Top 4 Legendary Beauties of Ancient China

now I'm sure you've heard of Helen of Troy the beautiful woman with the face that launched a thousand ships well in China there's a woman so beautiful that her face sinks fish wow really that's what they say about her hey everyone welcome to learn Chinese now I'm Jared Madsen today we are going to look at the beautiful women of China well not exactly that anyway it's what the Chinese call si da mei nu or the four Great Beauties of Ancient China each of them has a fascinating story and as we'll see each have their own little catchphrase this video is sponsored by surf shark VPN number Diaochan was born at the end of the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago which is to say one of the worst times in Chinese history it was a time of chaos and uncertainty Diaochan's father was a strategist for the Han Dynasty one day a warlord named Dong Zhuo came into the capital with his Army and declared himself Regent to the throne it was basically a c coup but he didn't kill the emperor so nobody could really say anything also because he was cruel and yeah that's right he drank human blood so nobody really wanted to mess with him everyone was like let's get rid of this guy but they couldn't really send anyone in because his bodyguard Lu Bu was basically the best fighter ever like Achilles Chinese version so he had super cool armor and he was colorful and stuff stuff like that Diaochan's father had a secret weapon and that was the girl herself she was one of the most beautiful women in the entire Empire also in all of Chinese history she was so beautiful that everyone would say or Diaochan eclipses the moon her father decided to set not one but two honey traps he first introduced Lu Bu The Fighter guard to his daughter and suggested that they marry The Bodyguard was obviously totally enraptured by her and wanted to marry as soon as possible but then the father introduced his daughter to Dong Zhuo the warlord and the warlord was like yep I'm taking her for myself she's beautiful this is great so The Bodyguard was obviously like hey wait what why is she here in your court looking like your concubine not cool man Diaochan pretended to love The Bodyguard and told him that Dong Zhuo the warlord was a monster and he had kidnapped her so the bodyguard Lu Bu he was like this is insane I cannot take this I have risked my life for you so many times that's it warlord he rushed in killed him now that Diaochan's father had killed off the warlord he gathered his forces and drove lu bu out of the palace and with that the Han Dynasty lived to fight another day so the moral of the story is no matter how much human blood you drink you cannot resist a beautiful women number two Wang Zhaojun [Music] yet we're going back a few hundred years before to the early days of the Han Dynasty when things were a little bit better yet there was a big problem China's expansion to the North had set off all the tribes living there they lost it they went crazy they were like no get out of here we don't want you they gathered into great bands so they basically these tribes came together to form one huge Army beat the Han Dynasty Army and we're starting to make invasions into China proper this was a major headache for the Han Dynasty so the emperor decided to send beautiful Chinese ladies over to the tribes to be their princesses that would keep the tribes happy and bring the two sides closer together ensuring his expansion and massive Empire then he had to figure out well who's he going to send over the emperor had his advisor sege among the palace maidens for prospects he wanted someone who was attractive but not too attractive because he wanted the really attractive ladies obviously for himself now the truth is there was one lady who was the most beautiful woman in the Kingdom her name was Wang Zhaojun and her catchphrase is Zhaojun drops birds out of the sky I think that the birds see her and her ah so beautiful I can't fly anywhere and fall down is that a good thing or a bad thing ah well the problem was she was poor now why is that a problem because when the ladies wanted to get closer to the emperor to try and become a concubine or something along those lines they were expected to actually bribe the advisor so they kind of had to come from a family with money to pay off the advisers pay off the Unix is what was actually going on anyway the the advisers who were often Unix would go and tell the emperor oh this beauty is great and she's wonderful and you know as they're putting the gold coins in their pocket but Zhaojun was poor so she couldn't pay anyone and let's also say that she was a woman of great moral character and even if she had the money she probably wouldn't have paid them right probably and so the advisers figured that they would just send her to Mongolia because right they're not making any money so they told the emperor that you know okay we found one that you're looking for let's send her off she'll be the main princess everything will be good no problem not great looking right but good enough and since he hadn't actually seen her in person the emperor hadn't seen her in person he was just basing everything off the word of the advisers and so he agreed to it the deal was struck and the tribal chieftain came from the north came down to the Chinese Capital to collect his new bride now just before he was going to send her off to the chieftain the emperor got a glimpse of Zhaojun and he was stunned how could his advisers suggest that he send such an amazing beautiful woman to The Boondocks he ran back to his advisers and said you know hey can can can we switch her out right can we do something like I keep her here no one don't notice it's not too late right she hasn't gone yet problem was that some of those tribal members had actually seen her so they knew what she looked like they were they were amazed at her beauty and so they would not let this ruse slide so the emperor tearing his eye sent off the best concubine Prospect he ever had to some dirty tribal Chieftain but he gots a little bit of payback at the end how did he get his payback well he killed all of those advisers so I guess the moral of the story is don't send the girls to the north these days plenty of Nefarious parties want to track what you do online be it advertisers hackers or worse but surf shark can be your digital Defender surf shark is a VPN or virtual private Network that creates a private tunnel from you to its remote servers and hides your identity by making it seem like you're at that distant location rather than where you actually are keeping you and your information safe from the internet's sketchy suitors did you know that when you shop online some websites actually change their prices based on the location and data surf shark can keep you Anonymous and help you stay Frugal or are you a digital Nomad working away from home surf shark encrypts all of your data and keeps you safe while surfing on public Wi-Fi no matter where you are so for Less less than the price of a bubble tea you can get this peace of mind for yourself just click the link in the description and use my special promo code LCN that's promo code LCN and you'll receive an exclusive deal with an extra 4 months of safe surfing completely free if you are not in any way completely satisfied there's no lifelong commitment here with surf shark's 30-day refund guarantee so be bold and browse bravely number three Xi Shi now Xi Shi ought to be famous for her catchphrase alone Xi Shi sinks fish you might say hey what is that that's horrible the idea is that seizure would you know be walking in a river or a pond and the fish would look up at her and they would be like so like ah she's so beautiful and forget how to swim and sink to the bottom hopefully they didn't die like the birds falling out of the sky but I don't know maybe that would be how she would go fishing Xi Shi was born in the spring and Autumn period sometime around 500 BC this was a time when a small number of countries were vying to rule China this story has two kings so there's King Fu Qiu and King Gou Jian Fu Qiu had just defeated Goan in battle and he had come to take over his kingdom now Gou Jian had a famous adviser finally finally knew that King Fu Qiu couldn't resist beautiful women and so he scoured the country looking for someone who could seduce him and ruin his kingdom from within that's when he found cure as we learned before Xi Shi could make fish sink and finally presented her as a gift to King Fu Qiufell in love and ignored all matters of State his top General repeatedly told him to get rid of her but this only infuriated the king who had his General killed fi's Kingdom weakened greatly and Gou Jian was able to make a Counterattack defeating fui and forcing him to commit death forcing him to commit death perfect right well actually not for Xi Shi sure see she had lived with fui for 20 years so she basically got married and and lived with him and he was quite good to her and she grew quite attached to him the defeat was bittersweet for her her country had won she had done this great deed for her country and now they are independent now they can live the lives they want but she basically lost her husband she had to get her husband killed so now some say that she committed death others say that she ran off with the adviser finally and some say that she just kind of disappeared so the moral of the story is if you're going to be part of a Honey Trap make sure it's less than 20 years number four youngii So now Yang Guifei is a kind of home wrecker for the Four Beauties young grew up in the peak of the tong Dynasty roughly 1300 years ago so her catchphrase was gy sua guy's beauty is so great that she puts flowers to shame that one kind of actually makes sense the interesting thing is that Yang Guifei didn't look anything like the supermodels of our time in fact she was described in terms of being rotund or even obese but full figured women were the style in the tong Dynasty so she fit in perfectly she was introduced to the emperor one day and he instantly became enamored spending more and more time with her he gave her the title of Guifei or honorable concubine that's what it means and ignored all of his other concubines in fact he pretty much ignored everything actually including like all matters of state and if they're being attacked or anything like that while all of this was happening a general named An Lushan was planning a rebellion some say that he was having an affair with yangu and so she was trying to distract the emperor from not noticing his plot either way the emperor was completely and totally oblivious to what was going on and so when the Rebellion happened the emperor was forced to flee the capital once they left the emperor's forces surrounded him and refused to let him leave or do anything until he met one condition execute the traitor Yang Guifei she's the one who caused all of this whether it was intentional or not the problem is there now at first of course he refused said hey I'm the emperor get out of here with this nonsense but then he realized that he kind of didn't have any choice when all of his generals and advisers were like yeah no she's got to go or we go and then you're just going to be a dude standing here right good luck being an emperor of nothing so he agreed and she was sent off to commit which again they didn't kill her but I guess they did his soldiers then got back to work organizing a Counterattack on the capital now Yang Guifei wasn't even buried with a coffin she was considered a traitor for distracting the emperor at this critical time now apparently later on he had her body dug up and put into a coffin and so he had a portrait made of her and put that in this beautiful room and he kind of had this whole Shrine to her and he would go and just kind of stare at her all day so I guess that was kind of distracting as well but not as bad as actually having her there but obviously he missed her a lot everybody in China knows about the Four Beauties some of you might be thinking wait a minute there's like a billion people in China right now and then if you add all of history there's billions there's only four Beauties I mean there's obviously more than just four but those four are the most famous they have insane backstories and awesome catchphrases all right that's it for the Four Beauties of Ancient China you you guys have anything that you want me to talk about please leave that in the comments below don't forget to like And subscribe see you next time actually this one probably has a more clear moral if you have great power or you're the boss of the company don't get caught up with the secretaries