empty, and the concubines of the harem were also damaged, and as a result, everyone did not have much silver in their hands, plus Empress Longyu always withheld the silver two of the concubines, which caused the concubines to have a little nervousness at hand, so the concubines also had to think of their own methods, some concubines were bold, some concubines were timid, and the courage of nature dared to earn silver by selling officials , and Zhenfei is usually more generous, the money is not enough, she has to find a way, plus the Guangxu Emperor's favor for it, so Zhenfei's boldness is getting bigger and bigger, she secretly colluded with officials, sold officials in a big way, got a lot of silver two, it is said that at that time a Daotai was sold by her for 40,000 taels, the result was that the final East Window incident, Guangxu investigated a lot of ministers, and finally found that Zhenfei was also among them, Guangxu was very embarrassed, but Cixi knew that she was furious, and directly let people press Zhenfei outside the palace gate to beat, scolded in public, and beat her half to death. But this was not enough to kill Zhenfei, but it was only one reason.
Second, Guangxu was very fond of Zhenfei, which made other concubines dissatisfied, some people would naturally go to Empress Dowager Cixi to complain, saying some bad topics about Zhenfei, in order to attack Zhenfei, plus Empress Longyu was Cixi's niece, which naturally caused Cixi's dissatisfaction, because Guangxu did not pay attention to Empress Longyu at all, but favored Zhenfei alone, so over time, Cixi began to kill, but this matter was not the root cause.
Third, Zhenfei openly supported Guangxu's change of law, and secretly hoped that Guangxu could regain power through the change of law, because Zhenfei knew that Guangxu did not have real power, and the real power had always been in the hands of Cixi, so she hoped that Guangxu would take back the power through the Change of Law, so this violated cixi's taboo, Cixi knew it, so she always wanted to find an opportunity to get rid of Zhenfei, and then when the opportunity came, she threw Zhenfei into the well, which was the real reason why Cixi killed Zhenfei, so Zhenfei should not participate in politics.
Princess Zhenfei was wrong, but the sin did not lead to death, but history was so cruel, after all, she violated Cixi's authority and interests, and the results could be imagined.