"The body is skinned, and the parents who suffer do not dare to destroy it, and filial piety begins." - The Book of Filial Piety
The Chinese nation attaches great importance to filial piety, and the ancients listed "filial piety" as the foundation of people's growth and survival, and they cherished their bodies at all times, and even when they died, they tried their best to preserve intact bones.
However, in the ancient feudal dynasties, there was such a kind of people, who were either forced to live or punished.
He can only seek survival at the expense of one of his organs, and this kind of person is a professional "eunuch", also known as "eunuch", which frequently appears in court dramas today.
Eunuchs are a kind of servants who serve the royal family and nobles full-time in ancient feudal society, they were originally men, but because they had to abide by the rules in the palace, they had to lose their masculine characteristics.
At the same time, although they paid such a huge price, their life after entering the palace was still very difficult.
A eunuch in the late Qing Dynasty once mentioned in his self-statement: Forced by life to purify his body, serve noble concubines at night, and hide his ears on the soles of his shoes. This eunuch was Sun Yaoting, "China's last eunuch."
01 Life is hard
Like most eunuchs who voluntarily entered the palace, Sun Yaoting became a eunuch because of the hardships of life.
Sun Yaoting has four children in his family, and he is the second oldest of four brothers.
In that difficult era, ordinary people even had a big problem to survive, not to mention that Sun Yaoting's parents had to raise four children. Clothes are mended by sewing, and meals are eaten before the next.
Fortunately, a gentleman who opened a private school took pity on them, and not only let Sun Yaoting's parents work in his private school, but also gave Sun Yaoting the opportunity to study in a private school.
Those years were the most comfortable days for Sun Yaoting's family. However, the good times did not last long, and with the change of the general environment, the gentleman's private school could only be closed in the end.
Sun Yaoting's family once again lived a life that was difficult to meet with food and clothing.
When Sun Yaoting was ten years old, his father overheard a fellow villager mention that if he could enter the palace and become a eunuch, he would not only have to worry about food and clothing, but also have a certain amount of silver taels a month, which could subsidize the family.
The speaker has no intention, the listener has a heart. After Sun Yaoting's father heard this, he instantly moved to send the child to the palace and become a eunuch.
Of the children in their family at that time, only Sun Yaoting's age met the conditions, so his father decided to send Sun Yaoting to the palace.
But before entering the palace, there was one more thing that had to be done, that is, to purify Sun Yaoting. However, entering the palace to clean up the body requires a large amount of money, and Sun Yaoting's father cannot raise enough silver taels.
Therefore, his father had no choice but to clean everything for Sun Yaoting himself.
Although the word "cleansing" is simple to say, it is not easy to do.
First of all, any surgery can be risky, let alone such a "major operation". Let's not say whether the sanitary conditions are qualified and whether there will be infection.
Massive bleeding that may occur after surgery alone is a serious problem.
Sun Yaoting himself was weak since childhood, coupled with his father's "informal" operation, so that Sun Yaoting had a high fever after he was cleansed, and he couldn't afford to be sick, and he stayed in bed for more than ten days, and even almost died.
02 After many twists and turns, he finally entered the palace
Fortunately, Sun Yaoting was safe and sound later, but just when their family was waiting to send Sun Yaoting into the palace, bad news came that Puyi abdicated and the Great Qing perished.
Sun Yaoting's family who learned the news was like a lightning strike, they never thought that they had spent so much money, but they still did not get their wish.
However, fortunately, although the palace could not enter, some imperial relatives and state Qi families were still recruiting eunuchs, so Sun Yaoting's father entrusted him to send him to a royal palace.
Those days were the darkest for Sun Yaoting.
He not only had to do the heaviest labor, but also endured the bullying of his "predecessors", but in order to survive, he had no choice but to endure them one by one.
After a while, he gradually became smoother, not only getting along with other eunuchs, but also making Wang Ye have a good impression of him.
A few years later, Puyi, who abdicated, began to re-recruit eunuchs and palace maids to serve in the palace, and Sun Yaoting was successfully recommended to the palace by Wang Ye. At this moment, he stepped into the Forbidden City as he wished.
Since he had been working in the royal palace before, Sun Yaoting already had some experience in serving the "master", but serving the former emperor and princess was very different from serving the former residence of the prince.
When he first entered the palace, he showed great humility, respected the senior eunuchs in the palace, and learned a lot of precautions.
This also made Sun Yaoting's life in the palace much better, no one bullied him at will, and even got the task of serving the concubine.
03 Survival is not easy, feet on the ears
Serving the concubine sounds like a beautiful errand, which symbolizes that Sun Yaoting's status has improved, but since ancient times, the companion is like a tiger, and the concubine is no exception.
Even former noble concubines still retain some habits. If you provoke the noble lady, you will be punished severely and expelled from the palace, or you will have a life crisis.
This kind of important person often needs someone to be at your disposal 24 hours a day and serve at any time. That is, at midnight, you can't sleep.
But after all, man is a mortal in the flesh, and who can not sleep all the time? When Sun Yaoting first started the "night shift", he dozed off several times and failed to hear the concubine's call in time, and he was scolded for this.
So Sun Yaoting pondered how to keep himself awake at night.
Under the instruction of an old eunuch, he began to secretly hide his ears in the soles of his shoes. The ears are full of thorns, and once pierced, they will make people feel pain and make people wake up instantly.
Whenever Sun Yaoting was on night shift, he would tiptoe, and once he was sleepy and his heels fell, he would be pierced by the ears, thus waking up painfully. In this way, he can always stay awake and not miss the call of the noble concubine.
This habit is often difficult for ordinary people to understand, and even feel cruel and painful.
However, this is just a trivial experience when Sun Yaoting was on an errand in the palace, and there are many more difficult things like this.
After Puyi was expelled from the palace, Sun Yaoting, a eunuch, also lived a life of displacement, and it was not until after the founding of New China, with the help of the state, that his life improved.
Born as a human being, no one is born higher than others, and the emergence of the profession of eunuch is also a very serious waste in feudal society.