As we all know, Empress Dowager Cixi was particularly fond of drinking fresh milk before she died, and in order to satisfy this hobby, she gathered 120 women to use them, all of whom were from poor families, who had just given birth to children, and had plenty of milk, in fact, if they only gave Empress Dowager Cixi fresh milk and gave these milk ladies some silver, it was not very harsh.
According to records, Empress Dowager Cixi specially ordered people to select 40 nursing mothers to stay in the inner court every season to maintain a special room, called "sitting show milk mouth"; and then selected 80 people to specially provide food, called "pointing milk mouth", that is, "supplementing nursing mother". When the current batch of nurses has no milk supply, the next batch can be directly on top, so these nurses have to change a batch every season.
But as a nurse, there is also a duty that must be observed, that is, all the nurses who enter the palace cannot leave the palace, which means that their children have no milk to drink, most of them are poor, and the children of the poor have no milk to drink, and there is only one end, that is, starvation. For these grandmothers, this rule makes them worse off than dead.
The most cruel place is that in order to protect Empress Dowager Cixi's hobby of drinking fresh milk, people will kill the nurses who are going to leave the palace one by one, and some of the nurses are really pitiful.