In the Qing court, there were about 3,000 eunuchs, compared to about one-third of the Ming Dynasty. And the eunuchs existed because of the needs of work in the court, without whom many dirty and manual work would not be possible.
During the Qing Dynasty, eunuchs were mainly from the people, and some were sent to the palace for wars or crimes. The Zhili region was the place that produced the most eunuchs, probably because of its geographical location.
These eunuchs were all from poor families, and they were desperate, and the only way out for them to make their children eunuchs would otherwise starve to death in the famine.
If you want to become a eunuch, you need the help of acquaintances or intermediaries. The child needs to be castrated before the age of 10, usually five or six years old is the best time, otherwise it will be life-threatening.
There were no sterilization equipment and antibiotics in that era, so the mortality rate was still high. Castration of a child is a big deal and requires adequate preparation.
1. Before the operation, the surgeon and the parents of the person concerned need to make it clear that they will accept the operation voluntarily regardless of life or death. During the procedure, the surgeon will do his best to ensure the success of the surgery.
Surgery is life-threatening and can affect your child's future, so it needs to be treated with caution. 2. Before the operation, the child will need to be put in a separate room and given a liquid diet to empty the stomach and intestines.
This is to ensure that the surgery goes smoothly. 3. This kind of surgery is expensive and risky, requiring more than 40 days of care and at least nearly 100 taels of silver.
This is a huge burden for poor families. Therefore, the surgery needs to be performed by making an IOU. After the successful operation, the child entered the court and had an income, which was also repaid with interest.
Due to adequate preparation, the surgery generally proceeds smoothly. The knife wielder is highly skilled, and the operation will not take too long. They are all well-known experts in this area, so the choice of surgeon is very deliberate.
After surgery, parents need to do one crucial thing: properly dispose of their child's excisions. This excision was called "momentum" by the ancients. This "trend" cannot be thrown away at will, and must be protected.
Usually it is soaked in sesame oil, then covered with oilcloth, wrapped in lime, wrapped in red cloth, and then hidden in the "liter", which is a measuring device in ancient times.
After hiding it in the "ascending", it is hung on the beam of the surgeon's house, which is a prayer for the child's happy life in the future, which is called "step by step" and "red luck shines".
This may seem like the artist's respect for the child, but in fact they have another purpose. The ancients all had a concept: "The body is fat, and the parents are the recipients". After death, even the hair and nails that fell off before death must be preserved and placed in a coffin.
Therefore, the "momentum" that the child has been cut off for the sake of life must be buried with the deceased after his death, so that it can be regarded as a complete corpse. The knife makers saw this in mind, and forced them to hang their children's "momentum" on the beams of their houses, which in fact was used as collateral.
When the child enters the palace and has money, he will go to his "momentum". The price is very high, and it is estimated that it will not be possible to get it back without a few hundred taels of money. When the eunuchs have money, they will try their best to redeem their "momentum," and they attach great importance to this matter.
Father, mother, the child is unfilial, and he redeemed what you gave me. "They're crying and screaming, and it's so sad. Once these eunuchs die, this "potential" will return to its original body, return to Zhao, and return to its original owner.