Perhaps influenced by film and television works, many friends have ignored Tang Xuanzong's emotional experience before meeting Yang Yuhuan.
In fact, before Li Longji met Yang Guifei, he also favored a woman named Mei Fei. According to legend, Princess Mei's appearance was still above the jade ring, just like the Heavenly Palace Fairy. Unfortunately, Yang Yuhuan came to the top and gradually replaced Princess Mei's position in Li Longji's heart, causing Princess Mei to become a guest in Li Longji's life, abandoned in the cold palace, and the evening scene was desolate.
So, why is Yang Yuhuan not as good as Princess Mei, but more favored than Princess Mei?
Some friends may feel that Yang Guifei is a versatile beauty, in addition to her moving appearance and enchanting figure, she is also good at dancing, which makes Li Longji empathize with other people. Through consulting the historical materials, the author found that this is not the case, and Princess Mei is not a vase, but on the contrary, a rare talented woman among the concubines of the past.
She read poetry from an early age, and at the age of nine she was able to recite the classic passages in the Book of Poetry, and at the age of fourteen she was able to recite poems against her, and was often compared to Xie Daoyun, a talented woman of the Jin Dynasty. In addition to her literary talents, Princess Mei is also proficient in a variety of musical instruments and also dabbles in song and dance, which makes Li Longji, who likes music, love her very much. It can be seen that MeiFei is far superior to Yang Yuhuan in terms of talent, and external factors are not the reason for her fall out of favor.
There are very few records of Mei Fei in the historical materials, and the sentence "Mei Fei likes Mei, and her integrity is like Mei" very implicitly reveals mei fei's personality to us, perhaps this is the key reason why Mei Fei fell out of favor.
Here, we put Princess Mei aside to see how Yang Yuhuan won the favor of Li Longji.
The so-called "six palaces pink and colorless" is only a description in the verse, and if you want to get a glimpse of the charm of the noble concubine, you need to start from a more intuitive portrait. In the various versions of the "BathIng Diagram" painted by later painters, we can see that later generations of painters spent an unknown amount of ink in order to depict the style of noble concubines. No matter what kind of expression the painters used, the noble concubines in his pen were almost the same: Yang Yuhuan cleaned his body in the Huaqing Pond, and then surfaced like a hibiscus in the water, draped in a light veil under the support of several squirrels.
Why do you need the support of the next person even when you go out of the bath?
Perhaps it is because the painters want to express the characteristics of "the waiter is weak and weak". At this time, the delicate and boneless jade ring was wearing a loose and crumpled thin shirt, as if she was about to fall to the ground after taking one more step, so that the viewer outside the painting could not help but want to enter the picture scroll and grab her. In fact, "delicate" is a magic weapon for Yang Yuhuan, Li Longji, as the king of a country, has unlimited scenery after people, presumably such a man will not like a "strong woman". In this way, the concubine Mei of "temperament and integrity" is too arrogant, and she is not as cute as the delicate Yang Yuhuan. She often confronts the powerful Li Longji, and over time, the two will inevitably have friction, and it is no wonder that Li Longji will empathize with each other.
So, why is Princess Mei arrogant?
According to legend, the Jiang clan where Princess Mei was located was a Mingi Wang clan, and Princess Mei received a good cultural education since childhood. Although the Tang Dynasty was open at that time, Confucianism had already exerted a considerable influence in China, so the popularity of the "talentless daughter" far exceeded that of the talented woman. This is understandable, after all, people at the time hope to obtain a deformed sense of superiority from talentless women, so Princess Mei's talent and insight have become "stumbling blocks" for her favor.
Before Concubine Mei entered the palace, Li Longji's favorite Concubine Wu Hui had died. There is no record of Wu Huifei's talent in the historical records, and from her practice of framing the chancellor to exclude dissidents, it can be seen that Wu Huifei was a very shallow woman. At this time, Tang Xuanzong deeply loved Concubine Wu, so he indulged her various outrageous moves. After The death of Concubine Wu Huifei, Tang Xuanzong fell into the pain of losing his wife and could not extricate himself, and was depressed all day long, and was exploited by the villains around him. In order to curry favor with Li Longji, Gao Lishi advised the emperor to carry out the draft in the folk.
What was Lee Long-ki's original intention in the draft? It was just to find a woman as a substitute for Concubine Wu Huifei.
In this way, Mei Fei walked into Li Longji's sight, and we mentioned earlier that Mei Fei's appearance is comparable to that of a heavenly person, and she will naturally stand out among many show girls. Li Longji and Princess Mei have been in contact for a period of time, and found many characteristics different from Wu Huifei from her body, this woman is extremely talented, she and "literary and artistic youth" Li Longji have endless common topics, so when the two are together, they are like glue, and Li Longji quickly walked out of the haze of Wu Huifei's death. Li Longji is a person who attaches great importance to feelings, and he not only has a deep affection for women, but also for his brothers.
At the beginning of Tang Xuanzong's ascension to the throne, he often drank and feasted with the four brothers of the Ben family, Nameng Chengji, King Chengyi of Shen, Fan of Qi, and Wang Cong of Xue, and drank until they simply slept with their brothers. The five brothers not only had deep feelings and righteousness, but also their preferences were roughly the same, and Li Longji laid down five draperies in the palace, sat in them with his brothers, talked about heaven and earth, and got along very well from poetry to music. After Li Longji summoned Concubine Mei to the harem, he couldn't wait to introduce this talented woman to his brothers, so he invited Concubine Mei to a banquet and let her play the white jade flute to help entertain.
For a moment, Princess Mei's flute sounded around the beam, and the five brothers listened to it with fascination. Subsequently, Li Longji sent someone to take out his treasured wine and entertain the kings. Princess Mei held the wine utensils to toast to everyone, Xue Wang's wine was not good, he had drunk it backwards and forwards, and suddenly, he stretched out his feet from under the table to hook Concubine Mei's delicate jade feet, and he was fascinated. Princess Mei was quite sensible and did not want to make everyone look ugly, so she silently broke free, and then ran back to her own palace and did not come out again. Tang Xuanzong didn't know what to do, and asked, "Why didn't Concubine Mei say goodbye?" ”
The palace ladies replied, "The jade beads on Niangniang's shoes have fallen off, and when she returns to the palace to rearrange the beaded shoes, she will come." After a while, still did not see Concubine Mei return, Li Longji was suspicious, and sent someone to urge Concubine Mei to return to the palace as soon as possible, who knew that Princess Mei refused to attend on the grounds of abdominal pain. Losing the beauty to sit with, Li Longji lost the mind of drinking and feasting, and the crowd said a few words of greeting and left early. The next morning, King Xue woke up drunk, remembering that yesterday's disrespectful behavior was like earth color, afraid that Concubine Mei would file a complaint in front of Li Longji and save her life.
Therefore, King Xue, bearing the guilt of Jingjing, ran to Li Longji and prostrated his head, saying: "Thanks to the imperial brother's gift of drinking and feasting, I did not drink well, and after getting drunk, I accidentally touched the beaded shoes of the imperial concubine, although this was an unintentional act, but in the end it caused a great disaster, please ask the imperial brother to punish me." When Li Longji heard this, he immediately figured out the reason why Concubine Mei did not resign at the banquet yesterday, but King Xue was Li Longji's brother, and Li Longji did not want to turn his face with him, so he said generously: "Since it is an unintentional act, Naturally, He will not pursue it." "After this incident, Tang Xuanzong came to the harem to test Concubine Mei.
Princess Mei understood the great righteousness and did not want to destroy the brotherhood between the emperor and the kings because of her own sake, so she still tried her best to deny it. Li Longji saw that Concubine Mei was bent on the love of royal flesh and blood, and was willing to be humiliated and calm people, and became more and more fond of this woman.
Unfortunately, Princess Mei's "deep righteousness" has become the biggest reason for her fall out of favor.
As we all know, the love between Yang Yuhuan and Li Longji is against the norm, and before Yang Yuhuan entered the palace, he had been married as a princess by Li Longji's son King Shou, and Li Longji's act of strengthening Yuhuan was undoubtedly "picking up ashes", and it was inevitable that he would be accused by thousands of husbands. When Princess Mei heard about this, she was furious and immediately wrote a poem "Lou Dongfu", hoping that Li Longji would turn back:
"Jade jian dust life, phoenix incense death." The clever comb of the lazy cicada sideburns, the light edge of the idle clothes. Bitter and lonely in the Hui Palace, but contemplating the Lan Palace. The plum blossoms that fall from the letter are not seen across nagato. The situation is that the flower is disgusted, and the willow eyes are worried. Warm breeze, spring birds chirping. Upstairs at dusk, listening to the wind and looking back; the blue clouds and the twilight of the sun, staring at the moon. The hot springs are not available, reminiscing about the old tour of The Green Mountain; Nagato is deeply closed, and the Shinshu of the Green Luan is repaired.
Reminiscences of the past are too liquid to clear waves, water and light to float, sheng song feast, accompany Chenxu. Play the wonderful song of the dancing luan, and ride on the fairy boat of the painting [yì]. The monarch is tight and deep. The oath of the mountains and the sea is always there, like the sun and the moon without end.
He was jealous of the mediocre and jealous. Rob me of my love and rebuke me for being in the palace. Thinking of the old and happy, thinking of dreams is hazy. Spend the flowers and the moon and the sunset, shy and lazy to the spring wind. If you want to play like this, you can't work in the world. The unfinished chanting has sounded the bell. The air sighed and covered his arms, and hesitated to walk to the east of the building. ”
Unfortunately, Li Longji was immersed in the sexual pleasure with Yang Yuhuan and could not extricate himself, moreover, MeiFei's satirical poems had touched his sensitive nerves, so Meifei was naturally snubbed.
Since Li Longji favored Yang Yuhuan, he no longer exerted himself to govern, but on the contrary, he showed all kinds of signs of slackening in government. Concubine Mei spared no effort to persuade Li Longji, but Yang Yuhuan, who was good at spoiling, often blew the "pillow wind" in the emperor's ear, and under her misinterpretation, Concubine Mei's kind words of persuasion all became bad words against her ears. And Princess Mei's repeated unveiling of Li Longji's scars also made the emperor angry, and Li Longji finally sent Concubine Mei into the cold palace with an edict. However, if It is said that Princess Mei has fallen out of favor, it is not the case. After all, in addition to her strong personality, this woman is superior to Yang Yuhuan regardless of her appearance and learning.
Therefore, although Li Longji hated her noble integrity, he often remembered the days when the two of them talked about nothing together and fell into a deep contradiction. This year, the plum blossoms were in full bloom, and when Yang Yuhuan returned to his mother's house to visit his relatives, Li Longji sent a small eunuch who was close to him and invited Concubine Mei to meet her at cuihua West Pavilion under the guise of listening to the opera. Who knew that after Yang Yuhuan heard about this incident, he broke into the Cuihua West Pavilion for the first time to plan to "catch the adulteress", which frightened Li Longji and could only hold Concubine Mei and hide in the middle of the wall. Later, Yang Yuhuan pulled out the two people, and their faces were not good, and Li Longji could only send Concubine Mei away.
Later, Li Longji thought of Concubine Mei and ordered someone to give a pearl of tribute from a foreign envoy to Princess Mei. Princess Mei replied to the poem "Thank You for the Pearl", which is not affected by:
Willow leaf eyebrows for a long time, residual makeup and tears stained red silk;
Nagato has no grooming, so why should pearls comfort loneliness.
"I haven't painted my willow eyebrows in a long time, and the makeup and tears on my face wet my red silk coat. I haven't freshened up in a long time, and you don't have to send a pearl to comfort my lonely heart. ”
After reading the poem, the emperor instructed lefu to compose a new tune for the poem, named "A Hu Zhu", and sent someone to send the shoes and gold noodles left by Concubine Mei to Concubine Mei, who asked the emissary: "Your Majesty has made up his mind to abandon me?" The Prophet replied, "Your Majesty has not abandoned Niangniang, but is afraid of being too real." Princess Mei said sadly, "In order not to make that fat girl jealous, Your Majesty has alienated me so much, how is this different from abandoning me?" Yang Yuhuan was grumpy about this matter and felt that Li Longji had turned his back on himself, so he hid in the harem and poured wine cup after cup.
After three rounds of drinking, the more Yang Yuhuan wanted to get angrier, she was originally a jealous woman, how could she tolerate her own man to be lucky with other concubines? Yang Yuhuan was angry, summoned two eunuchs, and made a "plea" with the two, a wandering skeleton. Later generations adapted this historical event into the classic play "Noble Concubine Drunk", but deleted the unsightly erotic performances in it, leaving Yang Yuhuan alone to be self-congratulatory. In fact, the so-called "noble concubine drunk" is just a vulgar act made by a small and childish woman.
All in all, Princess Mei was defeated by the shallow Yang Yuhuan and lived alone in the Cold Palace. At the time of the Anshi Rebellion, in order to keep her virginity, Princess Mei wrapped her body in a white cloth and resolutely committed suicide by throwing herself into a well, but she could sing and cry. There was also a rumor that until one day Princess Mei dreamed to the emperor, and Princess Mei said: "When Your Majesty fled, I died at the hands of the rebels, and there were people who pitied me and buried me under the plum tree on the east side of the pool." Eventually, under the plum tree by the hot spring pool, the body of Princess Mei was found, wrapped in brocade and covered with almost three feet of thick soil.
Inspecting the knife marks under the ribs of Concubine Mei's body, Tang Xuanzong cried loudly and changed the burial with concubine ceremony. He also ordered people to plant various plum trees around her cemetery and write sacrifices for her with his own hands...
Compared with Yang Yuhuan, who was constantly competing for favors and jealousy around Li Longji, the two of them naturally made a judgment.
Resources:
【New Book of Tang", "Old Book of Tang", "Zizhi Tongjian"】