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Chapter 33 The Most Ruthless Imperial Family

Chapter 33 The Most Ruthless Imperial Family
This reason is not outrageous, and no one can object, not even Hong Tao.I don’t know what kind of harems other emperors had. As far as the Wanli Emperor is concerned, unless they are born to the same mother, the princes and princesses who were born and raised in the harem would not have many opportunities to meet except for major celebrations. emotion?

Emperor Wanli's fertility was pretty good. By the 31st year of Wanli, he had 7 sons and 9 daughters. However, the adult rate was not very high. 2 sons died in infancy and 7 daughters died in infancy. The mortality rate exceeded 50%.

It is said that the living conditions of the royal family are the best, and the emperor's children should not die so many young.But the reality is cruel. In fact, the newborn survival rate of the royal family is not much different from that of the private sector. If it is lower than that of the relatively wealthy Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, it is even lower.

Why is this so?Hong Tao must stand up and speak.He was born in the palace and lived to be 20 years old. He 100% witnessed the whole process and has always been concerned about this issue.

Speaking of the low survival rate of royal children, there are probably three reasons.

First, medical and health facilities are backward.Even though the royal family lived a wealthy life, they had no deeper knowledge than the common people about preventing bacterial infections, and there were countless neonatal diseases caused by this.

Second, accidents.Especially gas poisoning, which is what later generations call carbon monoxide poisoning.

The winter in the capital is still very cold, and the palace buildings are very tall, so braziers and charcoal pots alone are not enough to raise the indoor temperature.The craftsmen of the Ming Dynasty were very smart. They used the principle of fire kang in building palaces.

Most of the houses in the Forbidden City are built on stone bases, and there are hollow structures connected vertically and horizontally inside these bases called fire passages and flues.There is a well more than one meter deep under the window outside the room called the fire well, which is connected to the fire channel and flue.

Every year in the tenth month of the lunar calendar, the eunuchs responsible for the palace heating would burn charcoal in the fire well and use the principle of air convection to let the hot air circulate along the fire path in the foundation to heat the floor of the room.

That's right, the Forbidden City uses geothermal heating to survive the winter. The foundation of the entire hall is a huge fire pit. People in the room will neither get cold nor be smoked, and there won't even be any smell.

As for how much charcoal is needed to heat the entire hall, it is indeed wasteful, but the royal family doesn't care about this amount of charcoal at all, and can afford to use several times more.

In fact, there is no need to heat the floor of the entire palace. Generally speaking, only the east and west wing rooms of the main hall have this structure, which is often called a warm pavilion.People in the palace usually did not sleep or live in the main hall, but spent most of their time in the thermal pavilion.

How could such a high-tech floor heating system cause gas poisoning?This starts with the charcoal used in the palace.The charcoal used by the royal family is called Hongluo charcoal, which is specially fired near Yixian County, Hebei Province. It has the advantages of full combustion, high heat and less smoke. It has almost no disadvantages except that it is expensive.

But it is precisely because of the many advantages that people ignore the potential dangers.In the eyes of the ancients, the harm of charcoal comes from the choking smoke. When burning red charcoal, there is little smoke and no choking, so this charcoal is considered safe.

In fact, the carbon monoxide gas that is most harmful to the human body has not decreased at all as the smoke has decreased. It remains as much as it should be.Once ignored, it can easily lead to poisoning, which can lead to death if not discovered in time.

If you only use floor fire dragons for heating, the possibility of gas poisoning is unlikely, but for newborns, both the queen and the concubines are very concerned about it, for fear of freezing, so they add extra charcoal basins in the baby's room, especially at night.This resulted in some princes and princesses dying before they were fully familiar with the unfamiliar environment.Did Hong Tao get smoked by gas when he was a child?Basically not, either because the protection is good or there is no chance.Concubine Wang Gong was from a lowly background and was not valued by the emperor. The amount of red charcoal allocated to her every winter was very limited, and it was not enough to burn the fire dragon. Wherever there was extra, she used the charcoal basin.The so-called cold palace, in addition to being deserted in popularity, the temperature is indeed low.

In addition, gas poisoning is not necessarily caused by using a brazier. This is also related to the sealing and air circulation of the room.Hong Tao clearly remembered that when he was four years old, Empress Wang came to visit Jingyang Palace and talked about the situation where her only daughter almost couldn't wake up from her sleep. It was probably due to gas poisoning.

The queen's palace thermal pavilion must be made more airtight and comfortable. I would like to use open tiles to seal all the windows and the ceiling is made of thick satin, but the result is more dangerous.Looking at the thermal pavilion of Jingyang Palace, I dare not say that there is air leakage from everywhere. Anyway, the big holes bitten by mice on the ceiling are enough for ventilation.

Third, intentional harm.The queens and concubines were always in a fierce competition with each other in order to make their sons the prince.Once this situation gets out of control, it will trigger various conspiracies against pregnant women, newborns, young children, and young princes.

But in Emperor Wanli's harem, this kind of thing didn't seem to happen very often. On the one hand, the emperor was not confused, and on the other hand, there was Empress Dowager Li who was supervising her, and at the same time, there was a queen who could keep her word in the harem. With.

As the saying goes, the most ruthless emperor's family!All the good things in the world will not appear in the emperor's home, but all the ugliness, such as the antagonism between father and son, brother against brother, and separation between husband and wife, will be performed every day.

Among the princes and princesses who can live to be 15 years old in the palace, they are all extremely egoistic, very good at pretending, and their hearts are extremely dark, accompanied by mild psychopathy.If these potentials were not developed, they would have been annihilated in the extremely harsh process of surfing the waves.

According to the royal rules of the Ming Dynasty, princes and princesses were raised in the harem by their biological mothers. They rarely had the opportunity to leave the palace walls during normal times, and they were even less likely to wander around, looking around at the east and west houses.If it weren't for several royal ceremonies and important gatherings every year, they wouldn't even know each other.

After the age of ten, princes and princesses are generally canonized, and with the titles of prince and princess come their salaries.But within a few years, the prince who was granted the title of king would leave the palace at the age of 15 and go to the fiefdom to join the vassal. The princesses would also be married out of the palace soon after they reached adulthood at the age of 15 and have their own prince-consort mansion.

These adult lords and princesses could not leave the city where they were stationed without an imperial edict. They could not even walk out of their residences casually, let alone go home to see their parents, brothers and sisters.

They had not been familiar with each other since they were children. When they grew up, they had to go their separate ways. They might never meet each other in their lifetimes. They had neither the time nor the need to develop a relationship. It would be nice to know their names.

In Hong Tao's impression, the only sibling he was familiar with was the married Princess Zhu Xuanyu of Rongchang. She would sometimes follow Queen Wang to visit Jingyang Palace.

But compared with the relatively thick Empress Wang, this princess obviously looked down on her half-brother who was not valued by her father. As long as Empress Wang was not around, she would immediately look down upon the young Zhu Changluo.Even if there are snacks to eat, they won’t share any of them.

(End of this chapter)

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