With the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the system of eunuchs lacking temperature gradually disappeared in the long river of history.
Historically, all the eunuchs with high authority gradually climbed up from the bottom of life, but most of the eunuchs in the palace are still life-like ants.
Doing the dirtiest and most tiring work in the Forbidden City of Novosibirsk, working diligently for the imperial palace, when he lost his ability to work in his later years, he could only find shelter in the temples near the city of Beijing. The typical example is the last eunuch—— Sun Yaoting .
1. The last eunuch-Sun Yaoting
In the era of no light, they are miserable, they are devastated, they lose their freedom, and their lives are as thin as paper. Sun Yaoting, the last eunuch, died in 1996 and lived to be 94 years old. People can call him a "living fossil in history."
He witnessed the overthrow and disintegration of the Qing Dynasty, and the afterglow of the last sunset, he also had real dignity in his later years. In 1902, Sun Yaoting was born in a poor family in Tianjin.
Sun Yaoting also has an older brother. Soon after he was born, there were two more younger brothers in the family, and the burden on the family was even heavier.
Because his parents are working for a private school husband, his father is farming, and his mother is cooking, Sun Yaoting is very lucky to read books with his husband for free with this relationship for several years.
Although the family has a very difficult life, they can still make ends meet. Although he was born poor, his parents loved him more, which added a lot of warmth to the poor family.
Everything is so smooth, if there is no war, maybe Sun Yaoting's life will be different. But the good times didn't last long, the sky didn't follow people's wishes, the cruel war broke out, and the private school also moved.
This sudden change undoubtedly hit the poor family in the first place. Sun Yaoting's parents lost their jobs, and Sun Yaoting also lost the stability brought by the school.
The tragic fate of the family is even worse,Not only were the parents unable to find a job, but the village tyrants invaded a few fields in the family and suffered many blows. The family eventually became beggars begging along the street.
Faced with a difficult life, the family cannot make ends meet. At this moment, someone suddenly pointed out a way to survive, so Sun Yaoting's parents had no choice but to send their own son to the palace as eunuchs.
In fact, in the current feudal period, it is a pleasure to have a chance to enter the palace. If you are lucky enough to be appreciated by the nobles in the palace, you will most likely become a powerful person Powerful people.
2. The family situation changed suddenly and he had no choice but to enter the palace
One day in 1907, the county "Xiao De Zhang" returned from the palace to visit relatives. The scene at that time was very lively.
"Xiao De Zhang" not only invited the whole village to eat stuffed buns, but also invited the troupe to sing for three days. Sun Yaoting sincerely envied the scene.
"Xiao De Zhang" entered the palace as a eunuch because of poor family in his youth and became a eunuch in the palace. Later, he was loved by the Empress Dowager Cixi and became the yearning of many poor children.
This misfortune family has come to the time when the lamp is running out. After careful consideration, the family finally decided to send Sun Yaoting into the palace.
Entering the palace to be an eunuch is to be castrated when he is young. The process of asking someone to "cleanse" him also costs money. This astronomical figure puts this heavy family into trouble again, and the father is dead. Only by doing it himself, Sun Yaoting also left sequelae.
After this, Sun Yaoting had a very miserable life, huge insults and hardships have been with him all the time, surviving in the difficult.
1912, Xuantong Emperor announced his abdication. This bad news came, and Sun Yaoting was deeply shocked. He was unable to do physical work due to the sequelae caused by the "purification".
So Sun Yaoting was sent to a private school by his father again. The clever and clever Sun Yaoting didn't let his father down. He got the love of Mr. Private School and taught him the ability to save the world.
Being confined by feudal thoughts, Sun Yaoting's family still has expectations of entering the palace. When Sun Yaoting was 15 years old, he entered Zai Tao's mansion to work under the introduction of a distant relative.
After some time, Sun Yaoting has become very familiar with those "rules". So I planted a seed in my heart, I must enter the palace and become a person like "Xiao De Zhang", so that my family can live a life of worry-free food and clothing.
So he decided to leave, and Carrier readily agreed to let Sun Yaoting run into his own future. It didn't take long for Sun Yaoting to be introduced by someone and had the opportunity to enter the palace.
The road to survival has never been easy. Time quickly confirmed that entering the palace as an eunuch was also a lot of twists and turns. He was not deeply involved in the world, and he was bullied by the eunuchs and palace ladies, and he took on a lot of dirty and tiring work.
At this time, the Forbidden City has sunk to the west. In spite of this, he relied on his cleverness to approach his dream step by step, but an unexpected event made his dream shatter.
On June 26, 1923, the West Garden of the Forbidden City caught fire. Due to the lack of water, the fire spread rapidly. In the end, more than 400 houses in the palace and many rare treasures were burnt down.
The cause of the fire has not been ascertained. At that time, stealing prevailed in the palace, and the emperor firmly believed that someone set fire to cover up the crime of theft. So all the eunuchs in the Forbidden City were driven out, and Sun Yaoting was among them.
Sun Yaoting, who was kicked out of the Forbidden City, returned home shortly after he had the news that he was invited into the palace. It turned out that due to the lack of manpower in the palace, Princess Duankang thought of Sun Yaoting, who was clever and smart in the troupe at that time.
At this time there is a shortage of people in the Forbidden City,Sun Yaoting was assigned to the Chuxiu Palace of Queen Wanrong. Sun Yaoting finally achieved his dream as he wished, which became the peak of his eunuch's career.
3. Self-recollection, tragic fate
Sun Yaoting recalled his old age. Whether it was interviews with reporters at the time or the autobiography left by himself, he talked about many unknown sad journeys in the palace.
The eunuch has a very special identity in the palace, and it is also different from the tasks performed by those palace guards. They not only have to serve the queen's daily life, but also wait for the queen to take a bath.
According to his own memory, the higher the status of serving, the more careful you must be.
In his days as an eunuch, he only served on 婉容 The queen was seen again in that period, because the queen is the lord of the harem, no one dared to bully him casually.
In fact, serving Queen Wanrong is not as easy as she thought, and there must be no difference in many small things. Once there is a slight mistake, it will be a lesson at all, and it will be driven out of the palace or given to death.
When Sun Yaoting is serving Queen Wanrong up close, he can't look at her, he must kneel down to serve them all the time, and take care of them with twelve minutes of spirit.
When the queen washes her hands, the eunuch must kneel at a suitable angle, and when giving her a basin, the basin must be just within the queen's reach. It cannot be too low or too high for the queen to raise her hands.
When Empress Wanrong smokes, the eunuchs next to him must also personally light the cigarette and wipe the fire on their knees. They will always kneel for a long time and make their legs and feet numb, and sweat soaks their whole body.
Although Sun Yaoting has not served Queen Wanrong for a long time, he has seen the prosperity and wealth that ordinary people can't see in this life.
Fourth, the Qing Dynasty collapsed,Wandering around
The feudal dynasty of the Qing Dynasty will be replaced by a new era, and Sun Yaoting's happy life without worrying about food and clothing will pass. Faced with such a difficult situation, the eunuchs and maids in the palace are destined to be displaced and homeless.
At that time, the eunuchs were looked down upon and cast aside by the world, and Sun Yaoting's hard work to obtain a stable life was also a dream, short and illusory.
In the Beijing coup in 1924, Pu Yi and those imperial relatives were forced out of the palace. Sun Yaoting was then summoned to serve Queen Wanrong. Later, Puyi and Queen Wanrong went to the Japanese Embassy in China, so Sun Yaoting finally ended his work. Eunuch career, I don't know if it is luck or bad luck.
Sun Yaoting, penniless, has become a vagrant, can only wander around, live in no fixed place, and lead a miserable life, without the warmth of home, no descendants of his own, and no skills .
There is no place for him to stop in this land, so sad!
In desperation, he returned to his hometown. He wanted to live on farming in the future. Due to the sequelae of his youth "cleansing", he could not do crude and heavy farm work, so he could only rely on his brothers and sisters at home to help him. This kind of relying on others is not a long-term solution.
There is no unparalleled road, he came to Xinglong Temple, where many eunuchs with the same fate as him gathered, all of them have been smashed in endless ridicule and miserable fate until now.
Among them, several eunuchs still had some property, so they bought some houses and land and rented them out. A group of eunuchs relied on these rents to keep warm.
Afterwards, because the houses were dilapidated and the rent collected was not enough to repair those houses, life became more and more difficult. To make a living, Sun Yaoting was busy going in and out all day, picking up some cinders and waste products.
5. Living on an equal footing and enjoying human rights
Living on an equal footing and enjoying human rights is such a luxury for Sun Yaoting. Sun Yaoting once said with joy that after liberation, he left his life as a eunuch,Have a happy life.
In 1949, with the victory of 's liberation war , thousands of years of decadent feudal ideas were gradually replaced by new trends, and people's views on eunuchs also changed.
After liberation, Sun Yaoting enjoyed the care of the new Chinese government and received 16 yuan as living expenses every month.
After a period of time, Sun Yaoting had his own job in the temple and became a temple administrator, earning 35 yuan a month.
Since 1965, he has been living in the Guanghua Temple of , accompanied by the ancient Buddha in blue light in his later years, until his death in 1996.
The last eunuch Sun Yaoting passed away.
A physical defect left over from his teenage years, Sun Yaoting has always had an inferiority complex in his heart. Sun Yaoting hardly took a shower. At the end of his life, Sun Yaoting said it was because he didn't want to expose his physical defects to others.
Sun Yaoting has experienced vicissitudes and displacement throughout his life, and experienced three important periods: the late Qing Dynasty, , the Republic of China , and the new China. His legendary life is not only a testimony of social progress, but also the care of the party and the government, enabling him to enjoy his true dignity as a person in his later years.
References:
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