Portrait of Cixi at the age of 30
In the long history of the Qing Dynasty, there is a family that has produced beautiful women for generations, and most of these beautiful women are married to the Qing dynasty royal family.
In this family, there are only three empresses, and concubines and Fujin are endless. Among them, Nurhaci's mother, Huang Taiji's birth mother, all came from this family.
This family is the famous Yehenara family.
The Yehenara family and the Aisin Kyora family have always had an intricate relationship of "cutting continuously, rationalizing and chaos".
Portrait of Nurhaci
In particular, when Nurhaci used the Yehenara family to help him gradually achieve the great cause of reunification, he turned around and killed all the Yehe people who refused to be ruled by himself.
Before his death, the leader of the Yehebu clan, Jin Taiji, cursed fiercely: "Even if there is only one woman left in my Yehebu, I will let the Aisin Kyora family perish."
Based on this curse, successive emperors of the Qing Dynasty tried their best to avoid the woman of Ye Hebu as the lord of the harem.
However, the prophecy that "Ai Xinjue Luo will die in Ye He" quietly descended on a woman, that is, the woman of Ye Hebu, pushing the fallen Qing Empire into the abyss of destruction.
This woman of Ye Hebu was Empress Dowager Cixi, who later held the authority of the Qing Empire for nearly half a century.
People who love the Xinjue Luo family would never have thought that the magnolia girl who was elected to the palace in the second year of Xianfeng (1852) would single-handedly turn the Qing Empire upside down.
Empress
From the existing photos of Cixi, we can see that this woman with a blue flag whose name is changed to "Lan'er" does not look like a country.
Portrait of Xianfeng
However, being able to be admired by the Xianfeng Emperor who was addicted to wine, and directly crossed the promise, often in the two levels, and was named Lan Guiren, which also proved that the appearance of this Lan'er girl was not bad among the women to be drafted.
Probably also because of her outstanding appearance, when she first entered the palace (1852), Lan Er not only continued to be favored, but also continued to promote her position, and it took only one year from Yi Guiren (recorded in the Qing history) to Yi Concubine.
In particular, when she was 21 years old (1856), she gave birth to the eldest son of the Xianfeng Emperor, Aixin Jueluo Zaichun (Tongzhi Emperor), and the Xianfeng Emperor was very happy and directly crowned her as Concubine Yi.
The following year (1857), she was crowned Yi Guifei (懿贵妃), second only to Empress Dowager Niuhulu (慈安).
In order to show his love and trust for Yi Guifei, Xianfeng would also let Yi Guifei, who was fluent in Manchu Chinese, help him approve the recital.
The clever Concubine Yi, in order to avoid the doubts of the ministers of the court who were reading in her place of the Xianfeng Emperor, often used "read" and "know" to annotate.
This ambiguous annotation did indeed bother the military ministers at the time, and they had to carefully ponder the emperor's true thoughts when he read the recital.
However, what made the ministers of the DPRK and China truly understand the iron-blooded wrist of Concubine Yi was the famous "Xin You coup" in Qing history.
In August of the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861/ the year of the Lunar New Year), the Xianfeng Emperor died in the palace of the Rehe Mountain Resort.
In order to ensure that the crown prince could ascend the throne smoothly after he became an adult, eight former ministers Suchong Shun and Zaiyuan were ordered by the Xianfeng Emperor to assist the young prince.
However, these eight military ministers had serious conflicts with the new emperor Zaichun's biological mother, Empress Dowager Yehenara (i.e., Empress Dowager Cixi).
As a result, the Yehenara clan encouraged the Xianfeng Emperor's empress Dowager Niuhulu (i.e., Empress Dowager Ci'an) to fight with the eight ministers for power.
On the one hand, she instructed Yushi Dong Yuanyue to go up to the court and ask the empress dowager to bow the curtain to listen to the government.
Yikes
On the other hand, she secretly joined forces with Gong Yishi, who was excluded from the highest power, the Xianfeng period's minister Gu Mingqin, and the military minister Wen Xiang to launch a coup d'état.
With the support of Yi Bi and the Manchu ministers, SuShun and the others completely lost the opportunity to resist, and Cixi overturned the situation in one fell swoop, ordering Zaiyuan and Duanhua to commit suicide, Sushun to make a decision, and the remaining five people were dismissed.
During the raid on the residences of Sushun and others, Cixi informed the executive ministers that the letters and account books searched from these mansions would be "publicly burned and not presented."
This practice of not connecting with others did indeed make the "wall-riding faction" ministers in the imperial court at that time look at her differently and turn against her one after another.
The victory of this coup d'état made people have to admire the political wisdom of Empress Dowager Cixi.
Curtain down to listen to the government
As a mother, Cixi still hoped that her son, Emperor Tongzhi, could become a generation of saints like Emperor Kangxi.
Therefore, the Tongzhi Emperor, who ascended the throne at the age of 6, was chosen by his birth mother, Empress Dowager Cixi, to teach the most learned scholar in China at that time.
In the next 10 years, Cixi vigorously maintained the normal operation of the "huge machine" of the Qing Empire. In her view, her efforts can make her adult son take over a powerful and prosperous empire when he is pro-government.
Doji Images
However, the harsh reality shattered Cixi's dream of "hoping for a son to become a dragon", and the 17-year-old Tongzhi Emperor not only could not understand the folds, but also lingered in the fireworks and willow alleys, and died violently at the age of 19 in the Yangxin Hall in the Forbidden City.
Regarding the cause of death of the Tongzhi Emperor, the rumors are nothing more than "syphilis" and "smallpox".
For Cixi, who lost her son in middle age, the pain of "white-haired people sending black-haired people" made her life no longer have high morale, and what remained was an endless and firm control of rights and unlimited squandering of life.
In the celebration of Cixi's sixtieth birthday, the civil and military officials of the DPRK and China racked their brains, and even used naval military funds to organize a birthday feast for him.
Officials from all over the world also followed the example of the imperial court ministers, comparing themselves with each other, and the birthday gifts they contributed were based on the "nine".
For a time, the gifts of Heshou were piled up, and countless were counted.
Unfortunately, the consequences of using the navy's military funds to host the birthday banquet followed.
When Cixi's birthday feast had not yet officially begun, the humiliating war was already in front of us.
On July 25, 1894, the Sino-Japanese War broke out. In this war, the Qing Dynasty not only lost the Beiyang Fleet, the first in Asia, but also the port of Lushun was also killed by the Japanese.
Some officials were dissatisfied with this, and Hubu Shangshu Weng Tonggong (hé), even expressed in the compromise the hardships of raising military funds from the Hubu Department.
Cixi, who originally wanted to have a lavish birthday feast, was enraged by the letters of these ministers and indignantly said, "Those who make me unhappy today will also make him unhappy for the rest of his life."
For the sake of their own birthday feast, regardless of the turmoil of the country; for their own pleasure, regardless of whether the people live or die. Since then, compensation for land cession and peace negotiations have become the norm in that era.
What is even more indignant is that Cixi not only enjoyed luxury during her lifetime, but also brought half of the wealth accumulated by the Qing Empire for more than 300 years to her mausoleum after her death.
Cixi's mausoleum is located in the western part of the southern foothills of Changrui Mountain in the Qing Dongling Tombs of Zunhua County, Hebei Province, side by side with the tombs of Ci'an, on the east side of the Xianfeng Emperor's Ding Mausoleum, collectively known as the Dingdong Tombs.
Since Cixi was buried in the east, people also called her tomb "Bodhisattva Yuding Dongling".
Cixi's mausoleum is separated from Ci'an's "PuxiangYuding Dongling" by only a drainage canal.
Supposedly, Cixi, who is known as the Western Empress, should be buried in the west, so why is her mausoleum in the east, but ci'an, the eastern empress's mausoleum, is placed in the west?
Is it really the domineering Cixi who also did such a "should not give in" in the matter after his death?
In fact, Cixi, who loves to be in the limelight, really did not dare to overstep the system in this site selection.
Cixi and Ci'an
First of all, let's talk about the name of "East and West Empress".
This "east and west" is divided according to the location of the palace where they lived in the Forbidden City during their lifetime.
Zhong Pu Palace Changchun Palace
At that time, Ci'an lived in the Zhong Pu Palace in the East Sixth Palace, and Cixi lived in the Changchun Palace in the West Sixth Palace. In order to distinguish between them, the palace people privately called them "Eastern Empress" and "Western Empress".
The East and West also reflect our traditional Chinese traditional culture of the Middle East is large, the West is small.
The Tomb of the Xianfeng Emperor
However, in the "harem system" of the Qing Dynasty, the dignity and inferiority of the queen concubine's burial position was determined according to the distance from the emperor's burial position.
Floor plan of the Qing Dynasty Tombs
Compared with Cixi's mausoleum, Ci'an's mausoleum is closer to the Xianfeng Emperor's Dingling Tomb.
Because Ci'an was an empress who was crowned by the Xianfeng Emperor, and Cixi was only a noble concubine when the Xianfeng Emperor died, she was naturally one rank lower than Ci'an in terms of status.
If it were not for the fact that Cixi gave birth to the only prince of the Xianfeng Emperor, Zaichun, I am afraid that she would never have been revered as the "Empress Dowager".
Therefore, in the choice of the location of Ci'an's mausoleum, although Cixi was unwilling in her heart, she still could not openly occupy it.
In fact, as early as the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), the empress dowager of the two palaces chose the auspicious land of ten thousand years for their fate.
This auspicious land is at the southern end of the Changrui Mountain in the Qing Dynasty.
After six years (1879) of massive construction, the two costly mausoleums were completed. It can be said that these two mausoleums are the best architectural masterpieces in the tombs of the empresses of the Qing Dynasty.
In some respects, it is even more exquisite than some of the emperors' tombs in the Qing Dynasty.
Long En Hall
However, no one would have thought that in the sixteenth year after the completion of this mausoleum (1895), Cixi, who was not willing to be left behind, actually demolished the original building and spent thirteen years to rebuild a more luxurious, more luxurious, and more brilliant mausoleum complex.
No wonder there is a saying in the Qing Dynasty Tombs: Look at Qianlong underground, and look at Cixi on the ground.
It can be said that the materials used after the reconstruction of the Cixi Mausoleum are more expensive, the workmanship is more elaborate, the craftsmanship is more exquisite, and the decoration is more gorgeous.
Her mausoleum not only dominates the entire Qing Dynasty Empress Mausoleum, but also exceeds the configuration of some emperors' tombs.
The three halls in front of Cixi's mausoleum alone were one notch higher than the Taihe Hall, the highest-ranking hall in the Forbidden City.
In particular, the carving level of the stone railing and Dan Majesty stone outside the Longen Hall is the most precious treasure that cannot be reached in the entire Qing Tombs.
This Dan Majesty Stone in front of the Long En Hall uses the technique of high relief and transparent carving, vividly depicting the realistic appearance of Dan Feng flying in the air and the dragon coming out of the water.
And this pattern of "the phoenix is on top and the dragon is on the bottom" is even more exposed to the monstrous power of Empress Dowager Cixi when she "bowed the curtain and listened to the government".
The sixty-nine white jade balustrades around the Long'en Hall are carved everywhere into the format of "Phoenix Leading the Dragon Chase" and seventy-four pillars breaking through the format of one dragon and one phoenix, all of which are carved designs of "one phoenix and two dragons", which once again hints at the two-degree curtain of Empress Dowager Cixi.
In addition, the rosewood structure of the Hall of Longen, the exquisite swastika brick carvings on the inner walls, the carved golden dragons on the ceiling, the painted golden dragons on the girders on the roof, and the gilded bronze dragons circling on each pillar of the hall are all architectural masterpieces that other Qing Dynasty imperial tombs cannot match.
The reconstruction of the three halls alone cost more than 3800 taels of gold, and the construction of the entire mausoleum cost as much as 4592 taels of gold.
The reconstruction of the entire "Bodhisattva Yuding Dongling" took thirteen years (1895-1908), and some projects were just completed before Cixi.
Ningshou Palace
Therefore, in this case, Cixi's coffin did not enter the underground palace directly, but stopped at the Ningshou Palace, then turned to the foot of coal mountain, and then selected an auspicious day before carrying the coffin into The Tanglin.
So, how long did Cixi's coffin stop before entering the underground palace she had spent so much time and effort to build? What bizarre events happened to her coffin during its delivery? After entering the underground palace, how did she get dug up by Sun Dianying and discard the bones? ......
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Meet the artifacts and we'll meet again on Thursday.
Some of the pictures come from the Internet, if there is infringement, delete it immediately, thank you for adding a lot of color to this article.