The Secret of Maid Selection in Ming Dynasty

Since the Han Dynasty, the number of ancient ladies-in-waiting has been increasing. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, there were only a dozen maids. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the number of ladies-in-waiting exceeded 1 1,000. When Emperor Huan of the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were five or six thousand beautiful women in the harem. The number of ladies-in-waiting in Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, exceeded 1 10,000. During the Tang Kaiyuan and Tianbao years, the number of Harlem jumped to 40,000. By the Ming Dynasty, the number of ladies-in-waiting had decreased to 9,000. The palace only spends 400,000 taels of silver every year. Historically, it is a routine work of dynasties to select maids from the people.

"Beauty pageant" can be compared with imperial examination system to describe musical instruments.

Most of the early maids came from female slaves, female prisoners and criminals' wives.

Since then, some ladies-in-waiting in the past dynasties have begun to choose from the folk "beauty contests" and "picking women". Beauty pageant, like the imperial examination, has a set of strict rules. Women who run for office must be from good families, that is, non-doctors, non-wizards, non-businessmen and non-workers. The women in these families are called good families. According to the regulations of past dynasties, Gong Qingong's younger brother got up early and went out in the dark to make a living, and his sister-in-law brought delicious food home to eat. His younger brother is bitter and tired, and he doesn't have enough to eat. Every day, he goes to the mountains to talk about his grievances. Over time, a girl on the opposite hill heard it. From then on, the girl looked at him from a distance every day and smiled at him intentionally or unintentionally. Daughter comes from a good family.

Ji Yun's "Ming Yi Huang An" From the above poem, you can know the reason why the famous dish "Buddha jumps over the wall" is famous all over the world. It can be said that it is a combination of China cooking technology and delicious food. Its raw materials include sea cucumber, squid, scallop, fish belly, fish lips, chicken and duck, pork belly, mushrooms, tendons of tendons, bamboo shoots, ham and pigeon eggs. The cooking process is extremely strict. First, cook according to the situation of each raw material, and then match it with condiments such as rock sugar, ginger, onion, cinnamon, Fujian old wine and fennel. Put it on an altar, cover it with lotus leaves and seal it with glass. Cook with strong fire and simmer gently. It is required to be rotten and tangible, and delicious and fragrant. It is recorded in "Biography" that in the first year of the apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Xizong selected 5000 maids aged 13 ~ 16, gathered in the capital and divided them into dozens of groups.

On the first day, they will pass the internal inspection and selection, and the slightly taller, shorter and chubby ones will be eliminated; Re-election the next day, the internal reference supervisor checked the ears, eyes, mouth, nose, hair, skin, shoulders and back, and all were eliminated; Then let the candidates say their place of origin, name and age and listen to their voices. Those who are slightly stronger, rude, ugly, turbid and stuttering are eliminated; On the third day, the supervisor measured the woman's hands and feet with a ruler, and then let her walk dozens of times. It turns out that the head catcher is a good case handler, but he has lust for women. Recently, he hooked up with a woman whose husband left for a long time. Last night, the catcher came to this woman's house again. While everyone was having fun, I didn't expect this woman's husband to come back suddenly and be caught red-handed! A few months later, an old lady in the village came to Sun's relatives' house. She looked at Sun's bed and said to Sun's relatives, "He tried. You said he couldn't wake up for such a long time? We always say that when a person is frightened, he may scare away his soul and go to the place where he lost his soul and call him back. This man is sure. If you can't do it, try. If nothing happens, you will want to commit suicide more. " "Come, the wrist is a bit short, the toes are a bit huge, and the behavior is a bit frivolous. There are 4000 people coming.

The remaining 1000 people were called into the palace to be maids. After the maids entered the palace, the emperor ordered them to lead them into the secret room, explore their breasts, smell their armpits and inquire about their texture, and then selected 300 people as the heads of the maids. After living in the palace for more than a month, 50 people were chosen as concubines according to their temperament, manners and preferences of the emperor.

There were only one or two hundred maids in the Qing dynasty, and there were about one hundred who could get close to the emperor. The Qing dynasty also stipulated that maids who were not favored by the emperor were sent out of the palace at the age of 24 (sometimes at the age of 25 or 30) and chose another one.

"Picking women" forces married people to "match their husbands in the middle of the night"

Although Ming Taizu stipulates that maids should be over 65,438+03 years old, there are still * * * under 65,438+00 years old. For example, Wan Guifei was elected to the palace at the age of four.

The choice of women in the Ming Dynasty brought great pain to the people, who often regarded their daughters entering the palace as falling into a fire pit and tried their best to avoid choosing women. Wanli's "Changshu County Records" records that the people in this county heard the news that "the court ordered ministers to choose women to enter the palace in various provinces", which led to a marriage, and even "everything is harmonious and inhuman." In Songjiang and other places, there are still "those whose hair is tied with bamboo shoots and whose wives stink", and even widows hastily remarry for fear of entering the palace. After getting this rumor in the middle of the first month in Hangzhou, it was immediately "threatening to discuss early marriage". On the 18th night of the first month, "General Mei Kui entered the city from Beiguan, and the defenders fired their guns to open the door". The person in the dream suddenly heard gunshots and didn't know what happened. As a result, some people linked this with the rumors of the past few days and thought that "it is time to take the female inner palace."

At that time, a wealthy family hired a tin worker. "Making silverware at home, until midnight, there are still women who are not worthy and dare not go out to choose people." He chose a tin worker as his son-in-law. The rich man shouted, "Hurry up, hurry up, you can get married." Tin workers are at a loss in their sleep. "If you blink your eyes when the curtain is opened, the candle in front of the hall will shine brilliantly, and Weng's daughter has dressed up for employment." This is the origin of the story of "Lang Lang Pei" widely circulated among the people.

The Ming emperor also made laws and regulations prohibiting people outside the palace from passing letters or articles to maids. Once you break the ban, "everyone is dead." In order to prevent imperial secretary from revealing the forbidden area, he also imprisoned the old ladies in the "Yi Ni Bureau". Deprive countless ladies of their lives and lifelong freedom, so as to keep the secret of the palace.

Slight violations will be punished, such as the life and death of the Happy Hall.

Maids in the Ming Dynasty lost their freedom as soon as they were elected to the palace. Most of them are bossy jade emperors. He saw the human fire burning with his own eyes and smiled with satisfaction. Go back to sleep in the heavenly palace. Thin, humble residence, lifelong hard labor, can not meet with their parents. Trivial etiquette, strict hierarchy and occasional * * * make them almost hopeless.

The punishment of "lifting the bell" and "holding the board" Duke of Zhou Shilin regretted dropping the casserole. And he, since he spent twenty-two thousand pieces of silver to buy the reputation of Juren, the township director bowed and the county magistrate saw the hand of the sedan chair. He stamped his feet in Meihua Town and shivered in half the county. Who is as scared as a mouse when it sees a cat? It would be flattering to give Li Changshun these words today. Seeing Li Changshun's biting mouth, he launched another attack: "You poor boy, don't make trouble, watch meow and punish you!" Women are strictly controlled. In addition to completing all kinds of hard labor, they often read books such as Women's Training and Women's Filial Piety under the guidance of knowledgeable female officials. A slight violation of the rules will be sentenced to "lock". Emperor Yan made great contributions to the development of mankind. The spirit of Yan Di is, first of all, entrepreneurial spirit, dedication spirit, pioneering spirit, indomitable and enterprising spirit. The spirit of Emperor Yan enabled Chinese descendants to get rid of ignorance and barbarism and pursue advanced civilization in the struggle with nature and society. This spirit has enabled the Chinese nation to achieve a high degree of unity and unity. , "bell" and "board". "Ring the bell" means that the maid-in-waiting is punished every night, from Gongganqing Palace Gate to Jingmen and Yuehuamen, and then back to Gongganqing Palace Gate, walking slowly, rain or shine, singing that the world is peaceful, the voice is slow and long, and her eyes are red with anxiety. He grabbed a stone beside him and slammed it on his forehead. Lowa only felt red at the moment, and then he didn't know anything. Accordingly. "Holding the back" means that the punished maid-in-waiting stands facing the north, bends down and stretches out her arms, holding her feet with her hands. Don't bend your body, it will last for an hour, which is about two hours. Generally speaking, the punished maid-in-waiting will be dizzy, stiff, lying on the ground, even vomiting into illness and even death.

A maid-in-waiting was ill and was left to take care of herself. The Ming Dynasty stipulated: "Doctors are not allowed to enter the palace if there is a disease, but they can take medicine with a certificate." The maid-in-waiting is still so, and the maid-in-waiting is self-evident. "History of the Forbidden City in Ming Dynasty" contains: On the west of Jin 'ao Yuqiao Bridge, Yaobei Yangshe Middle Road (now called Beekeeping Middle Road), there is an amusement hall. If the imperial secretary is sick or old, he should be sent here like a guilty person, and continue his life by his own vitality, or wait for death.

There is no burial place, and the ashes are filled into the dry well after the fire. The ladies-in-waiting of the Ming Dynasty locked the deep palace all their lives for the emperors to play and serve until their death.

Palace maids and eunuchs who have lived in the palace for a long time have all married "vegetable farmers"

When a woman enters the palace, her way out is different. The emperor can give the maid-in-waiting as a prize to the hero, but the prince swears at him: "Don't take this money!" " "genus; Others, such as Wang Zhaojun, are married; Some emperors constantly replaced older maids, released thousands of maids from the palace and married them to the people; Some maids were also killed by the emperor.

Maids-in-waiting also have physiological jailers to consider, always afraid of accidents, so they quit their jobs and moved away with their families to live in seclusion. Because he got a lot of gold and silver, he lived a very rich life. He wrote "I'm coming" in big letters, hung it in his class and offered it every day. Need, the emperor's luck is hopeless, and some turn to seek emotional exports. As a result, there is a deformed love life style among maids, maids and eunuchs. That is, "opposite dishes" and "vegetable households".

"Opposite food" refers to the combination of maids as "husband and wife". Later, the scope of "heterosexual food" developed from the same sex to the opposite sex. By the Ming Dynasty, it was more fashionable for maids to marry eunuchs, and they had a new name. They thought they could lead everyone out of poverty and get rich, and someone would meet them at the scene. I didn't expect that only a dozen people believed in themselves. Jinlong is disappointed! But then I thought, as long as the evil spirits of the crisis are caught, these dozen people will take the lead in making a fortune. Anyway, it's still a long way from ten years of catastrophe. Are you afraid that other villagers won't believe me then? Say, it's called "dish" It has become the property of "vegetable farmers". Maids-in-waiting can't find a "vegetable household" for a long time, and they will be laughed at and called discarded.

In the palace, a young man built a bridge between the maids and eunuchs. "Old woman!"

It doesn't matter if you promise.

Just say no.

I'm taking her away today. "people. Both sides are satisfied and vowed to each other. One person dies first, and the other will swear to be unworthy for life. After maids and eunuchs become "vegetable households", maids usually pay to hire a humble and poor eunuch to serve them. Hire a eunuch who can cook, and the commission is four or five taels of silver at a time. Cowherd is holding his two young children and wants to cry without tears. However, the real world is not enough. I hope that the world after death will be impartial, upright, honest and upright, and the helplessness and weakness of the people can also be seen here. Mr. Lu Xun "lamented the misfortune of the ancestors and angered them for not arguing." The former people's "misfortune" and "indisputable" are also fully manifested in their belief in Yamaraja. Standing for a long time. No, I can't let my wife leave me like this. I can't make the king nod and ask, "How many days do I have to ride around the world?" "The child lost his mother like this. I am going to find her. I must take the Weaver Girl! At this time, the old cow suddenly spoke: "Don't be sad! You kill me, put on my skin, knit two laundry baskets with two children, and then you can go to heaven to find the weaver girl. " Cowherd said that he didn't want to treat this partner who had been with him for decades, but I couldn't beat it, and there was no other way, so I had to endure the pain and do as it said with tears.

In the mid-Ming dynasty, the phenomenon of "vegetable households" gradually developed to the point where concubines had no children. The emperor also adopted an open connivance attitude towards this.

Selected from Window of Knowledge, September 2007.

Uncover the Secret of Maids in Ming Dynasty