The sorrow of palace maids: palace maids are like flowers full of spring
In the inner palace with red walls and yellow tiles, the most beautiful one is the concubine, which is like a lotus pond with a fragrance of ten miles. All beautiful people are like hibiscus blossoming out of water, slim and graceful, fluttering in the wind. In China, the folk have always called the women owned by the emperor "the seventy-two concubines of the three palaces and six courtyards". The seventy-two concubines of the three palaces and six courtyards are completely popular in the folk, and there is no harsh basis. When you step into the Forbidden City for sightseeing, you will find that the three palaces are composed of two palaces and one hall, that is, the Qianqing Palace where the emperor lives and the Kunning Palace where the empress lives, plus the Jiaotai Palace next to it. In reality, there are only six palaces, that is, the "East Six Palaces" composed of Ramadan Palace, Jingren Palace, Chengqian Palace, Zhongcui Palace, Jingyang Palace and Yonghe Palace, and the "West Six Palaces" composed of Chuxiu Palace, Yikun Palace, Yongshou Palace, Changchun Palace, Fugong Palace and Chonghua Palace. Seventy-two concubines, no dynasty has this destiny. In fact, in ancient times, three, six, and nine were more regarded as imaginary numbers that suggested more, rather than real numbers, and seventy-two was a high-end multiple of three, six, and nine. Therefore, the seventy-two concubines of the three palaces and six courtyards were dealt with according to the possible environment, which meant that the harem of the Son of Heaven was full.
The number of concubines, specifications, and levels have changed over the ages. According to the harem system designed by the ancient system, the "River Refreshing Order" promulgated by the Northern Qi Dynasty is the most typical. It is divided into Zhaoyi, wife, concubine, imperial wife, and five royal daughters.
Concubines of various grades are just vases of various shapes, and have no formal political rights except to satisfy the lust of the monarch.
"Three thousand harem beauties"
For coquettish and suave monarchs, there are only a few concubines with heads and faces, and there are thousands of palace maids below.
After Qin Shi Huang swallowed up the six kingdoms, he collected all the concubines and palace maids from various countries, so that "there are more than 10,000 women in the harem, and his anger is rushing to the sky". Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty was greedy for women, and he widely collected five or six thousand palace maids. After Emperor Jin Wu fell to the Eastern Wu, he incorporated thousands of Wu palace people into his own court. Coquettish Saburo Li Longji also had "three thousand harem beauties". The maximum number of palace maids in the inner palace of the Ming Dynasty was nine thousand. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than three hundred palace maids, which were divided into two types: beautiful women and official women.
There are two main sources of palace maids. In addition to the folk beauty pageant, there are also wives and daughters of criminals who were confiscated. For example, Feng Shi, the civilized queen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, whose father Feng Langguan worshiped the governor, was executed for breaking the law, and she was thrown into the court. The queen of Tang Xiaoming, Zheng, was initially taken as a concubine by Li Na, the leader of the rebellion, and after Li's defeat, she was sentenced to be a palace servant. Li Shier, the concubine of the Jin Yuan Dynasty, was guilty of family crimes, and his parents were included in the palace supervision. According to the regulations of the authorities, the daughters of the prisoners must enter the palace. The wives and daughters of these criminals are no different from other folk daughters after entering the palace, so there is no discrimination
The palace maids were required to take over the court teachings to understand various courtesies and martial arts. The monarch of the Northern Wei Dynasty let them study writing and arithmetic; Emperor Xuanzong of Tang trained them in music and dancing; Jin Zhangzong asked the palace teacher (the court seat) to teach them to read. During lectures, the palace teacher and the palace maid were separated by green gauze. If there was anything wrong, the palace maid pasted the words on the yarn, and the palace teacher explained outside.
The palace maids have no official status. They are neither concubines nor concubines. They form a unique sexual relationship with the monarch without the name of husband and wife. The monarch is overwhelmed by the vast number of palace maids, and they can only be fortunate at occasional times. If the monarch goes to have sex with a palace maid on a whim, the eunuch will record the time. The Ming Dynasty stipulated that the palace maids were gracious, and there must be a royal gift. The clerk in the library recorded the date and time and the gift. If there is a pregnancy, it is possible to check it.
The palace girl is low-minded, and she is extremely obscene in the palace. She is slightly better than the junior eunuch, and may be abused at any time. De Ling said in the "Two Years of the Qing Palace":
The first time I saw a palace maid punished. When she took the socks for the Empress Dowager, she took two of them. The Empress Dowager found a hasty anger and called another palace maid to slap ten on each side of her lord's cheek. The palace maid was not beaten hard enough, and the Empress Dowager was very angry and said that they were all significant others, so she didn't even listen to the Empress Dowager's orders, so she called the palace maid who was beaten to beat the palace maid. I almost laughed out loud when I saw such a funny job, but I held back in the end. That night, I asked the two palace maids: "You were beaten interchangeably, what do you think you can do?" I wanted to ask them, just because I saw them talking and laughing as usual as soon as they walked out of the Empress Dowager's room. " It's nothing, "they said." We're all used to this kind of thing, and it's not worth taking it to heart. "In the end, I thought this kind of thing was common.
When palace maids entered the palace, except for the extreme individuals who were favored by the Son of Heaven and promoted, most of them were just maids who followed orders and did various tasks. Some dynasties tied them to the palace for life, some dynasties released a batch after the death of the old monarch, and the Qing palace stipulated that those who had been in the palace for ten years would be released to marry freely. Most of the palace maids were depressed and sad, and Bai Juyi said sympathetically: "Three thousand palace maids have rouge face, and a few spring without tears." In the eunuch sea where almost all men were floating, there were some pitiful female officials. They all gathered in the court, accompanying the king. They have a special status and a bizarre duality. They are similar to normal officials and hold a certain position in the palace. They can be occupied by the monarch at any time.
Female officials generally have the status of concubines, as long as the monarch has leisure and leisure, they can have fun with them at will. Concubine Li Chen of the Song Dynasty first entered the palace as a minister and slept, and when she made the bed and quilt for Zhenzong, she was put into a fine tent. Empress Dowager Ji of the Ming Dynasty was originally a female historian, and was in charge of the Nei Tibetan Treasury. Emperor Xianzong went to inspect and saw that Ji's response was like a flow, and immediately performed the dragon and phoenix.
The highest-ranking female official in Chinese history is probably Lu Daji of the Northern Qi Dynasty. She is an official who worships the prime minister (prime minister) and has a prominent influence. When she saw that Huang Hua, a palace servant, was fortunate enough to be the heir, she thought that she would adopt a daughter and recommended her as Mrs. Hongde. Huang Hua soon gave birth to a prince, so that the childless heir had a heir. Lu Daji held a great political gamble in order to protect his official luck for a long time. She forced the empress Hu from power by means of false accusations, and then helped Huang Hua's mother and son to become empress and crown prince respectively. Shangguan Waner of the Tang Dynasty was also a private property of her own. She was quite literate and well-versed in government affairs. She was reused by Zhongzong and specialized in the documents of the monarch. She ruled on most official affairs.
The system of female officials is black and white and often deformed. It is not a thing of the country, but a plaything in the hands of the monarch.
Family fortune
The monarch should fully consider his family background when registering queens and high-ranking concubines, but when recruiting ordinary concubines and palace maids, it is eclectic. The above environment is just any sign. If you carefully observe it, you will find that in different social situations, the monarch has a different position on the standards of the family, the most obvious of which is the difference between the peaceful world and the turbid world.
In the era of peace, the monarch adhered to the principle of political joint marriage, which was reflected in the choice of the first spouse in the right family. In the Jin Dynasty, where the "upper-grade family had no poor family, and the lower-grade powerless family", the noble family became a special class that monopolized the power. In order to gain their support for their own rule, the monarch almost gave all the positions of the queen to the door court's Ling Yuan.
The grandfather of Empress Hui Di Jia and his father Jia Chong were two generations of princes, Empress Hui Yang's father Yang Xuanzhi was made public by Hou Jin, Empress Ming Yu was born in the Jiangnan family, Empress Cheng Di Du was the great-granddaughter of the famous Confucian general Du Bing, Empress Kang Di Chu's grandfather Chu Chen Guan to General Andong, Empress Mu Dihe was elected by a famous family, and Empress Jianwen's family was the crown family. Empress An was the granddaughter of Wang Xizhi of Taifu Dingding.
In addition to individual reasons, the empresses of the Jin and Jin dynasties all came from the Wang Xie scholar clan. This kind of folk custom once fell in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and it was revived in the Sui and Tang dynasties, but the level was no longer as good as that of the Jin and Jin dynasties. The noble clan was a social power that had the absolute upper hand in politics, economy and culture. Because of hereditary factors and to ensure the benefits they had obtained, they appeared unalterably conservative, thus meeting the needs of the monarch to ensure the ruling order. The marriage contract between the two sides became a political coupon for both sides.
In the turbid times of social unrest, the marriages of the new monarchs were mostly turned to the middle and grassroots society, and joint marriages with the upper classes were rare. The reason is that their actions attacked the old order, and it was difficult for the gentry and the old power to adopt a mutual assistance stance; in addition, they needed the support and help of the emerging powers, in other words, they needed the mutual assistance of the middle and grassroots social forces who hoped to realize the redistribution of rights and benefits. Most of the new monarchs were heroes and heroes who rose from the middle and grassroots society. They were free and easy, suave, and uninhibited, and despised the views of their family background. Therefore, they were also eclectic in marriage matters. Some people married poor people, and even prostitutes.
Just as it was characteristic of the Jin Dynasty to hire the daughter of a court official, it was characteristic of Cao Wei to wear a phoenix crown on the head of a lowly person. The first person to start this folk custom was none other than Cao Cao (posthumously named Emperor Wu), who defeated the emperor without the name of the emperor. After he conferred the title of King Wei, the queen he worshiped was the Bianshi (posthumously as the queen) who had fallen into fireworks. Cao Pi founded the Wei Dynasty, first after Yuan Shaozi and Yuan Xi's wife Zhen, and then after Guo, who was born in the family of small officials. Cao Wei's change of course against the later law had political significance of rejecting the old power and creating a new scene.
