Historically, since the founding emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Yingzheng, established the centralized system of feudal society, the emperor has become the absolute core of power in the entire country, the person who holds the power of the world, and as the controller of power, there will naturally be a bond, the empress in the harem, and the concubines have become the victims of the power, and most of the harems of the emperors of the past dynasties are from the famous nobles.
This was especially evident during the Qing Dynasty. The kangxi emperor's first empress, Herschel, was born in Zhenghuangqi. She was the granddaughter of the four auxiliary ministers left by the Shunzhi Emperor, Sonny, and at that time, Aobai was in power, which meant forcing the palace to seize the throne, and Empress Xiaozhuang, in order to consolidate the throne of the young emperor, let him marry the granddaughter of the Soni family and crown her as empress, and with Sonny's help, Kangxi was able to eradicate Aobai and strengthen the rule of the imperial power.
However, there are always exceptions. In China's thousands of years of feudal history, there is such a dynasty. Most of the harem concubines were born into poverty and had little to do with political marriage. This is the Ming Dynasty. So why did most of the Ming dynasty concubines come from poor backgrounds? The Ming Dynasty began in 1368 with the establishment of Zhu Yuanzhang. It was not until 1644 that Li Zicheng invaded Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself. In the 276 years of the Ming Dynasty, a total of 26 empresses were produced, and most of these 26 empresses were born very low-born, and most of the empresses of other dynasties were born into the nobility.
There are many such examples in the history of the Ming Dynasty, such as Zhu Yuanzhang's wife Empress Ma, in the early days of Zhu Yuanzhang, she was the daughter of Guo Zixing, the leader of the Red Turban Army, even after Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, she did not abolish the empress and establish a new huan, Empress Zhang of Ming Xiaozong, as a generation of names, in history and Sanyang dedicated herself to assisting the Zhengde Emperor, and her birth was not noble.
But in the Ming Dynasty there were not no empresses born into famous aristocrats, for example
Zhu Di's empress was the daughter of the founding general Xu Da, the empress of Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Qizhen, who was also born famous, and her father was the Sanpin Dayuan of the imperial court.
So what exactly caused this to happen in the Ming Dynasty? In a certain year of the Yuan Dynasty, there were many contradictions within the Yuan Dynasty, not only the struggle between the Shun Emperor and the crown prince of the Yuan Dynasty, but also the problem of the interference of the harem empress concubines in the affairs of the dynasty, which made the power of foreign ministers reach their peak.
And Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant-born emperor, naturally knowing yuan yun who fell in the Yuan Dynasty, he was a wise man, how could he repeat the same mistakes? All of his serious control over the participation of foreign ministers in the government affairs of the dynasty, and in the first year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang also revised the regulations, saying that future emperors or princes must be selected from the people when choosing concubines, that is to say, Zhu Yuanzhang had already left a group training at the beginning of the founding of the country, and the future emperors and grandchildren of the Ming Dynasty did not dare to violate it.