Since ancient times, the emperor has been the son of heaven, the father of the world, and the people of the world. In order to ensure his bloodline, the emperor entered the harem staff, which were all strictly selected, especially male staff, who wanted to enter the palace to work, they must be castrated first.
This move is mainly to prevent the eunuchs and the concubines of the emperor's three palaces and six courts from messing around and ruining the royal bloodline. In addition, although female staff members do not suffer from castration, they also have a clear investigation of the three generations of their ancestors to ensure that their identities are innocent and will not cause harm to the emperor and members of the imperial family.
To be honest, for a woman from a humble background, it is still good to be a palace maid in the palace, first of all, social status, and secondly, economic returns. If you are good with the master, in addition to the salary, you will also get a lot of rewards, which can help the family and improve the living conditions of the family in addition to using a little for yourself. Even if you are lucky, the emperor was accidentally lucky after drinking, and she conceived a dragon seed and gave birth to a dragon child, and the chicken dog ascended to heaven directly. Of course, this probability is relatively low and can be ignored.
Still, working as an errand boy at the palace is a tempting job. Fame on the outside, affordability on the inside. In addition, because of the supreme majesty of the emperor, no palace maid has dared to make a mistake in the palace since ancient times. However, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a major case that had never appeared in ancient and modern history - the murder of the emperor by the palace maid.
Could it be that this palace maid ate the bear's heart and leopard gall?
In fact, the bear-hearted leopard gall did not eat, but they also encountered a problem and needed to make a trade-off, and finally they decided to take the emperor. The time of this incident was 1542 AD, that is, in the early morning of October 21, the 21st year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty.
Although it is a group of little palace maids, they are very scheming, because the time of the crime is very well chosen. In the wee hours of the morning, in the dead of night, even the eunuchs and guards on duty were napping.
That night, I'm afraid only the dozen or so little palace maids were the most sober!
When they saw that the time had come, they began to act - to the bedside of Emperor Jiajing.
嘉靖皇帝睡得像一滩烂泥，打着呼噜。
The palace maid Yang Yuxiang took the lead and quietly took out the crime tool - a flower rope.
According to later confessions, this flower rope was made of silk flower rope on the ceremonial guard.
It seems that they did not act on the spur of the moment, but have been planning for a long time.
Then, Yang Yuxiang handed the rope sleeve to another palace maid, Su Chuanyao.
Su Chuanyao took it and handed it to the palace maid Yang Jinying.
It seems that Yang Jinying's main task is to put the rope around the neck of Emperor Jiajing.
At the same time, the palace maid Xing Cuilian handed the yellow silk rag to the palace maid Yao Shugao.
The work of the palace maid Yao Shugao is more important, she needs to cover Emperor Jiajing's face with that cloth, and at the same time choke Emperor Jiajing's neck. The face covering is probably to prevent Emperor Jiajing from screaming, and at the same time, it also makes him unable to breathe, and then chokes his neck, if he cooperates properly, he can directly kill Emperor Jiajing.
Of course, they also know that they are facing a man, men are usually stronger than women, if they can't control Emperor Jiajing on the bed, then once they get out of control, Emperor Jiajing breaks free, and there is no way to kill him.
Therefore, the work of other palace maids has also been carefully divided.
The palace maid Xing Cuilian was mainly responsible for holding Emperor Jiajing's upper body, that is, his chest, so that he could not get up. However, Xing Cuilian's strength was almost bad after all, so the palace queen Huaixiang came to help, and cooperated with Xing Cuilian to hold down Emperor Jiajing's upper body, that is, the belly and abdomen under the chest.
At this time, there are still four important parts that need to be guarded, and that is to reward the emperor's limbs.
The division of labor of this murder team was as follows: the palace maid Su Chuanyao held down the left hand of Emperor Jiajing, the palace maid Guan Meixiu controlled Emperor Jiajing's right hand, the palace maid Liu Miaolian pressed and rewarded the emperor's left leg, and the palace maid Chen Juhua pressed and controlled the right leg of Emperor Jiajing.
At this point, every part of Emperor Jiajing's entire body is basically tightly controlled, and it is extremely difficult to struggle, unless Emperor Jiajing has the divine power of Dian Wei, but Emperor Jiajing obviously does not, so he is one step away from death.
In addition, there are several accomplices who also have their own things to do, that is, several lantern-extinguishing palace maids, namely Deng Jinxiang and others.
Let's say that after everything was ready to stop, seeing that the big thing was about to happen, there was a small accident suddenly, and this small accident unexpectedly saved the life of Emperor Jiajing. At that time, the rope sleeve was done in advance, Yang Jinying's work was a bit heavy, and she was nervous and scared, so she tied the knot to death with a trembling hand. However, in the panic, she didn't even know. Therefore, it led to a series of mistakes in the future.
The original plan was that after Yang Jinying put the rope on Emperor Jiajing's neck, he asked Yao Shugao and Guan Meixiu to pull it with all their might, and directly strangled Emperor Jiajing to death.
However, because of Yang Jinying's mistake, when the latter two palace maids pulled, it was ineffective at all.
If it is remedied at this time, there should still be a chance. But this group of little palace maids did a murder case that no one had ever done before, and they were too nervous.
As a result, one of the little palace maids, Zhang Jinlian, saw it and ran away from her heart.
What did she run to do? She went to tell the whistle, and asked Queen Zhou to tell the truth.
At this time, the other palace maids looked at it and were furious in their hearts, this little!
Since the matter has been done, capital crimes are inevitable, anyway, it is all one death, one does not do two endlessly, continue to do things.
Therefore, when waiting for Queen Zhou to rush to the scene, she was punched by the palace maid Yao Shugao.
It seems that this Yao Shugao is a relatively fierce little palace maid!
Another queen of the small palace, Xiulan, saw that the queen was beaten, and immediately put out the lamp on Chen Juhua.
may be planning to deal with Empress Zhou together.
However, another little palace maid in the murder team became a demon halfway, and the palace maid Chen Furong probably belonged to Zhang Jinlian all the way, timid and afraid, seeing that things had become like this, and the probability of success was decreasing, she began to choose a side, she immediately lit the lamp, probably wanting to make meritorious service in front of Queen Zhou.
However, the other two palace maids, Xu Qiuhua and Zheng Jinxiang, were more resolute, knowing that the matter had come to this point, where was there a way out, so they hurriedly blew out the lit lights.
In this interval, Chen Furong ran again, shouting all the way, alarming the eunuchs and guards in the palace, and they rushed to escort them.
As a result, the murder plan of the little palace maids died in this way.
After this happened, it shook the palace.
The little palace maids of the murder team were all arrested and thrown into prison to be tried overnight.
said that although the Jiajing Emperor Zhu Houxi was not strangled to death, he was scared half to death, and it took a long time to recover his strength. When the people below reported how to deal with this murder team, Emperor Jiajing was so angry that his head was about to smoke, and he immediately issued an extremely fierce holy decree, but the content of this holy decree should have been issued according to the will of Empress Zhou, because Emperor Jiajing was frightened and tired at that time, and specially instructed the empress to deal with this matter.
The general meaning of the holy decree is that this group of lowly and disobedient slaves and maids, under the conspiracy and instruction of the Cao family and the Wang family, are ready to kill me in the couch, which is simply a heinous crime and must be executed. Now that the truth of the matter has been clarified, whether it is the main culprit or the accomplices involved, all of them will be executed by Ling Chi. In addition, if there is evidence of their involvement, let Jinyiwei go to arrest and arrest them, and execute them strictly in accordance with the law. The property of these criminals was confiscated and deposited into the state treasury.
As a result, these palace maid murder teams that participated in the murder of Emperor Jiajing were all arrested and executed by Ling Chi.
However, in this handling opinion, there are two people who are more special, one is Wang and the other is Cao.
This Cao family and the Wang family are not palace maids, so who are the two of them? According to later historical research, the Wang family is Ning concubine, and the Cao family is the Duan concubine.
Among these two, especially Concubine Duan, she was born extremely beautiful, making the harem three thousand beauties, but Emperor Jiajing was the only one who favored Concubine Duan. Before Concubine Duan's death, Emperor Jiajing went to Concubine Duan's place to sleep almost every day. On the night Emperor Jiajing was killed, Emperor Jiajing slept in Concubine Duan's bedroom. That night, the two drank and had fun, and they were not happy.
As a result, after Emperor Jiajing got drunk, he fell asleep. Concubine Duan was afraid of disturbing the emperor, so she didn't feel sleepy, so she left the room and went outside. As a result, the group of palace maids who had been planning for a long time took the opportunity to kill them and began to carry out the murder plan.
As a result, the matter failed.
At that time, Emperor Jiajing was half frightened to death, and the person in charge of handling this big case was Empress Zhou.
After dealing with the palace maids, Queen Zhou took the opportunity to bring Concubine Duan and the Wang family in.
Originally, they were all to be executed by Ling Chi, but because of the special status of Concubine Duan and Wang, as the emperor's woman, Ling Chi was executed in public, which really damaged the royal majesty, so both of them were brutally and secretly executed in the palace.
In addition, Queen Zhou took the opportunity to bring down Concubine Duan, but she actually left a bane for herself. Because after Emperor Jiajing sobered up, thinking about the case before and after, he once said: Concubine Duan is my beloved, and she has absolutely no thoughts of harming me. It can be seen that although this Jiajing Emperor is absurd, he is not confused.
As Emperor Jiajing, he naturally knew about the fight between the women in this palace, so he thought that Empress Zhou was taking the opportunity to kill people. So, I left a grudge against Queen Zhou in my heart. In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing, there was a fire in the dormitory of Empress Zhou, and when people came to report, Emperor Jiajing asked people to deliberately not save her, as a result, Empress Zhou was severely burned and died of illness within a few days.
At this point, since the murder of Emperor Jiajing was not led by Concubine Duan and the Wang family, why did this group of little palace maids risk their lives to murder Emperor Jiajing? It turned out that before Emperor Jiajing ascended the throne, he had a hobby, that is, alchemy, and he was particularly obsessed.
Since Emperor Jiajing likes alchemy, there is a large group of Taoist priests around him, and the most famous, representative and favored Taoist priest is Tao Zhongwen.
Tao Zhongwen first came to Emperor Jiajing's side, mainly to teach the emperor the secret recipe of sexual affairs, because he was good at speaking, understood the emperor's thoughts, and was deeply favored, and later developed into a life-prolonging elixir for the emperor. Emperor Jiajing was very generous to Tao Zhongwen, asking officials to give officials, asking for money to give money, refusing to carry an alchemy Taoist priest to worship a product, and a reward of silver was as high as 100,000 taels.
Of course, Tao Zhongwen's own ability was limited, so he recruited Taoist priests from all over the world to offer all kinds of strange pill prescriptions, among which the more famous pill prescriptions were "red lead", "containing real cakes" and so on.
In particular, red lead, the main ingredient required for the refining of such elixirs is virgin menstrual blood and medicinal powder. The two are stirred, refined, and practiced into a kind of red bead-like thing.
Tao Zhongwen told Emperor Jiajing that this pill has the effect of strengthening libido and body. As a result, Emperor Jiajing allowed it to be produced in large quantities. However, the core ingredient of this pill, virgin menstrual blood, is not available every day, so Emperor Jiajing ordered to force the young palace maids to take a medicine that induces menstrual bleeding.
As a result, the palace maids' bodies were seriously damaged, and some palace maids even died of blood collapse and excessive blood loss. In addition, in order to prevent the leakage of his recipe for refining pills, some of the palace maids who were collected blood were even secretly executed.
In this context, these palace ladies risked their lives to set up a murder team to kill Emperor Jiajing.
In general, historians consider this claim to be more credible.
However, there is also a theory that these little palace maids were instructed by Ning Concubine Wang. The reason is that Ning Concubine Wang gave birth to a son to Emperor Jiajing, and according to the practice of the harem, if a son is born, the mother should be promoted from a concubine to a concubine. However, Emperor Jiajing did not upgrade Ning Concubine Wang's family. Therefore, Concubine Ning held a grudge because of this, so she made a murder plan and put the assassination scene in the bedroom of Duanfei Cao, in order to push the disaster onto Duanfei.
However, there is no evidence for this claim in the canonical history.
According to the records of "Wanli Ye Shu Ed", there were a total of 16 palace maids who participated in the murder and were later executed by Ling Chi, namely: Yang Jinying, Yang Lianxiang, Su Chuanyao, Yao Shucui, Xing Cuilian, Liu Miaolian, Guan Meixiang, Huang Xiulian, Huang Yulian, Yin Cuixiang, Wang Huaixiang, Zhang Jinlian, Xu Qiuhua, Zhang Chunjing, Deng Jinxiang, and Chen Juhua.
In the final analysis, why did these 16 palace maids risk their lives to strangle Emperor Jiajing? Among these two reasons, the first reason should be the main one, that is, it is mainly related to the frenzied collection of virgin blood without restraint and disregard for human life, that is to say, the palace maids took risks because their lives were threatened by the collection of female blood, and they could not bear the suffering. The second theory, the so-called being instructed by Wang, should be less likely. Because the palace maids knew very well in their hearts that between the emperor and Ning Concubine Wang's family, which was more important, if it was purely for the sake of filial piety to Ning Concubine, they would not be able to commit it at all, because this was an uneconomical deal.