I don't know if you have a feeling when reading "Dream of the Red Chamber": the first time you read the story, read more bento history. Chairman Mao said to several scholars in Beidaihe in August 1964: "I have read 'Dream of the Red Chamber' at least five times, and I read him as history. Read it first as a story, and then read it as a history. ”
If you read "Dream of the Red Chamber" several times, you will find that it is indeed inextricably linked to the history of the Qing Dynasty and many systems. For example, the number of yahuan slaves used in Jia Fu reflects some regulations of the Qing Palace.
On the twenty-ninth occasion, Jia Mu led the whole family to qingxuanguan to fight, which became the great news of the yahuans, "Those servants are not allowed to go out of the threshold every day, and whoever listens to this does not want to go, that is, the master of each person is lazy to go, and he also throws away in every way." ”
The words "the servants are not allowed to go out of the threshold every day" leaked the heavenly opportunity. The princes and nobles of the Qing Dynasty, the families of officials and eunuchs, and even the local rich people, all had the ya rings of the envoy, and these ya rings all had relative personal freedom, and they could still go out when there was something. Only the palace ladies of the Qing Palace were not allowed to go out of the threshold every day.
According to the Regulations of the Ministry of the Interior, palace women are not allowed to enter the palace during their service. Not only that, but without the permission of the master, even the prescribed service area cannot be out. Only on the second day of the first month of the month, at the opening of the city wall west of the Shenwu Gate, the palace maid was allowed to say a few words to her family across the fence, and to hand over the reward items and monthly money in the palace to her family.
Palace women are not allowed to leave the palace, and if they want to buy daily necessities such as needles and threads, they can only find eunuchs who usually have a good relationship to buy on the street. The same is true of the situation in Jia Province, where the ladies and ladies of the Grand View Garden are bound very tightly, are not allowed to leave the mansion, and the purchase of things must be bought by the comprador, which is obviously impossible in the ordinary princes and nobles' homes.
In addition, from the number of slaves in yahuan, it can also be explained that the rank of Jia Fu is ridiculously high. In the fifth time, Jia Baoyu dreamed of traveling too illusory, and when he saw that the book of the Twelve Nobles of Jinling, Bo Mingsi, contained only twelve people, he couldn't help but ask: "I often hear that Jinling is very large, why are there only twelve women?" Nowadays, there are hundreds of girls up and down our family alone. ”
In many later chapters, the population of Jia Fu is also mentioned several times, and in the fifty-second time, Musk Yue said: "Thousands of people in the family, you also came, I also came, we recognize people and ask for surnames, but we still can't recognize it!" ”。
In this way, the number of Yahuan slaves in Jia Province must be at least five hundred, which is a very large number. According to the Qing system, there were only a few hundred officials of rank in Prince Heshuo's palace, plus eunuchs, yahuan, and the subordinates and armored people who took care of the nursing home. Moreover, the officials of the royal palace, the armored people, etc. are all the establishment of the imperial court, which can be transferred back and forth, and the number of slaves who really belong to the palace will not exceed hundreds.
Taking a step back, even if there are hundreds of slaves, the size of the Qing Dynasty palace is so large, and there are not many empty spaces, if you have been to the readers of the Gong Palace, carefully understand, can you place hundreds of slaves?
Obviously, there was only one place in the Qing Dynasty that could accommodate so many slaves—the Forbidden City. In the forty-ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor decreed: "There are 9,000 women in the Ming Dynasty, 100,000 people in internal prisons, food cannot be eaten, and there are starving deaths every day." There were only four or five hundred people in the palace. In his later years, Kangxi also provided a more accurate figure: no more than seven hundred eunuchs were employed in the palace, and no more than five hundred palace women were employed.
The palace women used in the Qing Palace were only five hundred people, just imagine a duke's palace, how can it be compared with the palace? Although Cao Xueqin does not give a specific number of slaves in the novel, a rough number can be obtained in the compilation sequence of slaves in Jia Fu.
For example, in the third time, the composition of slaves around a master-level figure is given: "Also like Yingchun and other examples, in addition to the nursing mother from childhood, there are four old grandmothers; in addition to the two ya rings, there are five or six small ya rings that sweep the houses and serve the envoys." "It is not difficult to calculate that each master-level figure in Jia Fu needs twelve or three slaves to serve.
This fixed configuration also corresponds to the masters in the harem. The inner court of the Qing Palace was composed of a small group of strictly equal differences. That is, a concubine-level figure and the surrounding service personnel, the number of people also ranges from a few people to more than a dozen people.
For the number of palace women and eunuchs used, the Qing Palace has clear regulations: 10 empress palace women, 8 imperial concubines, 6 noble concubines, 4 concubines, and 2 concubines. That is to say, the yahuan who serves Yingchun is at least a concubine rank.
Cao Xueqin is actually using the name of Jia Fu to depict some of the systems of the Qing Palace's inner court. This is why when we read novels, we often can't distinguish the specific positioning of a character, like Jia Mu is sometimes a duchess of guo, and sometimes like the empress dowager.
So how many slaves did the real Cao family have in history? Unfortunately, when the Cao family was raided, there was no specific list left, but yongzheng also copied the family at the same time as Li Xu of Suzhou Weaving, and the situation of their family was roughly the same as that of the Cao family.
According to the Yongzheng First Year's "The General Administration of internal affairs played the inspection of Li Xu's family property" recorded on April 9 of the first year of Yongzheng, when the minister of internal affairs reported the results of the raid, he said: When Li Xu's family property was found, it was estimated that li Xu's family property was more than 128,477, 236 houses, 82 slaves, clothes, utensils and other items...
This number is still relatively reliable, roughly calculated, when Cao Xueqin's family was raided, the number of its slaves will not exceed the number of 82.