In the royal palace of Bhutan, a special scene from the 80s of the last century is regularly staged every afternoon. That was the basketball game of King Jigme Singh Wangchuck.
At this time, his four queens would sit in the audience with their children, watching intently as their husbands ran around the field. Especially when Singh uses his best hook shot, these four beautiful wives will look at him with joy on their faces.
And what is even more enviable is that these four wives turned out to be siblings from the same family. Although there are many harems, and the harem of our feudal dynasty is the best proof, Bhutan has handled it very properly.
Until his retirement at the age of 51, Singh lived a life of retibility in the prime of life. So, what exactly did Singh go through in his life? In Bhutan, where monogamy is a country of monogamy, why did he marry so many wives?
Although the kingdom of Wangchuck has a short history, its founder, Prince Singh, is a generation of talents. In 1907, the Kingdom of Wangchuck was established, and Prince Singh was born in 1955, when the Kingdom of Wangchuck was only 48 years old.
From the moment he was born, he was responsible for inheriting the kingdom and received a rigorous education. His father's commitment to leading Bhutan to a modern economy led Prince Singh to a modern education, and his father's hand-picked royal teachers taught him, which shows how much his father expected of him.
As he grew older, he was sent to study at St. Joseph's College in India. When he was 12 years old, his father sent him to study in England, and he did not return to China until 1970.
After returning to China, he began to receive guidance from his father in ** and get in touch with political affairs. Although he was only a teenager at the time, his long study abroad life had already given him the ability to handle affairs independently.
The 17-year-old Singh has shown great political prowess under his father's tutelage, much to the delight of his father, Jigme Dorjee Wangchuk. However, Dorjee's health was already weak due to long hours of work on state affairs, and he died of illness a year later, leaving 17-year-old Singh.
While the Kingdom of Bhutan still had a hereditary monarchy, Singh became the new king of Wangchuck after his father's death, becoming the most powerful monarch in the country, with the highest judicial power and the most powerful army in the country.
However, because he had not yet made significant achievements in politics, he felt anxious when facing the reproaches of those old ministers in the palace. With no support, it will be very difficult for Singh to take on the full responsibility of the country's development in the short term.
Singh's mother was worried about his future, and she didn't want to see her son in trouble day after day, so she came up with a plan for marriage. Bhutanese monks enjoy a high status in society, and Singh's mother approached the country's most prestigious monk, Shathung Rinpoche, to express her thoughts to him.
She found her son and said to him, "Do you know the most prestigious monk in the country, Shadron Rinpoche? His nephew is the richest man in Bhutan, and if you can marry his granddaughter, you may be able to secure your position in front of the ministers. ”
Singh hesitated when he heard his mother's words, because he had a modern education, especially during his study in the UK, he was full of yearning for free love, and he had imagined his other half countless times, but never thought of marriage.
However, in order to maintain the position of the Wangchuck family, this seems to be the best option at the moment, but Singh is a little difficult.
Singh's mother seemed to sense her son's struggle, and instead of forcing him, she gently suggested: "Son, I understand your confusion, maybe you can meet them first and then make a decision." ”
Unable to disobey his mother's wishes, Singh nodded in agreement. Under his mother's arrangement, Singh met these four girls, and to his surprise, they were much better than he imagined, although they could not be said to be beautiful and fragrant, but they were all like flowers and jade, and they looked very pure.
At the same time, because of the influence of their families, they all have a good education and are very decent in speech and behavior. Faced with such four energetic girls, Singh's heart moved.
However, new problems have arisen. Bhutan is a monogamous country, and now he needs to choose one of the four to be his wife, the future queen.
Once again, he was stuck in a rut and didn't know which one to choose.
He wanted to find his queen and try to communicate with the girls and find out what they were thinking. However, in the face of the young and handsome king, all four girls showed their appreciation and affection for Singh, leaving him unable to make a choice.
In desperation, Singh turned to his mother for help, hoping that she could choose a suitable daughter-in-law. However, Singh's mother made a suggestion that shocked him: "Since you like all of them, but you don't know how to choose, you might as well marry them all." ”
This baffled Singh, who feared it would violate Bhutan's rules. But in reality, Singh's mother had her own considerations. The four granddaughters are sought-after figures at home and could pose a threat to Singh's throne if they marry into a certain minister's family.
Therefore, it is the best choice to marry them all home, so that Singh can avoid tangles and worries, and it is not a bad thing.
In the presence of Singh's mother and the lama Shadron Rinpoche, Singh married the four women. The wedding was both low-key and extravagant, both to celebrate the wedding of the King of Bhutan and to avoid the national buzz about marrying four wives.
The legend of Singh and his four wives began to be sung by the outside world, and some say that they met because they danced at the Punakha Ring Chu Festival, fell in love at first sight, and got married. It is also said that Singh is handsome and dashing, young and promising, and the four women are captivated by his personal charm and agree to marry Prince Singh together.
But the inside story is only clear to the parties. After the four wives joined, Singh's power in the palace was secured, and no one dared to "yell at him", even arguing with him despite the fact that he was the king.
He was more comfortable with political affairs.
Some people are worried about the gathering of four wives, how to deal with possible conflicts? Singh had already thought about it, and in order to ensure fairness, all four of them were crowned queens, and four palaces were used for him to live in, and they took turns to stay in the same place, rain and dew, and did their best to meet their needs.
The four-bowl approach brought harmony in Singh's backyard, and the affectionate sisters got along well, allowing Singh to focus on politics. With the relationship between Shadron Rinpoche and the richest man in the country, Singh sits firmly on the throne, no one dares to mess with him, and he is more comfortable in handling things.
In terms of national construction, Singh inherited his father's unfinished business, which is to build Bhutan into a complete modern country. At that time, Bhutan's economy was relatively backward, and the people's living standards were generally low, and even the problem of food and clothing had not yet been solved.
As a person who has received a modern education, Singh is well aware of the importance of knowledge to modernization, and he believes that the goal of modernization can only be achieved by improving the quality of the whole people.
Therefore, he regards infrastructure construction as a top priority, and invests heavily in infrastructure such as schools and hospitals in the country to ensure the basic livelihood of the people. In addition, Singh is very focused on the well-being of his people, and despite the limited national power of Bhutan, he firmly believes that everyone should pursue happiness.
Therefore, he actively promotes environmental protection and protects local vegetation, and also invests heavily in industrial construction to provide more employment opportunities to improve the quality of life of the people.
Under his leadership, Bhutan's economic development has achieved remarkable results in the past decade, with people no longer worrying about food and clothing, some people driving foreign-made cars, and more people having the opportunity to go abroad to broaden their horizons and improve their knowledge.
However, he rarely exposed the public to the medium of television, believing that the international situation was complex and volatile, and that countries were fighting ** wars trying to occupy a place in the network, and he did not want the dynasty he had worked so hard to run would be negatively affected by this.
In addition to promoting the development of the country, he also began to clean up the borders. Prior to this, a number of military groups had been stationed in southern Bhutan on the border with Assam, India, and although their operations were aimed at India, they had begun to threaten Bhutan's internal security.
In particular, he was outraged by the deaths of some Bhutanese citizens in these military operations, and at the National Assembly meeting in July 2000, he proposed to peacefully persuade these groups to leave southern Bhutan and restore peace to Bhutan.
After several rounds of negotiations, King Singh was unable to convince the military organization, and they decided that Bhutan was only a small country with no strength to resist them. Under these circumstances, King Singh decided to personally send troops and advance into the forests to the south, eventually succeeding in quelling the rebellion.
As a result, King Singh's status in the hearts and minds of the Bhutanese people has been greatly enhanced. After the border rebellion was put down, Bhutan** began to focus on diplomacy. After all, Bhutan shares borders with two important Asian countries – China and India.
Therefore, they need to establish good relations with their neighbors in order to cope with the complex international situation. During his reign, King Singh was a qualified king. He not only succeeded in quelling the border rebellion, but also won the respect of the people.
However, in 2006, when King Singh was still young and healthy, he made an unexpected decision to abdicate in favor of his children.
Singh's choice to let go of the king's position in his prime has puzzled many. But he believes that he has spent the first half of his life working for the happiness of the country and the people, and now that his eldest son is an adult, he can have more time to pursue his interests and spend time with his family, and he can also help at critical times.
Now, all ten of his children have grown up, and he himself is living a peaceful old age, living in harmony and without regrets.