Yehenara Wanzhen

Wanzhen
Primary Consort of Prince Chunxian
Born (1841-09-13)13 September 1841
Died 19 June 1896(1896-06-19) (aged 54)
Spouse Prince Chunxian
Issue Zaihan
Zaitian (Guangxu Emperor)
Zaiguang
House Yehenara
Father Yehenara Huizheng
Yehenara Wanzhen
Traditional Chinese 葉赫那拉‧婉貞
Simplified Chinese 叶赫那拉‧婉贞

Wanzhen (13 September 1841 – 19 June 1896), of the Yehenara clan, was a Manchu noble lady who lived in the late Qing dynasty. She was the primary consort of Yixuan (Prince Chun), the seventh son of the Daoguang Emperor, and the mother of the Guangxu Emperor, the penultimate emperor of the Qing dynasty. She was also a younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi, who was the de facto ruler of the Qing Empire throughout the reigns of the Tongzhi and Guangxu emperors.

Life

Wanzhen's father was Huizheng (惠徵), a Manchu official from the Bordered Blue Banner of the Eight Banners. In 1851, her eldest sister was selected to be a concubine of the Xianfeng Emperor and became known as "Consort Yi". As Consort Yi wanted to strengthen familial ties within the imperial family by having a prince as her brother-in-law, she recommended Wanzhen to be a spouse for Yixuan (Prince Chun), a younger half-brother of the Xianfeng Emperor. After the Xianfeng Emperor's death in 1861, Consort Yi's young son, Zaichun, ascended the throne as the Tongzhi Emperor, with his mother and stepmother (Empress Dowager Ci'an) serving as his regents throughout most of his reign. Consort Yi became known as "Empress Dowager Cixi" from then on.

In January 1875, the Tongzhi Emperor died at the relatively young age of 18. Prince Chun and Wanzhen's second son, Zaitian, was chosen by Empress Dowagers Cixi and Ci'an to be the new ruler and was enthroned as the Guangxu Emperor. Wanzhen was widowed in 1891 when Prince Chun died. Her stepson, Zaifeng, inherited his father's princely title and became the second Prince Chun. Wanzhen herself died about five years later in 1896 at the age of 54.

In his memoirs, Puyi (Zaifeng's son and the Last Emperor of China) described Wanzhen as a fairly abusive woman, who terrorised her servants, children and step-children alike, and noted that at least one of her sons died of malnutrition.[1] Empresss Dowager Cixi also recalled that when the Guangxu Emperor was brought to the Forbidden City in 1875 for his coronation, "he was a very sickly child, and could hardly walk, he was so thin and weak. His parents seemed to be afraid of giving him anything to eat."[2]

Family

References

  1. ↑ Pu Yi, Henry From Emperor to Citizen: the Autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi (Foreign Language Press, 1989), pgs. 23-24
  2. ↑ Derling, Princess Two Years in the Forbidden City (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1929) pg. 252; retrieved August 5th, 2013 http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DerYear.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=teiHeader
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, February 22, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.