The princess is the proud daughter of a country, and if you marry her, you can become a member of the royal family.
However, throughout history and modern times, the difficulty of marrying a princess has always been a headache, especially for scholars who have entered the officialdom after passing the imperial examination.
In all dynasties, only Zheng Hao, the champion of the Tang Dynasty, married the princess, but he only did one thing in the second half of his life - to participate in the matchmaker recommended for him by the emperor.
Why did Zheng Hao join the matchmaker? Is marrying a princess so scary?
Why not a colt?
Why don't you want to marry a princess? There were very different reasons before the Song Dynasty and after the Song Dynasty.
During the Han and Tang dynasties, the style of the princess was quite strong.
Before the Song Dynasty, people's minds were not bound by Cheng Zhu Lixue, and women also had a certain social status and could even inherit the wealth and rights of the family, which led to the same political ambitions as some women.
For example, the Empress Dowager Lu and the Empress Dowager Dou, who controlled the government in the early Han Dynasty, the Empress Dowager Dou and the Empress Dowager Ma, who had a tough style in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the unique Empress Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, and Concubine Wu Hui, who designed Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty to kill three sons in one day.
The style of the concubines naturally affected the atmosphere of the entire court.
The princesses who grew up in this palace atmosphere have royal blood and the status of the proud daughters of the sky, and they are more unscrupulous in doing things than their mothers.
In the case of the princess's extreme power, whether it is a rich child who eats and drinks without worry, or a scholar with real talent, he is unwilling to marry the princess and become a joke of the entire court.
The princess of the Song Dynasty had a system of promotion to Zhaomu.
Although the princesses of the Song Dynasty were not as domineering as those of the Han and Tang dynasties, they had an extra preferential treatment.
After the princess gets married, she and the concubine will be promoted together, which means that after the concubine marries the princess, she will call her father brother and her mother sister-in-law.
This is to avoid the princess needing to serve her in-laws like an ordinary woman, so that the princess has a unique status.
But in this way, it will be bitter for the horse and the horse's parents, but all the families with some status are unwilling to marry the princess and come back, and suffer this sin.
The status of the princesses of the Ming and Qing dynasties has been much worse than before, most of the princesses of the Ming Dynasty are married to poor children, and the princesses of the Qing Dynasty are even more bargaining chips for Manchurian and Mongolian marriages.
But after all, the princess is a lady of the sky, and marrying the princess is a relative, and it is precisely because of this that during the Ming Dynasty, when she became a concubine, it was equivalent to living only by the princess's favor for a lifetime, and even if she wanted to live with the princess, she had to go through the approval of the court lady.
Although the concubines of the Qing Dynasty could participate in politics, if they were not careful, the princess became the eyeliner that the emperor placed beside him.
Therefore, not marrying a princess has become a rule in the hearts of ancient and modern scholars.
However, there are exceptions from ancient times to the present, and a new champion in the Tang Xuanzong period married the emperor's daughter.
See all the Chang'an flowers in one day
In 842 AD, the Tang Dynasty held a triennial imperial examination, and a son from the Zheng family in Xingyang stood out and won the first place in the palace examination, which was favored by the emperor of the current dynasty.
This person's name is Zheng Hao, and he was born in a family that was once more noble than the royal family.
His grandfather once worshiped the prime minister in his early years, and his father and uncles were also officials in the imperial court.
Now he is the first of the literati of the Tang Dynasty, and his future is bright.
After accepting the emperor's will, when the champion walked across Suzaku Street on horseback, all the people on both sides of the road came to watch the demeanor of the champion.
While his career is going well, Zheng Hao's relationship is also very satisfactory.
In his early years, when he was studying at home, his parents helped him choose a virtuous woman who was the right person.
This girl was born in the Fanyang Lu family, and like the Zheng family, they are all veteran clans with five surnames and seven wangs.
The girls born in these families could not even marry the prince in the palace during the period of Tang Gaozu Tang Taizong, and it was not until after the middle of the Tang Dynasty that they were gradually willing to marry the royal family.
I heard that the girl of the Lu family is a rare lady, and the two families have long been optimistic about the marriage date, as long as the girl reaches the age, she will be able to get married immediately.
At this time, Zheng Hao responded to that sentence, the spring breeze was proud, and he saw all the long flowers in one day.
It's a pity that just when he was waiting for his fiancée to grow up, Prime Minister Bai Minzhong suddenly came to his home.
The emperor took a fancy to him and wanted to recruit him as the concubine of Princess Wanshou.
It turned out that on that day, not only did the emperor admire him very much, but even the emperor's uncle Li Chen praised his character and talent.
Now that the emperor has died, because he has no heirs, the emperor's uncle inherited the throne, so he wanted to marry Zheng Hao to his daughter.
After hearing this, Zheng Hao refused on the spot: "No, I already have a fiancée, how can I marry a princess?" ”
Bai Minzhong smiled and persuaded: "What woman in the world can honor the royal princess?" ”
Zheng Hao was even more angry, he slapped the table and shouted: "I only look at virtue when I marry a wife, not honor. ”
This sentence has a bit of a Ming Dynasty irony, after all, what does a royal princess look like? Everyone knows that there are princesses such as Gaoyang, Taiping, and Anle who are "pearls and jades", and the princesses of the Tang Dynasty are not close to virtue.
Bai Minzhong was embarrassed for a moment, but he had been in the officialdom for all these years, and he barely squeezed out a smile, and he said half-threatening and half-reminded: "If you don't marry the royal daughter, whose daughter will dare to marry you?" ”
Zheng Hao instantly understood the deep meaning of his words, after all, this is what the emperor meant, the refusal of the royal marriage can be big or small, or at worst, it is the crime of bullying the king, not only him, I am afraid that even his family and his fiancée's family will be in a big disaster.
Under Bai Minzhong's soft grinding and hard bubbles, Zheng Hao finally decided to marry Princess Wanshou and became the only concubine in Chinese history to marry a princess.
On the day of marrying the princess, Li Chen looked at the young man in front of him with great appreciation, and he advised: "You must treat the princess well." ”
After finishing speaking, he turned around and told his daughter: "Since you are married to a wife, you must serve your in-laws well and be considerate of your husband like an ordinary woman." ”
It's a pity that the emperor was the only one who was happy from beginning to end of this wedding, and the two newlyweds entered the cave room with expressionless faces.
Fight with the matchmaker
Life after marriage was very dull, and the princess often left her colt at home and went out to play alone.
Zheng Hao was very dissatisfied with the princess's behavior, but this was the emperor's daughter, and he didn't dare to stop it.
could only watch the princess go in and out with a large group of attendants, and every night looking at the empty pillow, Zheng Hao gritted his teeth with hatred for Bai Minzhong.
If it weren't for Bai Minzhong, he wouldn't have become the emperor's son-in-law, and when the time comes, he will have a good wife as his companion, why should he suffer such grievances?
So he frantically wrote to the emperor and participated in Bai Minzhong.
As long as Bai Minzhong has any misconduct, even trivial things will be caught by him in the court, and every night after returning home, he will write a reprimand for Bai Minzhong, and then impassionedly ask the emperor to remove Bai Minzhong.
Of course, the emperor knew that the concubine was angry, and it was his own intention to persuade him to marry the princess back then, but the prime minister carried the black pot for himself.
So the emperor, with his conscience and righteousness, never doubted the prime minister because of the words of the concubine, and never dealt with Bai Minzhong.
This made Zheng Hao even more annoyed, so he wrote more frantically and fell into an infinite loop.
But the emperor also saw something unusual in the horse's behavior, although his daughter was not like a fairy, but she was a gentle and virtuous woman, and if the princess and the horse were in harmony, the horse would not be so crazy to scold the matchmaker.
So the emperor decided to call his daughter back to the palace to inquire about the situation.
Coincidentally, the horse's younger brother was seriously ill at the time, and the doctor said that time was running out, so in order to show the royal magnanimity, the emperor specially sent the imperial doctor to visit the horse's home, and let his personal eunuch to appease the horse's emotions.
As a result, when the personal eunuch came back to restore his life, the emperor casually asked: "Have you seen the princess?" How is the princess doing? ”
As a result, the eunuch knelt on the ground tremblingly: "The princess is not in the mansion." ”
Hearing this, the emperor was already a little angry, but he still patiently asked where the princess had gone? But who knows, the princess is actually eating, drinking and having fun. This result made the emperor very angry!
At first, the princess didn't know what was going on, and came to the palace in a happy mood, but she saw that the emperor had a cold face all the time, and did not say a word to her from beginning to end, and even made her kneel on the ground and not get up.
Only then did the princess understand what had happened, and quickly apologized to the emperor.
After this lesson, the princess no longer had the arrogant and hedonistic appearance she had before, and maintained a minimum of respect for the colt's family.
Many years later, the emperor sent Bai Minzhong to quell the rebellion.
As a result, Bai Minzhong wept bitterly after receiving the holy decree, and he knelt beside the emperor and said: "If someone impeaches me for rebellion, or does other things as a traitor, please don't believe me, and call me back to ask for clarification." ”
When he was in front of the emperor, the horse participated in him all day long, and now he has to go to the far place of the emperor to judge, I am afraid that the horse will try his best to arrange him.
The emperor immediately understood his intentions and patted him on the shoulder: "I haven't believed anything in you all these years, so you can go with peace of mind." ”
With the emperor's words, Bai Minzhong finally set off with peace of mind.
And the farce between him and the colt has finally come to an end.