History can't bear to look at the complete collection

Chapter 18 Concubine Files 8
The most miserable woman in the harem

The maids are responsible for the daily life of the emperor and the concubines. On TV, you can always see the court ladies in gorgeous dresses, serving tea and water for the masters. In fact, in real history, the court ladies are not as shown in the movies and TV dramas. So bright.The court ladies are extremely beautiful women selected from thousands of miles among the people, but they ruined their lives because of their beauty.As soon as these beauties step into the palace gates, these beauties who are ashamed of flowers in the closed moon have embarked on a road of no return. The pain of sexual abuse, killing, humiliation, burial, etc. they bear is very serious.

In the past dynasties of China, the court beauties of the Ming Dynasty should be regarded as the most miserable. They are the most beautiful beauties selected from hundreds of thousands of folks. After layers of screening, they are selected from all over the country. There are thousands of ladies in the palace, and then after multiple selections, no more than 13 can enter the court.

However, once the court ladies of the Ming Dynasty entered the palace, they lost their freedom completely and could not leave the palace for the rest of their lives. Apart from working hard in the palace, they were always on guard against being executed by the emperor who was in a bad mood.

Most of the court ladies live in simple houses, have little food and clothing, and have to do heavy work all their lives. They not only have to abide by cumbersome and strict etiquette, but also live cautiously under the strict registration system. If they are not careful, they will be killed.Moreover, the court ladies cannot meet their relatives, let alone marry and have children. Once they enter the palace, they are doomed to die alone.

In the palace of the Ming Dynasty, there were many rules, and the maids were strictly controlled. In addition to completing various labors every day, the court ladies also had to read "Female Training" and "Women's Training" under the instruction of female internal officials who knew books. Women's Book of Filial Piety" and other books were taught by female officials to brainwash and distort the mind.

If a court lady violates the rules slightly, she will be severely punished. Among them, "block lock", "bell lift" and "screw lock" are the most commonly used.

"Dunsuo" means captivity. The court ladies will be locked in the prison and not given food or drink for a few days, and they will not be taken out until they are dying. "Lifting the bell" is to let the punished maid go from the Deqianqing Palace Gate of the Ming Palace to the Rijing Gate and Yuehua Gate every night, and then return to the front of the Qianqing Palace.Walking forward and singing "Tianxia Taiping", the sound should be drawn out for a long time, corresponding to the sound of the bells. "Standing" is a harsher punishment than the previous two. The punished court lady stands facing the north, bends down and stretches out her arms, and holds her feet with her hands.The body cannot be bent, and this state will last for one or two hours, depending on the mood of the female officer.The court ladies who were punished generally couldn't hold on, and they were dizzy in mild cases, and fell to the ground in severe cases, vomiting to death.

In addition to these cruel rules, the sickness of court ladies cannot be cured, and they can recover entirely on their own. There is a rule in the Ming Dynasty: "If the concubine is sick, the doctor is not allowed to enter, and the medicine is obtained by evidence." Needless to say.According to the "History of the Ming Palace", "There are two or 30 people who are in charge of the general affairs. If the palace people are sick or guilty, they will be sent here first, and then they will be sent to the Huanyi Bureau outside after a long time."

That is to say, if a court lady gets sick, or becomes old and weak, she will be dispatched to a fixed place to support herself by working like a sinner, and then wait to die.Of course, there were also some court ladies who were favored by the emperor and made concubines. If they gave birth to another child, their status would be slightly changed. However, most of the court ladies lived their lives confined within the palace walls.

Court ladies were not allowed to leave the palace before, and they were also not allowed to leave the palace after death. In the Ming Dynasty, court ladies were not allowed to be buried in the soil after death. They were all cremated, and their ashes would be scattered in dry wells.Until the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, a noble concubine donated money to buy a few acres of private land, and some court ladies who did not want their bones to be put in the dry well asked to be buried here.

Liu Tingji of the Qing Dynasty said in the third volume of "Zaiyuan Magazine": "The walls are solid, and the steles are also everywhere... Every night of wind and rain, they appear or make sounds, and the ghosts linger." It is requested not to bury it too deep, so that it can be reincarnated early and reincarnated into a good family.

The palace girl lived the most humble life in the palace before, and she still can't have a burial place after death, how embarrassing it is!
(End of this chapter)