The name "Chaotiannu" sounds like a group of people bathing in imperial grace and glory and wealth, but behind it is actually a group of court women who have martyred the Ming emperors.
The so-called martyrdom system is an ancient custom, as early as the slave society period, the use of slaves to bury became a system, the martyrdom system to the Yin Shang period is the most prosperous, the Warring States period, once abolished the martyrdom system, to the Qin unification of the Six Kingdoms, qin shi huang death, but once again large-scale martyrdom incidents.
In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the martyrdom system was officially abolished, and after the Han Dynasty, from the court to the people, although there is no shortage of records of the phenomenon of martyrdom, it eventually occurred sporadically, and institutional martyrdom no longer exists.
However, this tragic system of burial, after a thousand years, was revived in the Ming Dynasty, and in the early Ming Dynasty, the system of concubine burial once again appeared, and during the ming taizu, Ming Chengzu, Ming Renzong, Ming Xuanzong and Jingdi periods, martyrdom became the custom of the imperial family.
In the thirty-first year of Ming Hongwu, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang died, a total of 40 concubines were martyred, except for two who died before Taizu, the remaining 38 people were martyred and died, in the next 70 years, this barbaric system was imitated by Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants, creating a large number of tragedies.
According to the Records of the Li Dynasty, the number of palace concubines forced to be martyred in the early Ming Dynasty was as follows: 38 Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, 30 Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty, 5 of Zhu Gaozi of the Ming Dynasty, and 11 of the Ming Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji.
According to the historical records of the martyrdom palace concubines, there are very few people with deeds to examine, and it is estimated that most of them are ordinary concubines and palace women who have not given birth, and the minority with higher status or children.
The Records of King Zhuang Xian of the Li Dynasty records in detail the process of Chengzu's martyrdom from the martyrdom of the concubines:
Jia Chen (6th year of Li Dynasty Sejong, 22nd year of Ming Yongle) On the afternoon of October 2015, "The envoys said: Before and after the selection of Han and other daughters, all martyred the Emperor Daxing, the first and the emperor's collapse, the palace people martyred more than thirty people.
From this historical data, it can be seen that in October of the twenty-second year of Yongle, more than thirty people were martyred for Ming Chengzu, and most of the palace concubines selected by the Joseon Lee Dynasty to send to the Ming Dynasty could not escape the fate of martyrdom, and among the palace concubines who were martyred for Zhu Di, at least two were Korean women, one was the palace maid Han Shi, and the other was the beauty Cui Shi.
The "Records of the Lee Dynasty" also specifically records the last moment of a Korean woman, Han Shi, who ate the last meal, the eunuch drove the palace people into the temple, and Han Shi suddenly knelt down and crawled in front of Akihito, who was sitting outside the palace and "resigned" with them, and cried bitterly.
Han begged Akihito to let her return to China and spare her life to return to serve her old mother, but Akihito did not say a word, unmoved, and the eunuch stepped forward and dragged Han into the palace.
The nursing mother who came from North Korea also stood outside the temple, saying goodbye to her, and when Han Shi stood on the small wooden bed, he was about to put his head into the rope noose, and suddenly looked back at his nursing mother and shouted: "Mother, I go!" Mother, I'll go!" Its miserable state and mournful voices brought tears to even the officials who were in charge of the execution.
As soon as Han's voice fell, the eunuch forcibly pressed his head into the rope noose and pulled off the small wooden bed under his feet, Han struggled a few times, and in the blink of an eye, he was ordered to go to Huangquan, and a young and beautiful woman died like this.
Emperor Akihito Had 5 Concubines Buried, among the five concubines who were martyred, the leader of the Guo clan was a noble concubine before he was born, and gave birth to three princes, she still died from martyrdom, which is very rare, even if it is the ming Dynasty from the martyrdom of the highest one, Guo Guifei's burial, may be voluntary, but it can not be ruled out that it is the result of the court struggle.
Of the 10 concubines martyred by Emperor Xuanzong of Ming, only one of the 10 concubines was born as a concubine and was posthumously honored as a noble concubine after death, and the rest were probably palace women before they died.
The concubines who were martyred were often the vulnerable groups who had no one to rely on in the court, and in the feudal dynasty of feudal despotism, the concubines and palace women were their private belongings in the eyes of the emperor, and the emperor had the right to kill and seize them.
Therefore, after the emperor's death, the palace concubines, out of some posthumous considerations (such as posthumous or the favor of the survivors, etc.), rather than being forced to be martyred, were "voluntarily" martyrdom.
The way of burial in the Ming Dynasty was mainly self-hanging and hunger strike, most of which were first hanged, and then buried in a coffin, generally after the martyrdom of the palace concubines, the imperial court would issue coffins of different materials according to their different identities before they died, and then buried in the imperial tombs of the martyrdom in order.
The specific process of martyrdom is not recorded in the main history, but the process of collective burial of concubines who were martyred by Myeongseongjo is recorded in detail in the Joseon Dynasty Records of the Lee Dynasty.
On the day of the collective martyrdom, the palace concubines who were selected for burial would generally set up a banquet in the palace and invite them to dress up and go to the banquet, but it is conceivable that even the best feast may be difficult to make these women who are about to end their youth and life swallow, and only the cries can be heard throughout the hall.
After eating, they were taken to the designated hall, where a number of "small wooden beds" were placed, and when they saw this scene, for a while, the palace people "cried out to the town hall pavilion", some called for their fathers, some called out to the heavens, and some directly fainted to the ground, fainted, and were carried to the rope knot and strangled.
The awakened concubines who were about to die were ordered to stand on the wooden bed, and the ropes were prepared on the top of their heads, and the heads were stuck into the pre-tied rope noose, and then the eunuchs removed the wooden beds, and the young beings bid farewell to the world, and the souls were gone.
From the above records, it can be seen that the scene of this collective burial is extremely frightening, and the situation is extremely miserable. In order to hide the eyes and ears of the people, the act of honoring the martyrdom of the palace concubines is also compensated for the burial of women.
The new emperor who succeeded to the throne often used the method of sealing and posthumously to comfort the relatives of the martyrs, and the new emperor was to posthumously give the former emperor the title of concubine from the palace and call him "Imperial Mother".
Emperor Xuanzong of Ming Xuanzong's martyrdom of Emperor Zhu Zhanji, including the palace ladies He And Zhao, were posthumously honored as concubines and given titles, and the buried concubines could not only obtain titles themselves, but even their family members and dependents could also get some preferential treatment.
The "Biography of the Later Concubines of the Ming Dynasty" records: "Taizu collapsed, and the palace people were mostly from the dead. When Jianwen and Yongle were born, they were successively honored. If Zhang Feng, Li Heng, Zhao Fu, Zhang Bi, and Wang Bin all tried hundreds of households from the Jinyi Wei Institute, scattered horses with knives and swords into thousands of households, and brought their inheritance, they were called "Taizu Chaotian Female Households".
After the death of Ming Taizu, thirty-eight concubines were martyred, and the widows who were compensated were hereditary Jinyiwei thousands of households, and those who received hereditary positions were the fathers or brothers of some martyred women, and their identity was "Chaotian Female Household".
However, only the five families recorded in the historical records were compensated, and the others were probably because the concubines of the martyrdom palace were "unknown to others", and they never received preferential treatment.
How long this preferential treatment lasted for the "Ming Taizu Chaotian Female Household" who was pensioned was not recorded in the ming dynasty historical materials, and it is estimated that it was not implemented for a long time, it may be limited to the Jianwen and Yongle years, and the so-called "hereditary" is really a fiction.
For the palace women who were not sealed, most of the imperial court records did not record their names and only a few words before they died, so that posterity could not know their true faces.
Of course, there are exceptions, and it is recorded in the historical records of the Ming Dynasty that among the many palace concubines who were forced to be martyred in the Ming Dynasty, one of them is the most regrettable, she is Guo Ai, the concubine of Zhu Zhanji of Emperor Xuanzong of Ming.
Guo Ai was born in Fengyang, a scholarly monk, innocent, beautiful, intelligent and literate, and was elected to the palace as a concubine of Ming Xuanzong at the age of fourteen, but just twenty days after she entered the palace, before she was familiar with everything in the Forbidden City, the news of Ming Xuanzong's death came, and she had been designated as a martyr.
When the will came, this old, lively and lovely young girl was grief-stricken. After receiving the Holy Will, Guo Ai knew that she would die, but she could not resist, and at the last moment of her life, she was full of grief and resentment, and wrote a desperate letter modeled on Chu Ci:
"There are several short repairs, but the deficiencies are also more. Born like a dream, death is also aware. The first I kissed and returned, and I was ashamed of the loss of filial piety. The heart is miserable and cannot be healed, but it can be mourned. ”
Guo Ai's "Book of Death", full of blood and tears, left the world with a song of deep palace grievances, and at the same time awakened the conscience of Zhu Qizhen, among the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Qizhen was recognized as an emperor who had not achieved anything in politics, but before he died, he made a decision: starting from him, abolish the system of human martyrdom.
On the sixteenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Tianshun, the sick Zhu Qizhen drafted a will and said to the crown prince: "Since Emperor Gao, but every time the emperor collapses, he always wants many people in the harem to be martyred, and he can't bear to do this, don't be martyred after death, you must remember, there can be no such thing in the future!" ”
There are two special reasons why Zhu Qizhen was able to make such a wise decision, one is because Zhu Qizhen was an emperor who had suffered many troubles, had suffered from the change of Tumu Fort, and had been under house arrest by Emperor Jing for many years, which was more emotional.
The second reason was that Zhu Qizhen and his own empress Qian had a very deep relationship, Empress Qian ran out of money after Zhu Qizhen was defeated and captured, crying day and night, resulting in damage to her legs and eyes, when Zhu Qizhen was under house arrest, Empress Qian also accompanied him through a difficult time, and he had deep feelings for his empress.
Zhu Qizhen was worried that after his death, someone in the harem would follow the precedent and force Empress Qian to commit suicide and be martyred, it can be said that Zhu Qizhen ended the martyrdom system, and one of the most direct purposes was to protect his empress.
In any case, Zhu Qizhen ordered the abolition of the burial system, a decision that conformed to the will of heaven and was welcomed by all the people, and although Zhu Qizhen did not have the great achievements of his predecessors, later historians did not hesitate to praise him for this action.
Emperor Mingying's Zhu Qizhen ended the martyrdom system, which not only reduced a group of "chaotian female households" who ate and rented clothes, but also relieved the tragic fate of a group of weak women who "followed the dragon to ride the guests".
Zhu Qizhen's single move brought his imperial career to a successful conclusion, and his successor Emperor Ming Xianzong once again stressed before his death that he should not be martyred to show respect for the decision of the former emperor.
The persistence of these two generations of emperors finally brought an end to the martyrdom system since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. Those women who had been forced to be martyred were also gradually annihilated by the wind and sand of the Forbidden City in the flood of history.