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Japan in the early seventeenth century was a wild place. Serial killers stalked the streets of Kyoto at night, while noblemen and women mingled freely at the imperial palace, drinking saké and watching kabuki dancing in the presence of the emperor's principal consort. Among these noblewomen was an imperial concubine named Nakanoin Nakako, who in 1609 became embroiled in a sex scandal involving both courtiers and young women in the emperor's service. As punishment, Nakako was banished to an island in the Pacific Ocean, but she never reached her destination. Instead, she was shipwrecked and spent fourteen years in a remote village on the Izu Peninsula before she was finally allowed to return to Kyoto. In 1641, Nakako began a new adventure: she entered a convent and became a Buddhist nun. Recounting the remarkable story of this resilient woman and her war-torn world, G. G. Rowley investigates aristocratic family archives, village storehouses, and the records of imperial convents. She follows the banished concubine as she endures rural exile, receives an unexpected reprieve, and rediscovers herself as the abbess of a nunnery. While unraveling Nakako's unusual tale, Rowley also reveals the little-known lives of samurai women who sacrificed themselves on the fringes of the great battles that brought an end to more than a century of civil war. Written with keen insight and genuine affection, An Imperial Concubine's Tale tells the true story of a woman's extraordinary life in seventeenth-century Japan.
Chinese emperors guaranteed male successors by taking multiple wives, in some cases hundreds and even thousands. Women Shall Not Rule offers a fascinating history of imperial wives and concubines, especially in light of the greatest challenges to polygamous harmony—rivalry between women and their attempts to engage in politics. Besides ambitious empresses and concubines, these vivid stories of the imperial polygamous family are also populated with prolific emperors, wanton women, libertine men, cunning eunuchs, and bizarre cases of intrigue and scandal among rival wives. Keith McMahon, a leading expert on the history of gender in China, draws upon decades of research to describe the values and ideals of imperial polygamy and the ways in which it worked and did not work in real life. His rich sources are both historical and fictional, including poetic accounts and sensational stories told in pornographic detail. Displaying rare historical breadth, his lively and fascinating study will be invaluable as a comprehensive and authoritative resource for all readers interested in the domestic life of royal palaces across the world.
She did not have an illustrious family background, nor did she have an impeccable appearance. However, she climbed step by step up to the position of concubine. She had given birth to six children for Emperor Kang Xi, and had once pampered the harem! She had had the simplest of loves, had experienced the most complicated plans of a palace, had wanted to see through the walls of the palace cold and lonely, and had also shocked the imperial harem. She was the only one!
Requirements for being a royal consort: 1) Exemplify purity. 2) Pass all demanding tests. 3) Gracefully withstand petty backstabbing. 4) Be chaste. Very chaste. Check to all! Chen Ji Yue is on her way to empress superstardom in nineteenth-century China. She only has to vanquish 300 rivals to bring her family great honor. Oh, and she may not find the deliciously sexy Sun Bo Tao—the emperor's best friend—at all delicious. Or sexy. Damn. Ji Yue is in big trouble. Because Bo Tao is definitely very sexy…. And Ji Yue is about to discover that chastity is overrated….
The New York Times bestselling account of Tzu Hsi, the concubine who became China's last empress, from the Nobel Prize-winning author of The Good Earth. Tzu Hsi ascended from concubine rank to become the working head of the Qing Dynasty, and Pearl S. Buck brings her narrative to life in Imperial Woman. Tzu Hsi, a poor girl, falls in love with her cousin Jung Lu, a gorgeous guard, but she is chosen, along with her sister and hundreds of other girls, to be sent to the Forbidden City while still a teenager. She's already distinguished by her beauty, but she's determined to be the emperor's favourite, and she puts all of her talent and guile into it.
From the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Wild Swans, and co-author of the bestselling Mao: The Unknown Story, the dramatic, epic biography of the unusual woman who ruled China for 50 years, from concubine to Empress, overturning centuries of traditions and formalities to bring China into the modern world. A woman, an Empress of immense wealth who was largely a prisoner within the compound walls of her palaces, a mother, a ruthless enemy, and a brilliant strategist: Chang makes a compelling case that Cixi was one of the most formidable and enlightened rulers of any nation. Cixi led an intense and singular life. Chosen at the age of 12 to be a concubine by the Emperor Xianfeng, she gave birth to his only male heir who at four was designated Emperor when his father died in 1861. In a brilliant move, the young woman enlisted the help of the Emperor's widow and the two women orchestrated a coup that ousted the regents and made Cixi sole Regent. Untrained and untaught, the two studied history and politics together, ruling the huge nation from behind a curtain. When her boy died, Cixi designated a young nephew as Emperor, continuing her reign till her death in 1908. Chang gives us a complex, riveting portrait of Cixi through a reign as long as that of her fellow Empress, Victoria, whom she longed to meet: her ruthlessness in fighting off rivals; her curiosity to learn; her reliance on Westerners who she placed in key positions; and her sensitivity and desire to preserve the distinctiveness of China's past while overturning traditions (she, as Chang reveals--not Mao, as he claimed--banned footbinding) and exposing its culture to western ideas and technology.
From streetwalkers in the Roman Forum to imperial concubines, Roman prostitutes defined what it meant to be a 'bad girl'.
She did not have an illustrious family background, nor did she have an impeccable appearance. However, she climbed step by step up to the position of concubine. She had given birth to six children for Emperor Kang Xi, and had once pampered the harem! She had had the simplest of loves, had experienced the most complicated plans of a palace, had wanted to see through the walls of the palace cold and lonely, and had also shocked the imperial harem. She was the only one!
As the successor of the imperial chef, Su Xinyu's entire family was killed because her peers coveted for her dishes. After she died, Su Xinyu found herself wearing the clothes of a little girl from an unfamiliar era. The little girl's grandparents didn't hurt, but the father didn't. He could only depend on his mother for survival. It was a good thing that Su Xinyu had the best culinary skills. She could use her excellent culinary skills to make a living! Eh? This little big brother, you're poisoned. Little girl, you have the antidote here. You have to pay for the antidote! No, no, no, I don't care about a wangfei! And the story of Su Xinyu, who was bullied by others, becoming a wangfei and then a phoenix chef!
The daughter of a general banished from the Imperial presence accepts her fate as a political tool and turns a marriage of convenience to an aging barbarian chief into a crusade to bring honor to her family and avert a catastrophic war. Her name was Lady Silver Snow, and she lived in a distant land long ago, the hand of fate brought her to the sumptuous court of the Son of Heaven, Emperor of China, to be his concubine. But it was her own intelligent and passionate spirit that led her beyond those sheltered walls and into the "barbarian" grasslands - to be a queen! Andre Norton and Susan Shwartz blend Chinese history and folklore to create a stirring, romantic, and unforgettable tale.