Chapter 21 The founder of "Lotus at every step"

When the little emperor ascended the throne, he would gossip freely, so naturally he would choose beauties widely and promiscuously.He entrusted this matter to his favorite ministers Ru Fazhen and Mei Chong'er, and these two courtiers chose beauties for him in the territory, which disturbed the people.But although there are many beauties sent, the little emperor is all fresh for a while.When you get tired of playing, forget about it.However, later, a woman caught his heart. He fell in love with her at first sight, and immediately made her a noble concubine. This woman was Pan Yu'er. Pan Yuer was born in a poor family, her father was a small trader.She has been reduced to a kabuki since she was a child, and because of this, she has developed a set of skills to seduce men.She is as beautiful as a flower, good at singing and dancing, but has a mean personality and is extravagant.After being favored by the little emperor, she became even more arrogant, and often coquettishly asked the emperor to do this and that for her.Her clothes and jewelry are all the most expensive and gorgeous.I don't like the collection in the treasury, so I order people to buy more novel and exquisite ones, no matter how much it costs.A pair of her amber bracelets is worth 1.7 million yuan.Not only did she live a life of extravagance, but even her family members took advantage of her to run amok.Relying on her power, her father bestowed the capital on him, and even the emperor called him "Azhang".So he colluded with a bunch of villains, and all rich families were framed for serious crimes, so as to plunder all their wealth.If a family commits a crime, even the neighbors will be implicated.And in order to prevent these people from retaliating in the future, they killed all the males in the family.Being so unscrupulous made everyone stare at him, but because the emperor loved Pan Yu'er very much, no one dared to talk too much.

But the emperor was so in love with Pan Yu'er that he didn't know what to do.He and Pan Yu'er eat at the same table, and go out in the same chariot. They get tired of being together every day.Whenever she traveled, Pan Yu'er rode in front in a luxurious couch, and the emperor rode behind her on horseback as her entourage.Because it is to serve as a follower for the beloved beauty, the emperor also needs to dress up carefully.So he wore a luxurious gown made of silk embroidered brocade, a hat covered with gold leaf, and a horsewhip inlaid with seven treasures in his hand. In addition, there were a lot of other decorations with various names, which were really gorgeous and showed the charm of the emperor. .Not only that, the emperor, the guard, was also loyal and dedicated to his duties.No matter it is windy or rainy, severe cold or hot, the road is smooth or rough, he always insists on following her beloved Concubine Pan closely.I was thirsty on the road, so I untied the water bottle I was carrying with me, scooped some water from the nearby small river ditch to drink, and then continued to ride the horse to keep up.The emperor liked to go to Pan Yu'er's house the most.He also ran to the well to fetch water by himself, cooked for the cook, and sat there crowded together with a group of cronies, playing around at will, big or small.It made him unfettered, free, and very happy.

The emperor had had enough of learning how to cook, and became interested in selling things again.And Pan Yu'er was originally the daughter of a merchant, so she was even more proficient in business.Therefore, the emperor set up a market in the garden of the palace, lined up large and small shops, and let the eunuchs in the palace pretend to be vendors.He himself hangs around there every day, selling this and buying that, very busy.In order to maintain market order, he asked Pan Yuer to be the "market order" responsible for accepting relevant disputes.Pan Yuer will punish anyone who does not obey the order.And he himself did Pan Yuer's paperwork, and Pan Yuer "heard" the case, and he was responsible for taking notes.In this way, Pan Yuer is his boss, and if he makes a mistake, Pan Yuer can also punish him.Pan Yu'er was also not polite, and often beat him with a big stick until he repeatedly begged for mercy.In order not to hurt too much when being beaten, the emperor ordered not to bring the big thorn stick into the palace.He also opened a butcher's shop, selling meat himself with a knife, and let Pan Yu'er sell wine on the side, running a husband-and-wife shop.So the common people sang a ballad: "Yuewu hall, plant willows, the supreme butcher meat, Pan concubine drinks wine."

Later, Pan Yu'er gave birth to a daughter for the emperor, but the child died after only a hundred days.When the emperor's father died, he still drank and ate meat, wore brocade clothes, and was not sad at all.But this time when the daughter Pan Yuer gave birth to him died, he wept bitterly, dressed in coarse clothes, only willing to eat vegetarian dishes, and did not listen to music or dance for more than a month.It was still his group of cronies who were considerate. Seeing him so sad, they made delicious food together to persuade him to eat, and they also called it "the solution for the emperor".

So, in order to relieve his sadness, and to comfort his beloved Pan Yuer and make her happy, Xiao Baojuan decided to build a palace. He was not very satisfied with the old palace.Back then, Emperor Wu of Qi Xiao Yu built Xingguang Building and painted the roof with green paint, so this building was also called "brothel". But in Xiao Baojuan's view, this was too petty, so he said contemptuously: "Emperor Wu is so stupid." , why not use glazed roofs." In the third year of Yongyuan (501), a big fire broke out in the palace.At that time the emperor was out on a trip, according to his order, outsiders were not allowed to open the gate of the palace. As a result, countless people in the palace were burned to death, and not one of the three thousand houses was left.If the old ones don't go, the new ones won't come.The emperor happened to take this opportunity to overhaul the new palace.A group of cronies around him are secretly called "ghosts" by the people.There was a Zhao "ghost" who could read "Xijing Fu" and then quoted scriptures for him: "Boliang is a disaster, and the establishment is a camp."As a result, the emperor made a large-scale construction project and built palaces such as Fangle, Fangde, Xianhua, Daxing, Hande, Qingyao, and Anshou, and built three halls for Shenxian, Yongshou, and Yushou especially for Pan Yuer.Every palace is extremely luxurious, decorated with gold, white jade and the like very gorgeously, with poor craftsmanship and grandeur.Among them, for the Yushou Palace where Pan Yuer lived, a flying fairy tent was specially made, with brocade and embroidered on all sides, and the windows were filled with flying and floating patterns of immortals. All made of gold and silver.There are also various bell pendants hanging on the eaves of the palace.In order to make Pan Yu'er's palace more magnificent, the emperor searched for all the treasures. He ordered people to peel off the jade ornaments from the ancient cultural relics inside and outside the palace for decoration.He even refused to let go of the Buddhist temple. The Jade Nine Bells from the Zhuangyan Temple, the Buddha's face from the foreign temple, and all kinds of treasures from the tower of the Chanling Temple were all brought in by him, and they were re-cut and decorated. Pan Yuer's palace.The emperor was still in a hurry, wishing that the new palace could be built overnight.The craftsmen in charge were busy from morning to night, but he thought it was too slow, so he kept urging him.There were many Buddhist temples in the Southern Dynasties. In desperation, construction supervisors demolished the algae wells, immortals, riding animals, etc. in the halls of various Buddhist temples, painted new ones and installed them directly.

The emperor also liked the garden scenery, and he converted the Yuewu Hall into Fangle Garden.It was midsummer and the weather was very hot, but he still couldn't wait to order people to plant trees in the garden. They planted them in the morning and died in the evening. Trees, none of the trees survived in the end.Therefore, in order to keep the gardens evergreen, they raided the city and outside the city, taking trees when they saw them, and dumping trees from residents' homes if they destroyed their homes.Quite a few big trees hugged by several people were manually moved to the palace, and their branches turned yellow and their leaves fell after a short while, only for temporary enjoyment.The terraces of the garden are all paved with fine grass, and the green grass is covered with scraped turf. It will die in the sun and have to be replaced constantly to keep it evergreen and new.The emperor's aesthetic preference was very special. He ordered the stones in the garden to be painted with colors, which looked colorful and grotesque. He also built purple pavilions across the pool, and painted erotic paintings on the walls to watch pornography. .

Such wanton tossing will naturally cost countless money and make the treasury empty.The emperor's father saved a lot of gold and treasures, which made him empty out.So the emperor searched everywhere, expropriated from various sources, and ordered those wealthy households to sell all their gold to the emperor, no matter how much gold they had, and set the purchase price extremely low. I don't want to give it.As for ordinary people, the taxes are extremely heavy, and there is no time for corvee.And because of the urgency of the urging, the yamen in charge of purchasing often ran short of funds, and finally went to the market to grab them openly.As a result, the shops were scattered, business travelers had nowhere to rely on, complaints abounded, and the people were in dire straits.The ministers couldn't help sighing in private: "The Qin Dynasty was so rich in the past, and only built one Afang Palace, and the country was subjugated. Now my dynasty is not as large as the Qin Dynasty, but we have built so many gorgeous palaces like the Afang Palace. In the future, there will be no more palaces. I know what it will look like." However, this kind of words can only be said in private, facing the cruel and violent emperor, who would dare to take his own life as a joke.

But the emperor didn't care about spending money. He was very satisfied if the newly built palace could make everyone smile.However, in order to show off the beauty's grace, he had an even more icing on the cake idea.He ordered the craftsmen to chisel out gold into the shape of lotus flowers, stick them on the floor one by one, and let his beloved Pan Yuer walk on them gracefully.The emperor admired the beauty's lithe figure, and couldn't help admiring: "This is really a lotus growing step by step." This story is very famous, and many people may know that Emperor Xiao Baojuan and Pan Yu'er all came from this story.However, the reason why this story is famous is that it is regarded as the origin of the bound feet, which is also called "Golden Lotus".The so-called "lotus grows step by step" makes people feel that this must refer to Pan Yuer's pair of slender three-inch lotus petals.However, this statement actually comes from Buddhist scriptures.According to the "Miscellaneous Treasures Sutra", the deer girl, the daughter of a celestial being Devyan, appeared lotus flowers on the road she walked, so she is also called the lotus girl.Therefore, Xiao Baojuan's admiration for Pan Yu'er's "lotus flower every step of the way" is actually using the allusion of the deer girl.However, regardless of whether the deer girl or Pan Yuer, the "lotus" is on the ground, not their feet.Later, Empress Li of the Southern Tang Dynasty had a concubine whose feet had been bound. Empress Li followed the example of Xiao Baojuan and Pan Yuer and made a nasturtium for her to dance on.At this time, the foot-binding was connected with the lotus every step of the way. Later generations traced its origin and took it for granted that Pan Yuer's lotus every step of the way was the same as my mother, so Pan Yuer was considered by many people to be the ancestor of foot-binding. I'm afraid it was something she didn't expect.