In the history of ancient Chinese emperors, there are many embarrassing tragic love stories. However, the love affair between Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and Empress Chen is the most touching story. A talented woman from a prominent background, married to the emperor of the current dynasty, should be the highest glory in life, but due to political struggles and emotional estrangement, she finally became an abandoned widow in the palace. What did she get in exchange for her life's infatuation? Did the light of love ever flash in the last years of her life? This sad love that spans thousands of years makes future generations sigh, how will it develop?
Gillian has lived in the deep palace since she was a child and has been pampered. After the death of her maternal grandfather, Emperor Wen of Han, she returned to the capital with her parents and grew up under the protection of Empress Dowager Dou and Emperor Jing of Han. As the only granddaughter of the Queen Mother, Gillian is particularly loved, and even Jia's mother does not have such a preference for Daiyu. In the expectation of the Queen Mother and the Princess of the Pavilion Tao, Gillian will definitely marry into the royal family in the future and live a carefree life.
When she was ten years old, the princess of the pavilion Tao took Gillian to ask for marriage, intending to marry Gillian to the crown prince Liu Rong. However, Kurihime's categorical refusal of the princesses' request caused a storm. The princesses quickly turned their attention to Mrs. Wang's son Liu Che, a brilliant little prince who had publicly begged Gillian to be his wife, and said in a surprising voice, "If you can marry Gillian as a wife, you should save it with a golden house", hence the idiom "Golden House Zangjiao".
In the midst of laughter, Gillian's marriage was quickly decided. She became a royal marriage orchestrated by the Han Dynasty, with countless entanglements of interests behind her. In order to achieve their respective goals, the princess and Mrs. Wang worked hard to seek the throne with one heart and one mind. The two went to the same end and tried every means to let Liu Che inherit the unification.
In 141 BC, Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty died, and Gillian's husband Liu Che ascended the throne as Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. At that time, Gillian was 20 years old and in her prime. She thought that this was the beginning of her life, and she could get along with her husband day and night, fall in love forever, and live a happy life with both children and daughters. But who would have thought that this was just a gorgeous illusion, destined to be shattered quickly in reality.
At the beginning of Emperor Wu's ascension to the throne, he was determined to reform and promote cultural governance. He recruited the world's wise men, dismissed the old ministers who admired Huang Lao, and replaced him with Confucian supporters as the core. This caused the empress dowager Dou to be uneasy, thinking that Emperor Wu was acting too aggressively. As a foreign relative, Dou has always tried to dominate the government, and out of the consideration of maintaining authority, she vetoed Emperor Wu's new personnel arrangements, and strictly ordered Emperor Wu to study behind closed doors and concentrate on internal affairs.
In this political struggle, Empress Chen Gillian sided with her grandmother and once again offended her husband Emperor Wu. The relationship between the two is already like ice, and their political opinions are even more different. Emperor Wu was completely disappointed in this marriage, like a fish in his throat. As a representative figure of her relatives, Gillian's domineering and interfering style aroused Emperor Wu's dissatisfaction and disgust.
Emperor Wu's dislike for the empress was also born from this. According to tradition, the queen loses her heir status if she has no children, and the eldest son is the inevitable candidate for the crown prince. However, Gillian has never been pregnant, and Emperor Wu's brothers are eyeing her and always want to replace her. The sense of crisis strengthened Emperor Wu's desire for the harem, and under the recommendation of his sister Princess Pingyang, he found the beautiful Wei Zifu and included him in the harem.
Wei Zifu came from a humble background and did not have any political background, which was in line with Emperor Wu's wishes, and he would not influence the government like his relatives. Emperor Wu was very fond of him, and Wei Zifu soon became pregnant. What does Gillian on the side think of all this? She must have been indignant in her heart, but she was helpless. The relatives manipulated the government and caused the imperial power to fall, coupled with Gillian's arrogant and willful personality, the contradiction between the two intensified.
After Wei Zifu gave birth to the crown prince Fusu, his status suddenly rose, and he became excessive. She began to slander and frame Gillian with the intention of seizing the queen's throne. Wei Zifu's family is a famous family in the Zhao country, and she entangled the eunuchs of the Zhao family and planned to expel the queen.
The eunuchs sowed discord and persuaded Emperor Wu to remove the empress qualification in the third year of Shouyang and put Gillian under house arrest in Changmen Palace. It was a deep and cold courtyard, and the environment was very bad, and Gillian could only live like a prisoner under the fence. But instead of succumbing to fate, she became more and more resilient.
Gillian secretly supported her cronies, such as Li Shiqi, Guo Sheng and others, and tried her best to resist the obstruction of eunuchs and concubines. She often wrote letters to her grandmother, the Empress Dowager Dou, telling her what had happened to her, hoping that the Empress Dowager would uphold justice and return justice to her. Although Empress Dowager Dou is old, she still cherishes this granddaughter and does not want her to be ravaged like this.
So Empress Dowager Dou ordered Concubine Wei to stop humiliating and take Gillian back to Changle Palace. Subsequently, Emperor Wu personally removed all charges for Gillian and restored her status as the empress. This was supposed to be the moment when Gillian raised her eyebrows again, but her heart was completely dead and she had no interest in power. She decided to stay away from the strife and live in seclusion in a garden on the outskirts of the capital.
This garden used to be the place where Emperor Wu frolicked with Gillian when he was young, but now it is only full of withering. Gillian began to immerse herself in the thoughts of the Buddha, and was imbued with the calmness and tranquility in it. She meditates alone in the garden every day, recites poetry, watches the clouds roll up, and guards the infatuation with Emperor Wu when she was young. Occasionally, writers will be invited to write a poem for themselves to express their indelible love.
Although she fell into the quagmire of palace politics and suffered cold reception and humiliation, Gillian's love for Emperor Wu has never diminished. She always had the expectation of a happy marriage and did everything she could.
First of all, Gillian sought medical advice everywhere, looking for the secret techniques of the fairy family that can repair the relationship between husband and wife. She paid a lot of money and hired a Taoist priest to set up an altar in the garden to practice the law, burn incense and recite mantras, hoping to dissolve Emperor Wu's hatred for her. Unfortunately, these superstitious practices have not helped.
Secondly, Gillian hired literati and writers to ghostwrite for herself, and used other people's masterpieces to express her infatuation. At that time, the famous writers Du You, Zhang Heng and others were invited to compose poems for Gillian to praise her indelible infatuation with Emperor Wu. These works all reveal Gillian's deep attachment to her husband.
Eventually, Gillian began to get close to the Buddha's thoughts, trying to find comfort in the ethereal idea of the universe. She built a small temple in the garden, where she bathed in the sun and meditated and chanted every day to express her loneliness and desolation. Occasionally, eminent monks will be invited to explain Buddhism to her. Gillian is extremely pious, and she did not hesitate to donate all her family resources to these monks who came to the garden to preach.
Time flies, time flies. Emperor Wu reigned for 54 years, and in his later years, he could not let go of his affection for Gillian. So he sent someone to invite Gillian back to the palace, and the two met again when they were dying.
According to legend, when Gillian walked into the imperial study and saw Emperor Wu with gorgeous hair, tears welled up in her eyes. She pounced on Emperor Wu and wept bitterly, showing her affection for many years at this moment. Emperor Wu was also very excited, hugging and crying with Gillian, and thousands of words converged into a sigh. The two snuggled up to each other like this, venting their thoughts for many years.
Emperor Wu praises the charm of Gillian still exists, and that fragrance has not been erased. He recalled the first time he fell in love with Gillian and fell in love with her at first sight. Gillian smoothed Emperor Wu's white hair, thinking about her husband's heroic figure when she was young. The two are like young people in love, reliving the excitement of love, and re-tasting the firewood, rice, oil and salt of the past.
After that, Emperor Wu ordered Gillian to be re-crowned as an official, and he had long forgotten what happened to her when she was under house arrest in Changmen Palace. Gillian has seen through the red dust and has no interest in all this. She told Emperor Wu that now only by being together is to complain to each other is her greatest wish.
Emperor Wu sincerely admired Gillian's indifferent fame and fortune, and decided to live in seclusion in the garden with her, away from the troubles, and passed away. The two worked hard and walked hand in hand every day of their old age. Sometimes they recite poetry against each other, sometimes they play chess, and no one can intervene between them until the last moment of their lives.
This touching story soon spread throughout the capital. Countless literati and writers have written poems for it, singing about this beautiful love in the world. The elegant and affectionate poems are like bright pearls, inlaid this vicissitudes of the past into eternal recitation.
The disciples of later generations were all sighing, praising this pair of hard-working mandarin ducks for overcoming the environment with the power of love, and finally achieving the fulfillment of life. To this day, many people take Empress Chen and Emperor Wu as the prototype to reappear such a moving love story on the stage and screen, so as not to interrupt their spiritual lineage. In the torrent of the times, the story of love never fades.