When you watch TV dramas, you may see some more bizarre ways of suicide, such as hitting pillars, biting your tongue, etc., then the most bizarre of them is to swallow gold suicide, swallowing gold suicide is a very common way of suicide in the ancients, such as Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, You Erjie was lured into the Grand View Garden by Wang Xifeng, was persecuted in every way, the fetus in the abdomen unfortunately miscarried, and You Erjie committed suicide by swallowing gold in despair.
Swallowing gold this way of suicide, in the eyes of modern people is actually difficult to understand, because gold is not toxic and harmless, even if you contain it every day, it will not be poisoned to death, and the so-called poisoning, nothing more than a toxic substance into the human body, absorbed by the human body, produced a chemical reaction harmful to health, the human body will not absorb gold, naturally there is no gold poisoning.
But in fact, the ancients referred to the "gold", and modern people understand the pure gold is not the same, we all know that the ancient smelting technology is very low, the purity of gold is not high, even if it is repeatedly smelted and purified, the gold obtained will often have some impurities, "Materia Medica" recorded that the gold that is not in place is red and has great poison, so it is possible to commit suicide by swallowing gold, but this is not gold poisoning, but the impurities produced when smelting gold are poisoned.
In addition to the above reasons, people swallow gold suicide, the cause of death is nothing more than two, one is that the volume and weight of the swallowed gold is too large, blocking the digestive system, the medical level in ancient times is not developed, and the gold cannot be taken out in time through surgery, and the gold cannot be spit out by means of vomiting, and once people swallow gold, they can only wait for death.
The second is to swallow finely broken, diamond-edged gold that is sharp at the edges, causing scratches to the digestive tract and intestines, and eventually death from internal bleeding.
In addition to Sister You, in the real history, did anyone end his life in this way? Not to mention that there was a figure in the Qing Dynasty, he was Dai Zongqian, this person was Li Hongzhang's favorite general, who served as the prefect and was responsible for sea affairs, when the Japanese fleet invaded the coast of China, Dai Zongqian was ordered to resist, but unfortunately outnumbered, coupled with backward military equipment, Dai Zongqian suffered a major defeat, after the defeat he consciously faced Li Hongzhang and the emperor, so he swallowed gold and committed suicide.
In addition to Dai Zongqian, there was also a eunuch named Zhang Min, who also ended his life by swallowing gold, Zhang Min still had a great contribution to Daming Jiangshan, without him, there was no later Ming Xiaozong, Zhang Min had been serving by Ming Xianzong's side at that time, and ming xianzong in the harem favored Wan Guifei alone, this concubine was old and had no heirs, so other concubines in the harem were not allowed to give birth to children.
Once Wan Guifei knew who secretly conceived the emperor's heir, she would definitely force this woman to beat the fetus, and then a palace girl surnamed Ji was accidentally blessed by Ming Xianzong, and also gave birth to a boy, after this matter was known to Wan Guifei, she handed the child over to Zhang Min and asked him to dispose of the child with his own hands, Zhang Min could not bear it and secretly raised the child.
When the child grew up, Zhang Min found an opportunity to secretly tell Ming Xianzong about this matter, and the child also became the crown prince, who was the later Ming Xiaozong.
When Wan Guifei learned of this, everything had fallen to the ground, after the blow of this matter, Wan Guifei fell ill, and many concubines in the harem seized the opportunity to give birth to children, after the death of Wan Guifei, Ming Xianzong was grief-stricken, and Zhang Min was worried that Ming Xianzong would anger himself, and he was frightened and committed suicide by swallowing gold.