Nowadays, there are often cross-over plots in film and television works, and the protagonist of the story travels back from modern life to ancient times and then starts his own beautiful ancient life. Generally everyone will fantasize about becoming a socialite, a prince and aristocracy, like in the fire TV series "Step by Step", the heroine is to cross back to become a gege, then is the reality really so beautiful? Was being a princess in the Qing Dynasty really the pinnacle of life?
Perhaps the daughters of Kangxi can give us some enlightenment, Kangxi, as the most fertile emperor of the Qing Dynasty, not only gave birth to 35 sons, but also gave birth to 20 daughters. It's just that although many children are born, many of them die prematurely. Of Kangxi's 35 sons, 14 died before the age of ten, while ten of his 20 daughters died before the age of ten, and only ten princesses lived to the age of ten. Why the emphasis on after the age of ten? According to the etiquette system at that time, the emperor's daughter could only be called a princess after she had reached the age of ten and performed the "preamble", that is, the ranking. Therefore, Kangxi had only eleven princesses in total, ten of whom were biological and one of whom was adopted.
There are many common misunderstandings in film and television dramas, such as "Gege" is the Manchu meaning of miss, from the emperor to the daughter of the prince and nobles can be called Gege, but only the princess is the exclusive title given to the emperor's daughter by the Qing Dynasty imperial family in reference to the Central Plains tradition. When the princess is married, she will have her own title, such as the daughter of the empress concubine will be crowned as the princess of Gulun, while the daughter born of the concubine can only be crowned as the princess of Heshuo. The main reason why the princess waited until the princess got married was that the marriage of the princesses of the Qing Dynasty basically belonged to the political marriage, and they had to have a loud name and identity when they got married. Therefore, the stories of the princesses in film and television dramas who love freely and pursue love almost do not exist in history.
In fact, since the Qing Taizu Nurhaci raised the army, the Manchus have attached great importance to establishing political alliances by marriage, the most important political alliance is the "Manchu-Mongolian Alliance", friends who often re-watch TV dramas also know that as emperors, they must personally go out to carry out political alliances, like Emperor Taiji married five Mongolian daughters-in-law, which has a famous filial piety, and Shunzhi also married five Mongolian daughters-in-law... Even the emperor himself had to participate in the political marriage, and the princesses, who were the emperor's daughters, naturally could not get away. Seven of Kangxi's nine married princesses were all married to Mongolian princes and nobles, but political marriages were not necessarily unhappy, and marrying first and falling in love was not a new thing in the long history of the mainland.
Among Kangxi's many daughters, the happiest was the Grand Princess, and what is more interesting is that the Grand Princess is not Kangxi's biological daughter, she is the daughter of Kangxi's fifth brother Prince Gong Changning. It may be that Kangxi, in order to bring the brothers closer, unites the clan and raises a girl as a bond. But the most important reason is because the grand princess was carefully selected to give the Kangxi harem "Chong Xi". The Grand Princess was born in November of the Kangxi Decade (1671). That year, Kangxi was only eighteen years old, but he had already given birth to three boys, two women and five children, but none of these five children remained, and all of them died prematurely. Kangxi died five children in a row, and these five children still came from five different mothers, and for a time rumors about the royal curse were flying all over the place, so at this juncture the Grand Princess she was adopted and used to rush to the obscurity of the palace.
Coincidentally, two years after the eldest princess entered the palace, the eldest Yin Zhen and the second elder Yin Rong were born and grew up. For a time, neither Kangxi nor the empress dowager in the palace smiled and smiled, thinking that it was the grand princess who brought blessings to the royal family, so Kangxi directly made this adopted daughter platoon as the grand princess. As the first daughter of Kangxi, Kangxi naturally also loved the eldest princess, and it can be seen that the grand princess did not get married until she was twenty years old, and it can be seen that the mother's family loved the children in that era and carefully selected the son-in-law to keep the daughters before they were married. Later, when she got married, Kangxi directly gave her the treatment and scene of a princess in order to support the grand princess, and it should be known that the grand princess was only the title of "Princess Heshuo" at that time.
A father who loves himself is enough, and the eldest princess is also very good. The object of the marriage of the grand princess was the Mongolian nobleman Bandi at that time, and saying that he married well did not mean how high The status of Bandi was at that time, but that Bandi himself was capable and had good character. In the second year after Bandi married the Grand Princess, he was promoted to Congyipin, and then he became an official all the way, working diligently, successively serving as a series of official positions such as the deputy capital of the Mongolian white flag and the yellow flag of Mongolia, and served as a high-ranking official in the Kangxi Dynasty for more than twenty years without being scolded by Kangxi. And whenever the grand princess returned to Beijing to visit her relatives, the history books recorded that Bandi basically followed the princess, and the husband and wife were always in and out of pairs, which was almost the only one in Kangxi's nine foreheads.
Even in addition to her father Kangxi and her husband Bandi, the younger brother of the eldest princess is also very good to her, this younger brother is Yongzheng, in fact, it is calculated that the Yongzheng Emperor was only thirteen years old when the eldest princess was twenty years old and married, which means that the sister watched him grow up, and naturally the sister and brother have a deep affection. After The death of Kangxi, Yongzheng succeeded to the throne and directly ordered that the title of Grand Princess be promoted from the original "Princess Heshuo" to the "Princess of Gulun". On weekdays, if the sister has a headache and brain fever, she must send an imperial doctor to diagnose and treat, and Yongzheng will also help her sister solve some personal problems, according to the "Yongzheng Dynasty Manchu Zhu Pingquan Folding Complete Translation" recorded that once the grand princess asked Yongzheng about the grade of her daughter-in-law: "I am also old, but the daughter-in-law of the beloved son has no grade, and respectfully asks the Holy Lord to reward my daughter-in-law with a title." For that reason. After Yongzheng read it, he replied, "Since the princess plays please, the reward is Gushan Gege." ”
In the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), Bandi died, and Yongzheng was afraid that his sister was left alone, so he directly ordered his sister to live in the capital. Until the sixth year of Qianlong (1741), the seventy-year-old grand princess Shangquan nephew said that she felt that she did not have much time and wanted to go back to mongolia where she and her husband Bandi lived to have a look. Qianlong was accurate, and a year later, the eldest princess died in Mongolia, from here it can also be seen that the old father Kangxi really helped the eldest daughter choose the right person, and the eldest princess and Bandi are really deeply in love. This is the bland and happy life of Princess Gulun Chunyi, the eldest daughter of Kangxi, and the eldest princess is also the happiest of all the daughters of Kangxi, and the rest of the princesses can say that the fate is bad, leave it to the next issue.