On the evening of September 18, 1953, the clouds over the city of Beijing were thick, as if heavy rain was pouring down at any time, and Liu Zhendong, a cleaning worker, hurriedly returned home after cleaning up the last box of garbage.
His family lived in an old hutong in Beijing's Xicheng District, and the reason why he was in such a hurry was because there was a wife in the family who had been in poor health waiting for him to come home and cook.
Liu Zhendong is 45 years old this year, his wife name is Fu Yufang is 44 years old this year, although the two have a childless and childless life is relatively poor, but the husband and wife have always been very affectionate with each other.
Since Fu Yufang's physical problems, Liu Zhendong has not let Fu Yufang do any housework, let her raise her body wholeheartedly, and Fu Yufang has always been grateful for her husband's care for herself.
On the same day, Liu Zhendong just arrived home, and before he could relax, Fu Yufang suddenly had a heart attack and fainted on the bed, feeling that she was about to leave this world, she was reluctant to her husband, and she could not bear to hide something from her husband, so she said the secret hidden in her heart for many years: "Before marrying you, I was once the imperial concubine of the Qing Dynasty. ”
Hearing his wife who has been with him for many years say such a thing, Liu Zhendong couldn't believe it. Fu Yufang then passed away. Is Fu Yufang's last words before her death true? Why did a generation of imperial concubines end up at this point?
Fallen nobles - literary embroidery
Fu Yufang, whose original name was Erdet Wenxiu, was born on December 20, 1909. It is the Erdete Mongol ethnic group in the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and belongs to the yellow flag.
At that time, the Erdete family followed Dolgun into the customs and was assigned to settle in the Anding Gate of Beijing, and some people in the family had been officials in the dynasty for generations.
However, in the generation of Wenxiu's father, he gradually fell, and after repeated scientific expeditions failed, Wenxiu's father died young, and since then Wenxiu and his mother Jiang shi have barely survived by needlework.
Jiang Shi was originally a big girl of the Han nationality, who knew the book Dali, although the family lived in poverty, but the education of his daughter was never ambiguous.
Relying on a pair of skillful hands to embroider flowers for rich and noble families, he earned money for his daughter to study in wen embroidery. Wen Xiu was sent to the private Dunben Primary School in Beijing at the age of 7, and she was excellent in all subjects of the school from an early age, and she was deeply loved by teachers.
Jiang often admonished Wenxiu: "Now that the world has changed, only by reading well can you fully understand this society." ”
Wen Xiu is also very obedient, while studying while helping her mother to do some housework, living a poor but comfortable life. I thought I would continue to live like this, but unexpectedly all this changed drastically when Wen Xiu was 13 years old.
In 1921, Puyi, who lived in the Forbidden City in Beijing and retained the title of Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, turned 16 years old. Therefore, the concubines and old courtiers in the palace sent out news that they wanted to choose an empress for the little emperor.
After Wen Xiu's fifth uncle learned the news, he felt that this was an opportunity to honor his ancestors, and according to the Mendi Erdete family, he also met the conditions. So I thought of my niece Wenxiu, a 13-year-old Wenxiu with a tall figure, white skin and big eyes, and looked quite rich.
In this way, without Wen Xiu's knowledge, Wen Xiu's photo was taken by her fifth uncle and sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs at that time.
But what everyone did not expect was that Wen Xiu was really "approved" by Puyi as an imperial concubine. From then on, Wen Xiu no longer used the scientific name Fu Yufang, and no longer went to school, and the fifth uncle taught her the great ceremonies of the monarch and the rules and precepts in the palace, and urged her to begin to read the Daughter's Sutra.
Along with her, she was chosen by Empress Wanrong, and according to the Qing Palace Etiquette, the concubines had to enter the palace before the empress, so that they could kneel to greet the empress the next day.
The last imperial concubine, Lady Shu
On November 30, 1922, Wen Xiu was married into the palace by Puyi and was crowned as a lady concubine. The next day WanRong was married to the palace and crowned empress. When the two of them entered the palace, one was 17 years old and the other was 14 years old. In this way, the two ignorant women became a concubine and a queen of Puyi.
Later generations paid a lot of attention to the original graceful appearance, while the slightly inferior-looking Wenxiu did not know much, in fact, compared to Wanrong, Wenxiu was the talented person.
At the beginning, Puyi also admired the talented embroidery, the two often exchanged poetry together, and Puyi also specially invited Chinese and English teachers to teach literary embroidery.
"Spring is bright, red and green. Yu even walked in it, wandering eyes, shin cola also... However, wild animals do not live in the house, so the deer are confined to their own, and the prisoners in the prison cannot be forgiven. Zhuang Ziyun: I would rather be born and drag my tail in Tuzhong than die as a bone for Guiye. ”
Wenxiu once wrote such a "Mourning Garden Deer", she compared herself to the Mourning Garden Deer, describing her life in the palace. Puyi also mentioned the writing style of wen embroidery in "In the First Half of My Life", saying that its writing is elegant and extraordinary.
From the mourning deer, we can see that in the elegant sentences of Wen Xiu, we can also see that Wen Xiu has always longed for spiritual freedom in the Forbidden City, and she feels that she is in this harem as if she is in prison.
In fact, Wen Xiu's life in the harem is indeed unsatisfactory, although it is not worrying about eating and wearing, but in the harem struggle, people like Wen Xiu who do not understand the world have no advantage.
After all, Wen Xiu's identity is not as noble as Empress Wanrong, coupled with her own poor birth, and Wanrong's family background is strong. Not only are there big differences in ideology and concepts, but even living habits make Wenxiu feel very uncomfortable, the most obvious of which is on top of three meals a day.
Puyi has a special love for Western food, Wenxiu does not like Western things, and it is also Wanrong who can eat with Puyi. But after they got married, Puyi often had to eat with Wanrong and Wenxiu.
At the beginning, Puyi would be able to eat Western food only for breakfast, and everyone ate Chinese food for dinner, and then simply and Wanrong ate Western food together, and Wenxiu ate alone in the room.
Slowly there was a distance between Wen Xiu and PuYi, and in this harem battle, Wan Rong had the upper hand, and Wen Xiu could only silently grieve to Yu.
"Embracing the difficult dream, Xiao Xiao a night wind." Muddy mash chats about drinking, and the window is red as the sun. ”
From the small poem of Wen Embroidery, we can also see that in this deep palace, Wen Embroidery is not favored.
And from the existing wanrong's letter to Wenxiu, it can also be seen that Wanrong looks down on and even somewhat ridicules Wenxiu.
Although Wanrong looks beautiful, she is not wise outside the show, and she is not polite to this sister who is three years younger. Her writing is vulgar, and typos abound.
Wanrong's writing is not unusual, it does not look like it is from the hands of everyone, she seems to be very unaccustomed to the diligence of literary embroidery, and even makes a vulgar rumor to ridicule this talented woman.
In this deep palace, Wanrong often teased Wenxiu for fun, and Puyi never stopped this, Wenxiu in addition to reading behind closed doors, every time she received Wanrong's letter, she washed her face with tears, her body and mind were quite tormented, and several suicides were unsuccessful.
In 1930, just when Wen Xiu was deeply desperate about the life in front of him, the government of the Republic of China promulgated the Chinese Civil Law, which stipulated that "voluntary divorce is allowed".
Wen Xiu, who was sullen and unhappy all day, met his friend Yu Fen by chance, and Yu Fen woke up the dreamer with a word: "Now that it is the Republic of China era, Puyi was driven out of the palace, he is no longer the little emperor, and he also has to abide by the civil law." ”
Hearing Yu Fen's words, Wen Xiu nodded and said yes, and then Yu Fen said: "Nowadays, society advocates equality between men and women, Puyi bullied you like this, you can completely sue him for divorce from him, and ask him for living expenses." ”
Ordinary people - Fu Yufang
In the summer of 1931, Wen Xiu had already moved to Tianjin with Puyi. Wen xiu, who usually does not go out much, walks out of the house, and the people around him only say that wen xiu wants to go out to relax.
As everyone knows, Wen Xiu went straight to a law firm and found a lawyer's letter to Puyi through the lawyer:
"In the nine years of the emperor, he was not fortunate; he was alone and alone, and his sorrows flowed underneath; he was abused and unbearable. I hereby ask for another residence. Pu should go once a month for a number of days to practice cohabitation. Otherwise, we can only meet in court. ”
After the lawyer's letter was issued, Wen Xiu became the first and last concubine in Chinese history to dare to divorce the emperor, which was called the "concubine revolution" at that time.
Puyi, who received this lawyer's letter, was like a five-thunder boom, which was a great shame for him who thought he was still an emperor. Wen Xiu's news of divorce has not gone around the country, and major media have rushed to report it.
"Guoqiang Bao" took the lead in supporting Wen Embroidery, praising "the first concubine who broke the problem in the emperor's mansion for thousands of years to start a revolution."
Puyi felt that going to court would damage the royal face, so he immediately instructed the lawyer: "Solve this matter privately as soon as possible." After talking, the lawyers of both parties finally signed the Divorce Agreement:
The two disassociated from today, Puyi paid Wenxiu a lump sum of 55,000 yuan, after which he could no longer ask the Qing imperial family for anything, and the two sides must not harm each other's reputation.
After being forced to divorce, Puyi also published an "edict" in the newspaper in order to save face:
"Concubine Wenxiu left the garden without permission, which is obviously contrary to the ancestral system, and the original title should be removed and abolished as a commoner." Thanks. ”
More than half a month after the announcement of divorce, Puyi fled to the northeast, and the fate of the last empress was also very tragic, and she died on the way to escape at the age of 40.
After the divorce, Wen Xiu was only 22 years old at the time, and she had already been homeless after returning to Beiping from Tianjin alone. His mother, Jiang Shi, has passed away, and the courtyard that was originally rewarded has been sold by a family privately.
Although there were more than 50,000 yuan of living expenses paid by Puyi at that time, after paying the lawyer's fees and the personal expenses of rewarding relatives and friends, there were only more than 20,000 yuan left in Wen Xiu's hands.
In 1932, Wen Xiu began a new life, she reverted to her original scientific name Fu Yufang, because of the education she had received before, she found a teaching position in a private primary school in Beiping, teaching students Chinese painting. This was Wen Xiu's first profession after self-reliance, and she also became the first imperial concubine in mainland history to serve as a people's teacher.
However, the good times did not last long, and her identity as the former imperial concubine was exposed, causing quite a stir in the neighborhood, and reporters from all over the world also came to report, and then many good people came to the door of the school where Wen Xiu was located to see the imperial concubine.
Faced with this situation, Wen Xiu had to quit his beloved teaching job and continue to hide his name. But life always has to go on, if she wants to survive, she has to go out to work, during which time she has packed cartons to live, sold cigarettes on the street, and worked as a hard worker in the bricklayers' team...
During this period, although she suffered from human suffering, Wenxiu never regretted it, because she was always free mentally.
Later, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the 36-year-old Wen Xiu came to work in a newspaper after being introduced by a friend. No matter what kind of work is entrusted to Wen Xiu, she has always done it very beautifully, and the literary embroidery talent is really outstanding, so she is deeply valued by the president.
The president sympathized with Wenxiu and introduced her to his cousin Liu Zhendong. At that time, Liu Zhendong was in charge of managing the Zhongnanhai warehouse in the northbound camp of the Kuomintang army.
In 1947, Wen Xiu and Liu Zhendong married in Beiping, and after marriage, the husband and wife got along very well, and Wen Xiu also felt the warmth of the family for the first time in history, and the life of the officer's wife also became the most stable day in Wen Xiu's life.
Later, after the peaceful liberation of Peiping, Liu Zhendong, who had been a Kuomintang officer, was very scared in his heart and once wanted to flee to Taiwan with the Kuomintang troops, but Wen Xiu persuaded Liu Zhendong to stay and asked him to confess his historical problems.
In 1951, after Liu Zhendong's good performance was lifted from mass supervision and control, the Beijing Municipal People's Government assigned him to the Xicheng District Cleaning Team as a worker.
Liu Zhendong earned money with a job and a certain guarantee for Wenxiu's life, so the couple moved to the chopped wood hutong in Xicheng District.
Although there is only a small house of 10 square meters, the two have spent an ordinary and happy ordinary life after liberation.
On September 18, 1953, Wen Xiu died of a sudden heart attack, and her husband Liu Zhendong always accompanied his wife. After Wen Xiu's death, Liu Zhendong made a coffin for his wife with wooden planks, and with the help of his co-workers, a generation of imperial concubines Erdet Wen Xiu was buried outside the Anding Gate.
There is no tombstone in front of the grave, and a bunch of loess soil hides the coffin of Wen embroidery, and also hides the sad life of Wen Embroidery from a fallen noblewoman to the last imperial concubine to a commoner.