The mystery of the beauties in the inner palace of King Khai Dinh - Part 1: How many beauties are there in the inner palace?

King Khai Dinh's wife, Mrs. Tiep Du (2nd from left) and Mrs. Tan Diem (3rd) took a photo with King Bao Dai's concubine Mong Diep (right) in Nha Trang in 1951 - Photo archive

"Bringing the daughter to the king", meaning sending the daughter to be the king's wife, Hue people often understand "that's it", as despair, loss, and not hoping to see each other again.

The ancient palace life is like scattered pieces of history that reporters have searched for and "reconstructed" seamlessly under the reign of King Khai Dinh.

On the brick road through the smooth green lawn in Hue's Forbidden City, many visitors are surprised and interested when they are introduced to the place where the king's wives used to live.

In this harem, the lives of women were sometimes brilliant, but also endlessly painful and desperate, perhaps the most painful was during the reign of Khai Dinh - an impotent king who never shared a bed with women...

12 beautiful

The book Dai Nam Thuc Luc in the Khai Dinh period recorded the names and ranks of the king's five wives. The first wife: Ho Thi Chi, daughter of high-ranking mandarin Ho Dac Trung, entered the inner palace and was awarded the title of first-class An Phi in 1917.

The second concubine: Hoang Thi Cuc (later Doan Huy Queen Mother - Tu Cung), in 1917 was promoted to third-grade Hue Tan, in 1918 to second-grade Hue Phi and in 1923 was promoted to first-grade Hau Phi. The third concubine: Pham Thi Hoai, in 1918 was fifth-grade Diem Tan, in 1922 was promoted to third-grade Diem Tan.

Fourth wife: Vo Thi Dung, daughter of mandarin Vo Liem, entered the palace in 1919 and was promoted to fourth-grade Du Tan. Fifth wife: Nguyen Dinh Thi Bach Lien, granddaughter of mandarin Nguyen Dinh Hoe, was promoted to fifth-grade Diem Tan in 1922.

The main book of Khai Dinh, published in 1917, when the king was still alive, mentioned two more ladies: Tran Dang Thi Thong - who was promoted to the seventh rank of Noble Lady and Mrs. Ngo Thi Trang - who was promoted to the ninth rank of Talented Lady.

The woodblock of the Shurangama Sutra of Dieu De Pagoda carved in 1922 (Survanagari Collection of the Dieu De Temple) has not been printed yet and is being kept at the Hue Buddhist Academy Archives Center, with four more women added. They are: Tiep Du Tran Thi Khue, Cung Nhan Nguyen Thi Vinh, Lenh Nhan of the Truong family, and Tai Nhan of the Mai family.

In 1968, Mr. Vuong Hong Sen visited Hue and collected some poems that were circulated in the palace, listing the names and "characteristics" of the king's 10 wives. When comparing with the official history of the Nguyen Dynasty and the woodblock of the Shurangama Sutra at Dieu De Pagoda, we realized that this poem added another Lady named Bieu or Tao.

True to the memory of former Emperor Bao Dai, the inner palace during the reign of Khai Dinh had 12 wives. In his memoir "The Dragon of Annam", former Emperor Bao Dai recounted that in 1922, when his father left the palace to go to France to attend the Marseille exhibition and send him "to study to become a king", his 12 wives divided into two rows prostrating themselves in the Forbidden City to see him off.

The former emperor wrote: "When I arrived at Kien Trung Palace, I bowed before my father and no one said a word. Father and son went out to the right corridor and were escorted back to Can Thanh Palace, where a small farewell ceremony took place. Along the pink walls, the emperor's 12 concubines were waiting, prostrate, according to their rank. No one dared to look up.

Among these women was my mother, the concubine, who was silently shedding tears. My father and I walked calmly as if we were indifferent people...".

The royal palace is like a temple

There are many stories and books written about King Khai Dinh's impotence and "colorful" life. But the king had enough concubines to fill the three palaces and six courtyards in the Forbidden City.

The act of concubinage was not only the intention of the king or the mother of the Holy Palace and the biological mother of the Fairy Palace, but also the intention of the mandarins to offer their daughters to the palace in order to seek fame and fortune and consolidate power.

Many mandarins "took the two-way route": thanks to the influence of the two Queen Mothers. The King was not foolish enough to refuse and displease his mother and the mandarins, so depending on the mandarins' ranks, he agreed and then promoted the ladies to secondary ranks according to their fathers' ranks in the court.

The mandarins sent their daughters to the palace so much that King Khai Dinh once said: "My inner palace is like a temple, whoever wants to become a nun can come in!"

The salaries of the ladies were also very low, not worth much. The comments of the fourth-class Du Tan Vo Thi Dung to her friends were directly heard and recorded by Mr. Vuong Hong Sen: "Married to the king, given a silk shirt, still less than a poor girl in the South whose husband was the son of a landlord".

Every day, the ladies in the inner palace were assigned to attend to the Kien Trung Palace, the main residence of the king. The third level of the palace could pay their respects: they were usually present to inquire about the king's health before he retired.

The sixth-ranking officials were often in attendance: they were present in time when the royal kitchen served the meal to arrange the dishes and stood by while the king ate. That was also the time to closely examine the face of the "only man".

Mrs. Nguyen Phuoc Tuy Ha once asked her grandmother, former fourth-ranked Du Tan Vo Thi Dung (also known as Tan Du): "Grandma, is it fun in the palace?"

- "It was fun, all day long the sisters played together, sometimes jumping rope, sometimes playing hopscotch, playing chopsticks, all kinds of games, sometimes laughing so loudly, the next morning when I went to pay my respects to him (referring to King Khai Dinh) I was asked "What did you ladies do yesterday that was so much fun?".

Behind the city walls, beautiful young women lived together, finding joy through their own talents. Those who painted beautifully painted, those who played musical instruments played the zither every day, others embroidered and sewed... Those beautiful talents had no chance to spread their fragrance far and wide.

King Khai Dinh did not like and was not close to women even though he had 12 wives - Photo archive

Call her to the palace to... string beads

"His Majesty does not like picking flowers" - that was the clever answer of Mrs. Tan Diem Nguyen Dinh Thi Bach Lien about her husband's sex life - to many newspapers during his lifetime. Mrs. Nguyen Huu Bich Tien, the niece of the Queen Mother Thanh Cung, had been in and out of the royal palace so she knew many stories about the inner palace during Khai Dinh's time.

During her lifetime, she told cultural researcher Tran Dinh Son that: in early 1922, the three palaces and six courtyards in the Forbidden City were suddenly bustling with the event of the king's "need for sex". One night, the king summoned Quy Nhan Ngo Thi Trang to Kien Trung Palace (where the king lived). The next morning, Quy Trang returned to the courtyard, and the ladies in the palace gathered in groups of three or five to ask about "sex" last night. Quy Trang just smiled and said nothing.

The second night, the king also continued to invite Quy Trang to the palace to spend the night. When she returned early in the morning, Quy Trang's face was pale. Several ladies of the palace were waiting in front of the courtyard to ask her questions. They were even more curious and guessing when Quy Trang only smiled, a bit arrogant and pretentious...

On the third night, Quy Trang was also invited into the palace. It was unknown whether the other ladies of the palace could sleep all night. Early in the morning, Quy Trang returned to the palace looking extremely tired, her face pale and haggard.

Before the ladies could ask, Quy Trang burst into tears. It turned out that the three nights she was invited into the palace were not to attend to the king's body, but to... string beads on the royal robe until her eyes were blurry, her back was hunched, and her limbs were limp.

The King's costume at that time had many parts of the beads broken off. Knowing Quy Trang's skillful hands, the King invited her into the palace to have them re-strung completely before leaving for France to attend the Marseille exhibition...

"The inner palace has many beauties

Diem Dam, An Nuo, Tiep Dau, Hue Hung

Du, Diem has a fake lung nature.

Quy Trang, Cung Vinh like crazy, like mad

Natural Talent

"Tai Tao's nonsense is so funny".

Vuong Hong Sen - The book on the margins of old books

(tentative interpretation: Diem Tan Pham Thi Hoai is beautiful, An Phi Ho Thi Chi does not bother to talk, Hue Phi Hoang Thi Cuc is aggressive, Du Tan Vo Thi Dung and Diem Tan Nguyen Dinh Thi Bach Lien are indecisive, Quy Nhan Ngo Thi Trang, Cung Nhan Nguyen Thi Vinh and two Talented Women named Bieu and Tao).

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Before he became king, Prince Buu Dao was addicted to gambling, so he was heavily in debt and spent his wife's family's money on gambling. His first wife couldn't stand it anymore so she had to "divorce" him and become a monk...

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bi-an-my-nhan-noi-cung-vua-khai-dinh-ky-1-noi-cung-co-may-my-mieu-20231124233404199.htm