Note: In the drama Empresses in the Palace *(Legend of Zhen Huan, 甄嬛伝), neither Empress Chunyuan nor Empress Yixiu actually existed. But behind both of them stands a single real empress: the Yongzheng Emperor’s principal wife, Empress Xiaojingxian (孝敬憲皇后) of the Ula-Nara clan (烏拉那拉氏).
The Short Answer: Chunyuan and Yixiu Are the “Light and Shadow” of One Empress
Let’s start with the most important point.
- Empress Chunyuan and Empress Yixiu are both fictional characters created for the drama.
- However, the position they both hold — Empress — rests on one real woman: Yongzheng’s actual principal wife, Empress Xiaojingxian of the Ula-Nara clan.
- The drama divides that one empress’s position between two contrasting sisters: an idealized, beloved elder sister (Chunyuan) and a younger sister who inherits her place while hiding her ambition (Yixiu).
So Chunyuan is not Yixiu, and Yixiu is not simply Empress Xiaojingxian. One real empress became two people in fiction — seen this way, the meaning of these two sisters becomes much clearer.
The Historical Empress Xiaojingxian: A Quiet Principal Wife with Few Records
So who was the real woman underneath? Some articles online get her death year wrong, so let’s get the facts straight.
- Lived: 1681–1731 (the 9th year of Yongzheng), dying at around 50.
- Family: Her father was Feiyanggu (費揚古), a Minister of the Imperial Household, from the distinguished Manchu Ula-Nara clan. (Not to be confused with the famous general of the same name from the Donggo clan.)
- Marriage: Around 1691 (Kangxi 30), she became the di fujin (嫡福晋, principal wife) of Prince Yinzhen (胤禛), the future Yongzheng Emperor.
- Children: In 1697 (Kangxi 36), she gave birth to his eldest legitimate son, Honghui (弘暉). But Honghui died young in 1704 (Kangxi 43), at age 8 by traditional East Asian reckoning. She had no further children of her own.
- Empress: Formally made Empress in 1723 (Yongzheng 1). She died in 1731.
📌 Watch out for a common mix-up
You may see claims that she died in 1748. This is wrong. 1748 (Qianlong 13) is the death year of the Qianlong Emperor’s first empress, Empress Xiaoxianchun (孝賢純皇后) of the Fuca clan. Qianlong also had a Step-Empress of the Ula-Nara clan (1718–1766), the model for the drama Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace. It seems “Qianlong’s empresses” and “Yongzheng’s empress” got mixed together.
The historical record portrays her as a gentle and modest principal wife. She was neither a jealous villain who killed her sister and imperial children, nor a tragic beloved who died young in childbirth. She lost her only son early, and afterward quietly held her place as principal wife — a calm woman who left behind very few records.
Empress Chunyuan in the Drama: The Embodiment of Ideal Love
In the drama, Chunyuan (given name Rouze, 柔則) is a character who takes the “light” side of the empress and makes it as beautiful as possible.
She has a lovely voice, dances exquisitely, and excels at embroidery. Yongzheng, still a prince, falls in love with her at first sight and makes her his principal wife — only for her to die in childbirth not long after. Even in death, she remains the woman the emperor can never forget. And the reason he is drawn to Zhen Huan is that he sees Chunyuan’s face in hers.
But Chunyuan is entirely fictional. The historical Yongzheng had no “first wife who died young in childbirth and whom he mourned for the rest of his life.” Chunyuan is an idealized image — “love” distilled from the role of empress and crystallized into a single person.
Empress Yixiu in the Drama: She Inherits the Seat, but Her Character Is the Opposite
The other sister, Yixiu, inherits the historical Empress Xiaojingxian’s position — the seat of Yongzheng’s Ula-Nara empress — directly.
In the drama, she is Chunyuan’s younger half-sister, born to a secondary consort. On the surface, she is a fair and understanding mistress of the inner palace. But in secret, driven by grief over the death of her own child and jealousy of the sister who was always loved more, she brings about the death of her pregnant sister, takes the empress’s seat for herself, harms the emperor’s children, and destroys one consort after another.
The only point where she overlaps with history is that she was a principal wife who lost her son in childhood. All of her crimes are fiction, the complete opposite of the gentle empress described in the records. The drama borrowed only the seat from history and painted what sits in it with “shadow.”
✦ Satoe’s Take: Why Split One Woman into Two?
What follows is my own speculation. The historical Empress Xiaojingxian is recorded, rather flatly, as a “modest and virtuous wife.” But any real human being would have had desire, jealousy, love, and resentment hidden behind that devotion.
Perhaps the drama, instead of fitting that whole complicated human being into one person, tore her apart into two extremes: the pole of love (Chunyuan) and the pole of karma (Yixiu). The higher Chunyuan is raised, the deeper Yixiu’s darkness becomes. Neither works as a story alone. One “thin” figure in history becomes two “rich” figures in fiction.
And the one real sorrow in her history — the loss of her son Honghui — is placed at the very starting point of Yixiu’s bitterness. In that, I sense a small thread of imagination that the creators extended toward the real woman.
I think it’s the same mechanism by which Zhen Huan herself was transformed — from a historical woman who quietly won favor and became Empress Dowager into a woman who takes revenge on power.
Summary
Chunyuan and Yixiu are not the same person. But they’re not unrelated, either.
The “empress’s seat” of one woman — Yongzheng’s quiet principal wife, Empress Xiaojingxian — was divided in the drama between Chunyuan, who represents love, and Yixiu, who represents karma. That is the true identity of these two empresses.
A woman who lived quietly in history is reborn in fiction as two people, each taking on one part of humanity: the most beautiful, and the darkest. I think it’s a wonderful example of creative work built on history.
◀ Companion article (the heroine’s model): [The Model for Zhen Huan (Empress Xiaoshengxian of the Niohuru clan)] | [The Meaning of the Name “Zhen Huan” (Cai Shen’s Yi Jian Mei)]
◀ The drama’s story (songs): [Hong Yan Jie]・[Feng Huang Yu Fei] | The real prince: [The True Story of Prince Guo, Yunli]