Princess Zhou

Consort Zhou Duan, whose birth and death years are unknown, was a concubine of Ming Emperor Shenzong Zhu Yijun. Her original name was Zhou Qing, and she bore a son, Prince Rui Zhu Changhao. In the ninth year of the Wanli Emperor's reign (1581), she was selected as a prospective concubine for Emperor Shenzong; the following March, she was formally bestowed the title of Ninth Consort, known as Duan Consort. By the eighteenth year of Wanli (1590), she gave birth to the emperor's fifth son, Zhu Changhao. When her son was four years old, she was promoted to Duan Consort. Both she and her son received little favor, and her son’s marriage did not occur until he was twenty-five.

In the seventeenth year of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign (1644), Zhang Xianzhong captured Sichuan and slaughtered Zhu Changhao's entire family and related officials. That same year, in October, Li Zicheng led an attack that overthrew Beijing, marking the fall of the Ming Dynasty. Afterwards, Consort Zhou Duan returned to her natal home to live and was still alive during the Shunzhi Emperor's reign, reaching over eighty years of age. Her exact date of death is unknown, but she was the last of Emperor Shenzong's consorts to pass away.