An Unreachable Queen's Dream: The strict selection procedure of imperial concubines in Ming Dynasty is comparable to the draft.

If you ask which day can be regarded as "Women's Day" in the Ming Dynasty, then the most accurate answer is probably the first day of the third lunar month.

Because in the year when the Ming Dynasty was established: the first day of March in the first year of Hongwu (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, did something that had a great relationship with the women of the Ming Dynasty, especially the women of the "first family": ordered Zhu Sheng, a Confucian scholar, to compile and print the Women's Commandments and distribute them throughout the country. The main content of this book is to collect the glorious deeds of virtuous queens of past dynasties, and then promote learning throughout the country. Especially the women of Zhu Yuanzhang's family, want to open a lecture hall in the harem, which will be taught by the editor-in-chief Zhu Sheng himself. All concubines, including the queen, should attend and study hard.

Zhu Sheng, who is in charge of editing and editing, is the editor-in-chief, not the author, because this female commandment is well known. It was first written by Ban Zhao, a female writer in the Eastern Han Dynasty. It includes seven chapters: humble and weak, husband and wife being together, observing women's morality, submission and uncles. Its central idea can be reflected from the name: educate women to obey, wait on their husbands, never leave the house, never strike back, never scold, never talk back, respect their in-laws, never gossip, never interfere casually, even if their husbands don't want to. Be patient when you are wronged, and listen when others say you are not good. Treat people with humility and learn to please their husbands, brothers and sisters-such women are 100% good women.

Zhu Yuanzhang basically agreed with Ban Zhao's evaluation criteria. The reason why he wants Zhu Sheng to rewrite it is because in his eyes, to be a 100% good woman, especially a good woman in the "first family", there is another more important quality that is not to interfere in politics at will. This article was also written into the edited version of Women's Commandments by Zhu Sheng.

From then on, the book "Women's Commandments" became the basic judgment of women in the Ming Dynasty for a long time, and the court and the people implemented the same set of standards. Under the impetus of Zhu Yuanzhang, women's commandments not only swept the country, but also produced two "upgraded versions" in the Ming Dynasty. One is Internal Training written by Xu, the daughter-in-law of Ming Taizu Queen Zhu Yuanzhang, and the other is Nvji written by Liu in Ming Dynasty. The former carefully studied the spirit of "concubines don't engage in politics" in Women's Commandments and put forward its theoretical views. The latter inherited and carried forward all kinds of evaluation criteria about a good wife in Women's Commandments, not only analyzed them in the form of theory, but also selected good people and deeds with exemplary significance in Ming Dynasty, recorded them truly and eulogized them enthusiastically. These two books, together with The Analects of Confucius by Song Ruocui in Tang Dynasty and The Original Women's Commandments by Ban Zhao, are called "Four Books for Women" by later generations. Before the New Culture Movement, it was always a special representative teaching material for women's education in China feudal society.

It can also be seen that it is really unfortunate to be a woman when crossing into the Ming Dynasty. Because at that time, if you want to be a good woman, according to the provisions of mainstream women's textbooks such as Women's Commandments, I'm afraid there is only one way-to be an honest and indignant little wife.

But in the "first family" of the Ming Dynasty, to be a good woman, you should not just be a wronged kannika nimtragol. As a member of the royal family, she is under the jurisdiction of "Ming Taizu's Legacy", but she is also a woman and is also under the jurisdiction of "Women's Commandment", which is a typical "second-crop crime".

The reason why Zhu Yuanzhang painstakingly created this Collection of 100% Good Women was not to make the women in the family suffer the second crime. The most important reason is that he learned the lesson that the interference of the harem in the past dynasties led to the weakness of the country. His first pursuit is to ensure that the lawful wives of the Ming emperor, from the queen to the maid-in-waiting, are all 100% good women.

In order to realize this ideal, Zhu Yuanzhang painstakingly compiled Women's Commandments for ideological propaganda, but he also made great efforts in the system, such as the procedure of choosing wives for the royal family in the Ming Dynasty.

On the surface, the process of choosing concubines by the Ming royal family was quite different from that of other feudal dynasties. They all cast nets all around, selected from the people, and then eliminated layer by layer to find the right candidate for the prince.

But in contrast, the selection of imperial concubines in the Ming Dynasty was the most popular in the feudal dynasty of China, because Zhu Yuanzhang set the tone from the beginning-every son of heaven, prince, concubine and maid-in-waiting should carefully choose a good woman for it, and everyone who entered it was brushed by it. Translated into vernacular, the wives of the emperor and the prince, whether they are the queen of the first palace or the concubine of the second palace, have to go through strict selection procedures and give priority to "good women", that is, women of ordinary people's families. As for those who take the initiative to "offer beauty" to the royal family, they will not accept it. And this tone was faithfully carried out by the whole Ming Dynasty. Of all the queens of the Ming Dynasty, only two were truly of noble birth. One is Empress Xu of Ming Dynasty (daughter of Xu Da, the king of Zhongshan), and the other is Empress Wu of Ming Xianzong (niece of Hou Suntang of Huaining). Others are from civilian families. Just these two, Empress Xu was moved by her husband's success in raising the flag for rebellion (it turned out to be a prince), but she was addicted to the Empress for only one month, and was suddenly put in limbo because she offended Ming Xianzong's minions, and was jointly robbed of the family title. In the Ming dynasty, this kind of thing became a low probability.

Therefore, for modern girls who plan to travel back to the Ming Dynasty to be queens, it is more likely for girls who travel back to civilian families to be ladies of aristocratic families. The so-called fairy tale of Cinderella being the queen was not a fairy tale in the Ming Dynasty, but a fact.

In order to realize this "fairy tale", every girl with a dream of being a queen has to go through an arduous selection process.

If Zhu Yuanzhang's selection tone has been deeply rooted in the masses, then the next selection process will be more deeply rooted in the masses-comparable to today's variety show.

The first step in the selection is "sea election". Every time the emperor or prince wants to get married, the royal family will send eunuchs to cast nets everywhere and select 5000 girls from all over the country, aged between 13 and 16. The selected candidate will be paid by the royal family to send his daughter to Beijing to participate in the election within the specified time. The selection criteria for this link are different every time. In the final analysis, it depends on luck.

As for the enthusiasm of the masses to participate in this link, it is also different according to the rules of selection. Generally speaking, if only women are selected in the draft, there will be few candidates, and things like "matchmaking" will happen if you are anxious. If you write directly before the election: this time, the people who are elected have points, which is different. Basically, they are rushing to break their scalps. No matter how enthusiastic the participants are or how few the responders are, the girls' parents always give money to the eunuchs in charge of the "sea election", so that there is a fraud event-during the Qin Long period of the Ming Dynasty, a eunuch named Zhang Jinchao falsely spread the imperial edict and conducted the "sea election" for the royal family in Hubei Province, defrauding silver102,000 yuan, equivalent to 60 million yuan.

After the audition, the second round of selection will be held in Beijing. Eunuchs will concentrate the girls participating in the competition on a big field, sort them by age, and eliminate 1000 girls based on their figure. Too high will be eliminated, too short will be eliminated, of course, too fat to stay, too thin to stay. According to the reference of the Ming Dynasty palace costumes and other cultural relics, the standard height of the queen selected by the Ming Dynasty royal family is about 1.65 meters, which means that she should be of moderate figure and well-proportioned. The next day, in the same venue, the third round of selection was conducted-looking at the five senses, including hair, eyebrows, glasses, nose and voice tone. If one item fails, it will be eliminated immediately. Ugly nature will inevitably be eliminated, beautiful but not necessarily safe, too beautiful, will be considered too "seductive", so it will be eliminated. The elimination rate of this round is high, about 2000 people will be brushed off, and the remaining 2000 people will accept a new test item-foot testing on the third day. In feudal times, three-inch golden lotus was beautiful. Big feet must have been brushed off first, and small feet are not necessarily safe. After the size of the foot is qualified, it is necessary to test the walking posture. After this round of screening, the remaining 1000 people were promoted to the palace.

In principle, these 1000 people who entered the palace all got the index of staying in Beijing, at least they can stay in the palace as maids and become the lawful wives of the emperor. The rest of the competition is mainly about the level of being a wife-being a queen or an ordinary maid-in-waiting. The first thing to pass is the physical examination. A thousand ladies-in-waiting will enter the secret room in batches, and the old ladies-in-waiting will have physical examinations. Those with scars or skin that is not smooth and delicate will be eliminated first. This round is also the one with the highest elimination rate, and 70% should be eliminated-staying in the palace to do rough work.

The remaining 30% lucky, that is, 300 ladies-in-waiting, will enter a link to test endurance-staying in the palace for inspection. The 300 people will stay in the palace for a month, and the eunuchs will observe their diet and daily life and report to the royal family, and select 50 women who are considered gentle. The evaluation standard will naturally be based on the Women's Commandment. The 50 people selected are tantamount to entering the "safe", and even if they are eliminated in the next round, they will have the title of concubine.

These fifty "concubines" will enter the most cruel and luck-testing stage in the next round: the queen mother or the imperial concubine will personally check and select three favorite women from the fifty and hand them over to the emperor for personal selection, just like the semi-final of a draft contest. The three contestants who successfully passed the semi-finals will have a PK without smoke in front of the emperor, and the emperor will finally determine the queen candidate. The queen of mother musical instruments was born.

In this whole process, there are actually many black-box operations. For example, in the link between 5000 candidates and 1000 people, it is actually the eunuch who is responsible for the selection. It is essential to stuff red envelopes. From 1000 to 300 people, the recipients of money became maids in charge of physical examination. From 300 to 50 people, it is necessary to code up and down, waiting for the link of 50 to choose 3, but it is just a part of gambling luck and setting the overall situation. Although the queen will be chosen by the emperor, if the queen mother likes it, the matter will basically be settled. In the end, the selection of the emperor actually inherited the meaning of the queen mother. In most cases, it is actually a process.

This is the whole selection process of the Empress of the Ming Dynasty. Compared with the imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty, it is not difficult to find that it is more difficult. Although the imperial examination also depends on luck, it is more important to learn from real talents. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was even more difficult to cheat in the imperial examinations. In contrast, the difficulty of being a queen is basically the square of the champion.