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Documentary, China's Forbidden City: The Reign of the Concubine Part 2
#Documentary #China'sForbiddenCity #China
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00:00The following program contains images of violence that some viewers may find distressing.
00:06For more than half a millennium, China's Forbidden City was a place of mystery,
00:12the site of a dramatic display of power.
00:15Then it became the focus of a turning point in world history.
00:19This woman's destiny is inseparable from that of the city of palaces.
00:24With charm, calculation and an iron will, Sushi, the concubine, seized and held power in the Forbidden City.
00:33Her break with tradition may have heralded the end of an empire.
00:54Sushi's story begins auspiciously.
01:19With a 15-year-old from a poor Beijing family.
01:34And a young prince who comes to rule the great empire when his father dies.
01:39This is the Forbidden City in 1850.
01:55The court still mourns, but soon the palace will have a single topic of interest.
02:01Who will wed Shen Feng, the new emperor of the Qing dynasty?
02:11The clan that has ruled the Middle Kingdom for more than 200 years.
02:23Officials are gathering 60 girls from the ruling clans, ordering them to the Forbidden City.
02:28Shen Feng's mother will choose one as the 20-year-old emperor's bride.
02:34The rest will be his concubines.
02:39The chief eunuch receives the candidates.
02:54Among them is 15-year-old Yehanara.
02:58She must bid farewell to her family at the mighty Meridian Gate.
03:05No ordinary subject may enter the Forbidden City.
03:17Yehanara crosses the threshold for the first time.
03:22Entering a strange, magical world.
03:24Her route takes her across one of five bridges spanning the Gold Water River.
03:44Past the splendid imperial palaces.
03:46And through a gate that opens into the Forbidden City's heart.
04:00Here, the Hall of Supreme Harmony rises majestically.
04:05The centre of the world.
04:06It's a breathtaking sight.
04:15And that was exactly what its builders intended.
04:19The size of the squares.
04:21The symmetry of the palaces.
04:23The interplay of colours.
04:24Every detail of the Forbidden City serves a higher purpose.
04:28Its architecture speaks in a spiritual code, understood only on a second look.
04:40The entire layout of the Forbidden City obeys the rules of feng shui and the teachings of yin and yang.
04:54For example, yang stands for the bright, warm south, yin for the cold, dark north.
04:59So the main axis of the complex runs from due south to due north.
05:03In the Forbidden City, these two forces should be in perfect harmony.
05:11But the teachings of feng shui also require that there be water to the south and a mountain to the north of a building.
05:23Here there was neither one nor the other.
05:26So the master builders constructed them.
05:28In the south, they created the Golden River, and in the north, they built the so-called Coal Hill.
05:38The hill was designed to protect the Forbidden City from evil spirits, but also to keep away the cold winds in winter.
05:45The river was the counterbalance to the hill, but it kept the complex cool in summer.
05:51So the striving for spiritual harmony also had very practical advantages.
05:58Spiritual architecture arises from strict ritual.
06:03The ceremonies extend to choosing an emperor's bride.
06:09The choice itself is the privilege of the emperor's mother, the most senior woman in the court.
06:20A candidate undergoes intimate scrutiny.
06:23She may not have blemishes, foul breath, or any trace of body odor.
06:34Nor is her virginity assumed.
06:36Summoned forward, Yehenara receives an engagement present.
06:49Many others were jealous of me, as I was then considered a beautiful woman, she is said to have declared.
06:56The dowager seems not to agree.
06:59She appoints Yehenara a concubine of the fifth or lowest grade.
07:08First rank goes to another girl.
07:13As the emperor's bride, she will give the dynasty its heir.
07:18And be Yehenara's greatest rival for the emperor's favor.
07:22At the wedding, Yehenara sees emperor Shen Feng for the first time.
07:40The son of heaven is the single, fertile male in the Forbidden City.
07:48A world of more than 3,000 eunuchs and almost as many women.
07:56The Chinese believe a marriage unites the twin forces of yin and yang.
08:03Yin represents the nourishing, preserving female force.
08:07And yang, the creative male force.
08:12The ruling principle is to keep perfect harmony between the two forces.
08:17In order to maintain order in the universe.
08:20A concept reflected everywhere in the Forbidden City.
08:27The harmony of yin and yang is an essential organizing principle of the Forbidden City.
08:32Yin represents the female principle, and yang the male principle.
08:41That's why the emperor's private palace is located at the very south of the inner court.
08:48For the south stands for the masculine yang.
08:50This building was called the palace of heavenly purity.
08:57Because heaven belongs under the male yang principle, too.
09:02The empress's private palace lies to the north.
09:05It's called the palace of earthly tranquility.
09:07Because north and earth come under the female yin principle.
09:11Exactly halfway between these two buildings is the hall of unity,
09:17in which the emperor and the empress meet on their wedding night.
09:22Here, heaven and earth come together, and yin and yang are in perfect harmony.
09:32But for the Forbidden City's concubines, life is often tragic.
09:36The dead emperor's concubines inhabit the six eastern palaces.
09:49Yehanara looks into eyes grown old while waiting.
09:56Many have spent their lives hoping in vain for a call to the emperor's bed.
10:01Some have never even seen him.
10:06Some have never seen him.
10:07Some have never seen him.
10:16Yehanara's life could fade away, too.
10:20She has no other choice, for an imperial concubine may never leave the Forbidden City.
10:27In the monotony of a minutely regulated day, seconds turn to hours.
10:33Hours become weeks.
10:34Two years pass, and the emperor never summons Yehanara.
10:52Her dream life has descended into nightmare.
10:56She lives locked in a cage with purple walls and golden roofs.
11:00When she was a child, they called Yehanara Little Orchid.
11:18She and her siblings grew up alongside southern China's Yongze River.
11:23Her father was a minor official, but the family was of the ruling Manchu minority.
11:28As a Manchu, Yehanara escaped the ritual foot-binding that crippled Chinese girls,
11:40their feet tortured into the shape of a lotus.
11:42Yehanara's father educated his children in Manchu traditions.
11:57He reveled in their heritage.
12:02And he wanted his children to know of their ancestors' glorious deeds.
12:06In the year 1644, beneath the eight banners, the Manchu conquered China.
12:24They drove out Chinese rebels who had toppled the Ming Dynasty, plundering the Forbidden City.
12:42Now the Manchu ruled the Forbidden City.
12:45They called themselves the Qin, the Pure Ones.
12:49Over time, the Manchu Qing Dynasty took China to a period of new glory.
13:00That's clear from the simple fact that in the 18th century,
13:03the Qing Empire was the biggest empire in the world.
13:08Another important reason is that the Qing rulers turned out to be a force
13:12for the promotion of classical Chinese culture.
13:16In fact, they were sometimes more Chinese than the Chinese.
13:27But embracing Chinese traditions of government
13:30made political and social reforms difficult.
13:33By the mid-19th century, despite major attempts at reform,
13:37China was still ruled by ancient codes,
13:41while the rest of the world was changing dramatically.
13:46A concubine had one chance to rise in the palace hierarchy,
13:51by bearing the heir to the throne.
13:55In two years, the emperor had not summoned Yehanara even once.
14:00Then, legend has it,
14:08Anderhai, an ambitious young eunuch,
14:10assigned as Yehanara's servant,
14:13offers to help his mistress.
14:20He might have ways to make the emperor more aware of her.
14:25Yehanara can't move without being noticed.
14:39But the eunuch can be her eyes and ears at court.
14:44He knows the guards at the gates.
14:47He can slip anywhere, silently as a cat.
14:51He will find ways for Yehanara to get noticed,
14:56and so she will find favour at court.
15:10Only eunuchs like Anderhai have access to the palace's inner sanctums.
15:15Besides guarding the woman's quarters,
15:21eunuchs handled the palace's day-to-day tasks,
15:24from garbage removal to running the imperial household.
15:33No-one else is nearer the emperor.
15:36Ranking eunuchs are among the most influential courtiers.
15:40The brotherhood's most powerful member is the chief eunuch.
15:49Each day, he presents the emperor with jade tablets listing his concubines.
15:56The son of heaven chooses the woman he'll bed that night.
15:59Aided by her enterprising servant,
16:08Yehanara gets an audience with the chief eunuch.
16:17As the story is told,
16:19she gives him the engagement gift she received from the emperor.
16:22The emperor is the king of the king of the king of the king of the king of the king of the king of the king of the king.
16:29The gesture shocks and pleases the chief eunuch,
16:36but he refuses to accept a token of the emperor's love.
16:48This relationship will be much more valuable
16:50when Yehanara has born the emperor's son.
16:53Yehanara has gained an important ally at court.
17:05She can rely on him.
17:17But how can he assure her the emperor won't choose another concubine?
17:23The chief eunuch can make things happen in the Forbidden City.
17:33He will start by telling the emperor of Yehanara's beauty.
17:41Yehanara's plan succeeds.
17:42Yehanara's plan succeeds.
17:49The emperor chooses her.
17:53As night falls,
17:54Yehanara,
17:55bathed and perfumed,
17:56draped only in a silken sheet,
17:58is carried to the emperor's chamber.
18:04Yehanara's plan is carried to the emperor's chamber.
18:06Yehanara's plan is carried to the emperor's chamber.
18:08No one knows what happened that night.
18:24Yehanara could have had special training for this moment.
18:28The chief eunuch certainly would know the emperor's preferences.
18:30According to the ritual,
18:37the love act with the concubine
18:38is intended to serve the teachings of yin and yang,
18:41not the creation of an imperial heir.
18:46The emperor is expected to hold back
18:49in order to increase his strength
18:51through the unification of feminine yin and masculine yang.
18:54Jepang's plan is considered to be a person.
18:56Pregnancy is reserved for the empress.
18:59At least,
19:00that is the theory.
19:06By tradition,
19:08during the act,
19:09the eunuchs are at hand
19:10to document the proceedings.
19:11After the love act, Yehenara sleeps alone on her side,
19:20as the ritual requires.
19:23Only the emperor is allowed to face heaven.
19:28Following the night's events, Yehenara gets her wish.
19:34For three months more,
19:36she remains the emperor's only nighttime companion.
19:40At last, Yehenara's deepest desires come true.
19:55A doctor checks her pulse using a silk ribbon.
19:59He may not touch her.
20:01In spite of this inexact method, he is in no doubt.
20:07Her Majesty the Empress must be the first to know.
20:14The doctor informs the Empress that Yehenara has shimai,
20:18the happy pulse rate.
20:24Andehai tells Yehenara.
20:36The dragon seed has germinated.
20:39She is pregnant.
20:43What fate has denied the Empress, it grants to Yehenara.
20:55From now on, Yehenara will live amidst her rival's hatred.
20:58Andehai, what are you doing here?
21:09I've been looking for you for a long time.
21:11Her faithful servant, Andehai, tries to protect her as much as he can.
21:15Behind its façade of harmony, the Forbidden City is riddled with envy, factions and politics.
21:30Yehenara learns her lesson well, quickly mastering the art of palace intrigue.
21:45On 27 April 1856, Yehenara bears a son.
21:49As mother of the heir to the throne, she is, after the Empress, the Empire's highest ranking woman.
22:05But Yehenara's meteoric rise carries a price.
22:08Her son, Shaiswe, will all but be a stranger to her.
22:16Tradition assigns his upbringing to the Empress and the Eunuchs.
22:34The Empress and heir receive their due.
22:38Even an infant crown prince has godlike status, because he ensures the dynasty's continuity.
22:54Now, Yehenara must come to terms with her own role.
22:57Just when the court inside the Forbidden City believes heaven has smiled on it, the world outside threatens to dissolve into chaos.
23:13China has always cut itself off from the influence of the foreign barbarians.
23:20But in 1840, after the First Opium War, Britain forced Chinese ports to open.
23:29Now, other European powers are demanding their share, insisting on trading with the Chinese as equals.
23:43The Emperor, now sick and weary of his ritual existence, is incapable of dealing with the situation.
23:49Legend maintains that he begins to rely more and more on Yehenara, even consulting her on government matters.
24:01It is Yehenara who studies the official proposals and guides the Emperor's decisions.
24:10This is sacrilege, an unthinkable break with traditional roles.
24:17When the Emperor receives visitors, even the most important figures, it is rumoured that Yehenara stays at his side.
24:38The Emperor's brother, Prince Gong, arrives with bad news.
24:48The British and French again insist on building embassies in China.
24:55The Emperor sees this as barbarian insolence.
24:59He will never allow the barbarians to reach Beijing.
25:04But Prince Gong worries.
25:11The foreigners have troops.
25:13Some at court want the barbarians slain.
25:16Or better, their ambassadors held hostage until the foreign soldiers leave.
25:25According to legend, it is Yehenara who breaks the deadlock.
25:28She sides with conservatives, who say barbarians have humiliated China long enough.
25:37No more appeasement.
25:38They want to use force to maintain the Empire's freedom and honour.
25:50The Emperor agrees.
25:51And his subjects obey.
25:58Officials arrest the Anglo-French delegation's 20 members, parading them through Beijing, past angry crowds.
26:18The white devils only narrowly escape lynching.
26:21The white devils only narrowly escape lynching.
26:25The humiliation China suffered at the hands of the Western imperial powers.
26:38The humiliation China suffered at the hands of the Western imperial powers, the relegation
26:55of the Middle Kingdom to the status of a colony, was a traumatic experience that has influenced
27:00Chinese politics, especially foreign policy to the present day.
27:12After the Second Opium War, there was a brief period of peace, but then the fighting flared
27:19up again.
27:20In 1860, an expeditionary force was dispatched to Beijing.
27:30Armed with modern weapons, the Europeans shoot their way into the capital.
27:36For the first time ever, the court flees the Forbidden City.
27:41The official explanation is that the emperor has departed to join the traditional hunt
27:46at his summer residence.
27:50Yehanara opposes the decision to flee, and later writes that it was the most humiliating
27:55moment of my life.
27:58But she does flee, though not without her son.
28:11This is more than a mother's love.
28:13If Yehanara stays in Beijing, she loses the only card that guarantees her position in court.
28:26She needs to get out quickly.
28:32The Europeans savage the summer palace, where their diplomats are being held.
28:40They destroy irreplaceable artwork.
28:42Centuries-old gardens reserved for the select few become rubble and ashes.
28:50On hearing the news, the emperor loses his will to live.
28:56Now the son of heaven lies on his deathbed far from Beijing.
29:04He has not decided on his successor.
29:08Tradition holds that he must choose and then name his son as his heir, expressing his divine
29:13will in his own words.
29:16Yehanara's enemies at court want to prevent that.
29:28Yehanara's attempts to reach the emperor are denied, as she is barred at the door.
29:34Tradition dictates, as a mere concubine, she has no rights.
29:41She's even prevented from taking her son to his dying father.
29:47The chief eunuch threatens to arrest her.
29:53Finally, the emperor himself calls for his child.
30:04Shen Feng names the boy his successor, urging him to lead China to new greatness.
30:10But the emperor must still choose a name for his son's reign.
30:28With his last breath, the emperor fulfills his ritual duty.
30:32The model for the new emperor will be Tongzi ruling together.
30:36In 1861, Tongzi ascends the dragon throne, a six-year-old commanding an empire.
31:06His mother holds all the power.
31:10At her son's ascendancy, Yehanara becomes the regent ruler.
31:17She will go down in history as Sochi, the empress dowager.
31:26Her determination has saved the dynasty, otherwise doomed to power struggles without a legitimate
31:32successor.
31:33Yehanara joins Prince Gong, the late emperor's brother, in opposing the court officials.
31:40For them, the presence of a woman at the head of the empire disturbs the harmony of the
31:46traditional order.
31:51Prince Gong is among the few who realize that the old order is lost forever.
31:56After the summer palace is destroyed, he agrees to European demands for embassies in Beijing.
32:06It's a revolutionary step.
32:11Historically, the Chinese regard ambassadors from other lands as mere messengers bringing
32:16tributes.
32:19The one thing the two cultures share is a conviction that the other is barbaric.
32:24On one side, the Europeans, rapidly developing.
32:28On the other, the Chinese, convinced of their cultural superiority.
32:32While the Chinese have little use for Western-style diplomacy, their traditional ways prove useless
32:42in the changing world outside the palace walls.
32:59When Tongzhu reaches adulthood and formally takes over power, his mother, Xuxi, is the guarantee
33:06that the traditional political system will be maintained.
33:11The emperor issues proclamations, but the actual decisions fall to the all-powerful Empress Dowager,
33:18who listens to the audiences from behind a screen.
33:24Contemporaries actually call her the ruler behind the curtain.
33:30Xuxi refuses to give up her power and privileges, unprecedented for a woman in Chinese history.
33:37By doing so, she will be overstepping the boundaries of imperial tradition.
33:43The very tradition that she is striving to maintain.
33:48On the imperial stage, the son of heaven is only a minor player.
33:54Having spent his entire life within the walls of the Forbidden City, surrounded by eunuchs,
34:09Tongzhu seeks refuge in worldly pleasures.
34:24At night, he slips out incognito to explore Beijing.
34:37Faced with a pointless existence, he takes refuge in a world of appearances.
34:43He smokes opium, introduced by the British, even though he himself had made opium smoking punishable by death.
34:51His health cannot withstand this lifestyle.
35:01In 1874, Tongzhu, the boy emperor not yet 20 years old, dies.
35:14Court records describe Xuxi as inconsolable.
35:18Grief-stricken, she cries out,
35:20I thought I could be happy with my son as emperor.
35:23When he died, I became a different woman.
35:26All my happiness is gone.
35:29And yet, there's no time to mourn.
35:42Her son's widow, the empress Aluta, is pregnant.
35:46The unborn child threatens Xuxi's role in the Forbidden City.
36:01If a looter bears a son, he will be crown prince.
36:05And a looter will replace Xuxi at court.
36:08But Xuxi never relents.
36:17The night her son dies, she summons the highest council of state.
36:23Xuxi stages a coup d'etat.
36:29She has convened the council of state to choose a successor to the emperor.
36:44At first, they advise waiting for the empress to give birth.
36:49If Aluta's child is a boy, he will be the emperor.
36:54But Xuxi insists that in this crisis,
36:59the throne should not stand vacant a single day.
37:05She proposes that her sister's son inherit the throne.
37:19She is the emperor's son.
37:21She is the emperor's son.
37:26Before opposition can build, Xuxi acts.
37:37Deep in the night, she has her three-year-old nephew
37:40brought from his Beijing home to the Forbidden City.
37:43One shoe, the new infant emperor,
38:02will share his predecessor's fate.
38:05Xuxi again becomes co-regent,
38:08indirectly in control of the empire.
38:11Time stands still in the Middle Kingdom.
38:18Xuxi dominates the Forbidden City's court.
38:22She believes herself chosen to protect the traditions of imperial China.
38:28Trapped in a world she invented,
38:31she's oblivious to the signs of disaster,
38:34one that won't stop at the Forbidden City's walls.
38:38As the 20th century looms,
38:41Chinese society is still locked in the past.
38:45Living and working conditions are appalling.
38:51The legal system is barbaric.
38:54Foreigners have brought railways,
38:57but this steel dragon is seen as devilish.
39:01Its efficiency threatens the livelihoods
39:03of hundreds of thousands of people carriers and coolies.
39:10Despite Xuxi's political savvy,
39:12she may not be able to save the Qing dynasty.
39:16In the year 1900, the people's pent-up fury explodes,
39:28not against Xuxi and the ruling Qing,
39:31but against Western devils, the foreigners.
39:35A sect calling itself the Fists of Heaven
39:38blames foreigners for China's decline.
39:44Officials of the Forbidden City have no idea
39:50how to react to this popular movement.
39:52If they let the so-called boxers run wild,
39:55the bureaucrats may not be able to control them.
39:58The usual practice is to crush such a rebellion.
40:06Guan Shu, Xuxi's puppet emperor,
40:09fears the foreign response to an attack.
40:13If it is the party's political group,
40:16the Iranian army forces will be shredded.
40:18If we are to protect the Shoulders of the World War.
40:20If we are to protect the Kung-Diang of the World War,
40:21we will not comply with it.
40:24Or to protect the Shirts of the World War.
40:26But some factions of the Court disagree.
40:31They believe that China is weak.
40:34Without supernatural help,
40:35the only force they can rely on
40:37is the heart and soul of the Chinese people.
40:40Su Xi is swayed by the conservatives.
40:58An imperial edict drafts the desirable elements
41:01of the rebellious boxers into China's army.
41:05The undesirable elements are to be pacified,
41:07whatever that means.
41:10The boxers read this as carte blanche
41:13to start a full-scale rebellion.
41:22The legation quarter is near the Forbidden City.
41:273,000 diplomats and their families live here
41:29with a garrison of a few dozen soldiers.
41:31For 60 days, the boxers besiege the legation quarter.
41:49A well-armed international force comes to the rescue.
41:53The peasant mob is no match for the foreign forces
42:13and their modern weapons.
42:14Isolated in the palace, Su Xi and the Qing court
42:23seem out of touch with reality.
42:26The Chinese leadership gave the impression
42:32of a court of conservative Manchus
42:34who lacked all political insight
42:36and were incapable of political action.
42:38And this was a catastrophe for China.
42:46In the short term, the boxer uprising provoked the Western powers
42:50to send another expeditionary force to China.
42:52It marched to Beijing with the intention of occupying the capital.
43:02And the empress was forced to flee the Forbidden City
43:07for the second time.
43:08So, it has come to this, Su Xi is believed to have said,
43:21as Western troops camped at Beijing's gates.
43:26After wielding power for half a century,
43:29she couldn't save the Qing dynasty.
43:31In humiliation, she is forced to flee, dressed as a peasant.
43:35In the autumn of 1900, Su Xi and Emperor Guangxu
43:40flee the Forbidden City.
43:45It is almost 50 years since Su Xi first entered this sacred place,
43:50where every action was intended to preserve
43:53the harmony of the cosmos.
43:55Her rule delayed, but could not prevent,
43:59the old order's downfall.
44:05After she fled, the Forbidden City's aura was destroyed forever.
44:24When the Europeans took Beijing,
44:34they behaved like the barbarians the Chinese imagined them to be,
44:39plundering whole sections of the Forbidden City.
44:44For 500 years, the Chinese regarded this
44:48as the center of the universe.
44:49The conquerors made it a common barracks for their soldiers.
44:57Yet a French diplomat could write respectfully of the throne room.
45:03These things have an indescribable air of age and mystery.
45:07This is a single, grandiose, gloomy hall,
45:11all covered in faded gold.
45:13You can see a location of the throne room.
45:18You can see a version of the throne room.
45:19You have to definitely agree with that.
45:27The first step would make the throne room.
45:31You have to definitely agree with that.
45:32The reality is actually wrong with it.
45:33It's in a virtual auditorium
45:35It's an virti expensive pitcher ofOS.
45:36It could also help them in place,
45:37saying it's somewhat as simple as possible.
45:38I knew that from the front party had a small amount of opportunity
45:40every single piece actually 뒤에 tuna framed a house in the house.
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