Grrr

For this week’s blog, I thought I’d talk about the Chinese Prince of Lan Ling, Gao Changgong. But before I do, I want to give you a little bit of side information that is important.

Thousands of years ago in ancient China, beauty was more important for men than it was for women. Men wanted to be pale, slender, and tall. They wore light shades of foundation and put on lipstick. They also had very long hair. People didn’t cut their hair back then, because bodies, skin, and hair are given to them by their parents. Because of this, they must not be damaged. Cutting hair was seen as disrespectful to parents and barbaric. Because of this, it became a punishment reserved for extreme crimes. Now onto the story

There was once a man in China who was so handsome, he felt self conscious. He was the fourth son of Gao Cheng who was the elder brother of the emperor of Northern Qi, making him a prince of Northern Qi. He was given the name Prince Lan Ling as his land was known as Lan Ling. He was also a powerful general of Northern Qi. He worried that his feminine looking beauty wouldn’t intimidate his enemies so he would wear a mask into battle to seem more fierce.

The emperor at the time happened to be Gao Changgongs’s cousin, Gao Wei. Gao Wei was constantly worried that his cousin, Gao Changgong, would overthrow him as emperor so one day he sent a cup of poisoned wine to Gao Changgong, which led to his death. About four years after his death, having lost one of its greatest generals, Northern Qi was destroyed by Northern Zhou which resulted in all of the members of the Gao royal family being brutally slaughtered. In a roundabout way, Gao Wei signed his own death certificate when he killed Gao Changgong.

Fun facts: 

  1. Prince Gao Changgong appears in a dramatized TV series called Prince of Lan Ling. It’s most likely called this as he ruled in LanLing county.
  2. Prince Gao Changgong also appears in another TV series called Princess of LanLing
  3. I have heard Prince Gao Changgong appeared in the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.
  4. Also, I’m pretty sure that none of the historical pictures of Prince Gao Changgong survived to the present day.

Author: Georgia Bailey

I was born in Colorado and moved to Mississippi in 2008. I like reading pretty much every type of book except for romance. My family consists of me, my mom, my brother, my dog, and my brothers dog.

One thought on “Grrr”

  1. YOOO I’ve been researching different aspects of Chinese history recently, so it’s super neat to see this post! Now I want to look into this topic myself.

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