MuRongJing black ink phoenix eyes slightly gathered, hidden in the deep doubts, slightly looked up to heaven. The green jade finger holding the reins moved slightly, and the horse gradually slowed down and said, "Find a place to shelter from the rain first

Maria of Austria was one of the longest surviving Renaissance Empresses but until now has received little attention by biographers. This book explores her life, actions, and management of domestic affairs, which became a feared example of how an Empress could control alternative spheres of power. The volume traces the path of a Castilian orphan infanta, raised among her mother’s Portuguese ladies-in-waiting and who spent thirty years of marriage between the imperial courts of Prague and Vienna. Empress Maria encapsulates the complex dynastic functioning of the Habsburgs: devotedly married to her cousin Maximilian II, Maria had constant communication with her father Charles V and her brother Philip II while preserving her Spanish background. Her unique intertwining of roles and positions allows a fresh approach to female agency and the discussion of current issues: the rules of dynastic entente, the negotiation of discreet political roles for royal women, the reassessment of informal diplomacy, and the creation of dynastic networks parallel to the embassies. With chronological chapters discussing Empress Maria’s roles such as infanta, regent, Empress, and a widow, this volume is the perfect resource for scholars and students interested in the history of gender, court culture, and early modern Central Europe.

Catherine II of Russia was the most remarkable monarch of the eighteenth century. New York Times bestselling historian Ian Grey paints an illuminating portrait of an enigmatic woman of compelling charm and elegance. She had a prodigious appetite for work, great curiosity, and boundless ambition and vanity, and she was notorious for the number of her lovers. Her prodigal expenditures and patronage of the arts made her reign an era of splendor while her foreign policy and conquests carried Russian power and prestige to new heights. She cast a spell over most of her contemporaries in Russia and in Western Europe, and the spell has lingered. Here, in this book, is the dramatic story of an obscure German princess, without beauty or special advantage, but with courage, charisma, and determination, who became one of the arbiters of the affairs of Europe and renowned in history.

In the long course of late imperial Chinese history, servants and concubines formed a vast social stratum in the hinterland along the Grand Canal, particularly in urban areas. Concubinage and Servitude in Late Imperial China is a survey of the institutions and practice of concubinage and servitude in both the general populace and the imperial palace, with a focus on the examination of Ming-Qing political and socioeconomic history through the lives of this particular group of distinct yet associated individuals. The persistent theme of the book is how concubines, appointed by patriarchal polygamy, and servants, laboring under the master-servants hierarchy, experienced interactions and mobility within each institution and in associating with the other. While reviewing how ritual and law treated concubines and servants as patriarchal possessions, the author explores the perspectives available for individualconcubines and servants and the limitations in their daily circumstances, searching for their “positional powers” and “privilege of the inferiors” in the context of Chinese culture during the Ming-Qing time period. For a list of the book's tables and their sources, please see: http://www.wou.edu/wp/hsiehb/

The golden poison doctor had actually become a waste of an ugly girl, and on the wedding day, because of a dog's death, he couldn't even get in through the door! Heh, do you really think this old lady is a soft persimmon? A lowly slave frame-up? To die on the spot; to be insulted by a concubine? Disgusting and selling. Crown Prince? Teach him to be a good person! "If you marry me, you will be the crown prince's aunt. You and I will work together to abuse the scum, you dig the pit, and I will fill the hole." The two of them fought to form an alliance and turned the world upside down in the Northern Jin. Gu Qing left with a pat on his butt after taking in both powers. Who knew that he would be carried back to his room before the door opened? "I haven't even received my reward. Where are you going to flee to?" Gu Qing choked on his words. "How much?" "Not too much. First, return a baby to This King!"

As a soldier and an emperor, Napoleon was ruthless and determined; as a lover, he showed the same single-minded ferocity.

Profiles the women who were the lovers of Napoleon and whose lives reflected the political and social upheavals of post-Revolutionary France.