The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

The first person in history who killed her own emperor son was not Hu Chonghua. Empress Dowager Feng of the Northern Wei Dynasty killed her son Emperor Xianwen Tuoba Hong.

However, Emperor Xianwen Tuoba Hong was not the biological son of Empress Dowager Feng, and Hu Chonghua killed his own biological son.

In the Northern Wei Dynasty, a country founded by the Xianbei people, there was a tradition of establishing a son and killing the mother.

Therefore, in order to save their own lives, the concubines of the Northern Wei emperor were unwilling to give birth to children for the emperor, and even if they became pregnant, they would secretly have abortions.

However, Hu Chonghua was not afraid of death. She would rather die than give birth to a son for Emperor Xuanwu of Northern Wei, Yuan Ke.

Hu Chonghua also gave birth to a prince, Yuanxu, and this feat became a legend for a while.

"Hu Chonghua was the daughter of Hu Guozhen, the prime minister during the reign of Emperor Xuanwu of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Her original name is not recorded in history books."

"After she entered the palace, she was favored by Emperor Xuanwu Yuan Ke, and was promoted to Chonghua after giving birth to a prince."

"After Emperor Xuanwu Yuan Ke died, she manipulated the government and indulged in extravagance."

"Later, in order to firmly grasp power, he even poisoned his own son."

"As a result, the chieftain Erzhu Rong caused chaos in the capital Luoyang, and the Northern Wei Dynasty entered the countdown to its demise."

"When Hu Chonghua was born, there was a strange phenomenon, red light shone all around."

"When she was a child, a Taoist fortune teller divined for her and said that she had the appearance of a noble lady, and that she was the mother of heaven and earth, and the one who gave birth to heaven and earth."

"You can just laugh at these words. It may be that Hu is trying to build momentum for himself."

"Hu Chonghua is very smart and versatile."

"She was able to enter the palace smoothly after being noticed by Emperor Xuanwu Yuan Ke, mainly thanks to her aunt."

"Hu Chonghua's aunt is a nun with excellent business skills and good eloquence."

"She was invited by Yuan Ke to give a lecture on Buddhism, and she took the opportunity to introduce this niece to Yuan Ke."

"Yuan Ke therefore developed a strong interest in Hu Chonghua and summoned her into the palace."

"After Hu Chonghua entered the palace, she helped Yuan Ke handle state affairs with ease with her own talents."

"Besides, she was influenced by her aunt and knew a little bit about Buddhism, so she was very much favored by Yuan Ke."

"According to the ancestral system of the Northern Wei Dynasty, if a concubine gave birth to a son and made him the crown prince, he would be sentenced to death."

"Therefore, many concubines did not dare to give birth to sons, let alone let their sons be made crown princes."

"Perhaps this is also the reason why Yuan Ke lost many princes, and this gave Hu Chonghua an opportunity."

"She once openly told the concubines, how can the emperor be left childless because of one person's life or death?"

"She was very determined in private. As long as she gave birth to a son, she would not mind dying!"

"Whether he said this intentionally or unintentionally, this made Yuan Ke love her even more."

"In 510 AD, Hu Chonghua gave birth to the prince Yuanxu."

"Yuan Ke cherished this hard-earned son very much and would not allow concubines including the queen and Hu Chonghua to get close to him."

"Perhaps Yuan Xu's birth made Yuan Ke not only dote on Hu Chonghua, but also feel very grateful to her."

"So he did not follow the ancestral system and kept this concubine."

"Of course, if he knew what happened later, he might not have been so soft-hearted."

Liu Rushi: Empress Dowager Feng of the Northern Wei Dynasty raised her grandson Tuoba Hong into a wise ruler.

Tuoba Hong, also known as Yuan Hong, was known in history as Emperor Xiaowen.

Since Empress Dowager Feng took power, she has promoted Han culture.

When Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong was in power, the promotion of Han culture reached its climax.

In addition to moving the capital to Luoyang, he also did one thing, which was to change the double surname to a single surname, from Tuoba to Yuan.

Emperor Xiaowen was an emperor who worked hard to govern the country. He hoped that the territory of Northern Wei would continue to expand under his rule, so he led troops to fight wars outside the capital all year round.

On the way to a military campaign, Emperor Xiaowen died of his injuries.

The 17-year-old Crown Prince Yuan Ke succeeded to the throne and became Emperor Xuanwu.

Hu Chonghua was Yuan Ke's concubine, but she was not chosen into the palace because of her beauty.

It was all thanks to an aunt who was a Buddhist and could explain Buddhist scriptures.

When she was 16 years old, one day, her aunt came to the palace to explain Buddhist scriptures to Emperor Xuanwu.

By the way, he brought her into the palace on the pretext of being unwell and needing his niece's company.

Hu Chonghua, who did not come from a prominent family, was attracted by the magnificence of the palace as soon as she entered it, and even dreamed of becoming a concubine.

With a dream comes hope, and then there is the action of working hard to realize the dream.

When Emperor Xuanwu saw the beautiful Hu Chonghua, he liked her very much and asked her if she knew Buddhist scriptures.

Emperor Xuanwu asked her to tell him about it, and Hu Chonghua was of course more than happy to do so.

Her clear explanation and mellow voice delighted Emperor Xuanwu, and he kept her in the palace that very day.

Although Hu Chonghua was not stunningly beautiful, she was smart and clever since childhood.

Not only did he read a lot of books, but he also learned how to ride a horse and shoot arrows. He also followed his aunt to become a monk, practice Buddhism, and preach.

Therefore, as soon as she opened her mouth, Emperor Xuanwu praised her for her eloquence and then conferred the title of Chenghua Shifu on her.

However, Hu Chonghua didn't mind as long as she took the first step into the palace.

She felt that she had a chance to become the master of the harem.

So she began to pay attention to everything in the harem.

She discovered that Emperor Xuanwu had no son, and she saw an opportunity in the fact that the emperor had no son.

Although she knew that her decision might cost her life.

But if she didn't take the opportunity to take a gamble, perhaps she would never be able to succeed in her life.

She is the kind of person who will do anything to achieve her goals, even willing to gamble her life.

There was a rule in the Northern Wei Dynasty that if a concubine gave birth to a son and the son was made crown prince, the mother would be executed.

Because this rule was too cruel, the concubines in the harem would rather not have children than be executed.

Some even let their sons die suddenly in their infancy in order to save their own lives.

Hu Chonghua was not afraid of death. She knew that with her current status, even if she endured until death, she might not be able to make a breakthrough.

She must give birth to a son for the emperor to improve her status.

But there were so many beauties in the harem, and although I was not ugly, I was not the most outstanding one either.

Therefore, she often said to the people in the palace, how can the emperor not have a son? How can the concubines make the emperor have no heir because of fear of death?
She said this so that people around her could pass it on to the emperor.

No prince means no heir to the throne, so the emperor was of course very worried about this matter.

Now there was someone who was not afraid of being executed and was willing to give birth to a son for him. Emperor Xuanwu immediately summoned Hu Chonghua to sleep with him.

Hard work pays off. With Hu Chonghua's careful planning, she gave birth to a son, Yuanxu, for Emperor Xuanwu.

Emperor Xuanwu was overjoyed that he finally had a son and promoted Hu Chonghua to the rank of noble concubine.

She was only one step away from the position of Empress and Consort Zhaoyi, and she knew that she was one step closer to her goal.

"In 515 AD, 33-year-old Yuan Ke passed away, and the 5-year-old Crown Prince Yuan Xu ascended the throne."

"What can a 5-year-old child understand? Yu Zhong, who supported Yuan Xu to succeed to the throne, controlled the government."

"Not long after, Yu Zhong forged an imperial edict to kill Guo Zuo, Pei Zhi and others who opposed him, and dismissed Gaoyang Prince Yuan Yong from his post."

"Many ministers were very dissatisfied with this and chose to support the Queen Mother Hu Chonghua as regent."

"At this point, Queen Mother Hu's glorious moment has arrived!"

"Hu Chonghua, who took control of the government for the first time, was in high spirits."

"On the one hand, she gave her father Hu Guozhen and the clan members a promotion and a raise in salary to expand the family's power."

"On the other hand, she asked others to address her as Your Majesty when writing to her, and she also called herself "Zhen"."

"Besides that, she also took over other people's business."

"He used the excuse that his son, Emperor Xiaoming Yuanxu, was still young and could not preside over the sacrifice, so he insisted on performing the sacrifice on his behalf."

"This made her the center of attention and gave her great psychological satisfaction."

"Of course, having power is not enough, you also have to release your desires."

"Influenced by her aunt, Hu Chonghua understood a little about Buddhism and believed in Buddhism."

"After she came to power, she spent a huge amount of money to build the Yongning Temple. When she performed Buddhist ceremonies, tens of thousands of people would participate, and the ceremony was grand and spectacular."

"In addition, she also forced Yuan Ke's younger brother Yuan Yi to marry her, kept male favorites, and led a very indulgent private life."

"Of course, in addition to enjoying the sweetness of power, she also loves to win people's hearts."

"She was inspecting a treasury, and she was accompanied by more than a hundred people."

"She generously let everyone take the cloth according to their own strength. As long as they could carry it, it belonged to them. This made everyone very happy and grateful."

"It didn't take long for Empress Dowager Hu to lead such a luxurious and indulgent life, and it aroused the dissatisfaction of the ministers."

"Forcing Yuan Yi to take advantage of them made Yuan Cha and Liu Teng feel a strong sense of crisis."

"Yuan Cha is the brother-in-law of Empress Dowager Hu. He is arrogant because of Empress Dowager Hu's favor."

"As a result, he was controlled by Yuan Yi many times, and Liu Teng had a bad relationship with Yuan Yi for some reasons."

"In this way, Yuan Cha and Liu Teng have a common opponent."

"They hit it off immediately and used rather extreme means, directly launching a coup to kill Yuan Yi."

"The Empress Dowager Hu was imprisoned in Xuanguang Palace, and the palace gates were locked day and night."

"Liu Teng is in charge of the keys to the palace gates himself, and only provides food and drink at regular intervals."

"At this time, Empress Dowager Hu suffered from hunger and cold, and even seeing her son Yuanxu became a luxury. She was extremely miserable."

Li Shishi: Hu Chonghua was the daughter of Hu Guozhen, Marquis of Wushi in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and came from a wealthy family.

Therefore, she received a good education since childhood and had a high level of literary accomplishment. Influenced by the atmosphere of advocating Buddhism in society at that time, Hu Chonghua entered a Buddhist temple and became a nun when she became an adult.

While in the Buddhist temple, he studied Buddhism in depth and had a deep understanding of the Buddhist scriptures.

Hu Chonghua has white teeth, bright eyes, and a seductive appearance. She is a natural beauty.

Her aunt was a nun of considerable status at the time, and she often went in and out of the palace to preach Buddhism.

Seeing that his niece was charming, he began to think of using her as a bet in order to seek higher status.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to preach in the palace, he bribed the attendants around Emperor Xuanwu Yuan Ke, asking them to tell the emperor from time to time how charming Concubine Hu was.

After a few interactions, the emperor became interested and took Hu Chonghua into the palace.

After Hu Chonghua entered the palace, she was favored by the emperor. After several sexual intercourses, she became pregnant with the emperor's child.

At that time, the ancestral system of the Northern Wei Dynasty was that the son would be noble if the mother died, and any prince born would be made the crown prince.

His biological mother must be executed to prevent him from interfering in politics in the future.

Therefore, the concubines at that time were afraid of having children, and if they found out they were pregnant, they would abort the baby as soon as possible.

Therefore, despite Emperor Xuanwu's hard work in the harem for many years, he never had any children.

After Hu Chonghua became pregnant, she showed extraordinary strength and refused all well-intentioned advice.

She also prayed to the gods every day, hoping that she could give birth to a prince to inherit the throne.

When the emperor learned about it, he was deeply moved.

After ten months of pregnancy, Hu Chonghua gave birth to a baby boy, who later became Emperor Xiaoming Yuanxu.

Emperor Xuanwu, who had finally welcomed his son, was so excited and moved that he ignored Empress Gao's suggestion.

He resolutely announced the abolition of the barbaric ancestral custom that the son is noble and the mother is dead, thus saving Hu Chonghua's life.

Five years later, Emperor Xuanwu died at the age of 5, and Yuan Xu inherited his father's throne.

Empress Gao was named Empress Dowager and her biological mother, Hu, was named Consort Dowager.

When the regime changed, Empress Gao once wanted to harm Hu Chonghua and her son.

Fortunately, the eunuch Liu Teng informed on Hu Chonghua, and she was able to escape death.

After her only son ascended the throne, Hu Chonghua quickly took revenge on Queen Gao.

First they planned to eliminate her family members and followers, then they forced her to become a nun, and three years later they secretly executed her.

After eliminating her political enemies, Hu Chonghua was promoted from concubine dowager to empress dowager.

He then began to rule the country from behind the scenes, monopolizing power, and made quite positive achievements wherever he was in power.

Empress Dowager Hu was grateful to Liu Teng for saving her life and continued to promote him to higher positions.

He was also asked to oversee the construction of several major royal temples, and was treated with great favor.

The Queen Mother was dissolute by nature, and she was also a widow at a young age.

Soon she began to have an affair with her brother-in-law Yuan Yi, and she agreed to all her lover's requests.

Liu Teng and Yuan Yi had connections with each other. They took advantage of their favor and became arrogant and did whatever they wanted, bringing the country into chaos.

Soon, Empress Dowager Hu fell in love with another young and handsome man, Yuan Yi, Prince of Qinghe.

After several attempts at soft and hard tactics, he finally made her commit herself to him.

Empress Dowager Hu was so happy to have married a handsome man that she even entrusted all the power of the government to Yuan Yi.

Yuan Yi was a straight-forward person and he repeatedly punished Liu Teng and Yuan Yi for their behavior, which naturally aroused strong backlash from the two.

Liu Teng and Yuan Yi launched a coup, killed Yuan Yi, and imprisoned Empress Dowager Hu in the Beigong for five years.

During the imprisonment, Liu and Yuan strictly forbade the empress dowager to meet with the emperor and reduced her food and clothing.

As a result, Empress Dowager Hu often cried out of hunger and cold in the palace, with tears streaming down her face.

"Perhaps it was this experience that caused Empress Dowager Hu's already cunning mentality to be seriously distorted, and her heart became increasingly cold."

"He lived a life of luxury and debauchery, but also suffered the pain of confinement."

"This huge contrast made her have an extraordinary obsession with power, and she would never allow others to take anything away from her."

"After Liu Teng's death, Empress Dowager Hu regained control of the court with the help of some of her close associates and ministers who were dissatisfied with what Liu Teng and Yuan Cha had done."

"After Empress Dowager Hu came to power this time, she became even more extravagant, keeping more male favorites and leading an extremely extravagant life."

"In addition, seeing her son Yuanxu growing up, Empress Dowager Hu felt a sense of crisis."

"She sent people to monitor Yuan Xu and killed all those who were close to Yuan Xu and whom he valued."

"Emperor Xiaoming Yuanxu was very dissatisfied with Empress Dowager Hu's monopoly of power. He tried to borrow the power of the chieftain Erzhu Rong to regain the monarchy."

"You know, the Erzhu family has always been loyal subjects of the Northern Wei Dynasty for several generations."

"As a result, Empress Dowager Hu discovered Yuan Xu's plan, and soon she and her male favorite Zheng Yan and others poisoned Yuan Xu and supported other puppet emperors."

"This incident brought disaster to Empress Dowager Hu. Erzhu Rong claimed that he wanted to avenge Yuan Xu and led his troops into Luoyang."

"Erzhu Rong refused to listen to her explanations and pleadings, and threw her and the puppet emperor into the Yellow River to drown them."

"They used the excuse that the ministers present were disloyal to Emperor Xiaoming Yuanxu and killed them all. There were nearly 2,000 victims."

"Empress Dowager Hu did step on the accelerator when the Northern Wei Dynasty was going downhill."

"This accelerated the decline of the Northern Wei Dynasty, but it would be too one-sided to put all the blame on her."

"There are many factors that led to the decline of the Northern Wei Dynasty, including the ills left by Emperor Xiaowen's Yuan Hong's sinicization reforms."

"There was Yuan Ke's strategic mistake against Southern Liang, and there was also the fierce struggle for power among the royal family and powerful officials."

"Among them, the failure of the Zhongli battle led by Yuan Ke was the most fatal reason."

"The Battle of Zhongli can be said to be a battle that determined the fate of the country. The failure of this war caused huge losses to the Northern Wei Dynasty."

"There were about 5 soldiers captured, and the loss of various materials is too numerous to count."

"The huge losses in the war made the Northern Wei court more unscrupulous in plundering people's wealth to maintain its extravagant lifestyle."

"The corruption of the ruling class led to the intensification of social contradictions, and the natural disasters that followed directly led to repeated rebellions in border towns and among the people."

"The accumulation of these incidents led to the division and destruction of the Northern Wei Dynasty."

Dong Xiaowan: Yuan Xu was made the crown prince. According to the law, Hu Chonghua should really be executed.

At that time, Emperor Xuanwu had only this one son.

He knew that many concubines were afraid of giving birth to sons and were unwilling to get close to the emperor for fear of being executed.

Therefore, he felt that this decree was the culprit for the small number of royal heirs in the Northern Wei Dynasty and should be abolished.

So he discussed with his ministers and decided to abolish this cruel law.

Hu Chonghua won and her son was named crown prince.

Not only did she not die, but she was promoted to the position of concubine, which made the concubines in the harem extremely jealous.

Especially Queen Gao, who killed her son because she was afraid of being killed.

Hu Chonghua was blessed by giving birth to a son. How embarrassed was she?
Originally, she didn't take Hu Chonghua seriously because she was not outstanding in appearance.

Empress Gao felt that even if she became pregnant, Hu Chonghua might not give birth to a boy.

Even if a boy was born and made the crown prince, the emperor would still be executed according to the regulations.

She thought she had nothing to worry about, but the result was beyond her expectations.

However, after Yuan Xu was made the crown prince, she repeatedly urged Emperor Xuanwu to kill the crown prince's biological mother according to the law.

But the emperor found various excuses to shirk his responsibilities, and finally abolished the law that stipulated that the mother should be killed in order to establish the son.

She was furious about this, and she also realized that Hu Chonghua was a difficult person to deal with.

After Emperor Xuanwu Yuan Ke passed away, the six-year-old Crown Prince Yuan Xu succeeded to the throne and became Emperor Xiaoming.

Liu Teng died of illness. Empress Dowager Hu took advantage of Yuan Yi's lax vigilance and conspired with the emperor to kill him.

After regaining her freedom, Empress Dowager Hu's temperament changed drastically and she became power-hungry.

Moreover, she became more unscrupulous in her private life, without any regard for the emperor's reputation.

Not only that, Empress Dowager Hu firmly believed that Buddhism could alleviate sins.

Therefore, Buddhist temples were built on a large scale, and the number of temples in the country increased sharply to more than 3, with more than 200 million monks and nuns.

After all this hard work, all the family fortune accumulated during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen was finally squandered, leaving the country impoverished and the people destitute, with resentment rising everywhere.

As Emperor Xiao Ming grew up, he became increasingly disgusted with his mother's misdeeds and worried that her actions would lead the country to destruction.

So he came up with a plan to rule the country himself and continued to build up his own power.

Empress Dowager Hu, who regarded supreme power as her own, felt unhappy when seeing this, and often found excuses to kill the emperor's close ministers in an attempt to isolate her son.

Emperor Xiaoming's concubine Pan gave birth to a daughter, but Empress Dowager Hu announced that she had given birth to a prince and issued a general amnesty to celebrate.

Emperor Xiaoming could no longer tolerate his mother's behavior of calling a horse a deer.

So he secretly ordered Erzhu Rong, the general guarding Jinyang, to lead his troops south to Luoyang in order to force Empress Dowager Hu to hand over power.

Unexpectedly, the news leaked out, and Empress Dowager Hu was so shocked by her son's plan that she went mad.

She actually colluded with her lover Zheng Yan, Li Shengui and others to poison her to death, and first announced to the world that the prince born by Concubine Pan would succeed to the throne.

As his plan was discovered, he announced to the world that the three-year-old Prince Yuan Zhao of Lintao would succeed to the throne.

Empress Dowager Hu's actions shocked the court and the whole country. With the whole country in turmoil, Erzhu Rong led his troops south and quickly captured Luoyang.

When Empress Dowager Hu saw that the situation was hopeless, she shaved her head, became a nun, and entered a Buddhist temple again.

In April of the same year, Erzhu Rong arrested Empress Dowager Hu and the young emperor and drowned them in the Yellow River. He also killed more than 2000 officials in the royal palace.

The legendary life of Empress Dowager Hu ended up like this because of that classic old saying.

Misfortunes caused by heaven can be avoided, but misfortunes caused by man cannot be escaped! (End of this chapter)