Noble Lady Rui

Rui Guiren, Suo Chuo Luo Shi, of Han surname Shi. Born in the 18th century, died in 1765. Served under the Inner Courtyard Secretariat, under the command of the Manchu Plain White Banner. She was the eldest legitimate daughter of De Bao, with her mother from the Fucha clan.

Life

During the Qianlong period, she was selected through a ritual called Xiu by the Inner Courtyard. She was then sent to learn the rules from the Consort Ling, and was known as a girl learning decorum. The genealogical records state she was the eldest daughter, entered the palace as a noble lady (Gui Ren), and passed away due to illness. On the twenty-second day of the sixth month of the 24th year of Qianlong, Consort Ling promoted her to a person of a higher rank, Feng Rui Chang Zai; her father De Bao was then a second-grade Mandarin of the Ministry of Works. Palace records show her as a jade-thread six strands, Noble Lady with three strands of gold thread, and Chang Zai without gold thread. Both Guo Chang Zai and Rui Chang Zai enjoyed the treatment of Noble Ladies at this time. In the 25th year of Qianlong (1760), she was promoted to Chang Zai, and less than a year later, Suo Chuo Luo Shi was elevated to Rui Guiren.

On the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month of the 30th year of Qianlong, Rui Guiren died of illness. Her biological mother, Fucha Shi, passed away on the twenty-eighth day of the seventh month, in the year of Qianlong fifty, at midnight. That same year, on September 28, she was buried in the Yu Ling Palace Cemetery in the Eastern Qing Tombs, with the Bao Ding (treasure top) placed in the fourth row, counting from the west towards the east. Rui Guiren's biological brother, Shi Chun, died young; he was the only one of her siblings from her legitimate mother, Fucha Shi, to reach adulthood. The other brothers were mostly born from De Bao’s secondary consort, Jing Shi. After De Bao’s second son died, he composed a poem titled "Crying for Son" mentioning that the late noble lady, in peril, had a child of her own, and that her death was without regret. In 1770, De Bao submitted a formal greeting to Imperial Noble Consort Wei, recorded in the Military Affairs Secretariat’s records; at that time, Rui Guiren had been dead for five years, but since she was the girl who learned decorum under Wei’s auspices, De Bao still paid his respects to Wei.

In the sixth year of Jiaqing (1801), in February, the Grand Minister of the Inner Court, Ying He Gong, delivered the coffin of Ying Guifei, made of gold, to be buried in the Yu Ling Palace Cemetery. An edict stated that the tomb of Rui Guiren was located in the Yu Ling Palace, linking this matter to her burial site.

Family

Rui Guiren’s ancestors originally resided in Fula of Heilongjiang, later moved to Suo Chuo Luo, and changed their surname to Suo Chuo Luo. Her great-grandfather was Lie, her ancestral grandfather was Bu Shu Ku, married to Zhang. Her great-grandfather was Dutu, married to Kang. Her great-grandfather Shi Qi, her grandfather Ming De, and her father De Bao all held official positions within the Qing bureaucratic system. Her father, De Bao, served as Governor of Guangdong, Grand Minister of the Inner Court, General of the Yangtze River, Governor of Zhejiang and Fujian, and Minister of Rites, among others. Her younger brother Ying He passed the second-grade imperial examination in 1793, from the Jing family. Her maternal cousins from the Suo Chuo Luo family maintained ties through marriage with other noble families.