Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised. In Chinese folklore, there exists the idea of four great beauties, four women from different eras, who all had beauty of mythic proportions. The first she she lived in the spring and Autumn period, and she was said to be so beautiful that when she went on a walk near a pond or stream, the fish who saw her would be so entranced by her appearance that the fish would forget
how to swim and drown beneath the water. Next, there was Wang jau Jun in the first century b C. The Western Han dynasty. Wang Jauxun was so beautiful that birds would fall from the sky mid song when they saw, forgetting how to fly. In the Three Kingdoms period, there was dow Chan, whose face was so luminous and milky that the moon itself was said to shy away in embarrassment lest it be compared to her. Finally, there was Yanguif in the Tongue dynasty, who they say put flowers
to shame. Of course, legend also notes that all four beauties had one single less conventionally perfect trait in order. Those flaws were big feet, a slipped shoulder, small ears, and body odor. But still, in spite of their singular flaws, the Four Beauties became objects of legends, characters in stories that were retold for centuries in poems, operas, songs, and novels. They were all so beautiful. The stories go that they brought men to their knees, and empires fell with them.
That narrative is especially strong with Young Guife, the last of the Four Beauties. They say that she's so entranced at burr shen Zhong that he began neglecting his duties. He became forgetful and dilettante in his role as an emperor, and spent all of his energies instead on pleasing Young Guife and throwing honors onto her and her family. It was Young Guife's fault, then, that after shen Zhong, the
Tongue dynasty would all but collapse. It was she who ushered in an era of political upheaval, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The woman so beautiful that she destroyed a kingdom is a favorite narrative in history. Think for example, about the way people talk about a Boleyn, the witchy enchantress who seduced King Henry the Eighth away from the Catholic Church, or Marie Antoinette, the indulged and opulent queen who single handedly turned the peasants against the monarchy.
Of course, these narratives conveniently overlooked that it was the king's with the real political power. The glamor or excitement of a queen's behind the scenes machinations make for lovely Lady Macbeth drama, but it really does condescend to our worst cultural instincts of boys will be boys. How can we ever expect a king to rule when there is
a beautiful woman in his eye line. For centuries, men have wielded the vast majority of political power, with legal systems set up exclusively for their benefit, and yet it is queens and lovers who bring kingdoms down. So we say it makes me think of a quote from Alexander Chi's excellent novel The Queen of the Night. The protagonist
narrates men often complain of the wickedness of women. Oh, how we delight in what power we have over their hearts, But they reign over everything else, So of course they grudge us this should we ever come to rule over this thing the size of their fist. I think it's worth pointing out that all of the women I mentioned, Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, Yanguife, all four of the beauties of Imperial China, all met violent and tragic ends. In Yangoife's case, her lover would order her death and then
spend the rest of his life mourning her. I'm Dani Schwartz, and this is noble blood. The woman that history most often refers to as Yangwife was actually born Yang Yuhuan. Yang is her family name, and Guife is the rank she would be given later in life, the highest rank for an imperial consort. But for clarity's sake, I'll refer to her as Yangwife continuously throughout the episode, even though she's given several different names at several different points of
her life. When she was born in seven hundred and nineteen, it was to a high status family, but not royals. They were wealthy enough to be within a royal inner circle without being royals themselves. But it wasn't a complete shock when at age fourteen, Yang Wife already considered beautiful married Lie Mau, the Prince of Shu, the son of
the Emperor Sonzong and his favorite consort Consort Wu. It was a golden period in the Tongue dynasty, with the emperor already in middle age, having ushered in an era of creativity and art. If you listen to an earlier podcast episode about the Empress wou z Etienne, this was
her grandson, and things were good for Sonzong. If there were murmurs of political descent at the edges of his kingdom after a few military losses, they were still just murmurs, easy for the Emperor and his family to allow to fade into the background while they enjoyed the bounty of what their rich empire had to offer. But then Consort
Wu died. The Emperor, now fifty two, sunk into a deep depression, a depression that only lasted until he laid eyes on is beautiful now nineteen year old daughter in law Yang with a There was only one slight problem. Of course, she was already married, and she was already married to his son. The first hurdle was easy enough to deal with. Yanguife was forced to become a Taoist nun which meant that when she symbolically received the tonsure,
her marriage officially dissolved. She was temporarily given a new name, Taijan, and for a short period of time she served as a nun in the Imperial Palace, keeping her head down and wearing modest clothing, living in the same palace where she had for the past five years lived as a princess. After whatever period seemed respectable enough to make overtures on his former daughter in law, John Zong made Yanguife an official consort, bestowing countless honors on her and her family.
Her cousins were given important imperial positions. One of her uncles was married to one of the Emperor's daughters. The Yang family moved up into a position of prominence, and it was all thanks to the beautiful Yanguife. And this is when she received the official title Guife, a title that none of the emperor's other consorts had been designated, even Consort Wu, his dead favorite, had only been Quife. Of course, we don't know how Yanguife felt about what
happened to her. Maybe she was delighted by her new royal status and importance. It's possible maybe she adored the Emperor, or she could have been in love with the prince that she had married as a teenager, the boy she had slowly gotten to know and grown up with. Those five years of her life where she was married to the prince are usually just fast forwarded in any history of her. She would have seen the prince moren his beloved mother, the mother that had been fighting for him
to be next in line for the throne. Young Boyfe was ready for a full life as a royal wife, and then out of nowhere, she was informed that that life was over. We don't know how she felt about that, Like a puppet on an assembly line. She had to make oaths as a Taoist nun, oaths that she knew would be meaningless eventually, and then she had to smile gracefully and accept the affection of the Emperor nearly three
times her age. For Yangoife's ex husband's part, the Emperor made sure to give him a new wife right away, a daughter of an important general. Maybe he didn't mind the trade. The only feelings we get in the story are the feelings of the emperor, and the Emperor was delighted that he got what he wanted. Young guife's beauty was legendary even in her own lifetime. Her figure was famously round and full, though modern day historians tend to find very offensive ways of describing that the emperor was
so besotted by her that he denied her nothing. The consort's favorite fruit was leechy, but they didn't grow in the region, not a problem. The emperor demanded that fresh leechy fruit be brought to her As soon as the leechies were plucked from the trees. In southern China, a man on horseback would begin his frantic ride towards the capital to the north. When the rider and his horse aim exhausted, another messenger would pick up there immediately and
start riding through the night. Young wife got the freshest lee cheese that manpower and eighth century technology would allow. She was also afforded the special privilege of being allowed to bathe in the Hua King hot springs. Up until her, only emperors had been allowed there. Being an imperial consort may seem glamorous, but it was a bargain with the devil.
On one hand, you live a life of leisure in a beautiful palace, having all of your material needs cared for, but you're also imprisoned, unable to leave the palace or see your family unless you get special permission. Once the emperor you served died, you lost all of your power. Emperor Schwanzong, especially later in his life, would have thousands of concubines at any given period, all jocking for attention, with the awareness that the entire course of their lives
existed at the behest of a single man's whims. But if you're the favorite, things are pretty good. There were occasions when Young Guif and the Emperor fought. Once you said something that put the Emperor in such a rage that he sent a consort away from the palace and back to her family. With his favorite consort gone, the Emperor moped you refused to eat. You know you overreacted. One of the emperor's counselors, j Win said, the Emperor
just grunted back. It had only been one day, but like a teenager after a breakup, the Emperor already wanted her back. As a gesture of generosity and goodwill, the Eper sent eunuchs to Young Guife's family home to deliver her royal meals from the palace. When she saw the deliveries, Young Guife wept. I deserved death, she moaned. The Emperor is too good for just sending me back to my household. I can't give him any of my gold or jade, because it was all gifted by him. I must have
something to give him to show my remorse. And so, while the few eunuchs watched, Young Bofe cut off a lock of her hair and told one of the men to bring it back to the emperor. As soon as the Emperor got it, he sent back a guard to personally escort his consort back to the palace, and from that point on he loved her even more than he had before. In nine hundred and forty seven, a general
named An Lucian visited the palace at chung'm On. Lushan was of Turkish descent, and he was one of the Empire's top military leaders, the governor of one of its military republics, and he had earned a reputation for taking decisive action. He was a big man in every sense of the word, a man who took up space in a room. When he arrived at the palace, Yang Guife liked him right away. He said what he was thinking, so few people in the palace seemed to do that.
The Emperor liked on Lushan too. As a sign of respect to his consort, the Emperor had on Lushan formally honored Young Guife as a mother. Some people misinterpret that and say Young Guife legally adopted the adult man, but that is not the case. The general just honored her and the two became friendly people who might have been outsiders, but through a strange twist of providence, had reached the
royal inner circle. A few years later, on Lushan returned to the palace where Yangue honored him for his birthday. She presented him with the customary treasures and gifts before she brought out her final offering, the eighth century equivalent
of a gag gift. Reading history is strange sometimes because just as often as some things get lost in translation or cultural differences, it's also important to remember that people in these seven hundreds had a sense of humor, and sometimes what might have been uproarious live at the Apollo comedy to them might just come across as bizarre to us.
So as it happened, one of the gifts that Jangue presented to the General on Lushan was a giant baby swaddling, the joke being I assume that on Lushan was such a large man that he would look very silly wearing it, and he put it on, and turns out they were right. It was hilarious. Everyone laughed until the Emperor walked in, as confused as anyone might be upon coming across the scene of your favorite consort and one of your top generals wearing what was basically a large diaper. One of
Yanguifs ladies broke the silence by laughing hysterically. Young boy Fay just gave birth three days ago. She said, look at how big the baby has gotten. There was a pause, and then the Emperor laughed. The entire scene became silliness again, the type of meaningless tomfoolery that happened sometimes among people with too much free time and unlimited money. But On Lushan's relationship with the rest of the Young family wasn't
nearly as care free. When Yanguife was thrust into her position as favorite consort, one of her cousins, a man named Young guas Hong, was made a chancellor. Over the years that she was a favorite consort, yanguife protected her cousin from going into battles, working behind the scenes, using her influence and the king's ear to keep her cousin safe.
And so while his colleagues fell off one by one, Young guas Hong just rose in the rank subtly until through no real accomplishments of his own, he was one of the most powerful men in the empire. And Young GUIs Hoong did not like An Lushan. Their grievances with each other. There were nothing more than petty sniping to begin with, but the grudge was there, and the grudge grew. On Lushan didn't like a pampered, nepotistic nobody with so much power, and Yang guas Hong didn't like this upstart
military man who didn't reign in his staff properly. Young guas Hong would lash out at On Lushan, flaunting his power by arresting various staffers at on Lushan's mansion and executing them. That wasn't the reason On Lushan launched a rebellion against the emperor in seven hundred and fifty five,
but it didn't help. Young Guashan represented everything that On Lushan had come to resent about the emperor, a man who made it very clear that he would rather lounge in his palace of worldly pleasures and spend time with his consort and do anything that even looked like ruling. He was spoiled, and he promoted family members to high
positions instead of people who were actually worthy. A few embarrassing military defeats meant that he had lost the respect of his army, and the Emperor didn't even pretend as though he wanted to earn it back. The time for the Tongue dynasty was passed, and On Lushan would make
sure that China knew it. So in seven hundred and fifty five, On Lushan launched a rebellion against a bur Schwanzong, and it was so successful early on that the imperial household was forced to flee the capital and moved to the Mawai district for their own safety. Maybe I should step down, the emperor thought out loud. I've ruled for long enough. Clearly I'm unpopular. Maybe my son should become emperor, said.
When young guas Hong heard that the emperor was considering stepping down, he panicked, It's not like the rebellion was his fault. But it's not like it was not his fault either. He did do that thing of executing all the staff members working at a Lushan's house. Jan guas Hangs political position was all thanks to the goodwill of the emperor, and if the Emperor stepped down, all of
that good will immediately disappeared. Please, cousin, Young Guashng begged Young Gefe, please put in a good word with the emperor, tell him not to step down. Not yet, Young Guife sighed and agreed. She spoke to the emperor behind closed doors, and whatever she said worked. The Emperor decided to continue to rule as he put the rebellion to bed, but that was proving more difficult than it first appeared. An Lushan had the support of large military factions, and the
emperor was heavily in debt. The battle over the capital was becoming long and drawn out. The emperor's own soldiers were becoming disheartened. Back in my way, the emperor's guards were growing disgruntled. They were underfed and overworked, and annoyed that they were protecting young wife and her family when everyone knew they were the ones who basically started this
whole mess. Angry soldiers who supported the emperor went to Young guas Hong's home and killed him, along with two of Young Gwiffe's sisters, and then they came for the consort herself. It was General Chen of the Imperial Guards who are pro the emperor, and said that if the military was going to continue to support the emperor, they needed blood. They wanted Young Guife. Nobody thought she was guilty of treason. She wasn't actually a criminal, hadn't committed
any crimes. It wasn't punishment for doing anything wrong. She was a blood sacrifice. The Emperor at first refused outright in disgust, but then he saw the steely look in his general's eyes, and he realized that they weren't going to be willing to back down. The soldiers stationed in his palace to protect him suddenly looked like an invasion.
This was the fate of his kingdom at stake, and so he gave a nod, and he instructed the Young Gife be brought to a nearby Buddhist trine and kill soldiers strangled her there, and her body was brought back before General Chen, who gave the orders for the soldiers to disperse. Young was buried at Maui without a coffin, but the emperor did give orders for her to be buried with bags of fragrance wrapped in purple blankets. The rebellion ended eventually one of the emperor's sons retook the capital.
Shuanzong made it back to the palace, but Young was still dead. As he and his party were leaving ma Way, he asked to bring young face body back with them to give her a proper burial, but his advisers all told him that that would be impossible. It was still a sore subject amongst his supporters, Honoring her in any public way could lead to mutiny. By the time the Emperor was back in his palace with his power secure enough to send for her body, it was too late.
The eunuchs the Emperor sent to disinenter the body of his favorite consort returned with word that her body had decomposed. All they could bring back instead were the purple bags of fragrance. The emperor held them to his face and he wept. He had given the order to kill her, but he had no choice. He had no choice, right, he had no choice. That's the story of Young Guife, But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
a little bit more about her legacy. The tragic story of Young Guefe, the favorite consort who was killed to save off mutiny, became a favorite of Chinese literature and art. Most famously, it inspired the epic poem Song of Everlasting Sorrow from the year eight hundred and nine. Her story also made it to Japan, where elements of it went on to inspire the Japanese classic novel The Tale of Genji, sometimes considered the world's first novel and certainly the first
published novel written by a woman. There are rumors, similar perhaps to stories of Anastasia escaping Bolshevik Bayonets, that Yanguefe was actually never killed, that instead she was able to sneak away with the help of a guard and make her way to Japan. It seems that when someone is young and beautiful, it's romantic to imagine that their story
has a happy or at least mysterious ending. The countless sculptures and paintings of Young Wife exist, they say, there's also a physical reminder of her existence, a carved outline of her hand on a stone at the palace in Changnan. Now she on, but unfortunately I've never been there to verify for myself, and the only source I could find saying that the outline of the hand actually belonged to the legendary Young fe comes from Rip Please believe it or not, So it's up to you believe it or not.
Noble Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by Danis Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales and you can learn more about the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.