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Lady Huarui
Consort of the last Later Shu ruler Meng Chang, taken to Kaifeng when Shu fell in 965; the palace poems that bear her title may belong to an earlier Former Shu consort
In a spring palace garden, a pavilion with round windows stands over a pond of goldfish; a peony-painted round fan, a zither and a lacquer box of pearl hairpins lie in the foreground, and one small figure in a long-sleeved gown stands at the far end of a covered walkway.
Also known as Fei Guifei · Hua Rui · Shu Hou Zhu Gui Fei
This record concerns the Lady Huarui who was consort to Meng Chang, last ruler of Later Shu; she came from Qingcheng, Song writers give her surname as Xu or Fei, and the name Huarui, Flower Stamen, praised her beauty. Lady Xu, consort of the Former Shu founder Wang Jian and mother of Wang Yan, bore the same title, and the two are often confused. When Song armies took Shu in 965 and Meng Chang surrendered, she was carried with him to Kaifeng. Song anecdote says Emperor Taizu asked her for a poem and she answered with a quatrain mocking the surrender, though its authorship is also questioned. Cai Tao's Tieweishan congtan claims Zhao Guangyi later shot her in a hunting park, a story Wu Renchen's Annals of the Ten Kingdoms dismissed. The hundred-odd palace poems under her title were assigned to both Shu courts already in Northern Song times, and Pu Jiangqing argued in 1947 that most are by the Former Shu consort.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; Later Shu (Five Dynasties)