《宫女谈往录》里面讲述了史上最穷奢极欲的女人——慈禧太后，她用整个大清国库侍奉自己，为永葆青春每天喝新鲜人乳。 掌管清朝整整47年，死后更是陪葬大清半个国库，那慈禧的生活究竟有多奢侈？ How terrifying is the power of serving one person with the wealth of the world? 小编只能说看完这篇文章，绝对会刷新你对奢侈的认知！
Empress Dowager Cixi
In order to maintain her face forever, Empress Dowager Cixi had to drink human milk every day. According to the "Miscellaneous Notes of Wanji", "The palace regularly selects nursing mothers, and the requirements are very demanding. First of all, the nursing mother must be healthy, and the nursing mother's child must also be healthy. Secondly, the nursing mother husband must be alive and alive, between the ages of 15 and 20, because milk at this age is more nutritious. In addition, the nursing lady must be good-looking and plump." It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi began drinking human milk from around the age of 26 until her death, for half a century. Empress Dowager Cixi believed that human milk could nourish her appearance and keep her young forever. Yu Deling, who served as Cixi's personal translator, mentioned in her article that Empress Dowager Cixi drank human milk, which shows how luxurious Empress Dowager Cixi's life was at that time.
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In addition, according to the "Records of the Conversation of the Palace Maids", Cixi eats 108 dishes for a meal, and each dish can eat up to two bites, so there is: a meal for Cixi, the saying that the people have three years of grain, the dishes that Cixi eats are very exquisite, all of them are mountain and sea delicacies, bird's nest, shark fin, bear paw, deer antler velvet. And there must be eunuch palace maids waiting around at any time, which dish to eat, as long as Cixi raises her eyelids, there will be eunuchs to bring the dish to her mouth! Even when the Eight-Nation Alliance Army entered Beijing and Cixi fled, she refused to give up her pomp and circumstance, and still demanded that everything be eaten and dressed the same as in the palace!
Empress Dowager Cixi's sock embroidery and its intricacies
In addition to diet, Cixi pays more attention to bathing, in the summer, she requires the use of chrysanthemums from Hangzhou when bathing to ensure that she does not suffer from heat stroke, in winter, Cixi requires papaya soup, more strangely is to take a bath, Cixi will use a number of white towels, these towels are with exquisite embroidery, but in any case valuable to Cixi's hands it becomes disposable items, every time it is used up, it will be lost, never reused, Just from the towels, you can see how extravagant Cixi usually lives. The socks I usually wear need to be supplied by 3,000 workers a year, and the cost is as high as 10,000 taels of silver!
Empress Dowager Cixi and her fruit incense
It is said that Cixi does not like incense, her favorite is the natural fruit aroma, all year round with fresh fruit to smoke the hall, the large tank in the Cixi Palace to put fresh fruit every day, there was a palace maid who came out of the palace at that time said, as soon as you enter Cixi's palace is a fruity aroma, you can imagine how much melon fruit consumption, according to historical records, only during the Guangxu year, Cixi used up 150,000 apples in the palace!
Empress Dowager Cixi's palace at the Summer Palace
In addition, in order to decorate the Summer Palace, Cixi also spent 30 million taels of silver, you must know that the price of the most advanced warships in Britain and Germany at that time was only about 250,000 silver, so the money for decorating the Summer Palace was enough to form 3 Beiyang fleets.
Empress Dowager Cixi's funeral was actually videotaped
On November 5, 1908, Empress Dowager Cixi died in the Yiluan Hall in Beijing and was buried in the Eastern Mausoleum of the Qing Dynasty, ending her shameful life. The huge funeral procession stretched for dozens of miles, the royal heirs and the imperial court ordered officials to follow step by step, the huge coffin weighed a ton, requiring nearly 8,000 strong laborers to take turns to carry the coffin, 120 strong men took turns to carry the coffin, in order to keep the funeral procession moving forward normally, the scale of the scale made the foreign reporters who followed the photo at that time stunned, some people may wonder, is it Cixi that hid too many rare treasures, which caused the coffin to be so heavy? This is not the case, because the weight almost all comes from the material of the coffin, the oldest and heaviest goldenrod, the structure is tight and has its own aroma, the material can be said to be extremely luxurious, coupled with the large round ball made of pure gold on the top of the coffin, which causes such an amazing weight.
Empress Dowager Cixi produced funeral paper people comparable to real people
In addition, the Qing Dynasty also helped Cixi prepare vivid paper people, they are close to life-size, some riding horses, some holding knives and guns, pair after pair, there is no end in sight, the scene is very strange!
Image from the Internet
On the ground, people can only see the grand scale, and under the mausoleum of Cixi hides almost half of the wealth of the Qing Dynasty, all kinds of rare treasures worth up to 100 million taels of silver, the quilt covered by the coffin alone is made of gold wire and precious stones, and the 25,000-word Dhonila scripture is all woven by craftsmen with gold thread word by word, which can be said to be priceless. And there are three in the coffin of this bedding Cixi, there are countless jadeite white jade in the coffin, jadeite lotus leaves the size of a bowl, tourmaline lotus flowers as large as a basin, and colorful jadeite watermelons, jadeite cabbage and so on... Countless treasures fixed Cixi's body in the coffin. Even she had a night pearl in her mouth, and in order to make the body more stable, countless pearls and red and blue emerald gemstones were finally poured into the coffin! Although most of the above comes from wild history, it is undeniable that the Qing Dynasty can be said to raise Cixi with the power of one country, and its extravagance is unprecedented, and such a great Qing is also rare in the world.