The emperor's wedding is called a "big wedding". For an emperor who has married a wife before he ascends the throne, after he becomes the emperor, he will only hold a ceremony to enthrone the queen and not hold a replacement wedding. At the same time as the wedding, a gold book and gold treasure (certificate and seal) are used to register the queen; at the same time as the queen is registered, one to four concubines are selected. The wedding ceremonies of the Ming and Qing emperors were basically the same.
The "Book of Rites? Hunyi", "Tang Code" and "Ming Code" stipulate that the procedures of "marriage" are: accepting, asking for names, accepting gifts, accepting taxes, announcing the date and welcoming each other. Also known as "Six Rites".
Nacai means giving gifts, discussing marriage, and asking a matchmaker to find out the truth and truth. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, meeting gifts were extremely rich and compared with each other.
Name asking is to hold a ceremony to ask the other person's name and date of birth to see if the "fate" is suitable.
Naji, to put it bluntly, it is a fortune-telling, that is, the ancients divined good and bad luck for marriage matters; if it is a "good omen" and the birth date is suitable, the matchmaker will be asked to bring gifts to the engagement.
To accept the levy is to give an engagement gift. The ancients said: "A man and a woman will not make friends without a matchmaker, and they will not see each other without a coin." Therefore, collecting money is also called "paying money". Coins are jade or silk fabrics used as engagement gifts by the ancients.
The announcement period is to notify the other party of the date of marriage.
Welcome in person is a requirement for ordinary people. The emperor did not come in person, but sent representatives of "sons and daughters" to go.
On September 14th, the 11th year of Tongzhi, sixteen-year-old Zai Chun got married. According to Li Ciming's "Yuemantang Diary", at around three o'clock in the morning that day, Zaichun's "Yu Baohe Hall" took the auspiciousness of "Guizi Tongsun" and appointed Wu Gui, the Minister of Rites, and Xu Tong, the right minister, as the chief and deputy ministers. Deputy wedding messenger. At around seven o'clock, "I went to the Imperial Palace of Supreme Harmony to receive congratulations from hundreds of officials." Prince Dun and Prince Gong of Fujin, "the sons of Quanhe", were ordered to lead eight married women, carrying gifts, following the messengers, and surrounding them in the guard of honor. Next, "horse a horse out of the Qing Dynasty Gate" and go to the queen's house to marry. The minister, Chonghou Fujin, "opened" the bride's face and used silk thread to remove the hair on her face; Princes Dun and Gong, Fujin, set the bride's makeup and served her in the sedan chair. The wedding procession entered the Daqing Gate and ended at the Jiaotai Hall.
According to the Manchu custom, a curtain is set up on the south Kang of the bridal chamber. After the bride has bowed to heaven and earth, she sits cross-legged on the Kang for a day, which is called "Sitting in Fortune". Before getting married, the bride must practice "sitting skills"; the day before getting into the sedan chair, she should drink less water and eat less. In the evening, a kang table is placed on the south kang with wine pots and wine glasses. The bride and groom circle the table three times and then drink wine. Someone outside sings a happy song called "Lakongjia", makes a fuss and sets up rice seedlings, scatters black beans into the room, and "makes noise in the bridal chamber."
Weddings in the Qing palace retained certain Manchu customs. In the East Nuan Pavilion of Kunning Palace, the walls are painted red and candles are burning brightly. In the north of the pavilion, there is a wedding bed and a throne; under the south window there is a heated kang with a table and wine utensils on it. The newlyweds worship heaven and earth, the longevity star, and the Kitchen God, and drink a glass of wine on the South Kang. Prince Li Fujin "cooks" and cooks glutinous rice balls and Zisun dumplings (in a bowl of small dumplings, there is also a large dumpling wrapped with several small dumplings). Princes Dun and Gong's Fujin brought cooked glutinous rice balls and descendant dumplings to the newlyweds.
There is a poem in "Qing Gong Ci" describing the grand wedding of Emperor Tongzhi Zai Chun: "The wedding was celebrated with great ceremony, King Wu couldn't help but let it go; suddenly it was said that the price of paper was high and expensive, and all the flowers were dressed in colorful clothes to sing thanks." It is said that. At that time, the procession to welcome the bride was lined up from the Meridian Gate to the door of the Queen's house, with hundreds of pairs of palace lanterns and hundreds of "horses" marching in front of the inner prison; the Queen rode a large ceremony carriage with a gold embroidered phoenix on a yellow satin, carried by sixteen people. People in the capital, as long as they wear fresh floral clothes, can enter the Meridian Gate to watch the ceremony, and the guards will not stop them. Emperor Tongzhi of the Qing Dynasty Zai Chun got married. According to the final calculation, the total expenditure was more than 20 million taels of silver. Among them, the silk and satin used for "coloring" in the palace amounted to 800,000 taels, worth 100,000 taels of silver. According to the market conditions during the Qianlong period, one tael of silver could be exchanged for eight to nine hundred cash; seven to ten taels of silver could buy an acre of farmland, and twenty-seven to thirty-four five cash could buy one liter of rice. This shows how luxurious the weddings of emperors in the past were.