In Chinese history, eunuchs were a special group of beings who were the guarantors of the purity of the blood of the royal heirs, but they also suffered the cruel pain of purification.
In movies and TV series, everyone knows something about the eunuch body purification link, but few people know that the palace maid also has to be cleansed, and the process is more cruel. In the majestic Forbidden City, there are two kinds of people, one is born with a position of power and enjoys prosperity; The other is eunuchs and palace maids, who get up early and return late, coarse tea and light meals, and heavy physical labor.
In ancient times, the rules of behavior of the court ladies were very strict, and if they made mistakes, they would be severely punished. This punishment is not only to hit the buttocks of the palace maids, but also to beat them in the back, and if such a punishment lasts too long, it often leads to the death or disability of the palace maids.
Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty believed in Taoism, which is an excellent traditional culture in our country, if you can follow Taoist thought in life, maintain a pure heart and few desires, simple and natural attitude, you will inevitably be able to prolong your life.
However, Emperor Jiajing did not act in the correct Taoist way, but was confused by the Fang Shi and had to use the clean dew collected by the palace maids for alchemy every day.
These ladies leave early and return late every day, and if they do not collect enough dew, they are subjected to verbal abuse at least and torture at worst. However, the dew evaporates easily, causing many palace maids to be unable to complete their tasks, leaving numerous scars on their bodies.
Repression and resistance go hand in hand, under the long-term abuse, the sixteen palace maids led by Yang Jinying could not bear it, and after careful consideration, they decided to join forces in an attempt to ** Emperor Jiajing.
But after all, the palace maids are different from the Jiangyang thieves and lack actual combat experience, while Emperor Jiajing is in good health, and although there are many palace maids, they can't strangle them to death despite their hard work.
Eventually, the assassination was stopped by the palace guards.
In feudal society, challenging the authority of the Ninety-Five Emperor is undoubtedly the greatest sin, which led to the murder of many young palace maids under torture. And this practice of Emperor Jiajing is not an isolated case among feudal emperors.
Mingshenzong is obsessed**, and often orders the palace maid to play, and once the melody does not suit his heart, the palace maid will be immediately executed. From the experiences of these palace maids, we can get a glimpse of the miserable experience of the palace maids during the feudal dynasty.
Although there are a few eunuchs and palace maids in history who have reached the top of power by virtue of their wisdom (such as Shichang Servants, Wei Zhongxian, etc.), in the long river of history, there are very few eunuchs and palace maids who can reach the peak of power.
The eunuchs not only endured the hardships of life, but also faced a major challenge in life - palace punishment. In ancient times, emperors attached great importance to the continuation of the bloodline, however, if there were only women in the palace, it was difficult to bear heavy physical labor.
Therefore, when a man first enters the palace, he is deprived of fertility. This type of surgery is very dangerous in modern times, not to mention the lack of antibiotics in ancient times. Many eunuchs died of infection after surgery.
In this way, the son of a poor family endured torture and became a member of the imperial family.
In ancient times, the purification of the palace maids and the cruel treatment of the eunuchs made many powerful eunuchs have ** behavior. The emperor is the core of the palace, and the rise and fall of the concubines are closely related to the emperor.
In order to gain status and status, the concubines needed to do everything in their power to please the emperor, so no matter which dynasty they were in, the emperor's harem was full of fierce competition and brutal struggles, and the concubines rushed to be favored by the emperor, hoping to give birth to an imperial heir, so as to obtain the wealth and honor of the first life by virtue of the relationship between mother and son.
Although the palace ladies were of humble status, they often accompanied the emperor, so they became potential competitors for the concubines. In order to avoid this risk, some concubines would resort to claustrophobia to disrupt the reproductive function of the palace maids.
The principle of claustrophobia is similar to that of palace punishment, but the way it is performed is much more brutal. According to a book from the Ming Dynasty called Jieshi Remnants, claustrophobia was widely used in the court at that time.
During the Ming Dynasty, women who had just entered the palace were brutally tortured, they were first given a large amount of *** objects, and then they were violently hit in the abdomen with sticks by eunuchs, until a part of the body fell off, and they would lose their fertility.
The abdomen is a weak point of the human body, and if the eunuch cannot accurately control the force, too much force can lead to death. However, exactly which part will be shot down is still debated to this day.
According to the Qing Dynasty, there was a part called the "Shame Bone", which controlled a woman's fertility.
The scientific basis for this claim may be debatable. During the Ming Dynasty, the number of female officials in the palace was as high as 9,000, most of whom were carefully selected women from good folk families, and their family backgrounds must be innocent.
In the Qing Dynasty, the requirements for palace maids were more stringent, they must have Manchu blood, and they were selected every three years, and only those women who were young and beautiful and had a dignified character were eligible to enter the palace.
Those ladies who failed to gain the emperor's favor in the palace were sent out of the palace at the age of twenty-five.
Marriages in ancient times were usually carried out around the age of fourteen or fifteen, and court ladies in their twenties often had difficulty finding suitable partners. In such cases, the feudal emperor showed rare benevolence, sometimes looking for a mate for the court ladies of some official families.
For the palace maids who leave the palace, the problem is not only to get married, but also to make a living. The income of the palace maids is actually higher than that of ordinary people, and after leaving the palace, if you only think about yourself, you can live more than enough, but these palace maids usually have to bear the burden of the family, so the money they have accumulated is not abundant.
The palace maids have long been accustomed to life in the palace, and some palace maids find it difficult to adapt to the complex social environment after leaving. Therefore, many palace ladies choose to return to the palace to live again through relationships.
Although the Qianlong Emperor issued several decrees prohibiting this phenomenon, the situation remained uncontrollable. Whether they were palace maids or eunuchs, they were all victims of feudal imperial power, and not only had to endure heavy manual labor, but also were forced to lose their fertility.
Fortunately, now that such a system is a thing of the past, there will be no more poor people like them.