The Spring Festival is the most important festival in our country. On this day, the family gathered together to paste Spring Festival couplets, make dumplings, and have a reunion dinner. So how did the imperial family celebrate the New Year?
Princess Deling who served settled in the United States with her husband. Later, she wrote a memoir "The Second Year of the Qing Palace" in English, which records the situation of Cixi during the Chinese New Year in a very detailed way.
As the actual ruler of the late Qing Dynasty, Cixi must have been extraordinary during the New Year, but she also had some people-friendly actions, such as she would make cakes by herself like an ordinary housewife, but this cake was not for eating, but for sacrificial purposes next year, and the first piece of cake must be made by her.
In addition, during the New Year in the palace, they also wanted to "sacrifice the Kitchen God" like ordinary people's homes, and placed candy on a table specially for sacrifice to the Kitchen God. According to Princess Deling's recollection, Cixi was in a good mood at that time and joked with the chef: "Be careful, Kitchen God will go to heaven to report how much you stole in a year, and you will be punished soon!"
The word "fu" is also required to be posted during the New Year in the palace. Cixi attaches great importance to this link. She likes to write the word "fu" to give to the ministers. The day after the Kitchen God sacrifice, she will go to the hall to write "fairy" and "fu" and then give to the ministers. However, not all "fu" is written by her. Sometimes when she is tired of writing, she will ask palace concubine or documents to write it, but the ministers who receive the word will never know it.
New Year's Eve On the day of New Year's Eve, Cixi's itinerary was even more full. She went to to worship her ancestors in the morning, and then accepted the resignation of the emperor and ministers.
After the emperor left, the palace concubines and servants would line up according to their ranks to kowtow to the empress dowager, and the younger generation kowtow to the elders, and the elders would naturally express their opinions. Cixi asked the servants to send each person a small bag containing New Year's money .
When it was midnight, Cixi began to organize everyone to make dumplings, cut them and chop them. The queen, concubine and the eldest princess were responsible for mixing the filling. Everyone was busy but in order, but the salty taste had to be decided by the Queen Mother. The dumplings such as
were almost wrapped, and the sky began to brighten. Cixi asked everyone to take off their clothes, and then she dressed up and returned to the hall to eat dumplings. Before eating, she would say a few words of gratitude.
or above are all sparse and ordinary things during the Chinese New Year. As the empress dowager who monopolizes the power, of course, it cannot be shabby during the Spring Festival.
Cixi likes to watch plays. In order to please her, the eunuch An Dehai built an exquisite and exquisite theater building in Xiyuan . She also specially convened a group of Liyuan children to rehearse the show. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the emperor and the queen had to accompany Cixi to watch the show, and they kept seeing it in the evening.
In addition, the highlight is the gift reception process. For Cixi, the New Year is a rewarding festival. Princes and ministers racked their brains to think of ways to prepare the festival gift for Lafayette. Gifts are not only valuable, but also must be favored by Lafayette. Although Cixi lacked nothing, she cared about the gifts of her ministers.
She will look at it one by one, and she will stay what she likes, and lock the ones she looks down on into the Curry. There are many gifts, jewelry, satin, and rare treasures. Just one Spring Festival gift can fill several rooms.
Gifts are an excellent opportunity to attract the favor of Cixi. Cixi was happy, and the gift-giving person rose to prominence.
It is said that Yuan Shikai gave me a gift that Cixi liked very much. It was an extremely luxurious yellow satin robe with diamonds of various colors on the robe, and peony flower inlaid with pearls. Emeralds are very popular as leaves. Cixi wore it on her body on the first day of the New Year, but because there were too many gems on the robe and it was too heavy and it was really not suitable to wear it. After that, Cixi collected it.
In order to store these ceremonies, Cixi also set up a special collection room, which became her burial objects after her death.
This is just a Spring Festival. Think about how many Spring Festivals Cixi spent after taking over power and how many treasures she collected? The things were given by the ministers. If they didn’t plunder them, how could they give them? Therefore, the pressure eventually fell on the people, and it is no wonder that the Qing court went to destruction.
