In the Daoguang Era, the women in the palace were the most unlucky. When a woman enters the palace, she cannot live a decent life, and her status continues to rise, so that the family feels glorious. In the Daoguang Dynasty, the emperor practiced frugality, the cost of the palace was greatly reduced, and the living standard of harem women fell to the bottom. Originally, this was a good thing, but Daoguang seemed to be too extreme, and he stipulated that except for the empress dowager and the empress, the rest of the people could not eat meat, not even the festival. As for wearing gold and silver, it is even more unthinkable.
The good Forbidden City was turned into a purgatory on earth by Daoguang. Those concubines were not low-born, and they were all golden branches and jade leaves outside, but after entering the palace, they lived a prisoner-like life, which was simply masochistic. Not only that, Daoguang lowered the status of concubines at every turn. Most of his concubines, most of whom had been demoted, were also a spectacle of the Qing harem.
The reason for this is still because during the Daoguang period, internal and external troubles were worried, and the financial income could not be made up. The miserly Daoguang could not think of an open source method, and could only start from throttling. He lowered the status of concubines, and naturally reduced the number of silver and rewards. It was only those concubines who suffered, and there was no hope at all, and they could only snuggle up with each other and spend their miserable time.
Most of these concubines were not at fault, and Daoguang did not bother to find a reason, that is, to demote them without any reason. Despite this, there was still a concubine, but she deserved it, and she was Ling Changzai at that time.
Ling Chang was called Shang Jia And entered the palace when Daoguang was ten years old. Because her family, for generations, was only a qing dynasty coat, and her status was very low, so when she entered the palace, she also got this not very high title, only one level higher than promised. Moreover, the most favored at that time was Quan Guifei, the later Empress Xiaoquan, and Daoguang did not look at her at all, and snubbed her for nearly ten years.
Daoguang did not pay attention to Ling Changzai, but Ling Changzai attracted the emperor's attention in an unexpected way. It was in the nineteenth year of Daoguang, when Ling Chang beat the palace ladies of her Yanxi Palace to death and even alarmed the emperor.
You know, the Qing Dynasty is different from the Ming Dynasty, the Palace Women of the Ming Dynasty are equivalent to selling themselves to the royal family as slaves, they cannot leave the palace for a lifetime, and after death, they are also burned to ashes, poured into the dry well, and this remnant of life. The palace ladies of the Qing Dynasty were the women of the Eight Banners, most of whom were well-off, but they were not selected as concubines for various reasons. They enter the palace to serve, they all have years, and they can also be regarded as learning the etiquette in the palace before they leave the palace to marry.
Therefore, the Qing court still treated them preferentially. The Kangxi Emperor once said that he rarely treated his subordinates harshly, and it was really a big mistake to play the board. So, what was the reason why the palace maid who often served in the ShangJia clan was beaten? In the Ministry of Internal Affairs document "The Matter of Handing Over a Woman in order to Check the Situation of the Yanxi Palace", it was said that daoguang was told at that time:
The Yanxi Palace handed over a woman, who was said to be sixteen years old, and entered the palace on the fifth day of the first month of November of the previous year, and Ling Chang was on an errand in Xiaxia. After entering the palace, because of his clumsiness in learning to do work, he once ordered the eunuch to blame forty boards. In May of this year, without remembering the date, because of the door, the kitten was mistakenly trampled to death, and the face was punched several times. Later, because he picked apricots from the trees in the courtyard, he blamed several boards with both hands. Because of the mistaken trampling of the kitten during the cat, the cat was killed in the day, and he blamed the left and right armpans for a dozen plates. Because the cat grabbed Yi's hand, he injured the cat and blamed more than ten plates of the palm. The cat died and was not beaten. On May 28, because he mistakenly kicked the handwashing porcelain basin and injured Him, he was reprimanded with twenty plates in both hands, all of which were beaten by the lord himself. Now that the bruises on the woman's face are swollen, they are blamed for the fact that the scars are not very serious.
To sum up, this palace maid may have been relatively coarse in her work, but because of her coarse work, she was beaten with forty boards; she was beaten to death by stepping on the kittens without paying attention; picking apricots from trees to eat and beaten; trampling the cat to death when feeding the cat, and being beaten by more than a dozen boards; deliberately beating the cat and hitting more than a dozen boards; kicking the wash basin over and beating twenty boards.
As you can see, these are trivial things. This palace maid may indeed be unfavorable to sue, but she uses torture at every turn, which shows that Ling Chang is not a good person. Dao Guang was not ambiguous in this matter, and directly demoted Ling Chang zai to promise, which was the lowest rank in the palace, not much better than that palace girl.
After that, this Ling promised that there was no chance to turn over, and Daoguang never spoiled her again, nor did he promote her. But she was actually very able to live, and did not die until Guangxu twenty-three years later, at the age of 82, which was the longest-lived concubine in the Daoguang harem. Moreover, after the honorific titles of Xianfeng, Tongzhi, and Guangxu dynasties, she actually became the concubine of the emperor.