[astralis]

very interesting stuff, kandie,

this is what? honors thesis? grad paper?

[Sephodwyrm]

Interesting article.

There's a painting of concubine Xiang in 18th century European plate armor. She doesn't look good in that painting though.

[atilla]

ok maybe it time for me to say some thing about Ipparhan I dont care what ever you guys call her,cause that is what we Uyghurs used to call her.
she was Fragrant because she used to wash herself with speacial soap.
and now I will tell you how to make that soap .
in our xinjiang, there is a kind of tree we call it (jigda) it is with small yellow fruits,I worked as a english tour guide almost five years ,each time when I guided my group to the Appakhoja tomb,I showed them the tree and asked it's name ,but no one never knows it is name ! so just call jigda!
when it is in blossom we will gather it ,dry it ,smash it ,mix it with honey , dry it up in cool place than you got it!
it is nothing to do what you eat it makes ****, I also have been eating mutton over 22 years and still did not smell good, why man ?I am also Uyghur! did you ever smell Camel milk ? forget it.
and now days we use the fuit of that free to make our local bread (nan).
did you ever seen it? do you know why it smells good ?do you know why it looks yellow? cause whey pick up the fruit ,and put them in to hot water ,the taste and color and use it on the surface of the bread (nan)voila cest fini!
mirce tous les mond!

[Pingpong]

Yaxshimusuz!

Hey Attila, is "Attila" your real Uyghur name?

What do you think of Turghun Almas' history book "Uyghurlar"? What is your view on the formation of modern Uyghur solidarity? (I think the Chagatay-Timurid period, which was the most important period in the formation of modern Uyghur identity, was left out of Almas' book and some Uyghur nationalist websites. Instead, the Otuken period of the Steppe Khanate, and the Karakhanid who converted to Islam, are emphasized.)

[atilla]

Yaxshi rahmat , ozigizqu ?

yes it is my true name .
sorry i did not have the chance to read Turghun Almas' history book "Uyghurlar".nowdays it is really hard to find them ,cause “Brief history of the Huns,” “Ancient Uighur Craftsmanship” was collected,...70 history professors from collages all over China, criticizing a book
titled The Uighurs by the Uighur historian and researcher Turgun Almas. ...this is why ?telling the truth make some body mad? I dont care!

but what I think is if you read them you can trust them but me I dont cry over split milk !

hox !

[astralis]

welcome to the form, atilla, your contributions are very welcome here!

[atilla]

thank you Astralis!

[Yue Fei]

Kenneth, on Mar 22 2005, 12:03 PM, said:

I also dont know how killing somebodies husband out of greed and then kidnapping her is supposed to be a good way to start a relationship. Childish and shortsighted more like it.
...and then she gets murdered by the Emperess Dowager. Pretty unhappy ending all round.

Feudal China, my friend.
In feudal China, we don't have courtship. Seldom, if any.

[atilla]

me too ! but a king was a king at that times,and the kings in the past were as strong as god some time.so he can do what ever he wants and this is what he did!

The Legend of Iparhan
Contemporary Uyghur renditions of the legend are considerably less romantic. Stolen from her husband, a Muslim leader who had resisted the army of the Qing, and spirited away to Beijing, Iparhan arms herself with daggers up her sleeves, on guard against the hated advances of the Emperor. Some accounts cast her even more explicitly as a nationalist resistance figure, suggesting that in addition to maintaining her purity Iparhan planned to kill the Emperor in revenge for his conquest of her homeland of Xinjiang. The Emperor, besotted, cannot resist the allure of her beauty, and in the end his mother the Empress Dowager arranges for her murder at the hands of loyal palace eunuchs in the face of Iparhan's unyielding resistance and the threat posed to her son.

just like some one said (give me freedom or give me death ) that is it ,nothing hard to understand ! every thing will happen and you wonder! that is the way it is!

[kaixin]

Mixed marriages between Turkic Muslim princesses and Han were not prohibited prior to the Qing.

The former Gongzong emperor of the defeated Song Dynasty was married to a Turkish Muslim princess and he was Buddhist. Founder of Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was also married to a supposedly Muslim woman (Empress Ma).

The Manchus were different. They mistreated the Muslims (Hui and Uygur). Often they pitted Muslims against Han. It is sad that Uygur anger towards Qing (Manchus) have now been diverted over to the Han Chinese.

[世中豪杰]

General_Zhaoyun, on Jan 9 2005, 08:34 AM, said:

She is probably the most famous Uighur in chinese history.

Her uighur name is Princess Abakh Kohja, aka Xiang Fei (香妃) according to Qing history or the Fragrant Princess (香香公主) portrayed in the martial art novel "The Book and the Sword" (書劍恩仇录) written by Louis Cha (Jin Yong). She was a princess of Uighur chieftain and was later sent as a gift to Emperor Qian long. But she refused to accept Qian long and was later conferred death by the Empress Dowager.

For more detail history about her, please refer to
http://www.sc.xinhuanet.com/content/2004-0...ent_2719529.htm

Does anyone know why she was called "Fragrant Prince" or Xiang Xiang?

I recently heard from the radio that a female corpse was discovered in China belonging to th Qing dynasty.
Even as a dead corpse , the corpse emits great & strong fragrance that is so unforgettable to those archologist etc....

hence they are wondering if it could be possible that this corpse is the corpse of Princess Abakh Kohja, aka Xiang Fei (香妃) or the Fragrant Princess (香香公主) of the Qing dynasty, the woman that Emperor Qian Long wanted to comsummate her so very much as from what we know from the noval Huan Zhu Ge Ge as on television

just being curious, what happen to her after her death?
where was she burried?

if it is really true that , that female corpse discovered was indeed Princess Xiang Fei, then it simplies spark off my further curiousity about another thing.

how come & how can it be that both as a living & as a dead person, her body can emit such powerful fragrance?
being so fragrant as a living person is already a strange thing but as a dead corpse after dying for so many years, instead of the decompose smell that is suppose to smells, it is instead fragrant.

this is really a science to research into.

lucky she is a lady having this fragrance thing coming out from her body. can't imagine how & what it will be like if it is a guy that has fragrance smell from his body just like Xiang Fei Ge Ge.

people usually call guys as Chou Nan Ren but if a guy has frangrance like xiang fei then he will be he exceptional man the Xiang Nan Ren.

[Rong Qin Wang]

General_Zhaoyun, on Jan 8 2005, 05:34 PM, said:

She is probably the most famous Uighur in chinese history.

Her uighur name is Princess Abakh Kohja, aka Xiang Fei (香妃) according to Qing history or the Fragrant Princess (香香公主) portrayed in the martial art novel "The Book and the Sword" (書劍恩仇录) written by Louis Cha (Jin Yong). She was a princess of Uighur chieftain and was later sent as a gift to Emperor Qian long. But she refused to accept Qian long and was later conferred death by the Empress Dowager.

For more detail history about her, please refer to
http://www.sc.xinhuanet.com/content/2004-0...ent_2719529.htm

Does anyone know why she was called "Fragrant Prince" or Xiang Xiang?

Zunjing de General Zhaoyun,

Whoa, I had no idea Xiang Fei actually existed in real history. I initially thought she was a fictional character created by Jin Yong in the novel “The Book and the Sword.” She would later turn into Xiang Fei in Qiong Yao’s novel “Huan Zhu Ge Ge II.” I surmise I better start reading more historical sources about her. However, I assumed there are not that many references to her since she was just a concubine in Emperor Qian Long’s harem. Of course, she was no ordinary lady; however, I believe she owed much of her reputations to novels, soap operas, and Wu Xia dramas.

Legend had it that since she was born with an extraordinarily wonderful smell, she greatly attracted Emperor Qian Long even before they have officially met. After being summoned to the palace, she was conferred with the title of Xiang Fei. According to http://www.4dw.net/r...ina/manchu9.htm, she was later posthumously conferred with the title of Empress Hsiao Yi-jung. I don’t really know how accurate this would be since I don’t recall Emperor Qian Long having a total of four Empresses. Of course, I could always be wrong!

I am actually more interested in her origin. Which ethnic group was she from? I assume she came from the Uighur clan, but which ethnic group was that? I would really like to learn more about Xiang Fei’s tribe. Hence, can you please direct me to some relevant sources in the ethnic groups forum?

Xie Xie,

[Rong Qin Wang]

lobster, on Mar 22 2005, 08:48 AM, said:

Hey Kenneth

The dowager empress wasn't always bad and scary. There were many that were like a loving grandma. E.g. Xiaozhuang of early Qing (grandmother of the great Kangxi), Empress Bo of early Western Han (grandmother of Wudi), etc. Of course there were those who totally messed things up, like Cixi, but IMO 99% of them were just traditional Chinese women who played no part in men's politics and stayed behind the scenes quietly.

Zunjing de Lobster,

Yeah, I completely agree with you that most of the time Empress Dowagers were not that scary and bad. If one would take Empress Ci Xi as an example of how most Empress Dowagers were like, then he/she has made a grave mistake. It was actually very rare to have an Empress Dowager be the de facto ruler of the country. This could only happen if the Empress Dowagers had great power initially and continued to hold onto the power during their regencies over the child Emperors. You are right; 99% of the Empress Dowagers were merely traditional women who did not interfere in politics for obvious reasons. However, a lot of them were overprotective mothers. Hence, the Empress and other concubines in the Rear Palace rather than court officials would most likely be the victims of the Empress Dowager.

Yes, Empress Xiao Zhuang was certainly the paragon for all Empresses since she was not only a doting mother and loving grandmother, but also a competent political leader who helped ran the country under the young Emperors, and then relinquished all power to the Emperors when they came of age. Unlike Empress Ci Xi, she was never selfish. Empress Xiao Zhuang definitely was not as influential as Empress Ci Xi due to her lack of ambitions.

As you can tell, Empresses Xiao Zhuang and Ci Xi were really unique in their own ways, and cannot be compared with the other normal Empress Dowagers. In fact, I would classify Emperor Qian Long’s mother as what a normal Empress Dowager would be like. Someone who held no political power, but was very influential and strict on the people from the Rear Palace.

However, I do think you have made one small mistake. Empress Bo was not the grandmother of Han Wudi. In fact, Han Wudi’s grandmother was Empress Dou, who was anything, but a loving grandmother to him since she tried fruitlessly to replace Han Wudi with her own son, Prince Liang. Perhaps the Empress Bo you were talking about was the mother of Han Wendi? Am I wrong?

Xie Xie,