A Survival Guide to the Qing Harem

Chapter 5 Retreat Training, Nanny is very busy (2)
Don't frown yet, not everyone is qualified to greet the Empress Dowager.Think about it, if your emperor's husband, the hundreds of women in the Sixth Courtyard of the Sangong, all came to greet the empress dowager every morning, then the old lady would not have to do other things all day long, just return a nod. It made my neck cramp... Therefore, under normal circumstances, only concubines and concubines with status above need to pay respects to the Empress Dowager, because after all, everyone has some status and can speak for themselves in their palaces. Major events held in the Forbidden City You can also show your face in the middle, so there is another meaning to greet the empress dowager, that is, the mother-in-law recognizes you as a daughter-in-law.As for the nobles and Chang Zai promises, we can only endure it slowly.

The work here for the empress dowager is completed, you still have to go to the empress's place, there is no way, who will let her be the middle palace.The etiquette and language of Greetings are also the same, just repeat the actions and words you just said.What about after you're done?The harem is quiet all day long, and you still have to sit down and chat with the queen. The content of this chat is nothing more than sowing discord, sowing discord, elevating yourself, and depressing others.To put it bluntly, this naked palace fight has started since the early morning, please refer to the following chapters for details.

The women finally managed it.Before the sun reaches its peak, you have to hurry back to your own palace. After talking all morning, your makeup is smeared, and your body is a little tired. It's time to touch up your makeup and eat some white fungus and lotus seed soup What.Secondly, the emperor's husband has ordered you to have dinner at noon, so you have to hurry to prepare.

While you were talking, the emperor's husband came to you in a hurry, kneeling down in a standard manner, and saying "Long live God is auspicious"?Then you must not be so stupid, since you can't say "auspicious" to the empress dowager, naturally you can't say that to the emperor, but you have to know that this "Long live Lord" is also a wild and unconstrained title, which is completely inappropriate for your identity.

What?Is this "Long Live Lord" a special title for eunuchs?Well, it looks like you're on your way. "Long live Lord" or "Long live", this is the address on the stage of the theater, the ministers and concubines would not call the emperor like this, especially in the Yongzheng Dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng hated this kind of flattery, even in memorials Words such as "Long Live" and "Longevity without Borders" may be reprimanded.In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the eunuchs and court ladies would call the emperor Long Live Lord in private, but this is also a respectful title for the emperor, which is very unsuitable for you, so you should honestly repeat the greetings you learned earlier: "The concubine respectfully invites the emperor to be safe."

Isn't this the end?But there is one more thing you have to pay attention to. I wonder what position you have reached now?If you have reached the rank of concubine or above, then it is right to call yourself a "concubine".But if you still promise to be a regular or a nobleman, then you still can't get the word "officer", and you have to call yourself a "servant".

Hey, you, the emperor on the left, and the emperor on the right call you kindly, but you are muttering in your heart, why does the empress dowager call the emperor differently from your name?Yes, the empress dowager calls her son the emperor, but you can't follow suit, otherwise it will be a death penalty for disrespect.In fact, in the harem, only the elders, that is, the empress dowager and empress dowagers can directly call "emperor".

You can't eat enough, you can't sleep to death, you can't talk too much | It's not easy for a court lady
Counting from the establishment of the Later Jin Dynasty to the abdication of the Qing Emperor in 1912, the Qing Dynasty experienced a total of twelve emperors.In other words, a total of twelve generations of harem people lived in the Forbidden City, and these twelve generations of masters were of course accompanied by countless palace people.In our harem of the Qing Dynasty, the most famous lady-in-waiting can be called Lagu Su Ma, she is the close maid of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang who is known as the "Mother of the Qing Dynasty" , her identity is a court lady, but her status in the Forbidden City surpasses countless masters.

La Aunt Su Ma's experience, in today's words, is like a "fighter fighter among court ladies". She belongs to a high-grade court lady. She serves as a reference for the maids in the harem, so you probably will suffer.Because firstly, not every master can have the magnanimity of the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang; secondly, not every court lady can have the blessing of Su Ma Lagu.Generally speaking, La Aunt Su Ma's life was lucky. Although she was not able to leave the palace and marry a serious man, she had gone through three generations of emperors and was in the political vortex countless times. With her own courage and wisdom, she came here in the same boat as Xiaozhuang. In the Forbidden City, no one dared to treat her as a simple maid.

Therefore, for Lagu Su Ma, I advise you to just watch and study, and you must not use her life to measure the lives of many court ladies in the Forbidden City.

In the previous chapters, we have already talked about how this maid came to the palace and how she was assigned to the masters of the palace.Now let's take a closer look at how this court lady lives.

Yes, we have watched countless court dramas of the Qing Dynasty, in which the costumes of the empresses and young masters can be described as competing for splendor, and the clothes of the maids who serve around them are not inferior to anyone outside, let alone the master who is in a good mood and rewards a slave with a piece of clothing Condition.But don't be fooled by these plots. In the harem of the Qing Dynasty, there is one supreme requirement for court ladies, and that is simplicity.Moreover, the requirements for this simplicity are very high, it must be like a jade in the rough, revealing its brilliance from the inside.It means, you don't need to be beautiful, but you must be a temperamental beauty, you can be simple, but not vulgar.

The specific requirements are that it is forbidden to draw eyebrows and eyes, and it is not allowed to wear bright red and green clothes.The purpose of such regulations, on the surface, is to follow the simple rules, but in fact there is another meaning, your limelight cannot overshadow your master!If one day the emperor comes, you are more beautiful than the master, if you can attract the emperor's attention, and you are lucky enough to be a concubine or concubine, then you are lucky.If not, then you are suspected of "seducing the emperor", and your master probably won't tolerate you.

Therefore, the dress of the court ladies is stipulated, firstly, to set off the radiance of the master with simplicity, and secondly, it is also convenient for management, so that one can recognize who is a slave at a glance.Therefore, in the harem, work clothes are distributed to the maids every season.

In the beginning of spring and February, the Ministry of Internal Affairs always takes a few days to customize summer clothes for the court ladies.The eunuch in charge of this errand would notify the maids in advance, and take advantage of the spare time when they were not on duty, to measure the size on the porch outside the Tihe Hall, from head to toe, and every detail was spared.What I prepare this month is summer clothes.Then every season is the same, prepare clothes in advance.However, most of the court ladies are thirteen or fourteen-year-old girls. When they are growing and developing, the size is changing at any time, so measuring the size has become a thing to do every quarter.

Tailor-made clothes, in order to ensure that your clothes look decent and elegant, not because the sleeves are too long or the skirt is too short to look sloppy.You will be given four sets of such work clothes each time, and each set is complete, including bottoms, shirts, coats, vests, and shoes and socks.Clothes are mostly made of Ning silk or spring silk, and in summer, clothes made of spun silk are also distributed.The colors of these clothes are basically light green, dark green, turquoise, or purple-brown.If there are any grand festivals in the palace, you can add a red silk gown and some rouge and lipstick.But such days are rare.

But everyone has a love for beauty, not to mention the girls in the blooming and rainy seasons, even if they wear simple clothes, they still want to wear new ideas and fight for some unique beauty.Therefore, on the cuffs, necklines, trouser legs and shoe uppers, you can see the subtle decorations of the court ladies, showing the perfect embroidery learned from the aunt to the fullest.

The clothes are simple and neat, but the place to live is not so satisfactory.According to historical records, the maids of the harem of the Qing Dynasty generally lived in the side rooms of the palace.From this it can be seen that not only the houses where the maids live are dilapidated, but also crowded. In such conditions, don't talk about personal privacy, even if you fart, others can hear and smell...

Not to mention the poor housing conditions, the soft furnishings inside the house are basically zero, as can be seen from the items left by the maids in the ear room of the East Side Hall of the Taiji Hall of the Forbidden City in Beijing, except for the simple utensils such as pottery pots and pots that are necessary for daily life. Other than that, nothing else.This room is simple, to put it bluntly, it is a dormitory.But the bed is not the standard bunk bed in our current dormitory, but the traditional kang in the north, so the maids in the palace sleep on Datong bunk.

Maybe you have to ask, how uncomfortable it is for those ten people to squeeze into a full bunk, you can’t even sleep lying down!On this issue, we have to talk about it.First, the maids serving the master are on night duty. Anyway, it’s either this night duty or that one’s turn, so it’s impossible for the dormitory to be full of people every night; second, the maids are not allowed to sleep on their backs. Regulation.When you go to bed at night, you have to lie on your side, with your legs slightly curled up, with one hand stretched out, and the other on your side.Why is it stipulated in this way?Because people in the palace believe in gods, people believe that there are temple gods sitting in each temple. At night, the temple gods will come out to check their own domains and protect the members of the royal family at the same time.Therefore, the palace ladies must be humane when they sleep, and they must not bump into the temple gods.

It's comfortable to sleep, but it's miserable to be on night duty.Sitting at the door of the master's bedroom, you have to be alert all night, listening to the movements in the tent of the master at any time, and if there is a slight change in your nose, you have to think whether the master woke up and wanted to go to the toilet, or because he fell asleep because of a dream. individual.If the master wakes up in the middle of the night to give orders, but you, who are on duty at night, doze off, then you will be miserable.

Although dressing and sleeping is an inevitable thing in life, as long as you follow the rules, there will be no major problems. Even if the maids can't enjoy the blessings, they won't suffer too much.The worst thing is being sick.In the harem of the Ming Dynasty, there was a regulation that if a maid was ill, she had no right to ask a doctor to see a doctor at her residence. She could only go to the pharmacy by herself and get some medicine according to her condition.If you eat well, you're lucky; if you don't eat well, you procrastinate until you die.

According to the system of the Qing Dynasty following the Ming Dynasty, the maids in the harem of the Qing Dynasty were not much better. They also did not have the right to see a doctor. When he gets better, he will be sent to the Clothes Bureau to do laundry work, and it is basically impossible to return to the master to serve him.Therefore, if the palace girl is sick, it is called an injury.

When it comes to the life of the maids in the harem, it can only be said that there is no worst but worse.The master's mood needs to be figured out at any time, but not everyone can guess the master's mind. Sometimes, the master is in a bad mood, and it is common for the master to vent his anger on the slave.The concubine of Emperor Qianlong once killed a court lady in a rage.Although the life of a court lady is low, it is also a life. In order to show his brilliance and martial arts, Qianlong summoned the princes and ministers of the military aircraft department, and explained a lot of truth, which roughly means: "In the harem, the concubines are killed because of slaves. If you do something wrong, you will be punished, or because you are in a bad mood, you will beat your slaves, and some maids will commit suicide because they can't figure it out. In this case, these masters should be reprimanded, and they should not be too tyrannical. But like now This is the first time that someone has been directly killed, so I think that if we don’t punish him severely and everyone follows suit, then we don’t know how many more murders will happen in the harem.”

So how did Qianlong punish him severely?It's just that the murderer was demoted from concubine to concubine, and what's ridiculous is that within two months, he was restored to the concubine position.Half a year later, Emperor Qianlong actually issued an edict: "Any eunuch or court lady who injures herself with a golden blade in the palace shall be executed by beheading; if she wants to commit suicide by hanging herself but is rescued by others, she shall be hanged as usual. Go to Ili and serve as a slave to the soldiers." In this way, the court lady did not even have the right to commit suicide because she couldn't bear the abuse.

However, in the harem, it is not always these cruel and sad things.The maid who entered the palace for the first time, Cardamom Nianhua, still had some joy.Although the teaching of the aunts is strict, the skills the girls learn are among the best. If the monthly money in the palace is not enough, it is usually relying on the maids to do some embroidery work to earn pocket money.Seeing that the things I carefully made were exchanged for silver, I think I am still happy in my heart.What's more, the palace is boring all day long, and all kinds of festivals are quite festive. From the beginning of spring to late winter, the four seasons change, and the people in the palace can always come up with some fun things to do, such as enjoying flowers, playing on the swing, and swimming in the lake. , picking lotus, making snowmen, pasting window grilles, etc., can be regarded as a little sweetness in the depressing days.

As the court lady grows up slowly, it's time for the first love.However, the harem is always a place where human nature is suppressed, and the probability of being favored by the emperor is quite low.For the eccentric tempers of the masters, the maids dare not complain at all, they can only find a spiritual sustenance among the miserable people who are "the same people who have fallen in the end of the world".

Don't cover your mouth and laugh, you know what I say.In fact, before the Qing Dynasty, the maids and eunuchs in the harem became "vegetable households", which could be brought to the table and became the only joy of life for women in the palace.Although eunuchs are not complete men, they are also human beings, they also have emotions and desires, and they also know how to like and love others.If you can find a "husband" who agrees with you, although you will not enjoy physical satisfaction, you will finally have something to rely on in your heart.

But when it came to the Qing Dynasty, it became a strictly prohibited thing.The Kangxi Dynasty made a regulation: "Women in all palaces are not allowed to be considered relatives with eunuchs." For this reason, Emperor Kangxi also issued a special edict to warn all eunuchs: "Recently eunuchs do not abide by the rules and recognize relatives, uncles, etc. with women in various palaces. Sisters, it is absolutely impossible to get acquainted with each other. The eunuchs are on errands in the inner court, and the women are in the palace. They agree that each has its own inside and outside. Afterwards, it is necessary to sever the friendship. If it still cannot be severed, the chief steward and the leader of the palace will impose a heavy code. Since the decree , if it is found out, it is up to you whether to act or not, and I will deal with it myself." This regulation has naturally become something that has to be followed, but it is said that there are policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom.How can such things that distort human nature be completely banned?It's just that everyone didn't dare to join forces openly, and they only communicated secretly in private.

But sometimes, this matter of forming a rivalry with the eunuch of Caihu became the master's way of punishing the maid.Suppose if you disobey your master, and the master, on a whim, promises you to a certain eunuch without beating or scolding, and this eunuch happens to have a lot of disagreements with you on weekdays, think about how difficult your life will be.

Facts have proved that it is not easy for this court lady to work part-time. She earns money from selling cabbage, and she has the heart of selling white powder. If she is not careful, her wealth and life will be lost.However, if there are no maids in the harem to do various chores and serve the master's daily life, then the master cannot be called the master.This is a common problem in feudal society, but it is also an indelible history.

(End of this chapter)