Chapter 8 The Eighth Royal Clothes Store

Among the royal trains, there is another car dedicated to the clothes used by the Empress Dowager.Its greatness and richness are almost dazzling.The gods take it; except for a cloud of beauty that you can see, you don't need to try to discern them.Because they are really too many, so beautiful, their number is simply innumerable!But what is on this car is only one-thirtieth to forty-tenth of what is hidden in the Imperial Clothes Storehouse in the palace.So people with a strong memory like the Queen Mother don't know how many clothes, shoes, necklaces, and earrings they own, let alone others.This time we were going to Fengtian, and the Queen Mother did not intend to stay there for a long time, so the clothes she brought were only suitable for Wanchun Jin. ——We set off in mid-April, just at the turn of spring and summer. ——However, such a small part has already filled a whole car.For these clothes, if the author wants to describe them in detail, it may really be as thick as a "Declaration Yearbook".This must be too complicated!Let me tell you a total now!There are about 2,000 pieces of clothes.Where are the shoes?It can't be too much, just thirty or forty pairs.Fortunately, the Empress Dowager seldom walks, and an average new pair of shoes can be worn for five or six days.

The storage method of these clothes is also very unique. They are neither hung in a large cupboard nor folded in a chest, but placed in a kind of vermilion lacquered wooden tray.Each wooden plate is filled three times at a time, so the total number of plates is quite impressive.The Empress Dowager also has a habit of checking all of Yi's clothes and so on every four or five days.At that time, these wooden trays had to be delivered to the Empress Dowager one by one from the cart carrying the royal clothes in order.Of course, these wooden trays have no legs, and someone has to serve them if they want to go.Therefore, each wooden plate must be carried by two eunuchs. Fortunately, there are too many eunuchs in the palace, so there are not enough eunuchs. This time, there are already a thousand eunuchs accompanying the Queen Mother to Fengtian.The way they carry these wooden trays is very stupid to say the least.It is quite common for the people behind to hold the tray in front of their chests, but the person in front is tired enough, and he is not allowed to walk backwards; he must look forward like the people behind, and then put the Arms bent behind the back to hold the sides of the plate, walking slowly.Readers imagine: every three dresses hold a plate, and each plate is carried by two eunuchs. Calculated in this way, when the Queen Mother inspects Yi's clothes, how long should the line be?

Since the queen mother has such a huge amount of clothes, of course she can change them at any time.But because there are so many of them, whether I change them twice or three times a day, there are still many clothes that I will never wear; though their materials are equally fine and their embroidery is equally fine. However, the queen mother couldn't remember it for a while, so she had to be relegated to the cold palace!There is also a part of it that is full of emotional commemoration, and that is the clothes worn by Yi Chu when she entered the palace as a noble concubine decades ago.Because of this kind of commemorative relationship, although Yi never wears them again, she often asks the eunuchs to fetch them and play with them, which seems to be a very interesting way to play with them.At this moment, one can often infer Yi's inner feelings from Yi's facial expressions.Yi Shi is trying her best to reminisce about Yi's youthful appearance and many beautiful and good times in the past, and Yi also wants to get some youthful happiness from the hallucinations.So every time Yi is always in ecstasy, even thinking about dozens of kinds; when Yi is in ecstasy, no one is allowed to speak to Yi, so as not to interrupt Yi's thinking.That is, if I have something to tell Yi,——Thinking about it now, I was very courageous at that time, and often no matter how preoccupied Yi was thinking, I would still speak as usual. ——Yi would never pay any attention to it.

Before the fall of the Manchu Empire, there were certain laws and regulations on how to wear clothes, and all officials and wives had to obey them.But these laws and regulations are not so unreasonable, they just stipulate different clothes according to the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter.And each season is represented by a kind of flower.In winter, yellow wintersweet flowers are used; in spring, peonies are used; in summer, lotus flowers are used; in autumn, chrysanthemums are used.All the female officials in the palace and the wives of the courtiers outside the palace, if they want to embroider flowers on the clothes worn by each season, they must embroider the flowers that represent this season.For example, in spring, peony flowers must be embroidered, otherwise not only will it be unfashionable, but you will also be charged with a crime of resisting the order!

Apart from the flower ornaments on the clothes, the style of the clothes is also regulated according to the seasons.For example, in winter, although leather clothes are required, sometimes they only need to wear leather clothes that stand out, and sometimes they have to wear leather clothes that are all lined with leather. Even the types of leather are not uniform.There are four kinds of skins stipulated, all of which are changed according to the weather. These four kinds of skins are: ermine, squirrel, fox, and sable. As soon as winter begins, the empress dowager has to issue an edict to continue.Generally, it is always issued overnight; this edict roughly says, "From the next day, everyone should wear their furs." Of course, the content of this edict is by no means so simple, as usual, there are a lot of official articles, but Putting it all together, the meaning of these two sentences can never be found.Therefore, every courtier probably has a lot of clothes hidden; because when the queen mother orders it, when they go to court tomorrow, they will have to wear leather clothes no matter what.If you don't fix it properly at ordinary times, how can there be time temporarily!This edict spread very quickly in the capital; it was also notified orally by various yamen, and it was also announced in newspapers; in short, within a few hours, all the officials knew about it that's it.As for the provinces and prefectures outside Beijing, it was communicated by telegram.Therefore, Empress Dowager Danxu had a random idea, and within a day, officials from all over China put on leather clothes.

When the northwest wind blew stronger, the weather naturally became colder and colder one by one, so the Queen Mother continued to issue Yi's orders; from ermines to squirrels, from squirrels to fox fur, and then from ermines to fox furs. Fox fur and sable.But the fur of sable is not something ordinary people can use casually. It has been stipulated "unwritten" in the law that, except for the first and second-rank ministers, other officials are not allowed to abuse it; so when the first and second-rank ministers wear it When they bought mink fur, they still wore fox fur as usual. No matter how rich they were, they didn't dare to buy it and wear it boldly.

Every official and his wife pay great attention to these seasonal clothes.This habit has a history of hundreds of years, and everyone still obeys it obediently.In addition to the clothes prescribed by the four seasons, there is a special case.For example, spring is here, and on a certain day, the Queen Mother's edict is to go down. If the weather is warmer, of course the leather clothes can be changed; but if the weather is not warmer than before, spring clothes are really too much It is cold, and wearing leather clothes is afraid of going against the law, so there is a kind of "seasonal" clothes between winter clothes and spring clothes.To give an example: Suppose the weather in spring of a certain year is very cold, until the end of spring and the beginning of summer, it is still so cold that people cannot take off their cotton-padded clothes or jackets, but according to the regulations stipulated in the law, these days have passed If it is summer.When it comes to summer, we have to wear gauze clothes as usual; so do we really wear gauze clothes?Yes, we are really wearing gauze clothes!It's just that a heavy silk clip is specially made under the yarn, and some cotton is stuffed in the middle.In this way, on the one hand, we can avoid the crime of violating the law, and on the other hand, we will not be frozen.However, this method is not a new invention, nor is it a secret, but an open compromise method; perhaps someone came up with this method not long after the original formulation of these seasonal clothes.Even the Empress Dowager herself often does the same.But since Yi's status is so high, of course she wears better clothes than others, so although we use cotton, Yi must use silk floss.Silk floss is a kind of messy silk spun by silkworms. It is warmer and lighter than cotton, and it is specially prepared for Yi by ordinary silkworm farmers in the palace. Of course, it should be enjoyed by Yi.

As soon as April comes, which is the beginning of spring, all the female officials in the palace have to put on and wear jewelry.Hair pins, earrings, finger rings and the like are either made of beads or inlaid with jade, or emerald or agate. Everyone is dressed in jewels and dazzles the eyes. After reading the simple descriptions above, it is not difficult for readers to imagine that in China under the rule of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the attire of both the officials and the people was uniform; Clothes, it is indeed very careful.Now let me talk about some women's dresses: Of course, women are more sophisticated, because women like to dress up, and they all like to be fashionable; even if there are no rules, they will automatically change their patterns .Some of them use silks and satins woven with patterns of wintersweet flowers on them to make clothes; some employ workers to embroider wintersweet flowers on plain silk; It depends on the status and economic ability of the person to see through.The Empress Dowager or the Emperor will never interfere.There is also a group of poorer women, although they cannot afford such exquisite things, they will try their best to imitate them, thinking that if they can be imitated as close as possible, it will be more honorable; It's not a problem anymore.However, there is always a defect that the poor cannot make up for, and that is leather clothing!

In spring, cotton clothes and jackets are worn one after another.Spring clothes are always embroidered with peony flowers as usual.Peony is known as the king of flowers in China, and it can be regarded as the most luxurious and luxurious among all kinds of flowers. Because those beautiful women wear clothes embroidered with peony flowers in spring, they are extraordinarily delicate and charming!And although the pattern is stipulated, the color of the clothes can be as everyone wants, so every woman chooses the most colorful clothes as much as possible.Dressed up like this, they themselves are as beautiful as a peony flower!When spring goes to summer, cool gauze clothes come into being; at this time, the pattern on the clothes is also changed to lotus.In autumn, thick silk or thick wool jackets, and chrysanthemums of various colors appeared instead of gauze and lotus.One year, one year, and forever.

Throughout the year, rich officials' wives are dressed up like rainbows every day; even the wives of inferior officials are never too casual!Always try to dress up.Dressing up is a manifestation of women's instinct to love beauty, and of course it's not just Chinese women! As I write this, I can't help thinking of another story about clothing.This story is still vividly imprinted on my brain, just like what happened yesterday.It was the night before the Empress Dowager's birthday, because there would be a birthday ceremony tomorrow, so we all got busy preparing clothes.But unfortunately, I have no suitable clothes; or I can say that I have them, and their styles and colors are very exquisite, which I am very satisfied with, but this one has ermine fur on it. Dressed up for the front, but at that time it was not yet the period when it was stipulated to wear mink fur!If I blatantly wore this mink-skin dress and went to kowtow to the Queen Mother to celebrate her birthday, I would be accused of resisting the order and exceeding etiquette.But to be fair, it was almost December at that time, and the weather was really cold. The embarrassment was that the Queen Mother's edict had not yet been issued, and no one dared to wear mink fur; There has never been anyone who has the courage to suggest to the Queen Mother and urge Yi to issue the edict to change into mink fur earlier.But this time, I suggested it to Iraq very bravely.It can be said that he took a great risk!But that can only be said to be a coincidence, not entirely due to my guts.At that time, I stood behind the queen mother as usual, because she would order me to do some chores for her from time to time, so I always stood very close to her.A gust of wind blew by, Yi seemed to be trembling a little, and murmured:

"It's so cold!" As soon as Yi said this, I immediately thought it was an excellent opportunity.My courage has also suddenly increased. This is not my own exaggeration. Readers should know that it is not easy to speak in front of the empress dowager. If you speak badly, you will often be charged immediately.I said: "Really, the weather is too cold! It's time to wear mink fur! Old Ancestor." It is also known as "Lafayette" because it changed the old ancestor. The quotation is very appropriate.) I think tomorrow I can wear mink fur. Why doesn't the Queen Mother issue an edict on this?" good fortune!These few words of mine not only won't offend, but also won Yi's sympathy immediately, so the imperial decree "From the next day, everyone will change to sable fur" was promulgated without delay. The next day, all the officials and wives who were qualified to wear mink within the entire territory of the Qing Empire wore mink.And my new dress immediately became the most fashionable and eye-catching winter dress!I thought the weather was so cold at that time, if I hadn't acted bravely, other people would not be able to wear mink fur even if they wanted to, how would they thank me?But thinking about it on the other hand, I wanted to wear the new clothes with mink fur for myself, and urged the Queen Mother to issue the edict of mink fur. When I was in the palace, many new clothes would be put on wooden trays for the eunuchs every day, and brought in for the empress dowager to have a look at.Because there are many tailors in the palace, and these tailors never dare to be lazy; so the Queen Mother's new clothes are being manufactured in an endless stream.But this time when Yi went to Fengtian, he didn't take those tailors with him. There is also an old woman with a long history and mysterious actions in the palace.Yimen was full all day long, and did not do any work. He just lowered his head every day, holding a pen and drawing the pattern of new shoes for the Queen Mother.This time, the queen mother never loaded Yimen to Fengtian. Readers think about it: the clothes on the whole train are only for the queen mother to wear in a short season, so what is the scale of the imperial clothing store in the inner court?How should the content be enriched?The author specifically repeated the point to wake up! Since there are so many royal clothes of the Empress Dowager, each new one is worn within a few days on average and then put down. From this point of view, Yi's clothes can be kept as souvenirs forever.But these clothes all have a doomed fate, except for a small part that Yi gave to me, (of course others also have) everything that belongs to Yi, after Yi dies, all must be buried in Yi's grave go!Indeed, when Yi died later, the countless clothes, regardless of beauty or ugliness, were all buried in the ground.This habit was not specially created by the emperor's family; all Chinese who believe in Buddhism have to do this.They believe that after a person dies, he has to wear clothes. Otherwise, the soul of the dead person can only be naked. They will never be buried; because there is a legend that if the family members bury the leather clothes in the tomb for this person after his death, he will fall into the state of animals; of course, the descendants will never want to Let the dead become ermines, squirrels, foxes, and sables.So, the leather clothes were spared alone!