"The Emperor's Wedding": See how complicated the emperor's marriage can be.
The Forbidden City has a collection of the "Complete Picture Album of Zaitan's Wedding Ceremony" *** divided into eight volumes and drawn by Qing Dynasty court painter Qing Kuan and others. It records the marriage of Emperor Guangxu to the Queen in the form of a comic strip the whole process.
These eight volumes of paintings include the first volume of "The Empress Leaving the Palace to the Residence", the second volume of "The Nacai Banquet", the third volume of "The Great Conquest of Gifts", the fourth volume and the fourth volume. The five volumes are all "Pictures of the Empress's Dressing and Dosage", the sixth volume is "The Picture of Ceremony to Welcome the Empress", the seventh volume is "The Picture of the Empress and Her Majesty Entering the Palace", and the eighth volume is "The Picture of Etiquette".
The scenes depicted include the Nacai ceremony, the Great Recruitment ceremony, the Enrollment ceremony, the welcome ceremony, the Henuo ceremony, the celebration ceremony and the banquet. The picture album "Emperor's Wedding" takes the "Zai Chan Wedding Ceremony Complete Album" as a clue, combined with historical materials and some cultural relics pictures, to sort out Guangxu's wedding celebration from three parts: "pre-wedding preparations", "wedding day" and "post-wedding etiquette" .
"The Emperor's Wedding" starts with the "Nacai ceremony". The man invites a matchmaker to go to the woman's house to propose marriage. After the woman agrees, the man performs the Nacai ceremony, which is an engagement. The "Nacai" ceremony of the Qing Dynasty has distinctive Manchu cultural characteristics. Among the gifts organized by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, armor and horses play an important role, which also reflects that the Qing Dynasty regarded riding and shooting as the foundation of the country.
The Duomu teapot in the Nacai ceremony is also very distinctive. This kind of teapot is made of gold, silver, enamel, ceramics, etc., and is collected in large quantities in the Qing palace. It is used for serving in Qinghai and Tibet. Milk tea utensils.
In the later "Great Recruitment Gifts", the emperor sent people to the woman's home to deliver betrothal gifts. The Qing Dynasty emperor's "Great Recruitment Gifts" were more numerous. For example, the Great Recruitment Gift at the wedding of Emperor Shunzhi was Two hundred taels of gold, ten thousand chariots of silver, one gold teapot, two silver teacups, one gold and silver basin each, a thousand pieces of satin, two thousand pieces of cloth, twenty horses, saddles and bridles, twenty pieces of armor, often Wait for thirty sets.
On the other hand, the queen also has to send a dowry to the palace. The characteristic of the queen's dowry is that the queen's dowry is not prepared by her natal family, but is organized by the imperial court. Due to the large scale of the queen's dowry, not only her natal family could not afford it, but even the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even the entire Forbidden City found it difficult to complete the task.
"The Red Marriage Ceremony of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty" records that the queen's dowry is divided into two ways: "internally handled" and "externally handled". "Internal Affairs" is organized by institutions in the capital. The items in "Internal Affairs" are mainly hats, shoes, socks, and jewelry. These items are always reserved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. "Foreign affairs" need to be handled by institutions outside the capital, which mainly include clothing and other textiles and woodware, bedding, door curtains, skins, clocks, etc.
These must be supervised by Guangdong Customs and handled by Jiangnan, Suzhou, Hangzhou Weaving and other places.
The emperor’s wedding day was the highlight.
First of all, the "registration ceremony" must be performed.
At dawn on the day of the ceremony, Luan Yiwei Chen managed to drive Luan Bo outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and arranged the Queen's ceremonial carriage under the palace steps and outside the palace gate;
The music club will The music hangs outside the Hall of Supreme Harmony;
The officials of Honglu Temple of the Ministry of Rites set up the festival case in the middle of the Hall of Supreme Harmony to the south, the registration case to the left to the west, the treasure case to the east to the right, and the two dragon pavilions in the hall. Outside the cabinet door;
The internal supervisor is set up Danbi Le outside the palace door, the festival case is in the middle of the palace (the above are all facing south), and the treasure case is set up on both sides of the palace door, facing east and west, and the queen's worship case is set up. Located in the south of Xiangtan. ?
After the ceremony of enthronement, the queen wore royal auspicious clothes and took a phoenix carriage out of the palace. She passed through the Daqing Gate across the Jinshui Bridge, outside the Meridian Gate, and entered the palace through the middle gate of the Meridian Gate. The queen's phoenix carriage passed by Enter the Qianqing Palace through the middle gate of Qianqing Gate and surrender. Later, the destined woman introduced the queen to the bridal chamber, which is the East Nuan Pavilion of Kunning Palace.
The interior of Kunning Palace, called Dongnuan Pavilion in the east, is the bridal chamber for the wedding of the emperor and queen. The Dongnuan Pavilion is equipped with a tent and the furnishings are all in the form of a wedding room. The curtains are all made of red satin embroidered with colorful and gold pictures of the Hundred Sons, and the rest are the queen's dowry boxes and other supplies. When the emperor got married, he stayed here with the queen for three days. After that, the emperor chose another palace among the six east and west palaces for the queen to live in. There are also a series of etiquettes in the bridal chamber, such as the wedding ceremony, the wedding ceremony, and the wedding banquet.
Extended information:
The old eunuch recalled: On the night of the emperor’s wedding, the queen had to eat something first.
China has experienced thousands of years of ups and downs and has developed to this day, playing a very important role on the historical stage. And the classical rationality that has been inherited from ancient times to the present has slowly changed with the times. In the past, we were a patriarchal clan, where men were respected and women were humble. Men could have three wives and four concubines, while women could only keep an empty house.
This is especially true for the nobles in the imperial palace. There are three thousand beauties in the emperor's harem, each of whom is stunning in the world. In order to review the history of that time, future generations will film TV series to show us the scenes of people's lives in the past.
In ancient times, emperors would have regular elective days for concubines in the harem. In fact, the emperor would only get married once at that time, and the person he married to was his first wife. In addition, no other selected test concubines will hold weddings again. These women who were favored by the emperor were sent directly to the palace as soon as they were selected.
Maybe this means that polygamy was not a practice in ancient times. Every man has only one main wife, the rest are concubines. The emperor's first wife was the queen, so even though the emperor had so many concubines, he was only married once.
And in that era of obvious status stratification, many things were not as shown in TV series.
Since ancient times, people have attached great importance to all grand holiday banquets. It is a traditional custom that even important dates such as family banquets or weddings must be chosen at an auspicious time, in order to seek good luck in the future.
There are some customs in marriage that have been handed down from ancient times. These activities are undoubtedly for good luck. From the perspective of ancient weddings, when you get married, you need to go through the customs of having a wedding ceremony, drinking a cup of wine, and eating peanuts and dates. Although many people now advocate Western-style weddings, this custom will still be followed when preparing for weddings.
In fact, the emperor also has this custom when he gets married, but as the emperor is the king of a country, it is impossible for him to go through the process of having a wedding ceremony. The wedding of the emperor and the empress was so grand that almost the whole country celebrated it. After all the ceremonies are held, the emperor will join hands with the queen to return to the palace, and then the bridal chamber will begin.
According to a eunuch's statement in his later years, on the night of the emperor's wedding, before the bridal chamber, the queen had to eat an uncooked dumpling called descendants' dumplings. This is also to seek good luck. When the dumplings are cooked until they are half-cooked, they are given to the queen to eat. While eating, they also ask the queen whether they are raw or not, and the queen will answer yes.
In the eyes of the ancients, this meant that the royal family was full of good fortune. The wine that the emperor drank with his queen when they got married was not called "Jiaobeijiu" (Jiaobeijiu). It was a little more advanced than the folk name of "合卺([jǐn]"), which meant that the emperor and the queen lived happily ever after.
Reference materials: Ifeng.com - "The Emperor's Wedding" and "Ruyi Linlang Picture Books": See the romance and magic of the Forbidden City from books