Filial piety queen Zhang Yan
Note: This article is aimed at the historical Empress Xiaohui and has nothing to do with the novel.
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In the "Biography of Empress Xiaohui Zhang in the Secret of the Ancient and Modern Palace", a poem by Empress Xiaohui Zhang of the Han Dynasty is recorded, the full text of which is as follows:
The rest of the children entered the pepper room and waited silently for the emperor.
The emperor died without a fate, and he hugged Puxi to guard the empty bed.
The candle is good, and the envy is soaring.
Rich and noble, full of entertainment, not as good as the dregs of the hooligans.
The long night is long, and the moon is cool in the weak shadows.
Talking about the past, if my uncle is by his side.
The wind returns and is shocked, and the mind is suddenly dead.
He wiped away his tears and hesitated.
The chickens sang and reported the dawn, and my uncle cracked the liver and sausage.
After death, he will be in the same cave and worship the clear light of the underground.
In 163 BC, she died silently at the age of 36. She had no funeral, no epitaph inscriptions, no title, just was habitually called Empress Hyohui, and even her grave was rudimentary and vulgar.
It is very likely that the poem was written by a later generation, but on an emotional level, I would like to believe that the relationship it describes really existed. Through the distant time and space, imagine how the fifteen-year-old widowed girl queen could not sleep in the gorgeous and empty Jiaofang Palace, missing her sleeping husband in Anling.
Han did Weiyang, for the imperial palace. The temple pepper room is the apse.
She was the first owner of this magnificent palace.
And this palace did not usher in a real man.
Wild history records that in the spring and March of the first year after the Han Emperor, Zhang Yan died quietly in the North Palace, more than Chinese New Year's Eve, after death, the palace maids dressed her body, and were surprised to find that Zhang Yan, who had been the queen for four years, was still a virgin.
There are several "virgin queens" in Chinese history, and Zhang Yan, the queen of filial piety, is the most credible one.
When I think of this girl, I often can't help but think of a poem: The essence is clean and clean, which is better than dirt and ditches.
She was also the happiest girl in the world.
Her father is Zhang Ao, the king of Zhao, her mother is Princess Lu Yuan, the eldest daughter of Gaozu, and her grandmother is the famous heroine Lu Hou in Chinese history.
What a noble background.
The emperor is the grandfather, the emperor is the uncle, and the emperor is the husband. The only person who can match her in the Western Han Dynasty is Xiaowu Empress Gillian, Zhang Yan may be better, after all, her father was once a real prince.
However, these two girls ended up being confined to death, so unfortunate.
Gillian's misfortune lies in the fact that she met such a ruthless man.
As for Zhang Yan, her misfortune lies in the fact that her uncle and her husband are the same person.
I don't know what kind of thoughts Empress Lu had in order to match such a marriage. In the eyes of the world, she didn't take it to heart at all, and in front of the eyes and ears of the world, she directed such a farce, and hired her son to marry her granddaughter with twelve horses and 20,000 catties of gold.
Does she really believe that such a marriage can produce happy flowers?
Politically, Empress Lu is undoubtedly like a stone, but when facing her children, she is undoubtedly loving. I don't think anyone doubts that she loves her son and her granddaughter.
However, she did so, causing the two people she loved the most to torture each other for a lifetime, and they were not happy.
Liu Ying is actually a good person. For his half-brother Zhao Wang Ruyi, who had directly threatened his storage position, he had been close to him for several months, and his feelings were sincere. He and Lu Yuan's siblings, together through the end of life and death, to the peak of prosperity in Weiyang, sister and brother affection, he also really loved this well-behaved and lovely niece.
However, the love for nieces is not the same as the love for wives.
Liu Ying's pain lies in the fact that he can't treat this niece of his as his wife.
Such pain entangled him in the last four years of his life.
At the age of twelve, Zhang Yan married into Weiyang, entered the Jiaofang, and became the second queen of the Han Dynasty.
The queen who keeps the empty house for a lifetime.
She was too young when she married him. I don't know ****, and I don't understand what kind of gap between them is that cannot be crossed in a lifetime.
He was dead when she grew up, leaving her alone in this large, boundless Weiyang Palace.
The long night is long, and the moon is cool in the weak shadows.
When she wanted to find someone to love, the person she could love was no longer by her side.
Talking about the past, if my uncle is by his side.
I had to think about it over and over again, thinking about his eyebrows and eyes, his breath, as if he was still by her side.
I think Zhang Yan can't tell whether that person is her uncle or her husband.
The weight of girls in the hearts of these things is not as clear as the barriers in the hearts of men.
It's not that Lunchang's binding force on girls is not as great as that on men, but girls pay more attention to the details when they get along, the power of time drips through stones, and longing can torture a crazy person.
She has always accepted it weakly, accepted this absurd marriage, accepted Liu Ying's passive resistance, accepted the death of her husband, accepted the betrayal of her righteous son, accepted her grandmother's unauthorized power, accepted the restoration of the acting king, and accepted the ......
The fate of Beigong's seclusion.
When everything settled, the colorful and smiling life of Weiyang, which was isolated from memory, suddenly reflected in my heart.
In the decades that followed Liu Ying's death, what she missed over and over again was the four years they coexisted, every trace of joy, every laughter. Even though the background color is gray, it occupies such a heavy weight in life that it is so heavy that you can't forget it. After his death, the identity of the queen was a shackle to her, tying her light steps, forcing her to be dignified and noble, ten miles away, prosperous as this, and her cage.
Looking back on the four years of living together, although he did not regard her as a wife, he cared for her warmly.
It's just that she didn't know at that time that how much of this care was given by him to his wife, and how much was given by her to her niece.
He was promiscuous in the harem, but he didn't touch her alone.
He was her titular husband and her de facto uncle.
However, when she understood the world, he was already her husband's.
The power of this fact is more powerful than all ethics.
Zhang Yan actually hates.
You all say that his marriage to me is not right. It's incestuous and common. However, when Empress Lu issued an edict to the world, when Cao Shen was hired, and when Emperor Hui welcomed his relatives, where did you go? Why didn't anyone dare to stand up and say that this is not right, this marriage, don't go on.
None of you dare to stand up, but for a long time, you have slandered in your hearts.
The people's ability to accept it is sometimes beyond people's imagination. What everyone thinks is wrong, after looking at it for many years, it has gradually become accustomed to it and feels normal.
However, this threshold, in his heart, cannot be crossed.
So he was debauched in the harem, so she kept the pepper room alone.
So, the big mistakes and bitter fruits that the people of the world watched happen, and in the end, she was the only one to swallow.
When Liu Ying died, Zhang Yan must have cried.
Even if they are not close all their lives, as long as he is still in Weiyang and is still there, she is at ease.
But he died quietly, and she looked around in a daze, unable to find a way forward.
He was the most important man in her life.
When a man occupies the two most important male roles in your life, uncle and husband, you say, who else is more important in this world than him?
What's more, he is such a good, such a good person.
She knew that she shouldn't love him and rely on him, because he was not only her husband, but also her uncle, and such a relationship was too awkward. But in the prosperous and empty Weiyang, the only man she is familiar with is him. He always smiled gently, but there was melancholy between his eyebrows, and his handsome face frowned, looking like a gust of wind.
But she always misses the uncle who laughed loudly in her dreams, threw her up in the air, and caught her.
At that time, she was very small.
He's not her husband yet, he's just her uncle.
As they grew older, they never looked back.
It doesn't matter, we still have a future. She comforted herself.
When I'm old enough,...... Uncle, will you come back to see me?
People always complain that they are too far away from the nobles in the Ninefold Palace and are not familiar with them. I complained that I knew you too well to find a new path.
When she was about to grow up, her grandmother forced Emperor Hui to have sex with her in order to give birth to a prince with the Lu family, and at that time, he always let her sleep first, and then sit alone in the tent, awake until dawn.
But that was already the closest they were to it.
In fact, the closeness of the heart sometimes does not necessarily have to be skin-to-skin. Sometimes it's good to be there all the time.
At that time, she must have felt peaceful and reassuring in her heart.
When she was sixteen years old, Emperor Hui died at the age of twenty-four.
That's too young.
Do you know what it means to be in despair?
This is called the disillusionment of all thoughts.
No matter how difficult they were before, how elusive their happiness was, as long as he is alive, there are infinite possibilities in the future. But when he was gone, everything was pale.
Does she love Liu Ying?
Nature is love.
It's just that there are too many ingredients in this love. Years later, she didn't know how much she loved him.
When she was young, she looked up to him and felt that her uncle was the greatest person in the world besides her father.
At the age of twelve, she married him, puzzled by such a change of identity.
For four years, they were the closest and farthest people in the world.
is the warmest and most hopeless couple in the world.
The most prosperous and the most barren two.
She couldn't even really hate him, though he was a prodigal. Because Lun is often a mountain that neither of them can face each other.
No one can get past it.
When she was sixteen, he died.
The landslide was in the form she least wanted to see.
So, in a corner of my heart that others can't see, some of her also died.
Since then, she has been the most noble widow in the world.
No matter how noble he is, he is also a poor person.
After his death, she was unknown, and according to her grandmother's wishes, she became the queen of the puppet in the Jiaofang Palace.
In the past eight years, she has saved people surnamed Liu again and again. Eight years later, everyone surnamed Liu has forgotten her.
She watched his children being slaughtered, but she couldn't save them. She saved all the sons surnamed Liu, who were close and not close, but she couldn't save his children and grandchildren, she thought, why don't you kill me too. But no, she was moved to the North Palace, no longer the queen mother, and even the title of queen was not recognized.
She woke up again and again in the middle of the night, tossing and turning, thinking about the old time, and the people who accompanied her during that time, her husband, and her ...... Uncle.
After his death, the significance of his uncle or husband has been diluted, so that he can remember without scruples.
Reminisces about the joyful childhood, as well as the gorgeous and confused girlhood, the lonely and hopeless youth, and the cold and melancholy Beigong career.
In Weiyang Palace, one after another, what does it matter to me?
She just wanted to miss him quietly and think about what the relationship between him and her was.
In the north palace, the trees are forested. There must have been tears in the corners of her eyes when she died. At that time, did she think of her uncle? Is she calling her uncle or her husband in her heart?
Tears in my eyes.