Puyi chose Wanrong Queen's father to spend 200,000 taels of gold to buy a rockhopper?

Wanrong, the last empress in the history of China, entered the palace in February, 1922, and was expelled from the palace with the last emperor Puyi in February, 1924 10. She lived in the Forbidden City for two years. How did Wanrong marry into the palace? What about her life in the palace? Through the original archives of the Qing Dynasty, we can have a general understanding.

Elegant into the palace, don't go to the Qing gate.

Puyi was married at 1922 65438+2 1, when he and Wanrong were both 17 years old. The wedding of the Qing emperor is called the big wedding. At this time, although the Qing Dynasty was overthrown 1 1 year, Puyi still maintained the title of emperor and continued to live in the Forbidden City according to the royal family's preferential treatment, so it was still called the big wedding at home and abroad. This time, besides Grace, there is Shu Fei Wen Xiu.

Wanrong was chosen as the queen, which was really tangled. At the beginning, after the news of choosing the queen for Puyi spread, people who proposed marriage followed. However, according to the custom of Qing Dynasty, queens were all selected from the daughters of princes and ministers of Manchu Dynasty. So the people recommended by Xu Shichang and Zhang declined politely. It is said that the photos of the girls can be bound into a book and put on uncle Zai Tao's desk, who was in charge of summarizing the proposals. In this dazzling group of women, after repeated screening, four people were shortlisted as candidates. After careful selection, Wanrong and Wen Xiu were finally left behind.

There is only one queen, whether it is Wanrong or Wen Xiu. The royal family, especially the toffee ladies-in-waiting, wanted the little emperor to choose his favorite girl to consolidate his power in the palace. In this way, you were killed, and finally Puyi had to make an "imperial decree". After seeing the photos of Wanrong and Wenxiu, he finally chose Wanrong as the queen and Wenxiu as the princess. According to folklore, Wanrong's father, Rong Yuan, spent 202,000 gold to buy his daughter a queen rockhopper. This is just a rumor, which is difficult to prove.

The ritual ceremony of marrying Wanrong as the queen is done according to the old practice of Qing Dynasty, which is divided into four steps: receiving the bride price, receiving the bride price, conferring the title and getting married. The betrothal gift1922 1 01February 21. On this day, Puyi sent a deputy envoy to Wanrong's home in Maoer Hutong outside Di 'anmen, Beijing, with a ceremonial procession of nearly 1,000 people and more than 100 sedan chair gifts, to present a bride price to her father Wanrong. In the next two months, grand ceremonies and memorial ceremonies were held one after another. The ceremony is to tell the woman the exact date of marriage, and the memorial ceremony is to formally give the queen her birthright. Speaking of it, Wanrong's wedding is still a little regrettable. According to the custom of Qing Dynasty, the Queen was welcomed into the palace. No matter where the queen's family lives in the capital, the wedding procession must pass through the Qing gate and then enter the palace from the main entrance of the Forbidden City at the noon gate. In normal times, except for the empress dowager and the emperor, no courtiers can walk around without authorization, and the queen can only enjoy it once on the wedding day. However, Wanrong did not enjoy this honor. When she entered the palace, she not only didn't go to the Qing gate, but also didn't go to the meridian gate. Wanrong takes Donghuamen Street and enters the palace from Donghuamen. From this point of view, she is still different from the real queen of the Qing Dynasty. At this time, Puyi was the abdicated emperor. Although he was allowed to live in the harem, the area south of the Gan Qing Gate of the Forbidden City belonged to the Beiyang government, so he could no longer pay attention to it.

In recent years, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty 10 successively established 24 empresses. If Wanrong can still be called the queen, then she is the 25th queen in ancient China, out of print.

Mei Lanfang performed Farewell My Concubine for Wanrong's wedding.

In the well-preserved Puyi archives, there are two wedding ceremony gift books, the cover of which reads "Wedding Ceremony Gift Book", which lists the names, types and quantities of gifts. This list includes senior officials of the Qing Dynasty, important officials of the government of the Republic of China, warlords and politicians, and foreign envoys. At that time, President Li Yuan

In order to prepare for the wedding, the small court at that time set up a "big wedding preparation office". They consulted the archives of the Qing Dynasty wedding and the archives of the Qing emperor, and finally decided to do it according to the scale of Tongzhi wedding, because the wedding cost less. Although the small court can no longer be extravagant, it finally spent more than 400,000 silver dollars. At that time, two yuan could buy a bag of flour. Emperor Guangxu's wedding cost 5.5 million taels of silver!

During the wedding, the palace sang for three days and spent more than 30 thousand silver dollars. It is worth mentioning that Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou were specially invited to perform the drama Farewell My Concubine. At that time, it was suggested that it was inappropriate to stage such a sad play on such a big day. However, Puyi decided to act because she felt indifferent. At the emotional stage, the toffee and the princes and princesses shed tears. After the play broke up, some princes and ministers in the former dynasty were preoccupied and thought it was an ominous sign. Two years later, when Puyi and Wanrong were driven out of the palace, someone said: It's all their fault for playing farewell my concubine at the wedding!

Wanrong's English name in the palace is Elizabeth.

In the Qing Dynasty, the birthday of the emperor was called Longevity Festival, and the birthday of the queen was called Qian Qiu Festival. Whenever there is such a festival, the palace will sing and play to celebrate for a few days. September 1923 is the first Qian Qiu Festival after Wanrong entered the palace. Although he kept saying that he wanted to be thrifty, he sang a play in Fang Shu Zhai of the Forbidden City for a whole day, giving silver dollars to eunuchs and maids around him, ranging from 5 yuan, 2 yuan to 10. Even in normal times, Wanrong's daily living expenses are one or two hundred yuan.

It is said that Wanrong, who grew up in the Republic of China, received a lot of westernization education under the influence of her father who was in business. In the Forbidden City, Wanrong and Puyi often ride bikes to play ball together. Wanrong also taught Puyi how to eat western food. The owners of these small courtyards, Puyi, Wanrong and Wenxiu, also took many photos in the palace, leaving their figures and beauty.

In Puyi's archives, there are many English short messages written by Wanrong to Puyi in the palace. They can meet every day and communicate in English, which shows that they had a good relationship at that time. In order to learn English, Wanrong invited two American female teachers to teach her in the palace. Embroidery also learns English, but she is a female teacher from China. In Wanrong's letter to Wenxiu, some English words are mixed from time to time. At that time, Wanrong also had an English name, Elizabeth. At that time, she wrote "Yi Li Saab" in transliteration, and Puyi's English name was Henry. Westernization has entered and influenced the life of the last court.

1924165438+1On October 5th, Feng Yuxiang's army entered the Forbidden City. Lu, then the garrison commander of Beijing, came to the Forbidden City with more than 20 policemen, forcing Puyi's small court to accept the revised "preferential conditions" and left the Forbidden City that day. There was panic in the palace. Puyi held her cheeks in her hands and said nothing. Wen Xiu said helplessly, "Let's move out so as not to be frightened here!" Only Wanrong was tough and shouted, "Anyway, I am determined not to move today, so I can't move!" But whether they want to move or not, the army entered the palace at 9: 00 a.m., and at 4: 00 p.m., Puyi handed over two national seals, "Treasure of the Emperor" and "Treasure of Xuantong", took Wanrong and other family members around him in five cars and temporarily moved to his father Zai Feng's personal mansion. The last emperor Puyi and the last queen Wanrong left the Forbidden City forever.