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In ancient times, emperors were regarded as supreme beings, they ruled the entire country, and in addition to handling government affairs, emperors also needed some entertainment to decompress and enjoy life. Throughout history, many emperors had huge harems. Under normal circumstances, the emperor cannot favor a certain concubine alone, and must achieve "rain and dew" and take fair care of every concubine.
However, due to the large number of harems, it was often difficult for the emperor to know all the concubines, so how to fulfill such obligations? In order to facilitate their own enjoyment and management of the harem, some clever emperors derived the "three methods". But what kind of thinking does this lead to?
The sheep cart chooses a concubine
Sima Yan, as Sima Zhao's son and Sima Yi's grandson, inherited the Sima family's Wang Tu hegemony and began large-scale reforms and expansion. At that time, the world had not yet achieved great unification, so Sima Yan adopted the strategy of striving for good governance, diligent administration and loving the people, quickly pacified the state of Wu, and opened a chapter in the history of the Western Jin Dynasty.
When he first ascended the throne, Sima Yan devoted himself to comprehensive reforms and devoted himself to economic development. After thinking and analyzing the lessons of Cao Wei's demise, he advocated a frugal life. He formulated strict living standards and regulations, not only restrained ministers and local officials, but also issued a series of policies to ease various contradictions in society and reduce the oppression of the people.
During this time, the Western Jin Dynasty can be said to be a national and civil security, and the people are extremely supportive of this founding king. However, as time passed, Sima Yan's comfortable life lasted too long, and he began to indulge in the compliments of the people and ministers, and gradually lost himself. He began to become absurd and became the emperor with the most wives in all dynasties.
Although Sima Yan initially worked hard to govern, as he lived a playful life, he gradually lost his alertness and ability to govern. Such a transformation was undoubtedly a huge failure for Sima Yan. He becomes obsessed with collecting and robbing good-looking women everywhere to satisfy his selfish desires. Sima Yan believes that it is already very hard to fight the world, and now that there are thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, it is time to enjoy eating, drinking, and having fun.
With the destruction of the Kingdom of Wu, his harem concubines also filled Sima Yan's harem, numbering tens of thousands. Sima Yan wanted to personally spoil every woman, but it would take decades. Due to his difficulty in choosing disorder, he does not know which woman to spend the night with every day. The increase in the number of beautiful women in the harem made Sima Yan lack skills, causing the concubines to start to be jealous.
Faced with this situation, Sima Yan came up with a solution. He ordered a sheep cart to be prepared, and when the sheep cart stopped at the gate of the concubine's palace, he stayed in her dormitory that night. In order to make the sheep cart stop at their door, the concubines did their best, even spending a lot of money to buy the most fertile forage varieties in the country, and some even poured light salt water on the hay to increase the taste, hoping that the sheep would like their own forage, so that the sheep cart often stopped at the door of their rooms.
Such a rare sight made Sima Yan feel full of fun, and he had long been addicted to women, forgetting the ideals he once had ambitions. He was intoxicated in the gentle countryside and indifferent to the suffering of the common people. Ironically, when the Western Jin Dynasty later collapsed, Sima Ye, the king of the dead country, opened the city gate and surrendered, riding in a sheep cart, and he was eventually humiliated to death by the Xiongnu.
Sima Yan's lust became a symbol of his mental imbalance, and it also became his tragic end in the future. This history also makes people think that the temptation of power and pleasure often leads to self-loss, and then to collapse and destruction. However, it was indeed Sima Yan who opened such a ridiculous selection of concubines.
Butterfly luck method
Li Longji was considered a rather talented figure among the emperors of the Tang Dynasty. His life was full of turmoil and bloodshed, and whether he ascended the throne, ruled the country or chose the crown prince, he experienced many twists and turns. When Li Longji had just ascended the throne and consolidated imperial power, he faced a turbulent Tang dynasty.
Local officials and ministers colluded with each other to embezzlement, and the mutiny caused the Tang Dynasty to suffer heavy damage, and various systems and places were in turmoil, and it was urgent to be governed. However, Li Longji's greatest merit lies in the use of talents, and he has a unique vision, appointing many talented prime ministers and forming a strong team to govern the country.
He searched for talented people, advocated the rule of law, and cracked down on corrupt officials and hostile regimes everywhere. In the first decades of his reign, the Tang Dynasty regained its vitality and entered a period of prosperity. However, what is unexpected is that Li Longji ignored national affairs in his later years, became obsessed with women, and lived a luxurious life.
Not only did he like to hunt for beautiful women from all over the world, but he also took his son's wife. One of the women he kidnapped into the palace was the beauty Yang Yuhuan, who attracted the attention of the world. Later generations sang the poignant love story between them, but judging by today's moral standards, Li Longji is undoubtedly spurned and shameful. However, before meeting Yang Yuhuan, the beautiful three thousand in the harem, Li Longji, like Sima Yan, was dazzled and did not know who to choose to spend the night with.
As an intelligent ruler, Li Longji's clever mind worked quickly, and he referred to Sima Yan's method of "choosing concubines by sheep carts" and improved it. Instead of using a huge animal like a sheep, he chose butterflies and let butterflies choose which concubine he should favor at night instead of himself. This method is called the "butterfly luck method".
Li Longji thought of an ingenious method, he asked all the concubines to gather in a spacious courtyard, each with a flower on their head, so that the butterflies would be attracted by the fragrance of the flowers. When the butterfly rests on the head of a concubine, it means that the concubine will get the opportunity to be pampered.
This scene is extremely funny, and in order to compete for Li Longji's favor, the concubines develop various perfumes that can attract butterflies day and night. They desperately researched the composition of the aroma, using flowers, fruits and spices to create a unique scent, hoping to attract more butterflies. They substituted different flowers and experimented with different mixing ratios in order to stand out among the many concubines.
However, after Li Longji met Yang Yuhuan, this peculiar way of choosing a concubine stopped. Yang Yuhuan's beauty and talent plunged Li Longji into an emotional vortex, she became his only favorite, and no other woman could enter his heart.
Yang Yuhuan's beauty aroused Li Longji's interest, and he ignored her marriage and included her in the harem. said that it was "a collection of thousands of favors in one", but in the change of Ma Wei, he still chose Jiang Shan and gave up on her. However, Yang Yuhuan was a poor man who was forced to marry Li Longji and was eventually abandoned by him. The so-called love between Li Longji and Yang Yuhuan is actually just the embodiment of pornography, and the so-called love between them cannot withstand the test.
Green heads
The custom of flopping is very famous in Qing palace dramas in recent years, and almost all Chinese know its meaning. For example, in "The Legend of Zhen Huan", if the green head card of a sister in the harem is overturned, then she will be triumphant and cause the jealousy of others.
The appearance of the green head card can be traced back to the early Qing Dynasty, and according to the data, it should have existed during the reign of Shunzhi at the latest. At first, the act of flipping the plaque was not associated with the matter of seeing the concubine sleeping in bed, but only in order to explain it clearly to the emperor in a few words in case of an emergency or to deal with some trivial matter, and engrave it on the sign and hand it to the emperor.
Among them, the information transmitted through the green head card can be handed directly to the emperor's desk, and the emperor usually decides this kind of thing himself, and does not need to vote through the cabinet. This privilege of the green head card partly reflects the strengthening of central imperial power in the Qing dynasty.
The emergence of this method can be seen as a situation in which the Qing rulers posed a threat to the emperor's rule in order to avoid excessive cabinet power. In the Qing Dynasty, in order to strengthen the centralization of power, feudal rulers created many systems, such as the military aircraft office we know well, which was established during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, and its purpose was also to strengthen the power of the emperor.
Therefore, the birth of the green head card also has such a meaning, which in the early days of its creation had nothing to do with the fragrance of the harem, but was a means used by the emperor to weaken the power of the cabinet. Slowly, green heads play an important role for draft women, and it can be said that they are like women's business cards. The green badge will contain basic information about the show girls, mainly about their family background.
These green cards are given to the emperor, who then chooses according to his preferences and criteria. The show girls who passed the primary election are called "leave the brand", and they need to wait for the opportunity to be re-elected. The show girls who failed to pass the primary selection are called "branding", and they can choose who they marry.
During the Qing Dynasty, a draft event was held every few years to introduce fresh and young blood to the harem, which helped to maintain the health of the heirs. However, these chosen women have little to do every day, and life is boring. So, they began to fight in the palace, vying for the favor of the emperor, fighting around the clock.
For the emperor, these disputes troubled him, so he simply turned over the green head card and chose according to the women shown on the sign. The harem concubines began to use various means, including bribing the eunuchs around the emperor to help place their green cards in places that could be easily seen by the emperor.
In addition, every woman will have a few days every month when it is inconvenient to sleep with the emperor, at which point the green head card will become a red head card, and when the emperor sees this logo, he understands the reason, and he will choose other women. Otherwise, it would be a very bad situation if a woman's green head had already been turned over, only to find out that her "relatives" were coming and in her place, because it could cause the emperor to be angry, and it could make her lose the emperor's favor forever, and everything was unpredictable.
It can only be said that in ancient times, the status of women was very low, and their fate was destined to be tragic. Neither women from ordinary families nor women in deep palaces enjoy any right to freedom. Their lives were confined almost entirely to boudoirs, which undoubtedly became a clear symbol of China's feudal era.
In ancient societies, women's roles were often strictly limited to the family and the reproduction of heirs. They are considered to be married and have only the responsibility to serve their husbands and produce offspring. Their fate is often not within their control, but is determined by their fathers, husbands or other men. They have little access to education, lack knowledge and skills, and are forced to learn to be attached to men from an early age.
Even the women who lived in the palace could not escape such a fate. They were forced into the harem and became the emperor's concubines, but lost their right to choose freely. Their lives revolved around the emperor, obeying their preferences and orders.
Their time and space are tightly controlled, and they have little free time other than bedtime and entertainment. They cannot have any contact with the outside world, cannot choose their partners, and cannot pursue their own interests and pursuits. Everything about them was under the emperor's control, and their physical and mental freedom was greatly restricted.
The oppression of feudal society was so heavy for women, and the situation was deeply distressing. They are deprived of their individuality and personality, and can only passively accept the arrangements of fate. They are confined to a small space, unable to participate in the development and progress of society, unable to realize their dreams and aspirations. This authoritarian rule over women deprived them of the right to pursue happiness and freedom, making them the most vulnerable and neglected group in ancient societies.
We should cherish the equal rights and interests granted to women in modern society, and strive to achieve gender equality so that women can enjoy the same freedom and dignity as men. Only in this way can we truly get rid of the shadow of feudal society and build a fair, just and inclusive society.
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Bibliography:
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