In Qing palace dramas, we often see the concubines of the harem being wrapped in quilts and sent to the emperor's bed by the eunuch, and then sent back by the eunuch after they are done.
This is because the emperor of the Qing Dynasty could only spend the night with the queen, and other concubines did not have this right. Why did this happen?
originated from Jiajing
Before Jiajing , the emperor could spend the night in the concubine's house , but something happened in Jiajing, which caused the emperor to never go to the concubine's residence from then on.
Many rules of the Qing Dynasty followed and Ming Dynasty , and was even stricter than the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, there was a strange situation in the Qing Dynasty where the emperor either slept by himself or slept with the queen.
Jiajing was an emperor who was obsessed with monasticism and had no regard for government affairs for more than 20 years.
Jiajing was not the first to pursue immortality and become an immortal. Qin Shihuang had sent many boys and girls out to sea to find the elixir of immortality, but Jiajing went even further.
One of the elixirs that Jiajing was most obsessed with was red lead . It was made from virgin menstrual blood and some medicinal materials. It was said that taking it for a long time could lead to immortality.
In order to collect menstrual blood, Jiajing sent people to search for girls aged 13 to 14 . After entering the palace, these girls could only eat mulberry leaves , drink dew, and take a large number of menstrual drugs.
These girls were tortured. Some of them suffered from hemorrhage and died of blood loss after taking menstrual drugs. Jiajing also executed some of them in order to keep it secret.
These palace ladies who had no way out could only take desperate measures and chose to kill Jiajing secretly.
16 palace maids headed by Yang Jinying took advantage of Jiajing to rest in Concubine Cao Duan's palace, and put a rope around Jiajing's neck in an attempt to strangle Jiajing.
But the rope was tied into a tight knot and did not strangle Jiajing. These palace ladies were also executed by Empress Fang who came over. After Jiajing woke up, she executed Concubine Cao Duan and Concubine Wang Ning.
After Jiajing, a rule was set - the emperor was not allowed to spend the night in the residence of his concubines.
Yongzheng Strengthen
This measure of Jiajing was also retained after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, but at the beginning, concubines could still wear clothes to go to the emperor's residence.
Just another thing happened during the Yongzheng period, and this rule changed again.
In the middle and early stages of the Qing Dynasty, anti-Qing people often tried to subvert the Qing regime, and there were even incidents of assassinating the emperor.
During the Yongzheng period, a concubine who was sleeping with her hid a knife under her clothes and tried to assassinate her.
Although the assassination failed, Yongzheng left a shadow. He was afraid that similar things would happen again, so he strengthened the rules set by Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty - concubines needed to take off their clothes, wrap them in a quilt and be sent to them by eunuchs. The emperor's palace.
Moreover, the time for these concubines to sleep is only one stick of incense, which is half an hour. When the time is up, the eunuch will remind them outside.
The emperor can ignore it for the first time. The eunuch will remind him again after five or six minutes. Under normal circumstances, the emperor will respond at this time.
If there is still no response from the emperor, the eunuch will shout a third time. This time if the emperor does not respond, the eunuch can break in. This to a large extent ensures the emperor's personal safety.
After the concubines have finished sleeping, they will be wrapped in quilts by the eunuchs and sent back to their homes.
At this time, the emperor could choose to rest alone, or go to the queen's place and sleep with the queen. Therefore, the scene of the Qing Dynasty emperor and his concubines spending the night together in movies and TV dramas will never happen.
From this, we can see that although the emperor has supreme power, he is also a high-risk profession, and he must take every possible precaution to prevent harm even when he sleeps.
The choice of concubines to sleep with
Queens of the Qing Dynasty not only had the exclusive right to spend the night with the emperor, but also had the power to appoint concubines to sleep with.
The emperor chooses who will sleep with him by turning over the cards. If he likes whoever he likes, he will turn over whose card. If there is no one he likes, the emperor will either sleep by himself or find the queen to sleep with him.
The candidates for these brands are also very particular, and not every concubine is qualified.
These concubines will only have their brands presented to the emperor with the consent of the queen. After the emperor flips over the brands, the brands of the selected concubines will also need to be stamped with the phoenix seal by the queen before they will take effect..
In other words, if the queen does not stamp it, then even if the emperor chooses someone, that person will not be able to sleep with him.
I have to say that the power of the queen is really great. Therefore, in the Qing palace dramas, the concubines rely on the emperor's favor and have conflicts with the queen. In reality, the power of life and death of the concubines is in the hands of the emperor. Who has it? It would be displeasing to have the courage to offend the Queen.
Faced with the situation where other people's consent was required for the selection of his bedside servants, the emperor was naturally very unhappy. This is why Kangxi , Qianlong and other s liked to visit private citizens incognito or go on parades.
Only after leaving the palace can they be free from the constraints of these rules. They can favor whoever they want without looking at anyone's face.
I have to say that if you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight. This Western saying makes sense. The emperor holds the greatest power in the world, but he is also bound by unimaginable rules. This can be regarded as a loss and a gain.
