Shen Defu, a man in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, raised this question. He said that when Xuanzong ascended the pole, there were empresses Guo,,, and Wang, among whom Guo Guifei was martyred, while Li Xianfei, Zhao Huifei and Wang Wei were not martyred. The resulting question is: what are the conditions and basis for choosing martyrs? Because the ancestral training is not recorded, it is a practical problem.
Here's an example to illustrate this problem: two months before the collapse of Renzong, Zhang was made a princess. Zhang comes from a big family. She is Zhang Fu's daughter, a surname, the Duke of England. She was praised in the book. When Injong died, she was probably less than twenty years old. Such a good girl, how can Renzong not take her away?
Shen Defu's explanation is: "Gai Ain is the ancestor and his father is the old stern." To put it bluntly, Zhang Fu made love and went to the harem to save his daughter from death.
It can be seen that there is a lot of room for accommodation in choosing who to bury. Since some people can live by changing the rules, some people can intimidate them with their potential, so that those who don't want to die or die inappropriately can also be martyred. Shen Defu suspected that Guo Guifei was such a victim. None of the four concubines of Wang Shufei mentioned above gave birth, but Guo Guifei gave birth to three princes for Qin Shihuang, namely King Teng Huai, King Liang Zhuang and King Gong Wei. Those who have noble children are not particularly kind. Is it really that the imperial concubine herself "took the title and committed suicide"? This is of course a lie. For example, it clearly came from the "underground" of the damn fool, but it was said to come from the "sky" of the first emperor. Isn't that obvious? Who believes who is a liar!
Guo Guifei not only has great achievements in bearing children, but also has a very prominent position. Shen Defu said: At the beginning of the country, among the six palaces, the imperial concubine was the most expensive, second only to the queen in the middle palace. Until the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, Sun Guifei was named "Imperial concubine", and Sun Fei soon became the queen of the palace. From then on, the imperial concubine was the most important among all the concubines (it was also said that Tang was named the imperial concubine during Jingtai period, which was the beginning of the title of imperial concubine).
Shen Defu's words came to an abrupt end here, and he didn't pay attention to the suspicion that Guo Guifei was forced to death. But he told the truth: after the queen, Guo Guifei, who was extremely noble and gave birth to three princes, died unjustly and must have secrets that cannot be revealed!
Here we think of two things:
First, after Injong, Zhang, known as "Zhang Taihou" in history, was a top-notch woman. When her son Xuanzong died suddenly and her grandson Yingzong acceded to the throne with Youchong, she presided over major policies for many years, which meant a little listening to politics. Later generations will always praise her when they talk about the so-called "rule of benevolence and propaganda" and the early administration of Yingzong. In fact, it's just the flattery of some literati, which is really pleasing. For example, Wang Zhen, a famous eunuch in the orthodox period, was once familiar with Zhang Taihou's personal relationship. History has proved that as long as the Empress Dowager is in office, there will always be an autocratic eunuch, and Zhang Taihou is no exception.
But then everyone concentrated their fire and scolded together, but forgot that Zhang Taihou was the backstage boss of eunuch Wang and was flattered by Zhang Taihou. More boring people, made up a story, said Zhang Taihou heard that good bullying, stopped him, suddenly a wink, on both sides of the female officer drew his sword around his neck to kill him. If Yingzong hadn't knelt down, Wang Zhen would have died.
In such an environment, Zhang and Guo are probably the two biggest rivals. Everyone in the palace is in line, and the same is true of the two palaces. Unexpectedly, Injong died only one year after he acceded to the throne, and his son acceded to the throne. Queen Zhang was promoted to Zhang Taihou, and by virtue of her prince, she occupied an absolute advantage. So under the guise of Renzong's last words, Guo Guifei and his concubines who were close to each other on weekdays were forcibly buried and immediately reimbursed. How fast! The harem battle is over! However, it is such a dog-eat-dog and depressing tragic ending!
The second thing that reminds us is related to the first doubt.
Guo Guifei's second son, Liang, is the most beloved of the Xuanzong brothers. King Liang Zhuang was buried in Anlu, Hubei Province. His graveyard has been excavated, and more than 5,000 pieces of gold, silver and jewels have been unearthed, which are very beautiful, including a large number of gifts from the imperial court, which is rare in the prince's tomb.
Why was Xuanzong so kind to Liang Wang? People can't help but wonder, could it be that Xuanzong pitied his dead mother and compensated her son?
Judging from the martyrdom of Princess Injong, whoever was martyred and who was not martyred may have the last wishes left by the emperor before his death (there is no evidence of this, but I think what happened after Zhu Yuanzhang should belong to this category), but the final decision is still in the hands of the living. For example, Renzong specially asked Zhang Fei to go with him, but the Zhang family was powerful and well-known in the DPRK, and then he did not hesitate to dredge up and down, so that his daughter would not only die, but also die. And those helpless and politically defeated women, no matter how many children you have, are still young and miserable, and they have to accept the tragic fate of martyrdom.