In ancient times, whether it was the royal family or a large household, the child would be equipped with a nurse, because some women would not have enough milk after giving birth to a child, and in the palace, they would not let the prince's birth mother raise them, so they were all brought up by the milkmaid, but the treatment of the ancient milkmaid was not good, if it was not desperate, the family was poor, and the women were not willing to enter the palace as a milkmaid, because they had to abide by an inhuman rule.
In the palace, each prince will be equipped with a separate nurse, and their living life is also taken care of by the nurse, and many princes are weaned very late. Emperors of all dynasties have three palaces and six courtyards, in order to make their heirs prosperous, they will spoil different concubines and let them give birth to imperial heirs, but some concubines give birth to more than one prince, if they have been feeding, their energy will certainly not be able to keep up.
For women, there are many people who do not have milk after childbirth, but the reason why they do not let the concubines personally feed the children is mainly because they are afraid that the feelings of the prince and the concubines are too deep, and the two will conspire to usurp the throne in the future, after all, the women of the harem are looking forward to the mother's son, they all want their children to be the prince to inherit the country, so if they personally feed the children, then the feelings of the prince and the mother must be better than the feelings of the emperor.
Although it is very hard to be a nurse, but want to enter the palace to be a nurse or go through a lot of selection, because they feed the prince and princess, the status is extremely noble, so the milk lady's family lineage must be innocent, they and the people around them have not committed adultery, and secondly, the body should be healthy and strong, can ensure that the milk is sufficient, so that they can take care of the prince, although the nurse has no worries, but their freedom is also restricted, they must accompany the prince at all times, and they must not leave the palace privately.
We all know that women will only have milk after giving birth, so many nurses have children in their homes, but after they choose to be milk mothers, they must be separated from their children, because the milk of the milk mother can only ensure that the prince can drink alone, and absolutely cannot be shared with the children of the milk mother, so the milk mother must give up her own flesh and bones, if not for livelihood, which woman is willing to separate the flesh and bones?
Forcing the nurse to separate from her own flesh and bones is very cruel, there is no humanity to speak of, and some nurses have lost information with their children after entering the palace, such as Puyi's grandmother Jiao Wangshi. Puyi was the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and when he succeeded to the throne, he was only three years old and had not been weaned, so he told the world to choose a milk lady, and there were many people who applied for the job at that time, basically all of them were poor mothers.
Jiao Wang clan just gave birth to a child shortly after the husband died, the burden of life all fell on her shoulders, she was reluctant to send her own child away, so she wanted to make money to raise the child herself, so Jiao Wang clan entrusted the child to relatives, went to apply for the milk lady, and finally successfully elected, she did not expect to see the child again after this walk, she entered the palace after accompanying Puyi for nine years, after leaving the palace, she knew that the child starved to death at the age of three.
Puyi once described in his memoirs that the nurse took care of him, if there was no nurse to accompany him in those years, I am afraid that Puyi could not persist at all, but when Jiao Wangshi accompanied the emperor, he did not know that his child had starved to death at home because there was no milk to eat, which made her very heartbroken, and later the neighbors told her the truth, in fact, they went to the palace to report this matter, but the people in the palace did not tell her in order not to affect the quality of her milk, resulting in her not even seeing the last side of the child.