It's not just a simple spanking. This punishment is insulting. Usually it is only used for ladies-in-waiting and domestic slaves who make mistakes, but for royal concubines, Zhen Fei is the first and last one. This is not only physical destruction, but also spiritual humiliation. What made Cixi furious? This has to start with the reduction of expenses by the court in the late Qing Dynasty.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, since Daoguang, court expenses began to decrease. During the Guangxu period, the emperor also began to tighten his belt under the circumstances of internal and external troubles. However, the two sisters, who are used to spending money lavishly, naturally can't adapt to this kind of life and begin to find ways to make money. When Zhen Fei first entered the palace, she was favored by Cixi and often served beside Cixi. She saw that some Princess Fujin often played cards with Cixi, deliberately losing money and making Cixi happy. She took the opportunity to ask her classmates for an official position, and Cixi agreed.
Zhen Fei found a way to get rich, and because she was Guangxu's favorite concubine, it was easy for her to sell official titles as long as she blew a pillow wind around Guangxu. So she joined her cousin Zhirui and started selling officials for money. Zhenfei was easy and successful. Since he got a lot of bribes by selling officials, Zhenfei has become more and more courageous. She even dared to sell her position in Shanghai Daotai.
The illegal behavior will be exposed sooner or later. Zhenfei sold a position on Yanfa Road in Sichuan to a man named Yu Ming, who was a servant in a wood factory and didn't know a word. Before taking office, Guangxu met him in the main hall. Guangxu asked him to write a resume, but paper can't cover it. The matter finally came to light. This matter soon reached the ears of Empress Dowager Cixi. Not long after Guangxu took office, such a scandal broke out, making Cixi very angry. What makes Cixi even more angry is that Guangxu listened to a concubine like this, which made Cixi, who was obsessed with power, very nervous.
Cixi never allowed a second person to control Emperor Guangxu, so she ordered a thorough investigation of the matter. In the end, Zhi Rui, who participated in this matter, was dismissed and investigated, and dozens of eunuchs involved in the harem were executed. Zhenfei's sisters were reduced from concubines to concubines and punished with sticks. Originally, this matter ended here. However, the youthful Zhenfei knew his mistake and didn't change. Instead, she said to Cixi: What happened to the male and female servants? Male and female servants are just imitating the queen mother. Since the queen mother can destroy the ancestral family law, why can't male and female servants?
This is like giving Cixi a loud slap in the face and making Cixi lose face. Cixi decided to punish them severely and stripped Zhenfei of her clothes in public for flogging. According to the records of the Qing Palace, Zhen Fei was beaten unconscious, her teeth clenched, her whole body twitched, and then she trembled and was accompanied by fever.
After that, Princess Zhen was put into limbo, and when Eight-Nation Alliance entered the city, she was ordered to be thrown into the well because of the contradiction between her words and Cixi, ending her short life. Zhen Fei was flogged not because of selling officials, but because of her character. Her language directly exposed the fact that Cixi was in power, but she tried to escape punishment in the name of imitating herself and openly challenged Cixi, and Cixi was bound to take her seriously. If she admits her mistake directly, she may just be beaten and demoted, and she can make a comeback with Guangxu's love in the future. It's a pity that her impulsive personality hurt herself, and she suffered such an insulting punishment just because she said one more word.
Whether Zhen Fei was flogged has been controversial. However, on March 1927 and 18, the World Daily published an anecdote about the "Nuggets in the Forbidden City", exposing the truth of Zhenfei's selling officials. The reporter claimed to be Liu Guo, Zhen Fei's personal maid-in-waiting. She claimed that all the 50 gold bars that Zhen Fei got from selling officials were buried under the corner of Ren Jing Palace. The reason why she disclosed this matter was that she hoped to get three gold bars to supplement her family. On May 25th, 1928, the World Journal published an article entitled "The torture of Zhen Fei sticks to the yellow treasure; The article "Will be sent to the History Museum for preservation" proves the fact that Zhen Fei was scolded by Cixi. The palace staff that spanked Princess Zhen escaped the fate of being a torchbearer and was upgraded to a historical relic, which was donated to the Palace Museum by collectors.
References:
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