Zhao Feiyan

Zhao Feiyan, depiction from the Qing Dynasty

Zhao Feiyan, depiction from the Qing Dynasty

Zhao Feiyan ( Chinese  趙飛燕 , Pinyin Zhao Feiyan  - "Flying Swallow Zhao"; * to .. 43 BC as the Feng Yisheng , † about .. 1 BC ) was a concubine and empress of Chinese Han -Kaisers Cheng . Due to her low origins, her steep rise at the imperial court and her influence on the development of the dynasty and the erotic attributions, she is one of the most important and notorious women in Chinese history.

Life

Zhao Feiyan was born the daughter of an impoverished musician named Feng Wanli in Jiangdu (now Yangzhou ) and was given to die as an infant. After she was still alive three days later, her parents changed her mind and raised her. However, Feng Wanli died when Zhao Feiyan was a young child, so she and her sister Zhao Hede were adopted by Zhao Lin, householder of a wealthy family in Chang'an . In the course of this adoption, the girls took the family name of their adoptive father. They initially hired themselves as embroiderers, later they were given a job as servants at the court of the Princess of Yang'a (陽 阿 公主), where they learned to dance and sing. There Zhao Feiyan was nicknamed the Flying Swallow for her arts, by which she became known. It was said that she danced so gracefully that she could stand on a lotus leaf .

During a visit to the princess's house, Emperor Cheng became aware of Zhao Feiyan because of her graceful appearance. The Emperor and Empress Xu had not yet given birth to an heir to the throne, which is why the Emperor turned to other women at his court. He had Feiyan brought to his court, where she quickly became his favorite concubine and was given the rank of Jieyu (婕妤, for example: preferred beauty , a title for concubines that was introduced under Emperor Wu and corresponded to the rank of Lord Chamberlain) rise. Zhao Feiyan was aware of the risk of living at the imperial court without the protection of a powerful family. She therefore suggested that the emperor bring her younger sister to his court. The only way for the two young women to secure their status was to make the emperor graceful. Since they had no education due to their origins, they were taught by Cao Gong , with the book of songs being the main subject of study.

Around 20 BC Chr. Was Empress Xu blamed for the lack of an heir apparent and for various natural disasters that have been interpreted as a sign from heaven. In this situation, the Zhao sisters, together with Empress Dowager Wang Zhenjun, set up a network of intrigues in which they accused Empress Xu and the concubine Ban Jieyu , who is considered to be very virtuous , of wanting to harm the women in the imperial apartments and the Emperor himself through witchcraft . Empress Xu was deposed, Ban Jieyu managed to be transferred to Wang Zhenjun's court. After some hesitation, resistance from Wang Zhenjun and the intercession of the dowager's nephew named Chunyu Chang , Zhao Feiyan was made empress and her adoptive father, Zhao Lin, was given the title of Count von Chengyang. After Zhao Feiyan was appointed Empress, Zhao Hede and Zhao Feiyan supported each other, even though Hede was now higher than Feiyan in imperial favor. Feiyan knew the emperor's voyeuristic preferences and therefore invited him to watch her sister Hede bathing.

The two sisters managed to draw the emperor's attention almost exclusively to themselves for ten years. Even so, they did not get pregnant. They were aware that, given the emperor's advanced age, this was a dangerous circumstance for them personally. Zhao Feiyan therefore tried in vain to get pregnant from other men at the imperial court and bribed eunuchs to keep other concubines away from the emperor. Two sons of the emperor (one of Cao Gong, one of Xu Meiren) were murdered by Zhao Hede. They allied themselves with Fu Zhaoyi and palace lady Ding , who wanted to appoint Ding's son Liu Xin as heir to the throne.

In the year 7 BC BC Emperor Cheng died suddenly, although he had been in good health until then - allegedly in the bed of Zhao Hede. Zhao Hede was suspected of having something to do with the death of the emperor. She committed suicide when an investigation was due to open. Not least because she had supported Emperor Ai in becoming heir to the throne of Emperor Cheng, Zhao Feiyan was appointed Dowager Empress. However, Emperor Ai died in 1 BC. And Emperor Ping came to the throne at the age of nine. Wang Zhengjun demoted Zhao Feiyan to the status of an ordinary citizen. She committed suicide shortly after being demoted by Commander-in-Chief Wang Mang and transferred to the North Palace.

Attributions

In documents that are outside of the official historiography, stories ranging from erotic to pornographic can be found about Zhao Feiyan's sex life. In the work "Various Notes from the Western Capital" (西京 雜記) it is said that Zhao Feiyan had an affair with the zither player Qing Anshi. The emperor himself gave him access to the inner rooms of the palace, and he visited Zhao Feiyan in the finest clothes and had sexual intercourse with her. Later, due to her childlessness, she held special prayer ceremonies to which “lascivious young men” in women's clothes were invited, with whom she is said to have had intercourse without a break. In the Song Dynasty , a pornographic work was published called "Unofficial Biography of the Flying Swallow" (飛燕 erschien), in which, among other things, the emperor dies of an overdose of an aphrodisiac that the sex addict Zhao sisters are said to have given him. In the work called "The Sensational Tale of the Flying Swallow" (昭陽 趣 史), published around 1621 during the Ming Dynasty , Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede are portrayed as the result of an affair between a homosexual lover of an officer and his wife. After the emperor preferred Hede to Feiyan, Feiyan is said to have smuggled young men like Yan Chifeng or Qing Anshi into their apartments. None of the names of the male protagonists appear in the official story, and it is unclear whether Zhao Feiyan was associated with men other than the emperor.

Web links

Commons : Zhao Feiyan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Au Chi-Kin: Zhao Feiyan . In: Lily Xiao Long Lee and AD Stefanowska (eds.): Biographical dictionary of Chinese women: Antiquity through Sui, 1600 BCE – 618 CE . ME Sharpe, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7656-1750-7 , pp. 245-247 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} 张宏伟: 中国 后妃 全 传 . 5th edition. 中国 华侨 出版社, Beijing 2017, ISBN 978-7-5113-3273-8 , pp. 67-70 .
3. ↑ Keith McMahon: Women shall not rule: imperial wives and concubines in China from Han to Liao . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-1-4422-2289-2 , pp. 63 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Keith McMahon: Women shall not rule: imperial wives and concubines in China from Han to Liao . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-1-4422-2289-2 , pp. 76-77, 79-80 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Michael Loewe : A biographical dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin periods: (221 BC - AD 24) . Brill, Leiden 2000, ISBN 90-04-10364-3 , pp. 7 .
6. ↑ Keith McMahon: Women shall not rule: imperial wives and concubines in China from Han to Liao . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2013, ISBN 978-1-4422-2289-2 , pp. 81-82 .