What happened to the last "Three Wives and Four Concubines"? Primary 3 is an advance or a regression in history? The article introduces China's wife and concubine system, and today I will talk about the ultimate version of the wife and concubine system - the emperor's exclusive concubine system, commonly known as the harem on the Internet.
Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor had four concubines; The Xia Dynasty increased to nine concubines; Yin Shang continued to increase to twenty-seven women; In the Zhou Dynasty, it was "in accordance with the will of heaven" and increased to the extreme of the yang number - nine hundred and eighty-one royal wives.
Three women in one play, there are more people in this harem, there are more rights and wrongs. In order to facilitate management, Zhou Gongdan of the Zhou Dynasty formulated a set of concubine systems with strict hierarchies and strict responsibilities. It is recorded in the Book of Rites:
The Son of Heaven has a queen, a wife, a wife, a concubine, a wife, and a concubine.
The ancients set up six palaces, three wives, nine concubines, twenty-seven wives, and eighty-one royal wives.
Hey, didn't you say "three palaces and six courtyards"? How did you become the "Three Ladies of the Six Palaces"?
The Book of Rites actually says it very clearly:
The queen has six palaces, and the princes and wives have three palaces.
In other words, the sixth house first referred to the residence of the queen, while the third house referred to the residence of the princes and wives.
Later, with the demise of the feudal system, the meaning of the three palaces changed again, and in the Han Dynasty, the emperor, the queen mother, and the empress were collectively called the three palaces, or the empress dowager, the queen mother, and the empress were collectively called the three palaces. Tang Muzong called the two palaces together with the queen mother and the three palaces. The six palaces are called the six palaces, which no longer specifically refer to the queen, and the palace (garden) where the concubine lives refers to the concubine.
The "Three Palaces and Six Courtyards" we are familiar with are precisely from the architecture of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The three palaces refer to the Qianqing Palace, the Jiaotai Palace and the Kunning Palace, where the harem residences, and the "Six Courtyards" are located in the "East Sixth Courtyard" and "West Sixth Courtyard" respectively on the east and west roads of the "Three Palaces". Because the "three palaces and six courtyards" are mainly the residence of the emperor's concubines, after the Ming and Qing dynasties, "three palaces and six courtyards" generally refer to the emperor's harem.
"Seventy-two concubines" refers to the number of people in the harem, which is an imaginary number, just like "one call and one hundred responses" and "million troops", not a specific number, but a large number of people in the emperor's harem.
Although the large number of concubines is mainly to satisfy the emperor's desires, they also play an important role in cultivating heirs to the throne and ensuring that imperial power is passed on from generation to generation.
For example, when the old emperor dies, the new emperor is young and mediocre, cowardly, or the imperial heir is interrupted, the empress has the right to supervise and assist the new emperor in the name of guardian, and even to exercise imperial power on behalf of the emperor by weighing the system or hanging the curtain to listen to the government. Everyone knows the famous people in this area, and I won't say much about it after laughing.
Although the "Book of Rites" has long stipulated the number of concubines, it must be implemented by people, but the emperor will always have no bottom line in satisfying his own selfish desires.
The concubines of the Han Dynasty were divided into eight levels: queen, lady, beauty, lover, eighth son, seventh son, chief envoy, and young envoy. The Tang Dynasty was divided into nine levels: queen, concubine, concubine, Jieyu, beauty, talent, Baolin, royal maid, and talented girl, and the number of people also increased greatly.
And if you have a concubine, you have to have someone to serve you, right?
In the face of the palace maids who are waiting, many emperors are not picky eaters, and once they rise, the palace maids will also get "good luck", so the number of people in the harem must not only be regarded as famous concubines.
Since the Han Dynasty, the size of the emperor's harem began to expand, when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty broke 1,000, Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty had reached five or six thousand, Emperor Wu of the Jin Dynasty Sima Yan exceeded 10,000, and even reached 40,000 people during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years of the Tang Dynasty - no wonder An Lushan rebelled.
Even if it is only counted as canonized and famous, the most concubines should be the "Emperor of the Ages" Kangxi, the official history records that he has 66 concubines, followed by Qianlong, he has 41 concubines, and the third is Tang Xuanzong, with 39 concubines - that is to say, in Li Longji's harem, you only have less than a 1 in 1,000 chance of becoming a concubine, which is more than 10 times more difficult than taking the civil service exam (the civil service pass rate is generally maintained at 1between 28% and 5%). Therefore, those little fairies who fantasize about crossing into the harem to compete for favor have a high probability of having no future.
The concubine system is not only a marriage and family system, because it is limited to and occurs in the emperor's family, so it is obviously different from the marriage system of ordinary families, and has become an important part of China's ancient political system. The so-called imperial family affairs are state affairs, and for the sake of the harem, there have been many stories in history that have caused national turmoil and even changed dynasties. In fact, in the final analysis, it is the consequence of too much concentration of power, the rise and fall of the world, "where do you know about the concubine in the deep palace", how innocent is the red face, and bear this infamy.