History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 895: Lady Huarui
【Madam Huarui】

Although Meng Chang had many concubines, he only loved two of them the most, first Concubine Zhang and then Concubine Xu.

Zhang's name was Zhang Taihua. She was very beautiful and was favored by Meng Chang. Once, Meng Chang took him to the tourist attraction, Qingcheng Mountain. The scenery of Qingcheng Mountain was so beautiful that the two of them stayed in Zhangren Temple for more than a month and had no intention of returning to the palace. Li Tinggui repeatedly advised him against it but he did not listen.

A few days later was the Lantern Festival. Suddenly, there was a heavy thunderstorm and the day became as dark as night. It is said that Zhang Taihua had just finished bathing and ran out without wearing any clothes. This was a great disrespect to the gods, so the gods were angry and "crack--" a loud thunder struck her to death.

Meng Chang hastily buried her under a poplar tree, and returned to the palace the next day, and then fell into longing for her.

According to folklore, ten years later, a Taoist priest named Li Ruochong was traveling on a mountain road at night. When he passed by the place, he heard a woman crying. He asked her why she was crying. The woman said that she was Zhang Taihua, the concubine of Shu, who accompanied the emperor here and was unfortunately struck by lightning. She prayed to the Taoist priest to help her to transcend. Li Ruochong then made a golden tablet of longevity on the Zhongyuan Festival and performed a ritual to transcend. Later, people found that a few lines of poetry written in sand appeared in front of Zhang Taihua's tomb, which roughly meant "Thank you, sister is going to reincarnate."

After Meng Chang heard about it, he rewarded Li Ruochong handsomely, and burning yellow paper talismans during Taoist rituals became one of the standard procedures.

Like many emperors, Meng Chang was also a devout Taoist. Rather than praying for the salvation of the dead, Meng Chang mainly asked Taoists to help him make elixirs. This was not for immortality, but to restore his virility. After all, the huge harem was a severe test for Meng Chang's body.

After Zhang Taihua was struck to death by lightning, Meng Chang began to favor Concubine Hui Xu, who had a more famous name - Lady Huarui.

Xu was both talented and beautiful, and her father took the initiative to give her to Meng Chang, who fell in love with her at first sight. If you want to capture a man's heart, you must first capture his stomach.

Meng Chang had been pampered since childhood, with fine clothes and delicious food. He had long been tired of all kinds of delicacies and had a poor appetite. Xu specially learned several exclusive secret recipes and cooked "Red Sheep Head" and "Wine Bone Candy" for him. Meng Chang had to eat vegetarian food on one day of every month, and he loved to eat yam (sweet yam) the most. Xu used lotus powder to mix yam slices and added special spices to make it fragrant and look like a full moon, so the palace called it "Yue Yi Pan".

In fact, neither delicious food nor beauty can make men addicted for a long time. Take Meng Chang for example. There are more than a thousand concubines in the harem, and many of them are very beautiful. There will always be a day when they get tired of beauty. Another important reason why Meng Chang favored Xu was that Xu was talented and had connotation.

Once, Meng Chang brought Xu to Maha Pond to escape the summer heat. Meng Chang, who was addicted to beauty, had a body that was hollowed out. Whenever it was hot in summer, he would have difficulty breathing, so he built a crystal palace on Maha Pond, with nanmu as pillars, agarwood as beams, coral as windows, crystal as doors, and colored glaze as walls. It was light-permeable on all sides, shading and ventilating. The cool breeze from the pond was refreshing with fragrance.

Beside him was the charming Xu, who made the tipsy Meng Chang suddenly excited and wanted to recite poems to liven up the mood. Xu immediately composed a poem called "Mulan Flower":
"Her skin is as white as ice and her bones are clear without sweat; the wind blows through the water palace and fills it with subtle fragrance.

A dot of moonlight peeks at someone through the embroidered curtain, with her hair messy and her hair lying on the pillow.

I got up and opened the window silently, from time to time I could see sparse stars crossing the Milky Way.

I count the days until the west wind arrives, fearing that the passing years will change in secret."

In the previous article on the Former Shu Dynasty, it was mentioned that Wang Jian had a concubine named Xu, who was also talented and beautiful. She left behind a large number of poems and songs that have been sung by the people of Shu. Meng Chang's Xu also imitated this predecessor and created hundreds of palace poems, all of which were of high quality. One of them even moved Zhao Kuangyin. It was after the fall of the Later Shu Dynasty. Zhao Kuangyin heard that Xu was talented, so he gave her a test and asked her to write a poem on the spot to explain the reasons for the fall of the Later Shu Dynasty.

Just like Cao Zhi's seven-step poem, after Xu got the title, he first lamented, then became angry, and wrote:

"The king has lowered the flag on the city wall, how could I know about this from deep in the palace?

140,000 people took off their armor, and not one of them was a man! "

Zhao Kuangyin sneered after hearing the first two sentences, thinking that she was trying to shirk responsibility, meaning that she could not be considered a war criminal, and that political and military affairs had nothing to do with her. But when he heard the last two sentences, he could not help but applaud, and instantly looked at the weak woman in front of him with new eyes.

Meng Chang died of illness only seven days after returning to Song Dynasty, and his mother, Empress Dowager Li, also died of starvation. Alone and alone, Xu missed Shu and her late husband Meng Chang even more, so she ordered someone to draw a portrait of Meng Chang and hung it in her boudoir, praying and crying every day.

One day, Zhao Kuangyin came to visit and saw the portrait, thinking it looked familiar, so he asked her who she was worshipping. Xu suddenly had an idea and said it was the god of fertility.

The original name of this painting is "Meng Chang Holding a Slingshot". In the painting, Meng Chang holds a slingshot, with a boy and a golden-armored warrior standing beside him. It is said that the boy is Meng Chang's eldest son Meng Xuanzhe, and the golden-armored warrior is Zhao Tingyin.

Xu explained that the person holding the slingshot in the painting is Zhang Xianren from Taoism. He can use the slingshot to drive away the celestial dogs that eat children, so he is revered by the people as the god of fertility.

Zhao Kuangyin believed it to be true, and from then on, all the concubines in the harem who wanted to have a son soon would offer this painting as a sacrifice. This painting gradually spread from the palace to the people and got a new name - the Picture of Zhang Xian Holding the Bullet.

Xu also has a more well-known title - Lady Huarui. There is a little controversy here. Some people say that Lady Huarui is the Little Concubine Xu of Wang Jian of Former Shu, while others say that it is the Hui Concubine Xu of Meng Chang of Later Shu. The two were almost from the same era and were both imperial concubines of the "Great Shu Kingdom". Their poems and palace lyrics mostly describe the imperial palace, and the locations are all Chengdu, Qingcheng Mountain, Zhangren Temple, etc. Therefore, successive dynasties have confused the two, and even mixed up the names, giving the copyright of Hui Concubine Xu to the Little Concubine Xu of Wang Jian.

Meng Chang's Consort Xu died tragically, shot to death by Zhao Guangyi. Some say it was because Zhao Kuangyin was obsessed with Xu, and Zhao Guangyi was afraid that his brother would repeat Meng Chang's mistakes and indulge in beauty and ruin the country; some say it was because Zhao Guangyi was obsessed with Xu, and he couldn't get her, so he turned his love into hatred; another theory that has gained more widespread support is that Xu was involved in the struggle for the throne of the Song Dynasty, threatening Zhao Guangyi's interests, so she was killed.

The question of Zhao Kuangyin's successor to the throne is also an eternal mystery, which will be discussed in detail later.

Thanks to my old friend “Dadi Longteng” for his reward and support!

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(End of this chapter)