"The Literature of Zhou·Tianguan" records: "The female history is in charge of the queen's rituals. She is in charge of the rituals of the queen. She is in charge of the internal governance, and uses the imperial eunuch to govern the internal affairs, reverse the inner palace, and write about the internal orders." This is the earliest record of female eunuchs. At that time, female eunuchs were called female history. Historical records show that there were 8 female history people at the Zhou Dynasty .
Han includes female imperial chief, palace chief, and central palace academic history; Tang Dynasty is more complete, including Shanggong, Shangyi, Shangfu, Shangshi , Shangyu, Shangshi, Shanggong and other "six sutra officials", as well as Siji, Dichou, Zhangshi, and Shanggong, etc., with more than 200 female officials; in the Song Dynasty, there were Sigong Ling, Liushu, Twenty-four Si, Si Zheng, Tongshi, etc.; Ming Dynasty female officials system is more complete than Tang and Song Dynasty.
Female eunuch is a common name among the people. The official calls female officials female officials. The rise of the identity of female eunuch was mainly during the Wu Zetian period. In the harem, the female official 's responsibilities are mainly to record the private lives of the emperor, empress and concubines, and sometimes they are also responsible for imparting physiological knowledge to the crown prince and prince. Compared to choosing concubines, choosing female officials generally does not pay much attention to age and appearance, but pays more attention to their inner talents.
In history, all dynasties and dynasties basically had female officials in the harem, but it was much less than the huge number of eunuchs. In ancient times, many eunuchs were born in power and in chaos in the government, and many famous female eunuchs were also born. Empress Wu Zetian has a famous female official Shangguan Wan'er , known as the "Women Prime Minister". After Wu Zetian died, she was accepted as Tang Zhongzong as Zhaorong (one of the Nine Concubines), Li Longji launched a coup and was killed together with Empress Wei .
Qing Dynasty Scholar Zhao Jishi In his book "Send to the Garden and Sent", he listed many more famous female eunuchs. For example, writer and historian Ban Zhao of Han Dynasty , talented woman in Jin Dynasty , the earliest female poet in China, Zuofen (she is also the concubine of Sima Yan of Emperor Wu of Jin), female scholar Song Ruocui of Tang Dynasty , female scholastic book Xue Tao , female Jinshi Lin Miaoyu , etc.
The talented people in the Ming Dynasty 0,000 Zhen'er , and was also a female official earlier. When he was 19 years old, he went to serve only two-year-old Zhu Jianshen . After Zhu Jianshen ascended the throne and succeeded to the throne Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty, if it were not for the obstruction of the empress dowager and ministers, 0,000 Zhen'er would have almost become the queen. If the prince she gave birth to did not die prematurely, she would have become the emperor's mother. Emperor Xianzong of Ming Dynasty had a deep relationship with Wan Zhen'er. Despite his age and deteriorated, he reigned for more than 20 years. Concubine Wan died, and the death of Xianzong in the same year shows how passionate the two love is.
Ming Xianfei Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshenwan Guifei
To sum up, it can be seen that not all female eunuchs must be clean. For example, Ban Zhao, her two brothers are the great hero of , the Western Regions , and the other is the class Gu , who wrote " Hanshu ". Because she is familiar with the classics and history, she has a high reputation and has been summoned by the emperor many times and invited her to the palace to teach her concubines. When Empress Dowager Deng was in charge of the government, Ban Zhao also participated in the affairs of the court. From the perspective of identity, Ban Zhao is a female official, that is, a female eunuch. When she entered the palace, she had a relatively high status and did not receive the cruel " claustrophobic ".
Eunuchs must clean themselves when they enter the palace, and they must use castration techniques. There is similar castration for women. According to records, there was a kind of castration in ancient criminal law that was specifically used for women. was first published in "Shangshu·Famous Punishment", and is called claustrophobia.
Most female eunuchs have to go through life-threatening castration . Regarding the records of female officials' body purifying, there are also a few words in the literature, and the process of body purifying is very cruel.Wang Zhaoyun, a native of the Ming Dynasty, mentioned the operation of this method in "Jieshi Left Talk": "When hitting a woman's chest and abdomen with a wooden hammer, there is something falling and covering her vagina, which can only urinate and drown, and the human way will be eliminated forever!" As for what organ falls, some people think it is uterine , and some people think it is the anterior wall of the vagina, but these two types of prolapses cannot fundamentally cut off sexual intercourse.
is easy to understand and is necessary to clean the body of the eunuch. The huge palace, thousands of young beauties, and the only man, the emperor, will definitely not meet the sexual needs of so many women. If the eunuch is not castrated, the green grass on the emperor's head will definitely develop into a prairie.
The emperor was not worried that the female eunuchs would cuckold him, but in the palace, in addition to the emperor, there was also a young prince. Even though I am young, if I encounter someone with a heart, I can still follow the rules. For example, Zhu Jianshen grew up with Wan Zhen'er since childhood, and I don't know when he became a man under Wan Zhen'er's caress. Guangxu and Xuantong grew up in the palace since childhood. Because they were young and had too many people, they didn’t know and couldn’t control themselves. Instead, they lost their male fertility after they became adults. This kind of situation is something that the emperor must try his best to avoid.
In addition, three women play together, the palace is a place of right and wrong. The queen, concubine, and palace maids don’t want to be affected by the emperor’s rain and dew. The female officials are in charge of the palace, so naturally they have many opportunities to stay with the emperor. Those empresses are also afraid that the female officials will take the opportunity to fall in love with the emperor. If they give birth to a prince again, they will definitely threaten their own status.
Therefore, reached a broad consensus on the cleansing of female eunuchs .
The castration for men is very simple. The male genitals were exposed. Earlier, they were tied tightly with a thin rope to cause ischemia and necrosis. Later, they only needed a sharp knife, cut it off and sprinkled wood ash on the wound to stop bleeding and prevent inflammation.
After being castrated, the eunuch changed a lot, his voice was sharp and thin, and his Adam's apple disappeared. Although he still had ideas, he had no tools for committing the crime.
Most of the female genitals are inside the body, the most important of which are the uterus and ovaries . Therefore, the castration sentence for women by is to remove the uterus and ovaries. Under the backward conditions of ancient medicine, the claustrophobia for women seems even more cruel.
The process is roughly: first tie the female officer to a pillar, drink a large bowl of hemp soup and anesthetize, and then use a special hammer to hit the lower abdomen. This blunt attack can cause a woman's uterus to sag. The person who performs the operation will hook the uterus with a hook, and then hang a heavy object to hang it. Slowly, the female uterus and ovaries will fall off. Finally, special tools will be taken to remove these organs from the female body. At the same time, in order to stop bleeding, some wood ash will be sprinkled on the wound. The medical conditions at that time were only like this.
After the woman was removed from her uterus and ovaries, she lost her fertility organ . Sexual inability to be completely controlled by estrogen produced by the ovaries. The sexual desire may have decreased but not disappeared, and the external sexual characteristics of the body have not changed much. In ancient times, mothers were noble by their sons. Although these female eunuchs always served the emperor, the queen and the concubines were not worried about having sex with the emperor, because even if they did, they could not give birth to children, so there was no threat.
The medical conditions of modern society, surgery such as uterus removal is not considered a major surgery. However, under ancient medical conditions, the punishment of claustrophobia was not only painful, but also prone to heavy bleeding during the operation, and easily induce postoperative infection, with a high mortality rate.
This inhuman behavior is not only aimed at men, but even weak women cannot escape this disaster. This not only reflects the emperor's dictatorship, but also reflects the human rights inequality everywhere in feudal society.
The eunuch system, as part of ancient court culture, is a unique cultural phenomenon in our country. Looking back today, needs to be respectful to any culture.
