In the 276 years of the Ming Dynasty, there were a total of 16 emperors, two of whom had feelings for their nurses, which also made the Ming Dynasty have an unprecedented incident of emperor attachment to nurses.
The highest-ranking among the women in the inner court of the Ming Dynasty was the concubine, and the concubines of the Ming Dynasty were divided into four categories.
Among them, the highest status of these four types of concubines is the "Empress Dowager", that is, the emperor's grandmother;The second is the "Empress Dowager", the emperor's mother, which can also be referred to as the "Empress Dowager";After that, she was the emperor's wife and became the "empress".
The second-highest level concubines below the "Empress Dowager", "Empress Dowager" and "Empress" are ranked from high to low by "Imperial Concubine, Imperial Concubine, and Concubine".
Among them, "concubine" is the third category in the rank of concubines, and the different prefixes are used to distinguish the ranks, such as "virtuous concubine", "lady concubine", "Kang concubine" and so on. The fourth category with the lowest status is "talented, noble, beautiful, and elective".
The inner court of the Ming Dynasty, like the Song Dynasty, had six bureaus and one division, where eunuchs and court maids were controlled, and the women in the inner court were basically well educated.
Among them, the "palace maids" in the inner court are mainly divided into two categories, one is female officials, and the other is the palace maids who have served the emperor but have no position.
If they give birth to a child for the emperor, they will get a position, but throughout the history of the Ming Dynasty, there are only five palace maids who gave birth to children for the emperor, and their rank is basically very low.
In addition, there is also a type of women in the inner court called "nursing mothers", that is, "nurses", who are commonly known as "three women" together with "medical women" and "stable women", and are all employed by the court.
Once these women enter the palace, they are dressed the same as the palace maids, except that the "medical woman" and the "stable woman" can leave the palace after completing the tasks of the inner court, but when the "nurse" is assigned to a certain prince or princess, she will stay in the palace for life.
The "three women" are selected by the ceremonial room, and each time ten mothers who have given birth to a baby boy and a baby girl between the ages of 15 and 20, and then assign a place to live and plan a specific area for living and eating.
Usually, the mother who gave birth to a baby boy was assigned to take care of the princess, and the mother who gave birth to a baby girl was assigned to take care of the prince.
These women were selected and managed by eunuchs, the "nursing mothers" would be selected from the people, the rest of the literate women would be responsible for the secretary of the inner court and other work that required culture, and the illiterate women were responsible for the cooking, female celebrity, and song and dance performances in the palace.
Later, because there were not many literate women among the people, to the point where the supply exceeded demand, so in 1459, the emperor decreed: eunuchs selected unmarried women from the rich family, and aged between fifteen and forty, these women must be able to write and count, and then ** palace, unified to receive the training of eunuchs.
After reaching a certain age, the palace maids of the inner court can also go out of the palace to marry, but the women who want to stay in the palace for life will be assigned to the Huanyi Bureau when they reach the old age, and the women who are at fault will also be sent here.
In the history of the Ming Dynasty, there were two nurses who had a love-hate "emotional line" with the emperor.
The eighth emperor of the Ming Dynasty was Zhu Jianshen of Ming Xianzong, who did not do much in his life, and only one of the more prominent things was to set up his 17-year-old nurse as a concubine.
She is Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshen's favorite nurse Wan, and later became his Wan Guifei.
When she was 4 years old, Concubine Wan was elected to the court and became a maid in the palace of the Empress Dowager Sun. At the age of 20, Wan Guifei was assigned by Empress Dowager Sun to take care of the crown prince Zhu Jianshen.
At that time, because Zhu Jianshen's father Ming Yingzong was captured by the Mongols, although he was made the crown prince by the Empress Dowager Sun, he did not get the support of the ministers, and then he was abolished as the crown prince, so that Ming Yingzong's younger brother became the new emperor, and the temple name was Emperor Jing.
Since then, Zhu Jianshen has been living in dire straits. Fortunately, in more than a year, Ming Yingzong was rescued, and he snatched the throne and ascended the throne again, and Zhu Jianshen became the crown prince again, and his life was better.
In 1464, Zhu Jianshen succeeded to the throne, the temple name Xianzong, due to the influence of the environment in which he grew up, he had no ruling power, and was easily controlled by flatterers, especially the love of his life, Wan Guifei, who turned his mother into a favorite concubine.
When Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshen ascended the throne at the age of 17, Wan Guifei was already a 34-year-old middle-aged woman.
In the History of the Ming Dynasty: The Biography of the Queen's Concubine, the historian recorded her like this:"Alert, good at welcoming the emperor's will, then greedy for the abolition of the queen Wu, the six palaces are happy to enter the palace", "The emperor is fortunate to travel, and the concubine is the forerunner".
During the reign of Xianzong, although Wan Guifei was not the queen, she was like the queen, she not only used her grace to collect wealth for the family, but also tried every means to prevent other concubines and palace maids from giving birth to heirs for Xianzong.
At the beginning, Xianzong's queen Wu wanted to suppress Wan Guifei, so she used whipping, who knew that Xianzong was furious, and Empress Wu became a deposed queen and was sent to the cold palace.
Later, the Wang family became the second queen of Xianzong, and they all knew that the inner court was dominated by Wan Guifei, and Queen Wang was only the nominal queen.
According to historical records, Wan Guifei was scheming and ruthless, and a number of ministers, eunuchs, monks and nuns who were good friends with her constantly instigated Xianzong, so that Xianzong had no intention of ruling the government.
One of the things that worries Xianzong the most is that he has never had an heir. In fact, this is all due to the viciousness of Concubine Wan, her inner court is becoming more and more arrogant, if the woman in the palace is pregnant, she will try her best to beat it out.
The first prince of Ming Xianzong was born to Wan Guifei in 1466, but died in less than a year.
The second prince was born to Concubine Bai, who was killed by Concubine Wan Guifei not long after being made the crown prince and unfortunately passed away.
When someone pointed out that the second prince was killed by Wan Guifei, Xianzong did not believe it and did not punish him.
Nearly nine years have passed, and Xianzong still does not have a prince.
The third prince was a eunuch who was able to grow up without hiding from Concubine Wan and finally inherited the throne.
The prince's biological mother was the palace maid Ji, who was originally the daughter of a barbarian local official, and later entered the palace as a female historian because she was reduced to a captive, and was responsible for taking care of the royal warehouse.
One day, Xianzong met Ji, and then became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy.
According to the History of the Ming Dynasty, the Biography of the Queen's Concubine recorded that as early as when Wan Guifei learned that Ji was pregnant, she ordered her to have an abortion, but the palace maid sent did not obey the order.
In 1470, the Ji family gave birth to a prince, and Wan Guifei sent the eunuch Zhang Min to secretly execute their mother and son, and Zhang Min also did not obey.
The eunuchs and palace maids in the inner court all believed that Xianzong had no heirs to inherit the throne, and the prince who had survived could not be poisoned by Concubine Wan again.
So everyone was tight-lipped, Zhang Min hid from Xianzong and Wan Guifei, and secretly arranged for others to raise the prince.
Later, when the Wu family learned that this prince was alive, they began to assist in raising it, so that one day they could bring down Wan Guifei.
One day in 1474, the eunuch Zhang Min was combing Xianzong's hair before telling the secret, and when Xianzong learned that he still had a prince alive, he immediately ordered someone to take the prince to his side.
Xianzong gently stroked the young prince and cried excitedly.
He wept with joy and declared, "This child is like me!"Then, word spread throughout the palace.
A minister was worried about the safety of the emperor's biological mother, Ji, so he suggested that Xianzong should place Ji near the emperor's dormitory, so that it would be convenient for the mother and son to meet, and Xianzong allowed it.
But the Ji family didn't wait for the good days to come, and was harmed by Wan Guifei.
According to the "History of the Ming Dynasty: The Biography of the Queen", a month after Xianzong and the little prince recognized, the little prince's biological mother, Ji, suddenly died.
Some people think that Wan Guifei is behind it, and some people think that the Ji family is afraid of Wan Guifei and knows that his life is short, so he chooses to hang himself in order to save the little prince.
After Ji's death, Xianzong posthumously named her a concubine.
The eunuch Zhang Min, who did not obey Wan Guifei's orders at the beginning, also chose to hang himself for fear of Wan Guifei's retribution.
Later, the little prince became the crown prince and was taken care of by Xianzong's grandmother, the Empress Dowager Zhou.
But Wan Guifei still didn't give up and still wanted to harm the prince.
Once, Wan Guifei invited the prince to a banquet, and the Empress Dowager Zhou knew Wan Guifei's wrist, so she instructed the prince not to eat anything given by Wan Guifei when he went to the banquet.
At the beginning, Wan Guifei asked the prince to eat, but the prince refused on the grounds that he had already used the meal, but under Wan Guifei's questioning, the prince had to admit that he was afraid that things would be poisonous, which made Wan Guifei angry.
She knew very well that when the prince grew up in the future, she would definitely be retaliated against, so she united with the eunuch Liang Fang and others to instigate Xianzong to abolish the prince and set up another person.
Fortunately, Concubine Wan's trick with the traitor did not succeed, and she finally died of illness in 1487 at the age of 58.
Wan Guifei's death made Xianzong feel painful, and within a few months, Xianzong went with Wan Guifei at the age of 41.
In September 1487, the crown prince successfully ascended the throne, and he was the filial piety of the Ming Dynasty.
Later, Xiaozong posthumously crowned his biological mother Ji as the queen, moved the coffin to the imperial tomb, and built a Fengci Hall to worship his biological mother.
The ministers finally dared to straighten their backs and speak, suggesting that Xiaozong demote Wan Guifei and thoroughly investigate the cause of the death of Xiaozong's biological mother Ji.
However, Xiaozong did not agree, the reason was that he felt that his father Emperor Xianzong loved Concubine Wan so much when he was alive, and now that he is gone, there is no need to rehash the old accounts, and it can be regarded as filial piety to his father.
In the end, Xiaozong only demoted the eunuch Liang Fang, who had colluded with Wan Guifei, and put Li Zixing in prison, and finally died of illness in prison.
The first empress of Xianzong and the only Wu family who was deposed by him also died a good death.
After Xiaozong remembered the abolition of the Wu family in his childhood, he had reached out to raise him for a period of time, so he took the Wu family out of the cold palace after the abolition of the abolition, and rewarded her with food and clothing in the future, all of which were subject to the level of the queen mother.
In 1509, after the abolition, Wu died of illness, and Xiaozong buried him as a concubine.
Xianzong's second empress, Wang, became the empress dowager, and later became the empress dowager, died of illness in 1518, and was finally buried in the imperial mausoleum, and the shrine was enshrined in the Taimiao.
In the history of China, Zhu Jianshen's attachment to the nursing mother Wan was also unprecedented. Xianzong's single-mindedness also added an important stroke to the destruction of the Ming Dynasty in the future.
One hundred years after the incident of Xianzong's pampering of the nursing mother, there was another emperor of the Apocalypse who was attached to the nursing mother in the Ming Dynasty, but the relationship between the two people was relatively special.
The nurse of the Emperor of the Apocalypse was named Hak, who entered the palace at the age of 18, but before entering the palace, the Hakka gave birth to a child and became a widow after entering the palace.
This kind of situation has never occurred in the previous Ming Dynasty court when screening women into the palace, and the Hakka family is a special case.
The Emperor of the Apocalypse was very attached to the nursing mother Hak, who lived near the Emperor's bedroom when he was 40 years old.
Despite the opposition of the Empress and her courtiers, the Emperor of the Apocalypse still went against the grain, making the Hakka "Lady of the Holy Saints" and giving her an expensive gold seal.
Later, the Hakka colluded with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, and with the help of the Hakka family, Wei Zhongxian was able to rise to prominence.
Because the Hakka clan had a relationship with the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, the Emperor of the Apocalypse also gave Wei Zhongxian the honor of the royal family, and sent the illiterate Wei Zhongxian to work as the celebrant supervisor.
It's just that the Hakka family and Wei Zhongxian had bad intentions, poisoned Empress Zhang and other concubines in the harem, and seized power in the previous dynasty, doing all kinds of bad things.
The ministers were dissatisfied with the fact that the Hakka were with the emperor from morning to night every day, and wanted to expel her from the palace, so the Hakka had no choice but to move to a private residence in Beijing.
Who knew that in just one month, the Emperor of the Apocalypse missed the Hakka family too much, and she returned to the palace.
The ministers objected to the Emperor of the Apocalypse keeping the Hakka by his side, but the Emperor of the Apocalypse insisted on going his own way.
The Hakka clan can not only enter and leave the palace at any time, but also have hundreds of retinues on each trip, and the battle is comparable to that of a queen.
After the death of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, the Hakka lay on his coffin and cried, knowing that her life was approaching.
Later, the Hakka burned a golden locket containing the fetal hair of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, as well as childhood hairpins, teeth, nails, and other items.
When the new emperor ascended the throne, he ordered the confiscation of all the property of the Hakka family and Wei Zhongxian, and sent the Hakka family to the Huanyi Bureau.
More than a month later, Hakka was whipped to death by a eunuch, and her body was reportedly left outside the imperial city.
The degree of willfulness of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty is unprecedented, since Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperors of all dynasties have violated the ancestral teachings because of their own selfish desires, did not listen to the advice of the courtiers, and acted arbitrarily.
The two nurses, although they are 100 years apart, have had a relationship with the emperor. Whether it is a nurse or a eunuch, they should not be involved in the government and politics, and they cannot have a place.
Although the new emperor punished his father's nurse Keshi, the Ming Dynasty's qi was approaching, and it was difficult to recover.
This article was originally written by Yan Huaiqing, welcome to pay attention and take you to grow knowledge together!