Your Life as the Empress Who Was Erased (Empress Nara)

In the spring of 1765, the Empress of China cut off her own hair. Within a year she had lost every title she ever held, and when she died, her husband stayed out hunting and had her buried in another woman's tomb. You live the life of the Step Empress, Lady Nara of the Ula-Nara clan, second empress of the Qianlong Emperor and the real woman behind Ruyi in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace. She was chosen as a secondary wife for Prince Hongli, spent years behind Lady Fuca and Lady Gao, and climbed every rank of the Qing dynasty harem from Consort Xian to Empress, receiving a gold book and a seal at each step. Then, on the Emperor's southern tour in Hangzhou, she did the one thing a Manchu wife must never do while her husband is alive. Chapters 0:00 Level 1: Chosen 1:58 Level 2: Secondary Wife 3:45 Level 3: Consort Xian 5:07 Level 4: Noble Consort 6:28 Level 5: Imperial Noble Consort 7:52 Level 6: Empress 9:39 Level 7: Scissors 11:44 Level 8: Two Maids 13:29 Level 9: Erased A note on sources. The palace kitchen records of the 1765 tour show the Emperor sending her dishes from his own table on the morning in Hangzhou, and after that her name stops appearing. Two of the Emperor's own edicts survive. The first, from 1766, says her behavior on the tour went against all reason and looked like madness. The second, from 1778, was written after the scholar Jin Congshan was executed for asking that she be honored; in it the Emperor says she cut her hair, which Manchu custom forbids above all else, and that he showed mercy by not deposing her. Her coffin was placed in the tomb of Imperial Noble Consort Chunhui at the Yu Mausoleum with no rites of her own, and she is the only Qing empress who never received a posthumous name. Nobody wrote down why she cut her hair. Every explanation you will hear is a guess. Chinese television brought her back twice: as the heroine Ruyi in Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, and as the Step Empress in Story of Yanxi Palace. Her own given name was never recorded. The Erased tells the stories of women history didn't bother to write down. Subscribe for the next life. What do you think she did, or said, that day in Hangzhou? Tell me in the comments. #qingdynasty #StepEmpress #womenshistory