Women In The Imperial Harem
✤
"YOUR mother is foolish" Grand Empress Dowager once said. I didn't argue with her on that subject. She didn't like my mother that much. It is no secret that my mother took a few years to get pregnant, and worse she gave birth to a girl. A princess and not a prince. I was well aware that my existence in this world is not favored by many people.
Empress Chen, was once an influential woman. A wife and a cousin to the Emperor. She was remembered as a vicious woman, sly and egotistic. She was the only woman of the Emperor for five years before he brought ¹three thousand women in the back palace as his, just like any other emperors before him, filling the imperial harem, bustling with women's activities, not just about their extraordinary grace, peerless elegance, and breathtaking beauty, but of their schemes and murder.
A charming smile can hide thousands of malicious thoughts, a simple sentence can be interpreted in different ways, verbal attacks had always been common but to insult someone without being fault by people will take a woman's greatest capability in speech, likewise, over elaborated etiquette in the palace must not be forgotten.
To rely on beauty alone, living as a white lotus, a woman like that will definitely not last in the imperial harem. Such are the women in the palace.
A woman's power in court entirely lies on how much the Emperor favored her. One wrong word and someone might cut your tongue, one wrong step and you'll surely lose your head. The imperial harem is also a reflection of the political power, a consort's rise in the imperial harem is her whole clan's rise to power in the imperial court. Naturally, her downfall is also her whole clan's downfall, at worst she may be sentenced to Lian Zuo (a collective punishment), executing nine generations of her clan.
It is no wonder that each of the powerful noble families would push their daughters to the Emperor's bed to elevate their status and position. A single night might change thousands of people's fate.
Conversely, if a consort who entered the imperial harem came from an already powerful clan, depending upon the situation, the Emperor may deal with her in two ways.
First, favor her more to pull her whole clan on your side in order to strengthen their loyalty to the monarch in case someone incites a rebellion from the Emperor's brothers, uncles, and sons, which carry the titles of ¹kings, dukes, and princes. Second, keep her at distance to stop her clan's ever-growing power that is starting to threaten the dragon throne.
Clans that have a threatening influential power are usually military officials, as soldiers are loyal to their brotherhood. The commander has been with them through many life and death situations, how could they be loyal to the Emperor who sat comfortably in the palace with luxurious things and beautiful women surrounding him?
If not from military officials, then those civil officials who remained in high seats through the changing of dynasties, and had served different emperors. Their influence in the imperial court is deep-rooted, therefore, they're the hardest to deal with. Having dealt with many different emperors throughout the changing of dynasties, they're the ones most familiar with the schemes and deceptions to fight for power. Civil officials clan like them are hard to come by. Noble clans have their rise and fall after all.
On the other hand, Generals can be easily stripped of their titles as they spend their time on battlefields and borders, an Emperor can easily fabricate a crime, such as defying military orders, nitpicking a single small mistake. A small mistake like this can be overlooked since, on the battlefield, one must be flexible, if they report each and every one of their actions to the emperor, then the emperor might as well command the army himself. From the border to the palace, distance is something that can't be denied.
Throughout history, the greatest generals of the empire didn't die honorably on the battlefields, they died in the hands of their own kin, they fall not into the strategic plans of their enemies on the battlefield but of the conspiracies in the imperial court.
These threats to the Dragon Throne happened when the Emperor has yet to reach adulthood and was crowned at such a young age, when the Emperor became overindulgent in women, letting the civil officials handle the government affairs, or when the Empire is being invaded by enemies and was repeatedly raided by the barbarians.
A wise Emperor, however, knows how to consolidate his rule. My imperial father has been worshipped by millions of citizens in our Empire and has been cursed by millions of Hu even after his death. His name became immortalized and was carved in history as the greatest emperor of Xie.
The woman named Chen Yue, who he promised to treasure, building her a golden house, was forgotten. She was eventually thrown by him after she lost her value, having no use to him anymore when his throne became stabilized.
My imperial father, Xie Yusheng, is the ninth son of the previous emperor. Who could have thought that he will surpass his eight elder brothers who are eyeing the dragon's throne and have the last laugh?
Of course, when one wants to become an emperor with many competitive rivals, this cannot be achieved without a powerful backing, and it so happened that my mother, who was known as Princess Chen back then, daughter of the Emperor's sister and the Chancellor of the left was yet to be engaged.
My maternal grandmother, Princess Guan had offered an engagement to the crown prince first but was rejected by the Empress. Feeling greatly insulted, she retaliated by turning to another one of the Emperor's favored concubines, Lady Hui, offering a marriage between their children.
Lady Hui agreed. From then on, Princess Guan fully supported the ninth son of the emperor, pushing him to the dragon throne using all of her resources together with Lady Hui's brilliant plot. Until finally! Their efforts finally bore fruit, the Emperor died and he left a decree, stating that the ninth prince, Xie Yusheng will ascend the dragon throne, becoming the son of heaven! (The Emperor is usually referred to as the son of heaven or the mandate of heaven in ancient China)
Emperor Yusheng, at the age of 16, claimed the dragon throne, following that, he married his cousin, Princess Chen, and crowned her as an Empress.
On the account of her being his first love, she had prohibited him from taking any concubines. Such insolence cannot be taken lightly by any rulers yet who was Empress Chen? A woman who has a powerful clan that ruled over in the Imperial court.
As he was still quite young, he has a few supporters. There are still his third and seventh brothers banished in the borders, his uncle that has a title of the ³king with a hidden private army. In short, he can be overthrown at any given moment. Left without choice, he can only leave his wife to do as she please, relying on her powerful Chen clan to support him.
Furthermore, the Empress Dowager, who became the Grand Empress Dowager after he claimed the throne, is now ruling over the court as regent in a pretext that the Emperor is yet to have his capping ceremony (Coming of age for the boys when they reached 20)
Despite how controlling the women around him are, Emperor Yusheng remained ambitious. He knows that now is not the right time to go against these women who only know how to play in an internal conflict, forgetting the most crucial part that has been a thorn in the Xie Empire's side, the ²Hu from Jiye in the northern border who had been constantly looting and raiding their northern borders and the nearby city-states. Their raids would become massive especially during Winter. Nevertheless, Emperor Yusheng has no way to stop them at the moment, his position in the imperial court is unstable, he must bid his time to gather his own forces before launching an offensive attack.
He dreamed of the Xie Empire to be prosperous and to spread their influence far and wide through massive military prowess, impenetrable army, and tradings from different nations.
Knowing his ambition, he let Empress Chen and Grand Empress Dowager rule over him for a while, his mother, Lady Hui, now Empress Dowager, is the only one on his side, but she's of no help to him. Lady Hui originally came from a humble background, her clan is a family of declining scholars, some of her relatives who managed to become officials remained between sixth and eighth rank officials.
In the first years of his reign, Empress Chen helped him stabilize his rule, while many of the court matters fall in the capable hands of Grand Empress Dowager.
However, it seems that favoring Empress Chen alone is not a good decision for she remained childless, though they were already married for three years. His uncle who held the title of the king on the Eastern border had spread the rumor that Emperor Yusheng is infertile. The rumor is yet to be confirmed since he had only slept with Empress Chen but it was already spreading like wildfire and many of the ministers have sided with his uncle because of this, planning to overthrow him.
One of the important duties of an Emperor is to have an heir, a son, to ensure the dragon throne in their bloodlines. To have a child is no trifling matter. So in the third year of his rule, he took a concubine named Sun Qiao. This concubine came from a commoner background. She's a beautiful dancer from a brothel. Nevertheless, she's said to be a virgin when Emperor Yusheng took her.
In less than two months, she became pregnant with the Emperor's first child. Completely dispelling the rumors about the Emperor being infertile. The King's rebel forces weakened because of this and the ministers who sided with him shifted back to the Emperor's side.
At this time around, Emperor Yusheng's throne became stable and he had a good grasp of the imperial power. He need not listen from the whines of petty women. He bestowed Sun Qiao the title of Huang Gui Fei (Imperial Noble Consort, a position only second to the Empress) and stripped his uncle off of his title who plotted a rebellion and wrote a decree of his execution.
Sun Qiao is much younger and prettier than Empress Chen. It was no wonder that the Emperor will favor her more, he had enough of Empress Chen's overbearing personality. In addition, Concubine Sun is timid and soft-spoken, unlike Empress Chen who likes having her way around, wanting to control him.
Jealousy is something that will cloud your judgment. Although Emperor Yusheng had found a new sweetheart, he didn't consider deposing Empress Chen, she had after all accompanied him in those years and even helped him get the dragon throne but it seems that the woman is simply testing his patience.
In the eighth month of Concubine Sun's pregnancy, she had almost lost her child, courtesy to Empress Chen who send the incense that can harm the body in her palace. Emperor Yusheng then banned her in her own palace for a year and confiscated her phoenix seal. He was unexpectedly merciful towards her. According to palace protocols, she should be bestowed a cup of wine or a piece of white silk (Whatever she chose between those two, it will result in her death. Either she drank a cup of poisoned wine or hang herself using that piece of white silk)
Despite her transgression, she still remained as an Empress until the fifth year of Emperor Yusheng's reign.
1. The number of the emperor's women in the palace is more or less around 3000, including the court ladies. This is the limit of how many women he can have in the palace but it doesn't mean that he had slept with each and every one of them, most of these women haven't even gotten a glimpse of the Emperor's face. A prince may have 3000 women automatically when he became the Emperor. If the emperor's women aren't limited to a certain number, they swarm like bees in the Imperial palace and can empty the imperial funds and treasury. This happened in the previous dynasties.
2. Hu- was anciently used to refer to 'barbarian' groups in the Northern and Western frontiers of China.
3. King- Confusingly, some Chinese emperors styled many or all close male relatives of certain kinds such as brothers, uncles, or nephews as wang, a term for king, using it as a courtesy title. They have their small territories in the Empire but are still under the Emperor's authority.
©Editer