When Emperor Taiji had just become emperor, Xiaozhuang was named Concubine Zhuang of Yongfu Palace, ranking last among the five palace concubines. So how did Xiaozhuang turn over? That has to rely on the son.
Emperor Taiji said that the emperor had given birth to a total of five sons, and the second and third sons were all teenagers who died in infancy. In the second year of Chongde, this year Huang Taiji had three sons in a row, of which the eighth son was born to Huang Taiji's favorite concubine, which can be described as the crystallization of the love between the two, making the forty-five-year-old Huang Taiji happy, in order to express his happiness, an unprecedented amnesty was issued. But it is a pity that the fate of this little prince was not good, and he died in six months.
Xiaozhuang gave birth to a prince three days after the death of Hailanzhu's son, which was also her first son after giving birth to three daughters. Although later historical records say that when she was pregnant, she had a red light around her body, and the red light still circled into the shape of a dragon, and the red light also shone in the palace on the day of birth, which lasted for a long time, and the aroma in the Yongfu Palace was filled for several days. But in fact, this prince was born very plainly. Because the palace was in a sad atmosphere of losing the eighth son of the emperor at that time, Hailanzhu, the favorite of the emperor Taiji, was still moaning on the sick bed, so Xiaozhuang gave birth to a son without any celebration.
On the ninth night of the eighth month of the eighth year of Chongde, Emperor Taiji died suddenly at the age of fifty-two. Because Huang Taiji, like her father, did not have a last word to explain who would inherit the throne. So the Qing royal family and the entire Baqi once again fell into the vortex of competition for the throne. Emperor Taiji's younger brother Dolgon and eldest son Hauge are the two protagonists in this battle. However, the final result was unexpected, neither Dolgon nor Hauge took the throne, but Xiaozhuang's son, the ninth son of Emperor Taiji, and only six-year-old Fulin became the next emperor of the Qing Dynasty. He was the beneficiary of the fierce struggle between his eldest brother Haug and Dolgon.
Why Fulin ascended the throne, there is an intricate relationship behind this, some people say that Dolgon wants to choose a young nephew as the emperor, and it is easy to control after his regent, if this is the case, in fact, Emperor Taiji has other young princes, so Fulin's accession to the throne is by no means a random choice made by Dolgon when the struggle for the throne is hopeless.
This involved the first big melon of the Qing Dynasty, Xiaozhuang married Dolgon, and many people thought that Xiaozhuang and Dolgon had feelings earlier. Xiaozhuang was only thirteen years old when he married Huang Taiji and the thirty-four-year-old Huang Taiji age difference is too much, there is no common language between the two, his younger brother-in-law Dolgon was fourteen years old at that time, the two were about the same age, and it was easy to have feelings in contact, this personal relationship prompted Dolgon to finally decide to elect Fu Lin to inherit the throne. After Fulin became emperor, Xiaozhuang married Dolgon in order to thank him and to suppress or balance Dolgon's power.
However, there is no clear record of this in historical records, but it is believed that one evidence of the Empress Dowager's marriage is the title of Dolgon, and after the Shunzhi Emperor took the throne, the title of Dolgon was gradually increased from "regent" to "uncle regent", then "uncle Huang's regent", and finally directly added to "imperial father regent".
In addition, the reason for this statement is also related to a Manchu marriage custom, before and in the early days of entering the customs, Manchurian society has always been prevalent in "accepting and inheriting marriages". The so-called "step-marriage" means that when the father dies, the son can take all his stepmothers except his biological mother as his wife, and when the brother dies, the younger brother can take his sister-in-law as his wife. However, there are also rules for Manchu marriage, sons can adopt stepmothers, younger brothers can adopt stepsisters-in-law, but fathers cannot accept stepdaughters-in-law, and older brothers cannot adopt stepdaughters-in-law, which is closely related to their tradition of "noble and strong", that is, young men can have more wives and produce more offspring. According to this custom, it is natural for Dolgon to take his sister-in-law after his brother's death.