In history, since Qin Shi Huang established the centralized system of feudal society, the emperor, as the co-lord of the world, became the absolute power core of the family world, killing and robbing everything. As a link between rights, most of the empresses and concubines in the harem have become the products of political marriages, which has also led to the fact that the empresses of successive dynasties are almost all from famous and prestigious families.
This was especially evident in the qing dynasty. The kangxi emperor's first empress, Hesher Li, was from the Zhenghuang Banner and was the granddaughter of the four auxiliary ministers of the Kangxi Emperor, Sonny, who was entrusted by the Shunzhi Emperor to assist him. At that time, in the face of Aobai's great power and high merit, Empress Xiaozhuang, in order to consolidate the throne of the young Kangxi Emperor, achieved a political marriage with the Soni family, and ordered the 12-year-old Kangxi Emperor to marry Sony's granddaughter Hersheli and make her empress of the main palace, and it was also with the help of Soeto that the Kangxi Emperor easily removed Aobai's party and realized the consolidation of imperial power.
But there are always exceptions to everything, in China's thousands of years of feudal history, there is such a dynasty, but most of the empresses in the harem are from the cold door, and the relationship with political marriage is very shallow, it is the Ming Dynasty. So what caused most of the empresses of the Ming Dynasty to come from the Cold Gate?
The Ming Dynasty began with the establishment of Zhu Yuanzhang in 1368, and by 1644, When Li Zicheng attacked Beijing, the Chongzhen Emperor ended with his own hanging, and in the 276 years of the State Order, there were sixteen emperors and twenty-six empresses. Among these 26 empresses, the vast majority were from the cold door of commoners and grass-roots officials, rather than the famous and prestigious families of the previous dynasty.
Among them, there are many well-known. Empress Ma, the empress dowager of The Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang, was the daughter of Guo Zixing, the leader of the Red Turban Army, when Zhu Yuanzhang first rose. And as a "wife of chaff", even after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang had countless harem concubines and never abolished the establishment; Empress Zhang of Ming Xiaozong, as a generation of sages, and the three Yang Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, and Yang Pu assisted the Zhengde Emperor, were only born into a family of state sons; Empress Xiaoding Li of Ming Muzong, and even came from a merchant family at the end of the Ninth Stream; and the strange one was the third empress Shao of Ming Xianzong Zhu Jianshen, "Whose father Lin, Changhua, was poor, and sold his daughter to the hangzhou town eunuch, Shao thus entered the palace, "it was her father who sold her to eunuchs and eunuchs, and then entered the palace to achieve the position of empress."
Of course, the ming dynasty's famous empresses were not without them. For example, Zhu Di's wife Xu Shi was the daughter of the founding general Xu Da (but Zhu Di was originally the King of Yan, and Xu Shi was only a prince when he married him); the empress Qian Shi of Zhu Qizhen of Emperor Mingying was sheltered by his ancestors (following Zhu Dijing and had meritorious service), and his father was a high-ranking official of Zheng Sanpin. The others were no more high-ranking and prominent men.
So what is the reason for this situation?
In the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, there was a constant struggle for power within the Yuan Dynasty, not only there was a dispute between Emperor YuanShun and the crown prince Ai Youzhi Lidara, but even the empress had the right to interfere in the affairs of the dynasty and appoint officials, which also made the monopoly of foreign relatives interfere in the government reach its peak.
As an emperor from a poor background, Zhu Yuanzhang, when he was oppressed by officials and saw many harsh political ills within the Yuan Dynasty, he was determined to learn the lesson of the demise of the Yuan Dynasty and strictly control the empress and the foreign relatives caused by it.
Therefore, at the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty by Zhu Yuanzhang in the first year of Hongwu, the "Women's Training" was compiled. In it, he clearly pointed out that when choosing a concubine, "all the heavenly sons, the queen of the prince, the concubines, and the concubines of the palace, carefully choose the daughters of the good family, and those who enter the concubines are blessed, so the concubines and the people who are more colorful."
That is to say, Zhu Yuanzhang determined the Ming Dynasty in the form of ancestral training, and established the rules for the selection of concubines and queens. It is necessary to focus on the people, so as to avoid the situation of collusion with the general power and harem of the Yuan Dynasty and foreign relatives interfering in politics. Thanks to the implementation of this policy, the Ming Dynasty has become one of the few dynasties in Chinese history where the royal family and the people have such a close connection.
References: History of the Ming Dynasty, qing, written by Zhang Tingyu