Empress Dowager Wei's "Record"

["Perhaps the leaders of the Jin State were worried that Emperor Huizong of Song might be prone to despair on his own, so they also sent over several of the consorts they had taken for themselves."]

["But they had clearly underestimated Emperor Huizong's capacity to endure. Though the cultured emperor had become a captive, he was still in the mood to compose poetry and paint. If someone had asked whether he missed Song, he might even have replied, 'I'm happy here; I don't miss Song.'"]

Liu Shan: You're even more incompetent than I am! I'll let you have that line.

["Emperor Huizong of Song was an old lecher. When he was emperor, he had often visited brothels, and he was highly fertile. He already had more than sixty children before his kingdom fell. After the leaders of the Jin State sent his consorts and maidservants over, Emperor Huizong of Song, with nothing else to occupy him, resumed his old way of life."]

"So this was an emperor of the Song Dynasty. A spineless weakling, still thinking about women even after things had come to this."

"No wonder he was the most humiliated emperor in history!"

["So, over nine years as a captive, he had another twelve children. But the problem was, his wives had all spent time with the leaders of the Jin State. Could Emperor Huizong of Song guarantee that the children were all his?"]

["He certainly couldn't, but he could only pretend not to know."]

["At times, thinking about it must have left him feeling miserable inside. On top of that, his youthful indulgence in sensual pleasures had left him in poor health. So, after a few years, Emperor Huizong of Song failed to draw his next breath and died at the age of fifty-four."]

["As rulers of a nation, their fates were sealed the moment their capital fell. Yet some emperors clung to life with laughable hopes."]

["Take Xiang Yu, who cut his own throat, and Chongzhen, who hanged himself. Though they failed, their deaths were still heroic."]

["By contrast, Emperor Huizong of Song clung to life for nine years. Aside from enduring endless ridicule, he witnessed his wives and daughters being violated by the enemy, and in the end his head was crowned with green. What was the point?"]

"Yes! What was the point of living like that?"

"Soldiers could lay down their lives for their country, so why couldn't the emperor? Wasn't the realm his?"

[We weren't Emperor Huizong of Song. Maybe he was enjoying himself!]

[In ancient times, under the influence of a preference for sons over daughters, women depended on men to live and could even be called playthings. Women weren't the ones leading troops into battle, nor were they the ones presiding over the imperial court. Yet the Jin people used women to humiliate the Song Dynasty's emperors, revealing their true colors as barbarians.]

[Emperor Qinzong of Song, Zhao Huan, the Marquis of Double Besottedness, was ordered by the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang to play polo against Emperor Tianzuo of Liao, Yelü Yanxi. Yelü Yanxi was shot dead in a volley of arrows, while Zhao Huan, frail and a poor rider, fell from his horse and was trampled to death.]

[Such was the sorrow of a weak nation!]

[Zhao Gou was the only member of the imperial family not taken away by the Jin people. I think he was also the most ridiculous.]

[I think so too!]

[His wife and his mother were both taken captive by the Jin people, and he himself ended up infertile, with no descendants!]

[Zhao Gou's wife, Lady Xing, was already pregnant, but she was forced to have an abortion when she was captured.]

[What's ridiculous is that Zhao Gou didn't rescue his wife. Instead, he conferred the title of empress on her from afar.]

[Did Zhao Gou think his wife's status was too low for the Jin people to pay her enough attention?]

[With the added status of empress, Lady Xing probably made things even more enjoyable for the Jin people!]

Zhao Gou: People of later generations, I'm begging you. Could you stop talking?

[According to records, Empress Dowager Wei and her daughter-in-law, Zhao Gou's wife Lady Xing, were assigned to the "Laundry Bureau." The Laundry Bureau was the Jin State's imperial brothel. Empress Dowager Wei performed well there, and the next day she was summoned into the palace and received Emperor Taizong of Jin's favor.

After they had spent two years in the Laundry Bureau, Emperor Taizong of Jin ordered Empress Dowager Wei, Lady Xing, and seventeen other women released from the Laundry Bureau and restored to freedom.

After Empress Dowager Wei came out, she was assigned to Wanyan Zongxian as a concubine. To humiliate Emperor Huizong of Song and his son, Wanyan Zongxian deliberately summoned the two of them to his residence, then ordered Empress Dowager Wei to come out.

No other emperor had ever been reduced to such a wretched state!]

Many emperors declared: Truly wretched!

[Zhao Gou's birth mother, Noble Consort Wei, later Empress Dowager Wei, was the top courtesan of the Laundry Bureau. At her busiest, she received 105 customers in a single day.]

Those words made the ordinary people who knew nothing of that dark history widen their eyes.

Even the emperors from before the Northern Song were dumbfounded.

She was an empress dowager, after all, yet she had received more than a hundred customers in one day!

A certain empress dowager who had been sold into a brothel along with her daughter-in-law remarked: Could she bear it?

Empress Dowager Wei: I can't show my face anymore.

[I know about this too. Speaking of top courtesans, I remembered Wei Xiaobao's mother, Wei Chunhua. She was a top courtesan too. Could this Empress Dowager Wei have been her inspiration?]

[Very likely!]

[As many as 105 customers? What a pity Empress Dowager Wei didn't go to the island nation to pursue a career!]

The people of ancient times didn't understand what that meant. Where was the island nation? Why should she have gone there to pursue a career?

[This Empress Dowager Wei was quite a character too. Later, when she got older, they actually lost interest in her and sent her back to the Southern Song. That let her become a real empress dowager, ordering Zhao Gou around and making him act as the Jin people's dog.]

[Empress Dowager Wei's age was also changed. When the Jin people took her away, she was thirty-eight. After she returned to the Southern Song, the court records changed her date of birth, adding ten years to make her forty-eight.

Thirty-eight was a little old in ancient times, but as a woman of the imperial family, she had enjoyed excellent living conditions. If she took proper care of herself, she could still be very attractive.

At forty-eight, even by today's standards, her appeal would have declined considerably.

The Southern Song altered her age to tell the world that Empress Dowager Wei had already been old at the time, that the Jin people wouldn't have been interested in her, and that she was chaste.]

People of ancient times: There's no need to change it now. We all know.

[Empress Dowager Wei gave birth to two sons in the Jin State. Some say she had too many customers to know who their biological father was; others say their biological father was Wanyan Zongxian. In any case, after Empress Dowager Wei returned to the Southern Song, she still thought about her two bastard sons and sent a large sum of money to the Jin State every year.]

Seeing this comment, Ying Zheng recalled the two bastards his mother, Zhao Ji, had borne.

[Empress Dowager Wei was no good. Zhao Gou had a younger half-sister, Imperial Princess Roufu, who was also taken captive by the Jin people during the Jingkang Incident and later escaped back. Zhao Gou himself and the palace maids examined her and confirmed her identity beyond doubt. But after Empress Dowager Wei returned, she immediately insisted that Imperial Princess Roufu had died long ago, that this woman was an impostor, and that she should be executed.

Empress Dowager Wei did this to silence her. Imperial Princess Roufu had also been confined in the Laundry Bureau at the time and knew all about Empress Dowager Wei's experiences.

According to the Record of Moans, she had been married to Wanyan Zongxian as a concubine alongside Empress Dowager Wei. In other words, the two women had shared a husband.

Empress Dowager Wei feared that her violation by the Jin people in the north would be exposed, so she pressed Zhao Gou to kill Imperial Princess Roufu and silence her. Later, Zhao Gou did indeed execute her. After Imperial Princess Roufu died, many among the common people spoke out against the injustice.]

"Nothing is more poisonous than a woman's heart!"

"They had both been plunged into the same depths of fire and water, yet for the sake of her own reputation, she killed the woman who was her daughter in name."

The common people of every dynasty had their eyes opened once again.