Chen Yuanyuan

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Chen Yuanyuan (Chinese: 陈圆圆; 1624–1681), born Xing Yuan (邢沅), lived near the end of the Ming Dynasty, and was a concubine of Wu Sangui. Her courtesy name was Wanfen (畹芬). She has been the subject of many soap operas. Her actual historical significance is disputed, although it is largely believed that Chen was pivotal in Wu Sangui's campaigns after the fall of the Ming.

[edit] Portrayal in dramas

She was born in the Forbidden City. It had very much been hoped that her mother would give birth to a son, a prince: the emperor was close to death at the time and the queen did not have a son. Chen was not, however, the desired heir. She was thrown away.

Her mother, still in labor pains, retrieved her and fled from the Palace in the Forbidden City. Her father was a blind man who died possibly before she was born.

Chen's parents died early, and she grew up tending her maternal grandmother Chen-shi in Taiyuan, Shanxi. She was sold as a performer, first for Tian Wan (田畹) in Suzhou.

She died in a Taoist convent in Hunan. She became the title character of a Beijing opera of 1924. Not one of the traditional “four great beauties of China” (Xi Shi, Wang Zhao Jun, Diao Chan and Yang Guifei), the group should really be expanded to five to include her.

At the age of 13, she was brought into the palace as a gift to the emperor, Chongzhen. She soon fell in love with him, and helped him almost as a servant. The emperor loved her but could not marry her, yet he did not let her go because he was enamored of her beauty. She wasted her youth in the darkness of the palace.

Chen was secretly in love with Wu Sangui. They met in the house of Wang Chengen, the chief eunuch of the emperor and a shrewd politician. It was during a garden feast with the emperor that Wu Sangui asked for Chen's hand in marriage.

She married Wu, and he was given command of a great army, but she was held hostage by the emperor in order to ensure that he would honor his promise to save the Ming dynasty.

She was in fact also held hostage by other famous and important leaders, like Li Zicheng and Gao Ergong, because they claimed to love her. Her heart belonged to Wu Sangui, however, and she waited for him to return. She made her way through many dangerous events and was almost raped on several occasions because of her beauty.

In April 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng. Chongzhen gathered the entire imperial household and ordered them, except for his sons, to commit suicide. The Empress hanged herself. Princess Chang Ping refused. In a fit of rage Chongzhen had her left arm cut off. He then fled to nearby Jingshan Park(景山公園), where he hanged himself on the famous Guilty Chinese Scholartree(罪槐). Chen Yuanyuan reluctantly assisted by helping him up to the noose, according to some accounts. (The tree was uprooted during the Cultural Revolution.)

Li established what he called the Shun Dynasty, but it fell to the Manchus at the end of May.

Seizing their chance, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after Wu Sangui opened the gates at Shanhai Pass. They quickly overthrew Li, who fled the Forbidden City.

After finally reuniting with Wu Sangui, Chen Yuanyuan ultimately realized his sins, that he had opened China's land to the foreign Manchus and had betrayed the Ming dynasty. The good image of her husband soon faded and she removed herself in a temple to find peace and forgiveness.

Chen had a very brutal and sad life. Before she died she wondered whether her beauty was a good thing.