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Rh was greatly moved, and issued a long account of her life in which he enumerated her virtues. She was posthumously made an Empress and was canonized as Hsiao-hsien Huang-hou. Her body was borne by high officials to the hillock, Ching-shan 景山, north of the palace in Peking, where elaborate Buddhistic ceremonies were conducted at enormous cost and where her remains were cremated. Certain eunuchs and maids in the Palace committed suicide in order that their spirits might accompany her. This practice, known as hsün-tsang 殉葬, had long been abandoned by Chinese rulers, but was retained by the Manchus until this time (see under ).

After Empress Hsiao-hsien died the Emperor could not control himself for grief, and he himself died four and a half months later. Thereupon the Dowager Empress and the Manchu regents issued an alleged will of the deceased Emperor in which he declared himself blameworthy for many things, among them the lavish and costly posthumous rites he had accorded the Empress Hsiao-hsien. This, however, may have been only the opinion of the Dowager Empress. Probably in deference to her wishes, too, Empress Hsiao-hsien was not given the Emperor's posthumous designation, Chang (see under ), which was necessary if her name was to be celebrated in the Imperial Ancestral Hall. Despite this discrimination, her ashes were deposited in the tomb of the Emperor.

Legends concerning Empress Hsiao-hsien soon grew up. According to one, she was in reality a Chinese woman, named Tung Po (see under ), popularly known as Tung Hsiao-wan who, owing to her beauty, had been abducted by Manchu soldiers and sent to the Palace. Stories also arose to the effect that the Emperor was so grief stricken after her death that he became a Buddhist monk, although ceremonies were performed as if he had really died. Some writers professed to believe that the novel, Hung-lou mêng, or Dream of the Red Chamber (see under ), was based on the love affair of Hsiao-hsien and the Emperor. But enough actual data are now available to prove these suppositions groundless.

[1/220/8a; Ch'ing lieh-ch'ao Hou-fei chuan kao (see under ) 上/65a; Ch'ing Huang-shih ssŭ-p'u (see under ) 2/9a;, 端敬皇后傳 in 松鄰叢書 Sung-lin ts'ung-shu; 胡適文存 Hu Shih wên-ts'un 3/185-248; See bibliography under .]

2em

 Hsiao-kung Jên Huang-hou 孝恭仁皇后, 1660–1723, June 25, secondary consort of Emperor Shêng-tsu, and mother of his fourth son and successor (see under ), was the daughter of Wei-wu 威武 (also written 衛武) of the Uya 烏雅 clan, a lieutenant-colonel belonging to the Manchu Plain Yellow Banner. In 1679, the year following the birth of Yin-chên, she was made secondary consort of the fourth rank with the title of Tê-pin 德嬪, and in 1682 after the Emperor's sixth son, Yin-tso 胤祚 (1680–1685), was born to her, she was raised to the third rank with the title of Tê-fei 德妃. She was also the mother of his ninth daughter, later called Princess Wên-hsien 温憲公主 (1683–1702), wife of Sunggayan (see under ); of his fourteenth son, ; and of two of his short-lived daughters. When her son Yin-chên ascended the throne as Emperor Shih-tsung in 1723, she was made Empress Dowager (皇太后) with the title Jên-shou 仁壽 but died in the same year, age sixty-four (sui). She was given posthumously the status of Empress with the title Hsiao-kung Jên Huang-hou, and was buried at Ching Ling 景陵, the tomb of Emperor Shêng-tsu.

[1/220/9b; 1/173/5b; Ch'ing lieh-ch'ao Hou-fei chuan-kao (see under ) shang 89b; Ch'ing Huang-shih ssŭ-p'u (see under ), 2/11b, 4/12b, 4/13b, 3/13b, 3/15b.]

2em

 HSIAO-lieh Wu Huang-hou (孝烈武皇后), 1590–1626, Oct. 1, third wife of, was the daughter of Mantai (see under ), beile of the Ula Nara 烏拉納喇 tribe of the Hûlun nation. Her maiden name was Abahai 阿巴亥 (not to be confused with Emperor T'ai-tsung's name, which also was ). In 1601, five years after her father's death, her uncle, Bujantai, sent her to Nurhaci as one of the latter's secondary consorts. She gave birth to Nurhaci's twelfth son,, in 1605, to his fourteenth son, , in 1612, and to his fifteenth son, , in 1614. She became Ta Fujin 大福晉 (Chief Wife) about 1620, after Nurhaci's second wife was divorced and murdered (see under ). She accompanied Nurhaci when the latter moved his capital from Hetu Ala to Liao-yang in 1621, to  302