Qianlong's True Love

Hongli, future Emperor Qianlong, married Lady Fuca in the year 1727. In the year 1735, after the death of Emperor Yongzheng, Hongli succeeded the throne and was known as Emperor Qianlong, and Lady Fuca became the Empress. Empress Fuca was virtuous and frugal. She didn't like to wear expensive things and wore artificial flowers on her hair instead of golden or silver hairpins. She also took her duties very seriously. Empress Fuca and Emperor Qianlong got along very well. She used to look after the Emperor and when Emperor was sick, she used to take care of him. She had very good relationship with Empress Dowager. She was also very kind to other consorts and servants. Once the Emperor told her a story that Manchus were too poor to make their own pouches from cloth, and had to use simple deer hide instead. She then made one for him. The Emperor was very impressed by her this gift and always kept the pouch with him. They had total four kids, out of them only one survived, others all died at a very young age. In 1746, after many years of death of her son Yonglian, she gave birth to another son named Yongsong. Both Emperor and Empress were very happy. But unfortunately, in the year 1748, Yongsong passed away. After the death of her son Yongsong, she became very depressed and sick. To cheer her up, Emperor took her to a tour around China with few other consorts. On the trip in the boat, she got very sick and passed away at the age of 36. Her post-mortem title was Empress Xiaoxian. Emperor gave her a very lavish funeral and even had two-year mourning period and didn't appoint next Empress for next two years. Emperor missed her a lot and wrote so many poems for her after her death. After she died, Emperor Qianlong kept all her belongings to the place where they used to be for the next 40 years. Every year, Emperor visited her grave and told her about all important events that happened. Empress Fuca only had one surviving daughter, Princess Heqing, who was very loved by Emperor. During those days, political marriages were very common for princesses and she had to marry a Mongol prince. But for her, Qianlong made an exception. Usually, to marry the prince, she had to go to Mongolia and stay there. But for her, Emperor Qianlong made a big mansion in Beijing for the prince and the princess and made their arrangement to live in Beijing as he loved his daughter so much and didn't want her to go far from him.