Concubine Li was a concubine of Zhu Youxiao, emperor of the Ming Dynasty. On December 22 of the third year of the Apocalypse, Concubine Li was crowned as a Concubine of Cheng for giving birth to Princess Zhu Shuyan of Huaining, and was given the residence of Changchun Palace.
However, joy comes in a hurry, and there is a hurry to go. Just when Zhu You's school had just completed the canonization of the concubine on the same day, and the couple were both immersed in the excitement of loving their daughter, a few hours later, a strong earthquake suddenly occurred in the capital, "the palace hall shook with sound, the water of the copper cylinder and barrel shook, and the people who sat on the seat were soft and drunk." Soon after, Princess Huaining died tragically (it was the Great Earthquake of the Sun and the Earth, and then Princess Xue), and then Princess Li Chengfei also fell out of favor because of this ominous event.
Three years later, the emperor's free concubines were left with only Three concubines, Empress Zhang, Imperial Concubine Ren, and Concubine Li Cheng.
It is somewhat ridiculous and pitiful to say that the reason for this situation in front of us is inextricably linked to the emperor's wet nurse Keshi.
Keshi (Keyinyue) was the wet nurse of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, a special figure in the history of the Ming Dynasty. Only because Emperor Tianqi's birth mother Xiao and Empress Wang died earlier, and his adoptive mother Xi Li Kangfei was not good to him, so Emperor Tianqi instead formed a deep affection with his nursing mother who was a slave and treated her like his own mother--soon after he ascended the throne, he named the Ke clan "Lady Fengsheng", and the honor guards entering and leaving the palace were like emperors.
However, this wet nurse of the Emperor of the Apocalypse was a narrow-minded woman, and after she had power in her hands, she became extremely arrogant, and even competed with the concubines of her own sons, and even killed several concubines who had been fortunate by the Emperor of the Apocalypse.
According to the Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Ruoyu's "Zhi Zhongzhi" (Discretionary Chronicles) written by the eunuch Historian Liu Ruoyu, the concubines who died at the hands of the Ke clan were: the concubines who chose to serve zhao (murder), the Zhuang concubine Li shi (who died alive), the Yu concubine Zhang shi (who was starved alive after captivity), the noble Feng clan (strangled alive), and the concubines who were persecuted and expelled from the palace by other methods, and the emperor always ignored these actions of his grandmother and let them act arbitrarily in the palace.
Returning to the truth, it is said that at this time, the only three concubines that the emperor could contact were Empress Zhang, Emperor Ren and Concubine Li, and the other concubines were either put under house arrest by the Ke clan in their own palaces or expelled from the palace.
Coincidentally, at this time, Empress Zhang was in poor health and unable to serve the emperor; Emperor Ren's concubine was pregnant and was about to be in the basin and could not serve the emperor.
Therefore, the Emperor of The Apocalypse, who was just in his early twenties, came to Li Chengfei's palace under extreme loneliness and began to feel for her again.
A few days later, Li Chengfei returned to her former grace.
However, at this time, one of Li Chengfei's actions caused serious dissatisfaction among Keshi, and because of this, he blackmailed her and wanted to get rid of her quickly.
It turned out that Concubine Li Cheng had a good sister in the harem, and it was Concubine Fan. At this time, Princess Hui was being grounded in her palace by Keshi and was not allowed to go out.
Li Chengfei wanted to take the opportunity to ask for personal affection for his good sister, hoping that the emperor could restore Huifei's free body.
But what I didn't expect was that the so-called partition wall had ears, and soon the news reached Keshi's ears.
In order to retaliate against Li Chengfei's move, keshi falsely passed on the holy will, put Li Chengfei under house arrest in the tone of the emperor, and removed all palace women and eunuchs, forbidding anyone to send food inside, and wanted to starve Li Chengfei alive as he had done against Yufei Zhangshi in those years.) Guest, Wei Zhi's anger, also Yu Chengfei in the other palace).
In fact, Li Chengfei was also one of the main witnesses to Zhang Yufei's tragic fate, but she had nothing to do about it, because she had no way to rescue her, because even the emperor had to obey Ke's arrangement.
When Zhang Yufei was six years old (forty years of the Wanli Calendar), she left her parents and came to the palace and became a little palace girl. At the age of eighteen (the beginning of the third year of the Apocalypse), she was conceived by the Emperor and was later crowned as a concubine.
Although Zhang Yufei was not born well and had a low status, she was an upright and courageous woman, and she was very disgusted with Keshi's various bad behaviors, and often made critical remarks about it, and soon became a thorn in Keshi's eye and a thorn in her flesh, and always wanted to find an opportunity to get rid of her.
A few months later, the opportunity came—because according to the harem archives, Zhang Yufei's due date had already arrived, and she did not want to give birth for a long time.
Therefore, Keshi insisted that Zhang Yufei had fought for favor by means of a fake pregnancy, committed the crime of deceiving the king, and should be executed.
Therefore, on the eve of the Mid-Autumn Festival on the eighth day of the eighth month of the third year of the Apocalypse, Keshi imprisoned Zhang Yufei in the "Bei Palace", and removed all the attendants around her, forbidding anyone to enter, planning to starve Zhang Yufei alive (Yu Bei Gong, no food).
In fact, this so-called "other palace" is not a palace at all, in fact, it is an aisle or a passage in the palace, surrounded by palace walls, completely open-air, there is no place to cover the wind and rain, hot during the day, cold at night, and even when it rains, there is not even a place to hide.
Unfortunately, in the days after heavy rainfall, Zhang Yufei was hungry and thirsty, so she dragged her pregnant heavy body and crawled under the eaves to drink rainwater to quench her thirst, hoping to save her life.
However, after suddenly drinking a large amount of unclean rainwater, Zhang Yufei, who was already extremely weak, could not eat it.
On August 22, after being starved for 14 days, Zhang Yufei, who was physically ill, finally could not hold on, took the child she was about to be born in her womb, and left the palace (Tianyu, the concubine crawled and died at the age of 18).
Finally, at the behest of the Ke clan, Zhang Yufei was buried as a palace maid.
For Zhang Yufei's tragic experience, Li Chengfei, like many concubines, was extremely shocked in her heart, and she did not expect that such a tragic thing would happen in the harem.
Since then, she has begun to worry about her situation. Because she knew very well in her heart that keshi dared to treat Zhang Yufei like this today, and it was very likely that she would treat herself like this tomorrow.
Therefore, from the day Zhang Yufei was buried, Li Chengfei began to quietly hide some food that could be preserved in her palace, especially in the corners of the palace courtyard, in case of emergency.
This habit of hiding food, Li Chengfei persisted, until three years later, her expectation actually became a reality - Keshi blackmailed her.
However, this seemingly bloodless means of killing people is actually far more cruel than a knife, a white silk or a glass of poisonous wine, because this means of killing, for the person to be killed, is not only physical pain, but also includes mental torture.
Since Zhang Yufei was starved to death on the fourteenth day, Keshi ordered people to open the palace gate and collect the body of Concubine Li Chengfei on the fifteenth day.
However, when the people of the Fifteenth Heaven Palace had the courage to enter the place where Li Chengfei was under house arrest, they were immediately frightened by the scene in front of them - because what appeared in front of them was not a skinny dry corpse, but a flesh and blood, energetic Li Chengfei!
After confirming that Li Chengfei in front of them was not a ghost, the palace people quickly told Keshi about this situation. At this time, the anger in Keshi's heart had subsided, coupled with the fact that Li Chengfei was on a hunger strike for half a month, not only did not die, but was more spiritual, and her heart was also a little afraid, worried that it was the protection of the heavens for her, and she did not dare to take tough measures against her, so as not to provoke the heavens.
Although Princess Li Chengfei survived by relying on her hidden food and nearby wells, Keshi would not tolerate her after all, and soon stripped her of her title and all treatment, demoted her to a palace maid, drove her out of the Changchun Palace, and continued to destroy her physically and mentally.
According to historical records, on the day that Princess Li Chengfei was moved out of the Changchun Palace, the palace was "very cold in the wind and snow, and the behavior was miserable, and those who saw it were wronged." ”
Fortunately, a year later, the carpenter Emperor Zhu Youxiao, who had been inactive for eight years and was bent on playing, finally fell into the water and died on the way to the south, and he was followed by the treacherous Keshi and Wei Zhongxian.
After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, the first thing to be solved was Keshi and Wei Zhongxian—Wei Zhongxian committed suicide before the palace guards arrived, and Keshi was first stripped of his title and demoted to palace maid of the palace laundry bureau, and then at the behest of Emperor Chongzhen, he was beaten to death by palace women and eunuchs, and the end was no better than the concubines who were killed by her.
While dealing with the Keshi, the Chongzhen Emperor also ordered people to rehabilitate the harem concubines who had been framed and persecuted by the Keshi and Wei Zhongxian, and Li Chengfei was also taken to the Ciqing Palace by the Chongzhen Emperor for consecration.
Later, At the age of 33, Li Chengfei died at the age of 33 at the beginning of November of the tenth year of Chongzhen, and was buried with Concubine Duan and Concubine Zhang Yu in the tomb of concubines in Jinshan (present-day western suburbs of Beijing).