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In Jin Yong's novel "Luding Ji", the Kangxi Emperor has an unrelated sister, Princess Jianning. This princess is brutal and willful, when she appeared, she was "fifteen or sixteen years old, with a melon face, thin lips, smart eyebrows, quite heroic", a mouthful of "emperor brother", coming up to Kangxi to compete in martial arts, Wei Xiaobao was smiling and asking for peace, and also ate Princess Jianning's flying kick, the chin was firm and firm, and was ridiculed by Princess Jianning as the "extreme pustule" of martial arts. In the novel, Princess Jianning wanted to compete with Kangxi and Wei Xiaobao several times, making Kangxi and Wei Xiaobao miserable, and finally Kangxi married Wu Yingxiong, the son of Wu Sangui. Wei Xiaobao escorted Princess Jianning to Yunnan, and the two fornicated halfway through, and also conspired to castrate Wu Yingxiong, the horse master. In the end, this Jianning princess also became one of Wei Xiaobao's seven wives.
Wei Xiaobao in film and television dramas. Source: Screenshot of the TV series "Luding Ji"
So, who is the real Princess Jianning?
First of all, let's see who Wu Yingxiong, the horse master, married? Historically, the person who married Wu Yingxiong was actually Princess Heshuo Kechun, who was Kangxi's aunt in terms of generation. Born in 1641, 13 years older than Kangxi, she was the youngest daughter of Emperor Taiji, and her mother was the Emperor Taiji's concubine of the Mongol Chahar Province Qilei clan, and the sister of the Shunzhi Emperor. Princess Heshuo was created during the Emperor's Taiji period, and in 1636, Emperor Taiji began to imitate the Ming system, the emperor's daughter began to be called "Princess", the empress's daughter was named "Princess Gulun", and the daughter born of a concubine and the adopted daughter of the empress was named "Princess Heshuo". The daughter of the prince is called Heshuog (county lord), and the daughter of the prince's son, county king, and Dorobele is called Dorogge. In addition, if the granddaughter can be raised in the palace, she will also be named Princess Heshuo, such as Princess Heshuo and Wan, and if she is favored, she can be named Princess Gulun, such as Princess Gulun Duanmin. "Gulun" means country in Manchu, such as the Great Qing Kingdom, which is called Daiqing Gulun. "Heshuo" means place, lower than Gu Lun. The two titles emphasize the distinction. Princess Heshuo was Princess Heshuo from the beginning. Since the rise of the Qing Dynasty, marriage has attached great importance to marriage, and marriage played an important role in wooing the Mongol tribes, so the royal daughters naturally had little marital autonomy.
Princess Jianning in film and television dramas. Source: Screenshot of the TV series "Luding Ji"
With the continuous maturity of the Qing Dynasty system during the Emperor Taiji period, the marriage of the entire Baqi women was gradually integrated into the Baqi system, and the marriage of royal women was completely monopolized in the hands of the emperor, and the "finger marriage" was implemented, and even the biological parents could not decide. In 1630, when Belle Amin was imprisoned, Emperor Taiji summoned Baylor to count Amin's "evil crimes", one of which was to marry his daughter privately and marry his daughter without the consent of Emperor Taiji. Because at this time, the Qing court had already stipulated that "all wives and daughters of all ministers and ministers must be heard of by Khan", and Amin "did not smell of Khan, but greedy for livestock, and became one of his crimes with his wife Mongolian Le Setel".
Imperial costume statues of imperial concubines and ministers of previous dynasties (Portrait of Emperor Taiji in civilian clothes)
For more than two hundred years in the Qing Dynasty, royal marriages were designated by the emperor, but in the Qianlong period, the age of women's finger marriage was set at fifteen years old, and the eight characters of the birthday of men and women were also handed over to Qin Tianjian, so that astrologers could determine whether the eight characters of the two were compatible, and finally the empress dowager, emperor or empress issued an edict stipulating the marriage object, and designated the sons of a certain family to marry the first daughters of a certain family. This process was not complete in the early Qing Dynasty, and when Princess Heshuo Kechunchang was 13 years old, she was married by Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and married Wu Yingxiong, the son of Wu Sangui, the king of Pingxi. Wu Yingxiong's birth date is not recorded in detail, but Wu Sangui was born in 1608, and Wu Yingxiong is Wu Sangui's eldest son, so Wu Yingxiong should be older and Shuo Kechun Chang Princess, the age difference is about ten years. In the following year, Jin was created Princess Heshuo Chang and awarded the Princess Golden Book. The text goes like this:
Dian Chongao descended, the emperor daughter was honored, the poetry was Suyong, and Wang Ji was sung. Both the graceful internal rule, should be honored, Princess Shuo and Shuo, the sister of Xuan, respectful and prudent and gentle in the heart of Jia Wei, mother Yi dedication, teaching in the palace, women's morality is not violated, the reputation is especially outstanding in the building of the pavilion, out of the noble school of Yinxuan, as a companion of Gao Hong, a relative of the jade plate, and a member of the Zongguo. Feng Zhan Yunxie, elephant service is appropriate, is to use the seal for the princess of Heshuo Chang, the golden book of tin (gift), humble to hold the profit, Yidu Xingmen withered, expensive and thrifty, forever the voice of the room, do not replace Ling Yi, still slow and thick, admire this.
This year was the fourteenth year of Shunzhi, and the books were often stylized languages, and each princess's books were similar, all praising feudal female virtues and the like. But overall, a princess who has been bound by feudal rites since childhood is unlikely to be as fierce as in the novel. Two years later, she was named Princess Jianning of Heshuo, which is the origin of the title of Princess Jianning in the novel, and later changed to Princess Heshuo Kechun, but she did not marry Yunnan, but lived in Beijing, and the purpose of this marriage was to let Wu Sangui keep a hostage in Beijing. When Princess Heshuo married Wu Yingxiong, Wu Sangui led troops to fight in Sichuan and Yungui, and had substantial military power, and only captured Yunnan in the following years. The princess who married Hanchen in the early Qing Dynasty, as well as Princess Heshuo Heshun who married Shang Zhilong, the seventh son of Shang Kexi the King of Pingnan, Princess Heshuo Roujia who married Geng Juzhong, the grandson of Geng Zhongming, the king of Jingnan, and Princess Heshuo Hujing who married Sun Chengyun, a minister of the rank of rank, were all political marriages.
Princess Jianning in film and television dramas. Source: Screenshot of the TV series "Luding Ji"
Wu Yingxiong's mansion in Beijing is located in Shihu Hutong, north of Xidan Pailou, which was the residence of university scholar Zhou Yanru in the late Ming Dynasty, but because Wu Yingxiong was killed, this mansion was affected, and at that time it was rumored to be one of the "four murderous houses of Jingshi", and Ji Xiaolan recorded the haunted story of this mansion in "Yuewei Caotang Notes". This place is "read for a long time, and it is beautiful and deep, so it is inevitable that it will change from time to time, but it is not harmful to people", only haunted, not harmful. "One door on the north wall, and two sides of the hut. The ghosts often carried the young servants sleeping in the hut outside the house, and when they slept, they lay down on the bed and slept in the yard with their eyes open, resulting in no one daring to sleep in these two huts for a long time. There was a luthier surnamed Qian who did not believe in evil and wanted to live in it, and nothing abnormal happened, and some people laughed at this old luthier with vitiligo on his face and said, "It is the honorable face that is better than the ghost, the ghost is terrified and escapes the ears", you scared the ghosts away! One day, Qian Qinshi locked the door and went out, and when he came back, he found that there was a brand new rain hat on the table, which was very beautifully made, and several people looked at this hat, you pass it on to me, I pass it on to you, some people laugh, some people are afraid, but no one dares to wear it. Qian Qinshi was very happy, took it and put it on, and the hat belonged to him, and the ghost did not dare to take it back. After Wu Yingxiong's death, the area became the Eight Flags Right-wing Sect, and Cao Xueqin briefly served as a teacher here.
A few years after marrying Wu Yingxiong, Wu Sangui opened a domain in Yunnan, in charge of military and civilian affairs, and sent troops to Burma, captured the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty, executed in Kunming, and reached the peak of his power, holding Yunnan and Guizhou, which were operated by the Southern Ming for many years in the early Qing Dynasty, and agricultural production has developed greatly, and the Southern Ming has had long-term dealings with the Qing court with these two places, and Wu Sangui here has dreamed of Mu Ying, the king of Pingxi in the Ming Dynasty, and also wants to be crowned king with a different surname like Mu Ying, and guard Yunnan for generations, separating one side. Wu Yingxiong, who was in Beijing, also went smoothly, known as "Heshuo Forehead", plus Shaobao and Prince Taibao. In "Luding Ji", Wei Xiaobao looked down on Wu Yingxiong very much: "I cheapened the kid Wu Yingxiong, married a beautiful princess, and made a high official." Mr. Storyteller said that Jing Zhong Yue Chuan, Yue Fei's grandfather official Feng Shaobao, how can you Wu Ying bear smelly boy compare with Grandpa Yue? ”
In 1661, the 20-year-old Princess Heshuo Ke Chun gave birth to her eldest son, Wu Shilin. According to rumors, Wu Yingxiong had passed by the Jingdong Sanhe County Gongle Store and lived in a Buddhist temple here at night, and soon after her return, the princess became pregnant with a child, so the couple happily came to burn incense. The Korean envoy who witnessed this recorded the pomp and circumstance of the pomp and circumstance of the horse master's house:
Crossing the Tuotuo River and entering the outside of Sanhe County, hundreds of carts and horses and dozens of camels gathered, and there were two felt curtains in the middle, as large as a tile house, with red brocade house palanquin two, soap-colored house palanquin dozens in front of the road, red cover and red fan, and dozens of women wearing felt curtains to walk out. Asked, then Shunzhi's sister was Wu Sangui's wife, and her husband had stayed at the Gongledian Buddhist Temple, and had a pregnant child, so the couple would go to his temple to set up a shrine to thank Yun.
Another major event occurred in this year, the death of the Shunzhi Emperor, the eight-year-old Xuan Ye ascended the throne, changed to Kangxi, after which the Qing court strengthened its control over the San Francisco forces led by Wu Sangui, confiscated his Pingxi general Yinxin, and then "cut off his right to use personnel to make up for it, removed the subordinate selection", and recovered his personnel power. In 1671, the 30-year-old Princess Heshuo Kechunchang accompanied Wu Yingxiong to Yunnan to wish Wu Sangui a birthday, and two years later, Wu Sangui rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, and once captured many prefectures and counties in Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Sichuan and other places, plus Guangxi general Sun Yanling, a bannerman of the Han army, and Geng Jingzhong, the king of Jingnan in Fujian, followed by the rebellion against the Qing, and the Central Plains shook for a while, and the war lasted for eight years before and after. Wu Yingxiong also reported to Wu Sangui for a long time in Beijing, and was soon arrested by the Qing court, and soon Wu Yingxiong and Wu Shilin were hanged by the Qing court, and Princess Heshuo Kechun and her young son were spared death and seclusion. In 1680, when the overall situation was decided, Kangxi issued an edict to Princess Gongchun:
The princess was burdened by rebellion and suffered for many years. Every time I think about it, I don't feel sorry. Unintentional hyperinfection. The nursing lady and the close guards looked forward, and turned back and played the words of the princess. I sighed. He also heard that he was critically ill, and immediately ordered the ministry to be in the court, and the deacons in costume and other items, and the starry night was organized. In the main body of the Duke of Jin, he sent all these items to the princess to show his sorrow.
Kangxi Emperor reading portrait. Source: Palace Museum
At this time, the princess lost her husband, her son was six years old, and he was seriously ill, and he was in danger, and Kangxi issued a condolence, and the princess's condition has improved since then. However, after the Qing army conquered Yunnan the following year, Kangxi did not hesitate to kill Wu Sangui's "second young grandson, and beheaded and abandoned the city", including the flesh and blood of the princess.
The Kangxi Emperor played by Chen Daoming. Source: Screenshot of the TV series "Kangxi Dynasty"
In "Luding Ji", Princess Jianning married Wei Xiaobao, which is impossible in real history. Before entering the customs, there were many women in the Eight Flags who "kept their chastity" and even died for their husbands. After entering the customs, the traditional values of the Han people quickly influenced the banner people, and the deeds of "chaste martyrs" recorded in the "Eight Flags Tongzhi" emerged one after another, the Qing court completely became the defender of feudal rites, and Princess Gongchunchang became a tragic victim, he was accused of marrying and being a hostage to the imperial court in the cardamom years, and after becoming a mother, he experienced family destruction and long-term confinement. After more than 20 years of seclusion, Princess Heshuo finally ran out of oil and died at the age of 63. The court's offering reads:
The friendship of the country is restored, and Shuyuan is prosperous; The ceremony was honored by the text, and the fountain was soaked. Princess Er and Shuo Ke Chun Chang, Hui Fenyu Yu Yu Leaf, Xiu Yu Golden Branch. Serve the car and return home, and prepare the gift with grace; It is worth the rebellion of the domain, and the rebellion is resentful. Although it is vast and deep, it is still admired by the dew, and the twilight is full of frost. He will be nurtured for a long time, but he will die forever. Alack! This branch is reading, Lunji Sizhao. He offered the sacrifice and recommended the fragrance, and set up a few banquets to make sacrifices. Spiritual, Shank came to the letter.
"Twilight, full of frost" is a true portrayal of the princess's later years of seclusion. The grave of Princess Heshuo Kechun is in Dongcaofang Village, Chaoyang District, Beijing today, where there was originally a princess tomb, but because there are too many princess tombs around Beijing and the name is serious, this place name is no longer used. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the army was in chaos, the underground palace of this princess tomb was stolen, the above-ground buildings were destroyed, and so far only some stone relics such as stone carved arches are left for open storage, and the exquisite dragon patterns on them are clearly distinguishable, indicating the status of this bitter princess during her lifetime.
Bibliography:
Dingyizhuang: A Study on the Life and Marriage System of Manchu Women
Author | Roshan
Edit | Zhan Qianhui
Proofreading | Ancient Moon