Empress Xiaochengren

Biography

Aristocratic Heritage and Strategic Nuptials

Empress Xiaochengren descended from the prestigious Hesheli clan of the Plain Yellow Banner. Her grandfather, Sonin, was a founding veteran who served Nurhaci, Hong Taiji, and Shunzhi, standing as the senior regent among the Four Councilors appointed to guide the child Emperor Kangxi. In 1665, as the ambitious regent Oboi increasingly consolidated despotic power, Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang decisively selected Sonin's eleven-year-old granddaughter Lady Hesheli to become the primary empress consort of the eleven-year-old Kangxi Emperor. The imperial wedding was conducted in September 1665 with traditional Manchu ceremonial dignity in the Kunning Palace, establishing a vital political alliance between the young emperor and the loyalist Hesheli lineage. ### Young Matrimony and Personal Governance Despite the political imperatives behind their union, the young emperor and empress rapidly forged a profound, tender companionship. Empress Hesheli possessed natural dignity, classical poise, and exceptional tact. In 1667, when Emperor Kangxi assumed nominal sovereign duties, and in 1669, when he orchestrated the audacious arrest of Oboi in the Forbidden City, Empress Hesheli maintained flawless calm within the inner palace. Her serene management ensured that internal court conspiracies were neutralized, allowing the young monarch to reassert direct imperial sovereignty over the civil and military administration. ### Maternal Joy and Tragedy In December 1669, Empress Hesheli gave birth to her first child, Prince Chenghu. Kangxi was thrilled by the arrival of his legitimate son and frequently visited the nursery. Tragically, Chenghu died in 1672 at the age of three, plunging both parents into deep grief. Kangxi personally comforted the empress, and their bond deepened further. On June 6, 1674, during the dangerous early shocks of the Revolt of the Three Feudatories, Empress Hesheli gave birth to her second son, Prince Yinreng, in the Kunning Palace. Severe childbirth complications set in immediately, and postpartum hemorrhaging proved impossible to stem. On the afternoon of the same day, Empress Hesheli passed away at the age of twenty-two . ### Imperial Grief and the Elevation of Yinreng The sudden loss of his beloved consort dealt an overwhelming emotional blow to the twenty-year-old Kangxi Emperor. He suspended court conferences for five days, donned unadorned white mourning fabrics, and spent entire nights weeping before her coffin at the suburban mourning lodge. To preserve her memory and fulfill his devotion, Kangxi took the unprecedented step in December 1675 of proclaiming the infant Yinreng as Crown Prince of the Great Qing—the first and only instance in Qing history where an heir apparent was publicly installed during infancy. She was laid to rest in the underground vault of the Jingling Mausoleum.

Her Family and the Wedding Ceremonies of 1665

Hesheri was born on the seventeenth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of Shunzhi, 1654, into the Hesheri clan of the Duyinge Mukun of the great line of Duke Muhulu, belonging to the Plain Yellow Banner of Manchuria, her true personal name being unknown. Her grandfather was Sonin, a founding minister of the Qing, one of the four regents of the early Kangxi reign and duke of the first rank; her father was Gabula, a minister of state and commander of the imperial bodyguard; and many of her family bore the title of "baksi," which in Manchu means a man of learning. On the seventh day of the seventh month of 1665 the court betrothed the empress Hesheri and carried out the presentation of gifts; and on the seventh day of the ninth month, the next day being the auspicious day of the wedding, the Kangxi emperor sent officers to sacrifice to Heaven and Earth and to the ancestral temple. The betrothal gifts included twenty thousand taels of gold, ten thousand of silver, a golden tea caddy, two silver ones, a pair of silver chests, a thousand bolts of brocade, twenty saddles and forty fine horses, the ceremony ending likewise with the bride's kinsmen knocking their heads three times northward in thanks. On the eighth day of the ninth month the third imperial wedding since the Qing entered the passes was held in Beijing; its ceremonial followed almost wholly the Chinese tradition, though Manchu customs were mixed in, most visibly in that the chief gifts were horses and saddles. Officers having chosen an auspicious day, Kangxi sent a party headed by a great minister, including three princesses, the wives of three regents and eunuchs and guards, to carry the gifts to the bride's house — ten horses fully bridled and saddled, ten suits of armour, a hundred bolts of brocade and two hundred bolts of other fine cloth; and the bride's father Gabula and her grandfather Sonin led the men of the family and Sonin's wife the women to receive them, the whole family standing in two lines on either side of the courtyard and knocking their heads northward in thanks for the imperial favour. The Kangxi emperor then entered to look at the register of investiture and the golden seal, and handed the two emblems of the empress to the commissioners, who bore the register and seal on high with all the attendant ministers following and carried them to the bride's residence; and the empress, having received these two emblems and made her prostration, went by palanquin to the palace, four ministers' wives leading before the chair and seven following after it, all riding on horseback — riding being a marked feature of Manchu tradition among women — with guards and eunuchs on either side, her attendants being graciously permitted to walk on the imperial way leading to the central palace. Meanwhile Kangxi, in his wedding dress, first went to the palaces of the grand empress dowager and the empress dowager to make his obeisances and give thanks, then to the Taihe hall to feast the empress's kinsmen and the princes and officials, while in the palace a feast was laid for the empress's mother and her kin on the female side; and about six in the afternoon the wedding ended with the Chinese ceremony of the shared cup, after which the emperor and empress remained in the central palace. On the ninth day the emperor directed the board of rites to follow the Chinese precedent in giving honorific titles to the grand empress dowager and the empress dowager, and on the same day the empress went to their palaces to make her obeisances. On the tenth day the emperor held court in the Taihe hall, the princes and officials presented their congratulations and a general edict was issued announcing the completion of the wedding, setting out the meaning of establishing an empress to share the ancestral sacrifices, to assist the observances of filial piety and to continue the line. The register of investiture called her one in whom "the virtue of the generations is concentrated, from whose noble service excellence takes its rise, of a gentle and excellent nature, fit to display the teaching of women in the six palaces, chaste and still in her own person, fit to set the model of motherhood for the ten thousand states."

The Ceremonies of the Central Palace, Her Journeys, and the Death of Cheng Hu

In 1669 it was settled that at the new year the full ceremonial of the grand empress dowager and the empress dowager should be displayed, the emperor leading the princes, great ministers, guards and the commandants, marquises and presidents of the boards to the grand empress dowager's palace and then to the empress dowager's to make his obeisances as prescribed, after which the empress with the ladies of title made theirs. From 1665 to 1673 the seventeenth day of the twelfth month was Hesheri's birthday, on which the empress might hold full congratulations, except that no memorial of congratulation was allowed, since the emperor's own was not observed; on that day the empress went first to the grand empress dowager's palace and then to the empress dowager's to make her obeisances, and on her return the wives of the marquises and lords down to the presidents of the boards made theirs in court dress, the winter solstice being the same. In the eighth month of 1670 Kangxi went with the grand empress dowager, the empress dowager and the empress to the imperial tombs. On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month of 1669 the empress bore her first son Cheng Hu, of whom it is recorded that "at four years old he was by nature quick and clever, and the emperor loved him greatly." In the first month of 1672, because the grand empress dowager Xiaozhuang was gravely ill, Kangxi went with his grandmother to the hot springs at Chicheng to take the cure, setting out on the twenty-fourth and arriving on the third day of the second month; and on the fifth day Cheng Hu died, his father being then at Chicheng. Hearing of the death of his eldest son by the empress he "mourned bitterly"; but because he feared to grieve his grandmother, though he was "full of gloom" and suffered greatly for many days, keeping to himself, he was still "cheerful as usual" before her; and he told the minister of state Gioro Tada that he feared the grand empress dowager would be grieved to hear of it, and that if any of the princes heard the news and came to console him they should all be sent away. The officers of his suite, seeing the emperor's distress, memorialized one after another to dissuade him, and Kangxi, mastering his grief, said that the matter of a little child was nothing he took greatly to heart, and had the officers of the board of rites bury the prince, arranging the obsequies of Cheng Hu in tears in a quiet and secluded place. The empress could not bear the blow of her son's sudden death and fell ill in the tenth month of that year; and Kangxi, hearing of it, obtained his grandmother's consent, rode post-haste to the capital to see her and stayed with her in the palace for a whole day, not resting easy until she improved. Cheng Hu, as the second son, was not counted in the order of seniority, and his place as second son was taken by his younger brother Yinreng.

Her Death in Childbirth and the Exceptional Lying in State in the Qianqing Palace

On the third day of the fifth month of 1674 the empress went into labour for the second time. All was busy within and without the Kunning palace preparing for the new prince, the "joyous pit" for burying the afterbirth having long been dug and the chopsticks and red silk, gold, silver and the eight treasures that signified a quick and noble birth having been laid in it. The prince was born at last, and Kangxi, delighted to see the empress delivered of a healthy son, at once gave him the nursing name Baocheng, wishing him a safe upbringing; but the empress, from the difficulty of the birth, fell into a coma that did not lift for hours, and though the physicians exhausted their art they could not save her, and Hesheri died in the afternoon at the hour of shen. In a few hours only, Kangxi passed from the great joy of a second son by the empress to the grief of losing his wife. The empress Renxiao having died in the Kunning palace, Kangxi exceptionally overstepped the rules of ceremony and had the coffin laid in the Qianqing palace, the hall in which he himself lived, with the offering table and the funeral banners set to the right outside its gate — the first empress of the Qing to receive this treatment. On the fifth day of the fifth month of 1674 the coffin was placed in the western part of the Forbidden City; and from that day Kangxi went almost daily to wail before it. On the twenty-seventh day he escorted the coffin in person to Gonghua city. The exact number of his visits is recorded: from the sixth to the twelfth month of 1674 he went to Gonghua city thirty-four times, in the following year twenty-four and the year after fifteen, more than eighty times in all. In the twelfth month of 1676, when Korean envoys came, Kangxi refused to receive them because he was keeping vigil by the empress's coffin, and the envoys reported on their return that the Qing sovereign "takes no thought for the affairs of state ... and goes constantly to weep at the place where the coffin rests at Shahe." The censor Yao Wenran memorialized that the emperor's visits to Gonghua city were too frequent and feared for his health, urging him to put the Great Qing first and comparing him to Emperor Taizong of Tang, who built a terrace to look towards Zhaoling and destroyed it at Wei Zheng's remonstrance; and Kangxi "accepted it without displeasure." In 1677, though the second empress, Xiaozhao, had been invested only a dozen days before, Kangxi, disregarding the taboo proper to an occasion of joy, went in person to Gonghua city to sacrifice to his first wife, and even on the new year's eve of that year went as always through wind and rain to keep her company.

The Empress Buried First at Jingling, the Making of Yinreng Heir, and the Changes in Her Posthumous Name

On the thirteenth day of the first month of 1676 Kangxi directed the boards of rites and works that the tomb of the empress Renxiao had been fixed on a hill near the Xiaoling, that it should by rights be built in full accordance with the statutes, but that military expenses being then heavy and the people's strength straitened, the underground palace should be built first and all the other works carried out in order when the state's funds sufficed, and ordered the choice of an auspicious day and full deliberation on what should be done. Building began in the second month of that year, the underground palace was finished in the second month of 1681, and in the third month the coffins of the empresses Renxiao and Xiaozhao were laid in the underground palace of Jingling, the principal tomb of the Kangxi emperor; and the Jingling underground palace thus established the rule that in an emperor's tomb an empress may be buried first and the stone door left unclosed to await the emperor, that is, the Qing precedent by which an empress is buried first and the chamber left open for the joint burial of emperor and empress. In the sixth month of 1675 Kangxi, having three times obtained the consent of the grand empress dowager and the empress dowager, was able to make Yinreng, then two years old, heir apparent, breaking the Manchu ancestral rule against fixing an heir very early; and on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month he held the investiture himself, the day of Yinreng's investiture falling, as it happened, on the same day of the year as Cheng Hu's birth. In his later years Kangxi said that Yinreng was born of the empress and that he had cherished and instructed him himself, and that Yinreng "was born at the cost of his mother," and that whereas he himself since coming to the throne had been frugal in all things, wearing a worn mattress and cloth socks, everything Yinreng used far exceeded his own. It is recorded that Yinreng's birthday was the anniversary of the empress's death, and that by day Kangxi would gladly celebrate it for him, but that at night he would summon no other consort to his bed but weep silently alone in his chamber until late, and that this continued until his later years. As to her posthumous name, at her death the Qing already had empresses whose names began with "xiao," yet Kangxi did not follow the precedent but gave his consort a name of his own choosing, settling it himself as "the empress Renxiao"; and on the twenty-seventh day of the sixth month of 1674 the name was conferred and on the twenty-eighth a general edict issued, saying that "with the pheasant robe upon her, ten years of fair example are not to be forgotten; the gem adds its lustre to spread a fair fame through a thousand autumns," and describing her as gentle and gracious by nature, reverent and excellent from Heaven, sprung of a noble house and set in the central palace, serving the grand empress dowager and the empress dowager with complete sincerity and filial piety, ordering the inner government with reverence and diligence and frugality in her own person, and generous in condescending to those below, so that the palace was transformed and her virtue made known. In the first year of Yongzheng, because the character "ren" in her name was repeated in Kangxi's own posthumous title and so offended against the rules, the name was changed to "the empress Xiaochengren"; and after further additions in the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods her final posthumous name was the long formula beginning "Xiaocheng gongsu zhenghui anhe shuyi kemin litian xiangsheng ren." In the sixth month of the first year of Yongzheng she was also raised into the ancestral temple with the other three empresses of the Kangxi reign.

Her Title of "Worthy Empress" and the Records of Her Learning and Virtue

Kangxi called Hesheri in his edicts a "worthy empress." The sacrificial text calls her one whose "virtue matched the great earth, and who in poetry, letters, rites and music set the model for the six palaces," and one who "early followed the diligence of her teachers and early attained the instruction of the Odes and Documents"; she came of a family of letters and of official caps, many of whose members bore the title of baksi, and she herself supported Kangxi by the learning that had "attained the instruction of the Odes and Documents," by the virtue that "governed the inner teaching and rectified the six palaces, extending kindness to those below" and whose "words from behind the hairpins were ever uttered in earnest," and by the conduct that "transformed the palace and made her virtue known." She is also the empress of the Qing who left the greatest number of archival records expressing her wishes. The register conferring her posthumous name describes her virtue more particularly: sprung of a famous house and perfect in excellence, consort of the emperor and set in the central palace, merciful and kind by nature, gentle and excellent as her rule, reverent and courteous by the gift of Heaven and versed in the rules of ceremony, and it adds that she was "gentle and harmonious in her dealings with the nine ranks of the palace, extending kindness to those below; diligent in the seasonal offerings, she assisted his sincerity, and in her washed garments she showed her frugality." In his fifth-anniversary sacrificial eulogy, Emperor Kangxi commemorated her broad benevolence and genuine filial heart, lamenting the empty ceremonial garments and the long cessation of the imperial lute amidst summer winds and rising days. In his sixth-anniversary sacrificial eulogy, the sovereign again praised her balanced nature, normative decorum, and universal domestic virtue, sending the crown prince to make offerings before her spirit altar and noting that ten years of fair example remained as fresh as when she lived. Of her life in fact, as the Kangxi emperor's first empress she lived ten years with him, providing an essential foundation of inner-palace stability that critically underpinned the consolidation of imperial authority in the early Kangxi reign.

Major Activities

Stabilizing the Inner Court During Oboi's Regency

Entering the Forbidden City at age eleven as empress, Lady Hesheri maintained harmonious palace relations and observed strict modesty. Her dignified presence anchored the inner quarters while her family supported Emperor Kangxi in outmaneuvering the despotic regent Oboi, creating a rock-solid domestic foundation for the young sovereign to assume direct personal rule.

Unbroken Conjugal Love and Moral Influence

Serving as Kangxi's first and most cherished companion, her modesty and Confucian virtue set a gold standard of consort decorum that Kangxi remembered fondly throughout his sixty-one-year reign. She adhered to frugality, dressed in simple washed attire, and treated palace women with impartial grace. Whenever the emperor returned from state duties, he frequently consulted her on court ethics, regarding her as his lifelong emotional anchor.

Fatal Childbirth and Unprecedented Funeral Honors

On June 6, 1674 CE, the empress gave birth to the imperial son Yinreng in the Kunning Palace and passed away hours later from postpartum complications, aged twenty-two. Overwhelmed by grief, Emperor Kangxi suspended court audiences for five days, performed mourning rituals repeatedly before her coffin, and exceptionally ordered her casket placed in his own residence at the Qianqing Palace, subsequently visiting her temporary resting place at Gonghua City over eighty times.

Inspiring the Designation of Crown Prince Yinreng

To honor the memory of his deceased empress, Emperor Kangxi secured the approval of Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang and broke imperial Manchu custom in December 1675 by proclaiming her two-year-old surviving son Yinreng as Crown Prince of the Qing dynasty, personally supervising his education as a solemn tribute to his eternal love for Lady Hesheri.

The Concrete Effects of Her Early Death on Qing Ceremony and on the Politics of the Reign

Her early death left several traceable departures from precedent in Qing ceremonial and in the politics of the Kangxi reign. The first is the exceptional mourning: after her death in the Kunning palace Kangxi had the coffin laid in the Qianqing palace, the hall in which he himself lived, with the offering table and funeral banners to the right outside its gate, the first empress of the Qing to receive this treatment; and afterwards he went many times to Gonghua city to sacrifice, thirty-four times between the sixth and twelfth months of 1674 alone. The second is the precedent in tomb ritual: in 1676 he directed that the underground palace of Jingling be built first while the rest of the works waited until the state's funds sufficed, and when the chamber was finished in 1681 the coffins of the empresses Renxiao and Xiaozhao were laid there, so that the Jingling chamber established the rule that an empress may be buried first in an emperor's tomb and the stone door left unclosed to await him — the Qing precedent of burying an empress first and leaving the chamber open for the joint burial of emperor and empress; and in the sixth month of the first year of Yongzheng she was raised into the ancestral temple with the other three empresses of the reign. The third is the precedent in the succession: Kangxi, breaking the Manchu ancestral rule against fixing an heir very early, made Yinreng, then two years old, heir apparent in 1675, so that Yinreng became the first publicly invested heir of the Qing and opened the precedent of public investiture; and his later two investitures and two depositions indirectly brought on the turbulence of the "contention of the nine princes" in Kangxi's last years. The fourth is the individual case of the posthumous name: her first name was chosen by Kangxi himself as "the empress Renxiao," unlike the first characters of the other Qing empresses' names, and in the first year of Yongzheng, because the character "ren" was repeated in Kangxi's own posthumous title and so against the rules, it was changed to "the empress Xiaochengren," with further additions after that; and this change from "Renxiao" to "Xiaocheng" is treated as a concrete case of the interaction between the posthumous-name system of Qing empresses and court politics. Taken together, as the Kangxi emperor's first and principal empress her early death had a profound effect both on his own feelings and on the political configuration of the reign: the investing and deposing of her son Yinreng is one of the key threads for understanding the politics of Kangxi's last years, and the choosing and changing of her posthumous name reflects the interplay between palace ceremonial and political calculation in the Qing court.

Personal Relations

• Grandfather: Sonin (Chief Grand Councilor, First-Class Duke)
• Father: Gabula (Imperial Guard Commander, First-Class Duke of Chengen)
• Uncle: Songgotu (Grand Secretary of Baohe Palace)
• Husband: Emperor Kangxi of Qing (Shengzu)
• Sons: Chenghu (died in infancy), Yinreng (Crown Prince of Qing)
• Benefactor: Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang

Historical Assessment

• Emperor Kangxi: 'The Empress was pure, prudent, and virtuous; her sudden departure wounds my spirit beyond expression.'
• Draft History of Qing (Qing Shi Gao): 'Empress Xiaochengren Hesheli entered the palace at four years of the reign. Her modesty and grace anchored the inner quarters... Upon her death, the sovereign wept inconsolably.'