Beijingers often say: "When you go to the Forbidden City, you must be touched by the royal spirit, when you go to the Great Wall, you must be domineering, and when you go to the Gong King's Mansion, you must be blessed!" The blessing of Prince Gong's palace comes from the Kangxi Emperor's imperial pen inscription, stamped with the seal of "The Treasure of the Kangxi Imperial Pen", and the Fu character stele known as "the first blessing in the world".
The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty loved calligraphy all his life, but he rarely wrote inscriptions, so the Kangxi Imperial Pen was the least circulated in the pen and ink of the emperors in previous dynasties, so that there was a saying that "Kangxi a word is worth thousands of gold". In today's Beijing city, in addition to official documents, there are only 3 Kangxi inscriptions that have been examined. In addition to the "First Blessing under Heaven" on the "Fu" character stele in the Gong King's Mansion, then there is the word "Wuwei" hanging high in the Jiaotai Hall of the Forbidden City. The "inaction" here contains two important meanings: first, to warn the king not to interfere too much in the actions of his courtiers, "to rule without doing"; second, the Jiaotai Hall is the dividing line between the court and the harem, and warns the harem not to interfere in the affairs of the dynasty, so that "inaction" is achieved. Despite its importance, this plaque is not stamped with the seal of "Treasure of the Kangxi Imperial Pen", which shows the rarity of the "blessing" of the imperial seal.
The Kangxi Emperor ascended the throne at the age of eight, lost his mother at the age of nine, and was raised by his grandmother, Empress Xiaozhuang, and the relationship between the two grandchildren was naturally extraordinary. Several auxiliary ministers were suspicious of each other, and only the empress dowager was the biggest and most reliable supporter of the little emperor. With the help of his grandmother, the Kangxi Emperor captured Aobai and Ping San Fan and created a prosperous scene. However, just when he was full of vigor, Empress Xiaozhuang was seriously ill, and the doctors were helpless. It is said that the Kangxi Emperor found out that in ancient times there was a saying that "chengdi affairs" asked for blessings to continue life, which means that the true son of heaven is a person with ten thousand blessings and long lives, and can "ask for blessings to continue life" to the heavenly father for himself, so he decided to ask for blessings for his ancestors. After three days of bathing and fasting, the Kangxi Emperor turned filial piety into a pen and became a combination of "Fushou" in one go, and stamped the seal of "Treasure of the Kangxi Imperial Pen", which means "hong luck is the head, the lucky star is high, and all the demons in the world are suppressed.". Perhaps it was the kangxi emperor's filial piety that really touched the heavens, and since getting this "fu" word, empress xiaozhuang's body miraculously recovered. Feeling the emperor's painstaking and filial piety, and in order to permanently preserve the unique "Fu" character in the world, Empress Xiaozhuang ordered people to carve it on a stone tablet, touch it day and night, and pray for more blessings. She eventually died at the age of 75, which is said to be the blessing brought about by Kangxi's "please continue to live".
The "Kangxi Yufu" stone stele (left) and the Fuzi stele rubbings (right) in the back garden of The Gongwang Mansion .
The "Fu" character written by the Kangxi Emperor is different from the full square commonly used by the people, the glyph is narrow and narrow, and it is thin (pronounced "shou"), which is called "long thin Fu" by the people, that is, the blessing of longevity. As the saying goes, "Blessed is blessed with longevity, and blessed with longevity." However, due to the great difference in the glyphs of "Fu" and "Shou", no calligrapher has been able to combine the characters "Fu" and "Shou" into one character since ancient times. The right half of this Fu character is exactly the way to write the word "Shou" in Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface", which has become the only Fu character in the existing mobao that writes "Fu" and "Shou" in the same word, which is called "Fu in Shou, Fu Shou Shuang Quan". Because it is stamped with the seal of "Treasure of the Kangxi Imperial Pen", it has also become the only "Fu" character in China and even the world that cannot be hung upside down.
What is even more amazing is that this Fu is very different from the folk fu characters called "Yilu Quan, Yikou tian", which includes several Chinese characters (pictured below). The pen portrait in the upper right corner is a "many" character, the lower side is "Tian", and the left side is very similar to the "Zi" and "Cai" characters, and the right side is like a "Shou" character, so the whole "Fu" character can be decomposed into "many children, many talents, many fields, many shou, and many fu", which cleverly constitutes the meaning of the fu word, which is very artistic and meaningful, and is the "fu" character of the unique "five blessings" in ancient times. Because the "Tian" department has not yet been sealed, it is a boundless and boundless blessing. Empress Xiaozhuang called it "the source of blessings", and the people called it "the origin of the five blessings and the source of all blessings".
The Kangxi Emperor had outstanding political achievements in his lifetime: the abolition of San Francisco, the recovery of Taiwan, the precise border with Russia, the two pro-conquests of Dzungar, the expansion of territory, and the sign of "many fields"; he had dozens of sons in his lifetime, which coincided with the end of "many sons"; and Sun Qianlong Emperor and Sun Qianlong Emperor each ruled for more than one year, all of whom ended with high life and good life, and it was the "long life" of the people; the prosperity of Kangqian lasted for more than a hundred years, the country was rich and the people were strong, and they were "multi-talented (wealthy)"; and Guotai Min'an was the "many blessings" of all the people. This blessing character of "many children, many talents, many fields, many blessings and many lives" not only blessed the blessed people, but also benefited Kangxi, who asked "blessings" to send "blessings", so the folk called this blessing "please gather blessings and send blessings and blessings".
Because of this, this monument has always been regarded as the most precious treasure of the royal family, treasured in the Forbidden City. However, the Fuzi Monument was mysteriously lost during the Qianlong period! The person who was most impressed by Qianlong's life was his grandfather Kangxi, who naturally could not let go of the disappearance of "Kangxi Yufu". A few years later, when Jiaqing asked Qianlong about the "Kangxi Imperial Blessing," Qianlong was silent for a long time and then said only eight words: "The appearance of cloth, the blessing of all the people." The whereabouts of this monument have since become a huge mystery.
In the 1960s, cultural relics workers accidentally found a Fuzi tablet in the Secret Cloud Cave in the back garden of Gongwangfu's mansion. Later, after many investigations, it was verified that this was the "Kangxi Yufu" stone stele that mysteriously disappeared during the Qianlong period.