Tales of the Qing Palace: Astonishing Secrets That Upend Everything You Know

Who says official history is the truth? Qianlong’s birth mother wasn’t Consort Xi of the Niohuru clan at all. She was a Han maid who worked with horses at a ranch in Rehe! Yongzheng didn’t die of illness: a woman cut off his head and carried it away, and it has never been found! Shunzhi didn’t die of smallpox. He secretly ran off to Mount Wutai and became a monk! Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang married her own brother-in-law, Dorgon, to protect her son’s claim to the throne! And there’s a Qing palace version of “the civet cat switched for the prince,” the astonishing fortune found when Heshen’s property was confiscated, and the childhood romance between Cixi and Ronglu… This book doesn’t tell official history, only unofficial tales. Each self-contained story takes three to five chapters and uncovers the deepest secrets of the Qing palace. Every one will overturn what you think you know. If you dare to open the book, I dare to tell the tale.