In ancient China, there were countless beautiful women in the imperial harems of the emperors, known as the three palaces, six courtyards and seventy-two concubines, all of which were to show the number of concubines in the harem of the ancient emperors. But in fact, in history, the number of harem beauties of three thousand really reached the emperor is not much, generally between tens or hundreds. But also excluding individual emperors, some emperors have far more than three thousand harems, and today there are five emperors with the most harems in everyone's history.
First: Tang Xuanzong Li Longji
The number of palace women in the harem of Tang Xuanzong exceeded 40,000, and the emperor with the largest number of palace women in history was Tang Xuanzong. In the Tang Dynasty, with the four concubines of Gui, Shu, De, and Xian as their wives, the harem set up six bureaus and twenty-four divisions, with a total of 190 people, and 10 female historians. These are all graded, and the number of palace girls without grade is quite large. In the first year of Tang Suzong's reign, he released 3,000 palace people at a time. In the Xuanzong Kaiyuan Tianbao, only the three palaces of Chang'an Danei, Daming, Xingqing and the two palaces of Dongdu Danei and Shangyang, that is, there were 40,000 palace women, which shows that Tang Xuanzong's palace daughters were more than 40,000, and the total population of the Tang Dynasty at that time was 50 million, which was equivalent to one in a thousand people being Tang Xuanzong's wives and concubines, which was more than the total number of officials in the Tang Dynasty. It can be seen that to evaluate the emperor with the most palace women in history, Tang Xuanzong deserved it.
Second place: Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty
Emperor Wu of Han's harem numbered eighteen thousand people, and Emperor Wu of Han was undoubtedly an emperor of great talent. During the reign of Qin Shi Huang, concubines were divided into eight grades, and by the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the rank of concubines had increased to fourteenth grade. Correspondingly, the number of people increased from tens of thousands of Qin Shi Huang to 18,000 during the han wudi period. In the Southern Qi man Wang Jian's "Han Wu Story", it is recorded: "In the Yuan Shuo, from the Mingguang Palace, there were 2,000 people who sent Yan Zhao meiren to fill it, with a rate of more than fifteen, less than twenty, and those who reached the age of thirty were married." There are eight thousand beautiful women in the palace. "Taste yourself: 'You can go three days without eating, and you can't go a day without a woman.'" The Old Book of Tang and The Chronicle of Food and Goods also records: "There were tens of thousands of people in the harem of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and the palace rooms of Rong Yi were externally discussed and the palace rooms of Inner Xing were built. ”
Emperor Wu of Han said, "You can eat for three days, but you can't go a day without a woman." "It can be seen that he is indeed an energetic emperor." But even if Emperor Wudi of Han was full of energy, he could not meet the needs of eighteen thousand women. As the text says: "Even if there are those who have been favored, it often takes several years before they can be favored again by Emperor Wu of Han." And those women who had not been pampered in their lives had to endure that loneliness and suffering for a long time, until they were thirty years old, so old that the emperor could not be interested, they would be released from the palace.
Third place: Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin
Emperor Sima Yan of the Jin Dynasty had more than 10,000 concubines in his harem, and in 273 AD, he ordered a large number of virgins from the families of civil and military officials above the rank of pin to enter the palace. The following year, 5,000 virgins from the families of civilian and military officials and ordinary scholars were selected to enter the palace. At this point, together with more than 5,000 palace daughters of Emperor Yuan of Wei and Sun Hao of the late Wu Dynasty, the number of beauties in the harem reached more than 10,000. Because there are many concubines in Sima Yan's harem, there is also an allusion, that is, the famous "sheep cart Wangxing". Because there were too many concubines, Sima Yan did not know how to choose, he thought of a way, he sat in the sheep cart, let the sheep walk freely in the palace garden, where the sheep cart was parked, he was there to spoil the concubine. So a palace man planted a bamboo branch on the door and sprinkled the salt water on the ground, and the sheep stopped eating because they liked the taste of the salt water, so the sheep cart stopped at the entrance of her palace. This story comes from the book 31 of the Book of Jin, because of this story, posterity called the hope of getting the attention or favor of others as "yangche wangxing". In 290 AD, Sima Yan was finally hollowed out due to excessive indulgence, fell ill, and died soon after. He died on December 31, 2012 at the age of 55.
Fourth place: Yang Guang, Emperor of the Sui Dynasty
It is said that the harem of the Sui Emperor is 5,000 beautiful women, far more than the saying that the harem beauty is three thousand, but the Sui Emperor is still not satisfied, thinking that he is the king of a country, how can just a few beautiful women show their identity? So the Sui Emperor ordered the construction of palaces in various places and collected a large number of beautiful women. The Sui Emperor also built a luxurious high-rise building for the sake of beautiful women, imprisoning thousands of beautiful women in it. It is said that as long as the Sui Emperor entered this place, he basically did not come out for several months, ignoring the government and indulging in beauty all day. Even every time he traveled, he would bring thousands of concubines.
Fifth place: Liu Zhi, Emperor Huan of Han
After the death of Emperor Han, Liu Zhi was made emperor by the general Liang Ji and became the eleventh emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and empress dowager Liang was put in charge of the government, and her cousin Liang Ji took power. Therefore, at the beginning of Liu Zhi's succession, he had to curry favor with the Liang family, before Empress Liang's death, he could only favor Empress Liang alone, until Empress Liang died, after Liang Ji was killed again, coupled with his exclusive favor of Empress Deng gradually became old and yellow, the previously suppressed mood was completely released, began to expand the harem, and after being interfered with by Empress Deng, it was a letter of edict directly deposing Empress Deng and beating her into the cold palace until she died. After that, Emperor Huan of Han not only created a new empress, that is, Dou Miao, the great-granddaughter of Dou Rong, the Marquis of Anfeng, and the daughter of The Great Sikong Dou Wu. At the same time, a large-scale conscription of beautiful women into the palace began, and the number of them was close to five or six thousand, which was unimaginable in the previous imperial period.