The political conspiracy behind the fall from grace of Qianlong's second empress
It has always been a mystery why the second empress of the Qianlong Emperor, Huifa Nala, suddenly fell out of favor and broke her hair during her fourth southern tour. However, according to the beginning and end of the matter, it is speculated that Wei Jia Guifei (that is, the later Empress Xiaoyichun) was sent back because the Huifa Nala clan offended Qianlong in February of Qianlong and was not dismissed after the end of the southern tour, but at this time Wei Jia Guifei was suddenly called the imperial concubine, is it too much of a coincidence?
The origin of hair cutting.
In the first month of the thirtieth year of Qianlong (1765), he launched his fourth southern tour, accompanied by the empress Huifa Nala and the concubine Wei Jia. On February 18 of the same year, Qianlong and his entourage arrived in Hangzhou, and at the Jiaoshi Yinqin dinner that morning, Qianlong also presented a large amount of rations to the queen, but since the beginning of the dinner, the queen has not arrived, only the imperial entourage such as Wei Jiashi, Qing Concubine Lu, Rong Concubine and Zhuo came to the banquet.
After the end of the southern tour, he soon returned to the capital, and Qianlong ordered the rescue of the imperial concubine, Xian Guifei, and Xian Concubine in the hands of the queen, arranged the policy, and passed the holy decree to the palace, until July, the queen only had two concubines in her hands, and the treatment was the lowest, and the status remained unchanged. Don't waste it.
On July 14, the 31st year of Qianlong (1766), Empress Huifa Nala died. According to the records of the Qing Gaozong Records, the Qianlong Emperor explained the reasons for the dismissal of the Huifanala clan by saying:"The queen mother's temperament changed suddenly, and she could not be reconciled with filial piety. Later, he moved to Hangzhou, and the reason was particularly sufficient, and there were traces of madness", and the cause of her death was"Death"。In this case, the queen is blessed and cannot rely on the grace of the Virgin, because she has already received the gift for me"。This shows that Huifa Nara suddenly changed her temper, and all of a sudden people felt that she was cold, like crazy.
But this argument is clearly unacceptable. Can a person who was fine in the morning suddenly become crazy in the afternoon? In the forty-third year of Qianlong (1778), the relevant departments gave a detailed explanation, according to the "Records of Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty", at that time, Jin Congxian put forward the proposal of establishing a prince and an empress, but Qianlong"Que, princes and ministers, to argue, sit and smash the good ones", and in this matter, Qianlong Huifa Nala gave a cold explanation, the reason is"Even one's own hair should be the most taboo in national customs", because the queen once cut her own hair. "Even one's own hair should be the most taboo in national customs", because the queen cut her own hair, thus committing a great disrespectful, immoral crime.
Why the Huifa Nala clan suddenly broke off her hair must be related to Ling Guifei Wei Jia's family.
Although Qianlong's explanation to Fanara was a cold reason, it was not given"Self-professed career"This led to the emergence of many variants in the folk later. And the truth of this case is very likely to be revealed in the *** case in the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1776).
There is such a passage in the article "Yan Zheng Prison Cong":"In the thirtieth year of Qianlong, the emperor toured the south, passing through the south of the Yangtze River, and sent the queen back to Beijing first. Yu was in Shanxi, hearing this, people said that the emperor put his wife in Jiangnan, and the queen did not obey, so she was quite touched, so she cut her hair and became a nun. "At first, Qianlong wanted to take his wife with him, but under the strong opposition of Concubine Hui's Nala clan, the queen's proposal attracted Qianlong's right"Idiosyncratic"was very angry, and finally ended up in disrepute.
According to this confession and subsequent developments, just around the time of Emperor Qianlong's southern tour, Emperor Qianlong and Empress Dowager Cixi wanted to promote Wei Jia's family of Ling Guifei's family to imperial concubine, emperor and empress, and a fierce dispute broke out between the two sides. So, why did Wei Jiashi want to promote the Ling family to the imperial concubine, but offended Emperor Qianlong? Because in the Qing Dynasty, the status of the imperial concubine was very special.
According to the tradition of the harem of the Qing Dynasty, the rank of the imperial concubine cannot be promoted casually, and there are generally only four situations in which the imperial concubine can be promoted:
i.the transition and investigation period before the canonization of empresses (such as Empress Wulanala herself and Emperor Jiaqing's Empress Xiao and Rui Niu Hulu);
Secondly, the concubines of the First Emperor, such as Kangxi's Tong Jiashi and Yongzheng's Geng Concubine (Concubine Yu), were all promoted to concubines;
The third is the nobles who are about to be the first, such as Yongzheng's Dunsu Emperor Guifei Nian's family, Qianlong's Huixian Emperor's concubine Gao Jia's family, Chunhui Emperor's concubine Su's family, etc., they are all critically ill nobles;
Fourth, after death, such as Kangxi's Jingmin Emperor's concubine Zhang Jiashi (Min Concubine), Qianlong's Zheyu Emperor's concubine Fucha (Zhefei), Guangxu's Jingshun Emperor's concubine Tatara (Zhen Concubine) and so on.
In the Qing Dynasty, when the empress was still in power, there were only two cases of the coexistence of the empress and the imperial concubine: the first was in the Shunzhi Dynasty, and the favor of Concubine Dong E made her the imperial concubine, which directly threatened the status of Empress Xiaozhuang. The second time was in the Tongzhi Dynasty, because Cixi did not like Empress Xiao Zheyi and favored Concubine Hui Fucha, and Fucha was promoted to imperial concubine.
When the Huifa Nala clan was still the empress, the Qianlong Emperor and the Empress Dowager only wanted to elevate Wei Jia's family to the status of a noble concubine, which made the Huifa Nala clan mistakenly think that they would lose the throne, so they made it in a fit of anger"Haircuts", and finally ended up in disrepute. Of course, this in turn shows how much he likes Wei Jia. This shows that Hui Fei Nala's clan"Not excepted", a year after she died of depression. Wei Jia was promoted to the position of Imperial Historian in just a few months, and ruled the harem until his death.