The Woman Behind Kangxi: The Biography of Virtuous Concubine

Chapter 4 Materials: Elder Brother

Prince Yinreng was abolished in Kangxi's 47th year, no doubt a bomb was placed among the princes of Kangxi. Some people were inexplicably excited and eager to move; some pretended to be calm and wise to protect themselves;The political arena is for the ambitious, the energetic, and the unwilling to be alone, but it's also fun to take a moment to see the buddies watching the show from the corner.

First calculate the age of those princes in the 47th year of Kangxi, which is very helpful to understand the struggle for "seizing the crown prince" at that time.In the 47th year of Kangxi, which is 1708 A.D., the basic situation of the ages of the princes in descending order is as follows:
The elder brother Yinyi is 37 years old, he was out of the game prematurely because of his fierce appearance, and the subsequent battle for the reserve position has nothing to do with him;
The abolished prince Yinfeng was 35 years old. Although he was imprisoned by the imperial concubine at that time, he was still a dangerous person and could be resurrected at any time;

The third elder brother Yinzhi is 32 years old. He has always been low-key and seems not interested in political competition. He belongs to the kind of person who is wise and safe;

The fourth elder brother Yinzhen is 31 years old. This person appears and disappears from time to time, pretending to be neutral, making people feel unfathomable, and it is difficult to judge him at once;

The fifth elder brother Yinqi is 30 years old, and he has always been aloof from the world, so he doesn't have many opportunities to be mentioned;

Seventh elder brother Yinyou is 29 years old. He has always kept his own place and seems to be on the verge of being ignored;
The eighth elder brother Yinhu is 28 years old, with many people and power, he is in the limelight, and has been standing under the focus of the spotlight;
Brother Jiu Yinzhen is 25 years old, jumping up and down all the time, he is quite a comedic and indispensable character;
I am 25 years old, I seem to be timid and fearful, and my ability is also lacking;

Twelve Elder Brother Yinxuan is 23 years old, not much attention, and a small person who can be ignored;

The thirteenth elder brother Yinxiang is 22 years old. He was very favored when he was a teenager, but after being imprisoned for the abolition of the prince, he seemed to disappear suddenly;

The fourteenth elder brother Yinti is 20 years old. Although he is young, he has a straightforward personality, daring to do something, and has the potential to become a famous man.

The above are the main twelve elder brothers (the sixth and eleventh elder brothers in the middle have died), and there are eight younger elder brothers behind (there should be ten, but the eighteenth and nineteenth elder brothers Brother died at a very young age), they were all under 47 years old in the 20th year of Kangxi, they had no time to accumulate their own strength, so they had no chance to compete with those older brothers.Here is a brief introduction to their situation:

The 15th elder brother Yinyu was [-] years old, and was born to the same mother as the eighteenth elder brother who had just died. His mother, Concubine Mi Wang, was a Han girl from the south of the Yangtze River, and she herself had half of the Han blood;
The sixteenth elder brother Yinlu is 13 years old, and the relationship is the same as above;

The seventeenth elder brother Yinli was 11 years old, born to the concubine Chen, and later named Prince Guo, who got along well during the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods;

Eighteen-year-old elder brother Yinjin, who was eight years old at the time, only caused Kangxi to abolish the crown prince because of his premature death;
The nineteenth elder brother Yinti was born in the 41st year of Kangxi, and his biological mother was Concubine Gao. He died before he was three years old, so I won’t mention it;
The [-]th elder brother Yinyi, who was three years old at the time, was still in his infancy, and was born to the same mother as the [-]th elder brother.

There are four older brothers in the back, all born after 47 years of Kangxi, namely 21 elder brother Yinxi (born in the 50th year of Kangxi), 22 elder brother Yinhu (born in the 50th year of Kangxi), 23 elder brother Yinqi (born in the 52nd year of Kangxi Year), 24 elder brother Yinmi is the last son of Kangxi, born in the 55th year of Kangxi, when Kangxi was 62 years old.These four elder brothers were also very young when Kangxi died (Kangxi 61 years), and those older elder brothers can basically be their parents.

The aforementioned big elder brother Yinzhen, prince Yinreng, third elder brother Yinzhi, fourth elder brother Yinzhen and eighth elder brother Yinhu, ninth elder brother Yinzhen and fourteenth elder brother Yinti, plus the ones who will appear later The thirteen elder brothers Yinxiang, these eight elder brothers are the focus of the story.The other elder brothers are marginalized groups in this power struggle, and I will explain it here.

Let me talk about the fifth elder brother Yinqi first.Yinqi was born in the 18th year of Kangxi (AD 1679), and was born to the same mother (Yifei Guoluoluo) as the ninth elder brother Yinzhen.However, the relationship between the two brothers may not be good, because in the third year after Yinqi was born, he was raised by Kangxi's aunt Empress Dowager Xiaohui.Empress Xiaohui is the grand-niece of Empress Xiaozhuang, who comes from the Mongolian Horqin Grassland.Since the Empress Dowager Xiaohui had no heirs, Kangxi later sent Yinqi to her to be raised by her to relieve the loneliness of his aunt's old age.

Empress Dowager Xiaohui loved Yinqi very much, but she was very stubborn on education issues. When Yinqi was young, Empress Dowager Xiaohui insisted that Yinqi only learn Mongolian and Manchu. The education level is not high, so Yinqi's education level is much worse than that of other princes.In the assessment in the 26th year of Kangxi (AD 1687), each brother read and interpreted the scriptures one by one. Even the seven-year-old eighth brother Yinhu could speak eloquently, but Yinqi, who was nine years old at the time, was powerless because he Can't speak Chinese yet.Kangxi was quite embarrassed, so he had to come out to smooth things over and let Yinqi read and write a Manchu text to settle the matter.
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Reposted from the article "The Marginalized Brothers"

(End of this chapter)