Wenxiu

Wenxiu (20 December 1909 – 17 September 1953), also known as Consort Shu, was a concubine of Puyi, the last Emperor of China and final ruler of the Qing Dynasty. She was from the Mongol Erdet (額爾德特) clan and her family was under the Bordered Yellow Banner of the Eight Banners.

Biography

Wenxiu was among the candidates listed as suitable by the Qing court as Empress consort. They were not paraded before the emperor as had previously been the tradition; instead, they had their photographs taken and presented to Puyi, who was encouraged to choose his empress from among them. Puyi himself claims that he in fact chose Wenxiu as his empress rather than Wanrong. However, his choice was not approved of because of a conflict among his predecessor's widows, who had different favorites among the candidates. When the time came for Puyi to marry, Consort Jin and Dowager Consort Jingyi (敬懿太妃) had an argument over who should be the empress (the emperor's primary spouse). Lady Tatara favoured Wanrong while Jinyi preferred Wenxiu. In Lady Tatara's opinion, Wenxiu was not beautiful enough to be empress and she came from a lesser family background as compared to Wanrong. Despite so, Puyi's first choice was Wenxiu, and this frustrated Lady Tatara. She held a discussion with other nobles and officials in the imperial court, and they succeeded in persuading Puyi to select Wanrong as his empress and name Wenxiu as a consort. Wenxiu was taken to the court before Wanrong and welcomed her when she arrived in 1922.