Here, the harem is not a battlefield for love, but a mirror image of power.
We start from that cold winter night in Changchun Garden in the 61st year of Kangxi's reign. The new emperor Yongzheng had just ascended the throne and faced a huge empire with an empty treasury and numerous maladministrations. In order to save the crisis, he must be stronger and more ruthless than his father.
This book focuses on the palace affairs in the thirteen years before the Yongzheng Dynasty. See how Empress Xiao Jingxian lives up to the most perfect rules of the Forbidden City with "selflessness is the highest virtue"; see how Concubine Nian was crushed by the times between the peak of her brother Nian Gengyao's power and his downfall; see how Concubine Xi used forbearance in exchange for the final peace of mother and child in the shocking undercurrent of the throne.
This is a historical group portrait about "survival". In the dry cold and yellow sand of the Little Ice Age of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were no golden fingers of travelers, only the living humanity swallowed up by imperial power and the system. Turning the pages of the book, you will see a real, complex, and even suffocating Yongzheng Dynasty.
Purpose: To reveal the cruelty of the imperial politics and harem system in the early Qing Dynasty, and to explore the survival dilemma and spiritual alienation of individuals (especially women) under extreme patriarchy and institutional pressure. Show the depth and truth of history and reject mindless writing.