The last legendary princess of the Chinese Han royal family: Princess Changping

In 1644, with Li Zicheng's Dashun army invading Beijing, the Ming Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youguan hanged Coal Mountain, and the Manchu Qing Eight Banners rushed into Shanhaiguan to defeat Li Zicheng and establish the capital Beijing, thus announcing the demise of the Ming Dynasty and the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, and the daughter of the Chongzhen Emperor, Princess Zhu Huijiao of Changping, became the last princess of the Chinese Han royal family. This Princess Changping is also the one-armed goddess who fought all her life for the anti-Qing restoration in Mr. Jin Yong's novels such as "The Green Blood Sword" and "Deer Dingji".

　　Zhu Huijiao was born in the first year of chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1628 AD. Her birth mother, Wang Xuanshi, was originally the maid of Empress Zhou, and after giving birth to her, she died of a postpartum blood collapse. Before her death, she was given the title of Concubine Shun, and she was only eighteen years old. After Zhu Huijiao was born, she was sent to Kunning Palace and raised by Empress Zhou, so many history books mistakenly believe that Zhu Huijiao was born to Empress Zhou. In fact, when she was born, it coincided with empress Zhou's pregnancy, and soon after gave birth to the emperor's eldest son, Zhu Cixi, and a year later, on the day of Zhu Cixi's first birthday, the Chongzhen Emperor crowned Zhu Cixi as the crown prince and Zhu Huijiao as the Princess of Changping.

　　The Chongzhen Emperor had six daughters, but four of the six daughters died prematurely. The eldest daughter died when Zhu Youjian was the King of Xin, and Zhu Youjian only posthumously honored her as Princess Kunyi after zhu youguan ascended the throne. When the third daughter was ten years old, she was killed in the War of Kashin and died in Shōjin Palace, and her descendants called her Princess Shōhito after her residence. There is no record of when the other daughters died. Zhu Huijiao was the second daughter of the Chongzhen Emperor and the only one of the six sisters to grow up, who had always been loved by the Chongzhen Emperor and was also known as the eldest princess.

　　In 1628, Chongzhen was not yet twenty years old when he ascended the throne. The young Tianzi, naturally full of ambition and pride, believes that he can save the increasingly prominent decline of the Ming Dynasty and become the lord of a generation of ZTE. Indeed, he was as ambitious as many young tianzi in history when he ascended the throne, innovated and worked hard to govern, so that the country gradually showed the hope of ZTE. As one of ZTE's new initiatives, he ordered many unnecessary redundant personnel. Suddenly, from the capital to the localities, a large number of redundant personnel were reduced, which greatly reduced the burden on the state and the people. At this time, in Yinchuanyi, Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province, there was a pawn named Li Zicheng, who, with the order of the imperial court to reduce, left the post and threw himself into the vast world of heaven and earth. And Princess Xiao Changping, who was still asleep in the arms of her mother in the Forbidden Purple City, would certainly not know at this time that this pawn, who was thousands of miles away, would completely change the trajectory of her royal princess's fate when she was sixteen years old.

　　Perhaps because of the unfortunate death of Princess Changping's mother, the Chongzhen Emperor's concubines have always been few, and he attaches great importance to the harmony of the children's wives and concubines of the imperial family. However, as the history books say, although he was not the king of the subjugated country, he was facing the fate of the subjugation of the country, and he lacked the ability to turn the tide, not to mention that at this time, the Ming court was already like a building that was about to fall, and it was difficult to return to the heavy burden, and it was difficult to support it. Even if he tried his best, he could only let the Ming Dynasty breathe a few more breaths. In the midst of the internal and external difficulties of the imperial court and the painstaking efforts of the Chongzhen Emperor, the time soon reached the sixteenth year of Chongzhen.

　　When Princess Changping was sixteen years old, the Chongzhen Emperor, despite the heavy state affairs and difficult government, chose a horse for his daughter in his busy schedule. This pony is the well-known Zhou Xian. Zhou Xian, also known as Zhou Shixian, was an assistant official of the Zhou State who lived as a servant of the State of Zhou, and his ancestors were Daming officials for several generations. At this time, he was an official and a lieutenant, talented, excellent in appearance, and should be the best choice in all aspects. However, the Ming Dynasty has come to an end. It was this year that Li Zicheng, who had been laid off, suddenly became a leader of a peasant rebel army. He and Zhang Xianzhong, another leader of the peasant rebel army, led two rebels and attacked separately. The cities and pools of daming rivers and lands were successively occupied by rebels. Daming Jiangshan was already in turmoil, and the wedding date of Princess Changping and Zhou Xian had to be postponed again and again, and the wedding had never been held.

　　In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, that is, on the fourth day of the first lunar month in 1644 AD, the Chongzhen Emperor, who was already exhausted, asked the heavens for a blessing, but he got the phrase "In the middle of the moon, the country is broken and the king is dead". Sure enough, he soon got the news that Li Zicheng was under the city of Changping. On March 16, Li Zicheng's army captured Changping, the last natural barrier in the city of Beijing. Just two days later, on March 18, the city of Beijing was breached by Li Zicheng's army. When the country was in trouble, the Chongzhen Emperor summoned his three sons to the front, changed them into coarse cloth and old clothes, and asked the eunuchs to send them out of the palace to escape.

　　After sending away the three princes, the Chongzhen Emperor passed on his last will to the concubines, causing them to all cut themselves off. As a result, Empress Zhou committed suicide on the spot, Yuan Guifei broke her rope, and the Chongzhen Emperor stabbed her three times until she died of exhaustion. After the Chongzhen Emperor hacked and killed several other concubines, he went to the Shouning Palace, where Princess Changping lived, and prepared to kill his last daughter. In order to preserve the last bit of dignity of the king of the fallen country, in order not to humiliate his daughter, the Chongzhen Emperor killed his own daughter before he decided to hang himself, and his intentions were really good!

　　However, Princess Changping did not want to disappear into the world at the age of sixteen, which was a good year like a jade, so the Chongzhen Emperor raised his sword in his hand and slashed at her. Princess Changping subconsciously dodged for a moment, and instinctively waved her weak left arm to block her father's sword, who knew that at this time, the sword fell, her arm was suddenly bleeding, and the pain was unbearable for a while, and she fainted on the ground on the spot. The soulless Chongzhen Emperor mistakenly thought she was dead, so he cried and covered his face. After this, he turned around and went to Akihito Palace, where his third daughter lived, and ended the life of his youngest daughter who was only ten years old with a sword. The next day, the Chongzhen Emperor was disheveled, and after a long roar from the sky, he hanged himself on a large tree on the coal hill behind the Forbidden City.

　　At that time, after the Chongzhen Emperor left in tears, He Xin, the shangyi supervisor, entered the palace, saw That Princess Changping was covered in blood, fell to the ground, and had a trace of breath, so he immediately sent her to the palace of Empress Zhou's father, Zhou Kui, the Marquis of Jiading, to be treated, and it was not until five days later that Princess Changping woke up. Hearing that his father was hanged on the coal mountain, Li Zicheng had entered Beijing, and Daming had become Dashun, he couldn't help but cry and be devastated. The death of the Chongzhen Emperor marked the end of the Chongzhen era and the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Since then, Princess Changping has become the last real princess of the Chinese Han royal family.

　　Within a few days, Daming's Jiangshan had become Dashun's Jiangshan. Later, in the blink of an eye, Da Shun became the Great Qing, and the Manchu Emperor Shunzhi Fulin replaced Li Zicheng. In order to win the hearts and minds of the people, the regent of the Qing court, Dolgun, ordered that from the sixth to the eighth day of the first month of May, the three days of weeping for the Chongzhen Emperor, the title of Emperor Huaizongduan, and later changed his name to Emperor Zhuang Lie. However, what Princess Changping did not expect at this time was that Zhou Kui, who had healed her wounds, recognized the thief as his father, and first handed over the third prince of the Chongzhen Emperor, Dingwang, and the fourth prince Yongwang to Li Zicheng, and later betrayed Princess Changping and crown prince Zhu Cixiu to the Qing court, resulting in the murder of the crown prince Zhu Cixiu by Dolgun. Another theory is that Zhu Cixi's whereabouts are unknown since then.

　　At this time, Princess Changping was already involuntary. In the midst of her sadness and despair, she wrote to the Qing court, expressing the hope that the Qing court would fulfill her wish to become a nun in order to cut off the sorrow and sorrow in this earthly world. Although she said sad and miserable in the previous book, she was not humble and unobtrusive, and threw the problem of the survival of the princess of the subjugated country to the Qing court to see what they could do with themselves. At this time, the Qing court, which aspired to unification, was implementing the policy of the Manchu and Han families. Changping was the eldest princess of the former dynasty, and in order to make the Han people in the world return to their hearts, her wish to become a nun was naturally not granted by the Qing court. Sure enough, shortly after Princess Changping wrote to her, the Shunzhi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty issued an edict forbidding her to become a nun, and asked her to "ask for the original match" for her, so that she could marry the original horse Zhou Xian. At that time, Zhou Xian had already surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and had already received rewards from the Qing court's mansion, gold and silver, carriages and horses, and a large number of fields.

　　When Princess Changping received the edict of the Qing court ordering her to marry Zhou Xian, she felt that she could not help herself and could not help but cry bitterly. In early June of the second year of Shunzhi, the wedding was held as scheduled, grand and huge, very comparable. However, after Princess Changping and Zhou Xian's marriage, although the married life was still relatively loving, she experienced the pain of family destruction and national death, and her body and mind were greatly traumatized. Every day he cried for his father and mother, and later even before he cried blood. Just over a year after their marriage, Princess Changping died of grief on August 18 of the third year of Shunzhi, when she was only eighteen years old. The death of Princess Changping marks the demise of the last princess of the Chinese Han royal family.

　　In fact, when Princess Changping died of illness, she was already five months pregnant. Zhou Xian buried her next to the Zhou family mansion outside the Quang Ninh Gate. Throughout Princess Changping's life, although it was very short, it was a big ups and downs, greatly beyond the scope and pressure she could withstand. If it was in the Taiping Dynasty, she might have spent her life in love and honor, like most princesses in the Ming Dynasty. However, she was "born in the end of the world", and at the age of sixteen, She had to bear the tragic fate of the country and the death of the family that her predecessors could not recover.

　　Shortly after the death of Princess Changping, legends about Princess Changping appeared in the world. It is said that at the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there appeared on the rivers and lakes a one-armed god who was extraordinary in martial arts and famous for a while, that is, princess Changping who was concubined by emperor Ming Chongzhen. Because of the destruction of the country and the death of the family, she was cut off by her father and went into exile, and since then she has cut off the love of her children, has a deep hatred in her heart, and has practiced a martial art, vowing to avenge the snow and hatred, and restore the Qing Dynasty. As a result, he failed and hated the martyrdom. In fact, the story of the one-armed god and nun is just a kind of people's good wishes, as some books say, Princess Changping, which is pitiful; the life is sad, and the phantom world is human. Perhaps there are often unspeakable secrets in the historical records, perhaps folk rumors contain beautiful hopes, perhaps literary works are good to pay attention to the love affair of the chaotic world, or the beautiful princess whose country is broken and her family is dead, and her soul is not scattered.

　　Indeed, the legend of Princess Changping can be described as colorful, folklore, anecdotes, and opera novels, with a variety of interpretations. The legendary novel "Emperor Girl Flower" is about a pair of golden children and jade girls who want to tie up and go down to the mortal world. In the midst of the chaos, search and seek until death. The Jade Girl phantom is the Princess of Changping, and the Golden Boy is reborn as Zhou Shixian. The Ming Dynasty fell, and the Chongzhen Sword Blade Emperor was the daughter. The princess escaped from death, took refuge in the nunnery, and happened to meet her husband Zhou Shixian, the two resumed the frontier, and then flew to the celestial realm after both martyrdom, blending into the ethereal clouds. In addition, in Jin Yong's novel "Green Blood Sword", the Changping Princess Village Girl is dressed, walking the rivers and lakes, with a superior temperament and extraordinary appearance, Mr. Jin Yong interprets the national hatred and family hatred of the last princess and the intricate girlish feelings to the fullest. Mr. Jin Yong's sealed work "Deer Ding" once again describes Princess Changping as a one-armed goddess, a white-clad woman who is not stained with dust, who has a unique martial art, wanders the rivers and lakes, punishes evil and promotes good, makes the evil people and adulterers feel frightened, and makes the people of Li people smile and smile.

　　Although these are folk legends, they all contain the good wishes of the author's heart. For more than three hundred years, many people of insight in the literary world have created many plump and vivid images of Princess Changping, which has made countless people of the Great Han unable to release their scrolls and indulge in them, causing many tears of sorrow and pity to fly.