The Empress Who Never Existed in History: The Nameless Woman of the Qing Dynasty

The Forbidden City, also known as the Imperial City: those who enter want to leave, while those who have never been inside want to get in. Back when it was called the Palace Museum, I visited it wearing those so-called protective shoe covers. Today, I walk through the red-brick, green-tiled palace walls, step by step, wearing platform shoes and a princess's outfit, with my hair done in a flat Manchu style. It gives me a very different feeling. I'm a post-80s generation woman. All it took was one strange dream to send me back to Beijing in 1883. I was reborn as a baby in the most turbulent era of the Great Qing Dynasty. I'm reeling! Oh, Heaven! If you were going to send me into the Qing Dynasty, why couldn't you have sent me to the Kangxi, Yongzheng, or Qianlong reigns? Why did you have to send me to this miserable, infuriating time? Everyone knows that in the late Qing, China was ruled by a woman from the Yehenara clan. But who knew that another woman from the Yehenara clan had also taken the stage in the history of the Great Qing Dynasty? Empress Longyu? No. This woman, whose name has vanished from Qing history, was called Yehenara Qingning.