In costume film and television dramas, we often see that when the emperor dies, the concubines of the harem will also be forced to be martyred to show the majesty of the emperor and the etiquette concept of a woman marrying and obeying her husband. From the perspective of modern people, this system of martyrdom is too cruel.
For those concubines who lived in the deep palace, they not only had to abide by the palace rules on weekdays, but also had to fight with each other in order to carefully save their lives, and in the end, they could not avoid a tragic end of the burial of the son of heaven, which was really a complete tragedy.
While many people sympathize with the concubines who are buried, they can't help but ask curiously: Why do they have to separate their legs so specially when they are buried? What is so special about this bizarre posture? What kind of struggles and hardships did they go through before they died?
The mystery of the funeral concubine's legs separated
In ancient China, the status of women was very humble, they obeyed their fathers when they were young, and after they got married, they obeyed their husbands' words. At that time, women had to live dependent on men, and there was no independence, just like men's pendants, and they were treated as private property.
Even the grand lady of the royal family and the eunuch family did not have the right to decide on her own marriage. Their fathers and brothers would send them to the harem through the channel of the draft to be concubines of the emperor.
Just as the so-called "one person gets the Tao, the chicken and the dog ascend to heaven", if they get the grace, they will not only be able to enjoy glory and wealth in the harem, but also ensure that the family's food and clothing are worry-free and even the official fortune is prosperous.
In ancient times, when feudal ideas prevailed, people thought that after death, the soul would float into another world. Therefore, they are not willing to give up the wealth and honor they have accumulated in their lives until they die, and they will seal these precious private objects into the tomb, longing for them to continue to accompany them.
When ordinary people die, they will seal their accumulated gold and silver jewelry or cherished calligraphy and paintings. The emperors did it even more extremely, and they even sealed the living people into the tomb together, the motivation was to enjoy the service of attendants and concubines after death.
Such a system of burial of living people originated from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when Qin Shi Huang proclaimed himself the first emperor and promoted Chinese society into the feudal period, the imperial power expanded unprecedentedly.
The emperor controlled the fate of ordinary people, not only asking them to serve, but also asking them to sacrifice their lives to accompany themselves to the funeral. In order to be able to enjoy the same treatment after death as before death, many emperors would let the harem's close attendants and concubines who served them accompany them to the burial.
There are some buried flesh bodies in the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, and of course, there are also well-known Qin Terracotta Warriors, which can be seen in the earthly desires and military ambitions of Qin Shi Huang.
The life experience of the concubine
If the emperor died, the concubines of the harem would be forced to bury the Son of Heaven. When archaeologists studied the tombs of ancient emperors, they were surprised to find that the legs of these concubines were actually separated.
This phenomenon is not difficult to understand. There are two main ways for the concubines to be buried: the first is to give them white aya or poisoned wine, kill them first, and then bury them; the second is to bury them directly in the tomb, so that the living beings are exhausted in a state of lack of oxygen.
These two methods of death are not willing for the vast majority of concubines, after all, they almost all enter the harem on the family's mission, and they do not have much sincerity to the emperor, nor are they willing to die like this.
Many concubines would struggle hard before they died, their wrists tightly clenched, and their legs struggling outwards to survive.
Especially for those concubines who drank poisonous wine, because ancient poisons were not so effective after all, they were likely to just fake death, wake up in the tomb, and then they would definitely rely on instinct to kick their legs and struggle.
It is also for this reason that archaeologists of later generations will see the strange shape of the funeral concubines with their legs wide open when they open the tombs of ancient emperors.
This miracle, in a way, illustrates the rebellion of the harem women against their fate. They have struggled and fought, but in the end they still cannot overcome the gray and decaying feudal system, and can only allow it to chew their lives like a huge beast.
In the background of that era, ordinary people were often almost powerless to resist the pressure of feudal imperial power, and the Son of Heaven let you live, and the Son of Heaven had to die if he wanted you to die.
The eventual demise of the funerary system
The concubine burial system continued for a long time in ancient times, and it is impossible to count how many harem women lost Qingqing's life because of it, and I don't know how many people have leaned on the door to look back, but the woman who sniffed the green plum was just right, and became its victim.
Try to imagine a concubine who lived in a harem, whose daily life was either to serve the elderly and frail emperor or to compete with other concubines, fighting for her own stable life and the glory and wealth of the whole family in the daily dullness and undercurrent.
When the emperor died, she was greeted not by liberation, but by the end of the funeral that could not be escaped. Such a life, how tragic!
In the Ming Dynasty, the original Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang still asked the concubines to accompany him to the funeral, but later Ming Yingzong felt that this practice was too cruel, so he ordered the abolition of the custom of martyrdom.
Why would Emperor Ming Yingzong go against the words of his ancestors and insist on abolishing the burial system that had been in place for more than seventy years in the Ming Dynasty? There are two reasons for this speculation.
The first reason is that he loves his mother. At that time, Ming Yingzong's father, Ming Xuanzong, once wanted Empress Sun to be martyred for himself, which made Zhu Qizhen almost lose his own mother, so he hated the martyrdom system very much.
The second reason is that he loves his wife. When Emperor Mingyingzong was captured by Vala, his younger brother Zhu Qiyu seized the throne and did not want to rescue him, only his wife Empress Qian scattered her private wealth to save herself.
Therefore, When Ming Yingzong was seriously ill, he later ordered the abolition of the martyrdom system, in order to protect the life of the childless Empress Qian. Later, although this system came back to the stage of history several times, it was completely submerged in the long river of history during the Kangxi Period.
In fact, the birth of the funeral system is, in the final analysis, because of feudal superstitious ideas. At that time, people could not scientifically understand life and death with limited knowledge, so they imagined such a western paradise after death. In fact, dust returns to dust, soil returns to soil, and death is just an irreversible one-way street.
Fortunately, the times always moved forward, the concubine burial system was the dross of history, and finally it was eliminated by the times, and the feudal period when the woman was a male dependent and the emperor was the highest center of power was gone.
Emperors, concubines, funeral systems... These have become historical terms, not realities, which is our happiness living in modern society, and we are free to pursue the value of our lives, which is a fortunate thing.