Who experienced painful torture and became a eunuch? People first think of an ancient criminal law-castration. Castration, also known as corruption, is named after the rancid wound of the castrated person.

Palace punishment is a criminal law second only to the death penalty, which shows that the victim must have serious crimes. Castration is also called silkworm house. Silkworm house is a closed room, protected from light. The tortured man stayed here for more than forty days, and the wound had healed when he came out.

Unfortunately, Sima Qian, a great historian, became a castrated member. The French philosopher PeterAbelard was also greatly humiliated. Sima Qian, as Taishi Gong, defended Li Ling's surrender to Xiongnu in front of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, angered Emperor Wu and was imprisoned. After the punishment, Sima Qian became an important position in the palace-the secretariat. Li Yannian, a contemporary musician, didn't know what crime he had committed and was turned into a eunuch by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Perhaps Sima Qian and Li Yannian are the two talents that Emperor Wu needs to stay with him.

But it was much easier for the later emperor to turn someone into a eunuch, and the castrated person did not have to bear any charges. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, there was a performer, Luo Hehei. Xuanzong castrated Luo Hehei so that he could teach the ladies-in-waiting to play the pipa in the palace without any accident. Wang Min, a soldier of a military mansion in the Ming Dynasty, was good at cuju, was taken fancy to by Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, and was later castrated as a chamberlain.

Punished criminals are always a source of eunuchs. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, this was even the only source of eunuchs. Therefore, people often call eunuchs unforgivable people. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, the cases of turning criminals into eunuchs were greatly reduced. In the Ming Dynasty, only Wynn was punished as an official because his uncle was implicated in his crimes.

Whipping young children as eunuchs is another common source of eunuchs. The young children selected for castration are smart and handsome. After entering the palace, he was deeply loved by the queen mother, queen and concubines and would not be entrusted with heavy work. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Tang Dynasty, the attack of Lingnan brought Li back with two castrated boys and gave them two new names: King Kong and Lux.

Luxe, smart and beautiful, was rewarded by Wu Zetian as soon as she came. During the reign of the Ming Dynasty, Minister Zhang Fu went to Jiao Jiao to select a group of handsome teenagers and brought them to Beijing as eunuchs, including Fan Hong, Ruan An, Ruan Lang and others. Fan Hong has an elegant charm. He is quite sensitive to literature. Chengzu liked it very much and made an exception to let him study for further study.

After several emperors, Fan Hong was treated differently. Yingzong appreciated his elegance and called him "Penglai to help the world".

After the courtiers and eunuchs suppressed the resistance of the southern minorities in the Ming Dynasty, they castrated their young children for the court many times on the grounds that they would sever relations with their descendants and prevent them from rebelling again. During the Tianshun period of Ming Yingzong, Ruanrang, the eunuch guarding Huguang and Guizhou, castrated 1 565 captured Miao children at one time, and 329 people died after the operation. Later, the same figure was used to make up for it, and a total of 1894 young children were castrated. When Yingzong heard about it, he was furious and ordered to blame Ruan.

The number was amazing, and the emperor was deeply disturbed. If it is less, the emperor will accept it with confidence. When Wu Zongshi was in the Ming Dynasty, Chen Mao, the general of Fujian Province, presented 800 young children with clean skin to the palace, which Wu Zong accepted safely.

From the Tang Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, many eunuchs were born in Lingnan and central Fujian. These two places became the supply places for eunuchs.

The Tang dynasty levied eunuchs on this area, just like collecting grain and taxes. Lingnan and Minzhong were regarded as foreign lands by the Tang court, and personal transactions were prohibited in the mainland, but this is an exception.

Many eunuchs produced in this area were bought by Arabs and transported to various places. Poverty will encourage people to take risks and do inhuman things.

People who were made eunuchs in Lingnan and Fujian were not more willing to be eunuchs than people in other places, but some people in that area did make a fortune by selling eunuchs, so the eunuch market flourished until the Ming Dynasty.

In the Tang Dynasty, all provinces (administrative regions) presented castrated children to the court, which was called "settling". Because castration gradually disappears, castration is called "purification", and "self" also represents this meaning. Generally, it is called "self-cleaning" after cleansing, and "self-cleaning" refers to voluntary cleansing surgery or self-cleaning.

Since the Song Dynasty, eunuchs have become people's career of asking questions. A large number of volunteers became eunuch candidates, voluntarily castrated as eunuchs and entered the court. The number of volunteers is increasing, so that supply exceeds demand in Ming and Qing Dynasties.

It was stipulated in the Song Dynasty that anyone who volunteered to keep clean must first register with the Ministry of War. Choose a good-looking person, and then choose an auspicious day for surgery. The Ministry of War recorded the date and played it out for later inspection.

The castrated man was sent to the palace after his wound healed. From then on, men began another life, with the day of castration as their birthday. Everything started from that day, and his fortune-telling will be based on heavenly stems and earthly branches on that day.

Eunuch became an enviable profession, probably related to the success of eunuchs in the Tang Dynasty. The arrogance of the eunuchs in the Tang Dynasty reached its peak, and they could even take the emperor away or kill him. Since then, the people have not only despised eunuchs, but also increased a lot of awe.

Those lower-class people who have lived in poverty for generations and have no intention of changing their fate, and are lazy and delusional, will want to be eunuchs. Many face-saving people prefer to pursue wealth through reading and imperial examinations, but reading also requires money and perseverance, and the pain of studying hard for more than ten years is not much less than imprisonment. Unemployed refugees who can't get attached to books at all would rather be eunuchs.

Once you get ahead among eunuchs, your position is equal to that of the highest-ranking official. At that time, this family will shine brilliantly and be admired by thousands of people. No matter the bureaucrats or the giants of the past dynasties, they will strive to be at their own doorstep. In addition to the royal family, ordinary people will go to extremes at this point.

The basic starting point of more people is to make a living and seek a foothold. Food and clothing for men and women is the greatest desire in life. It is not easy for poor people who have difficulty in getting enough food and clothing to get a job without worrying about food and clothing.

Some men trapped in poor villages will never realize their extravagant hopes of getting married and having children. The basic needs of food and clothing are enough to drive them to be servants. Instead of being a servant in a rich family, it is better to join the royal family and serve the emperor and empresses.

In the Ming Dynasty, concubines came from all over the country. In addition to Fujian, the suburbs of Beijing and Hebei are also emerging eunuch producing areas. In the Ming Dynasty, nearly 10,000 people volunteered to apply for jobs in the imperial court, and in the Qing Dynasty, there were thousands of people every year.

The huge ranks of the Forbidden City in the Ming and Qing Dynasties are amazing. In the suburbs of Beijing and Hebei Province, being a eunuch has even become a fashion, because many eunuchs of dynasties came from this area, and almost all the locals saw and heard that someone became a eunuch, which brought power and glory to the family.

This example has caused a great shock in the local area, which is obviously faster and stronger than Fujian, which is far away from the capital. Farmers in the suburbs of Beijing and Hebei are certainly not poorer than those in other areas. People are attracted to be eunuchs by the aura of being rich or expensive.

So in some villages, hundreds of people took the road to the palace.

With the prosperity of the court, the occupation of being a eunuch with a knife appeared, and being a eunuch was regarded as a means of making a living and getting rich. Outside the Forbidden City, there are privately-run clean surgery workshops.

Those who voluntarily undergo surgery must first be examined by the workshop owner for their appearance, figure and behavior. Workshop owners will not embarrass those who are ugly as adults but insist on entering the palace without hesitation. Before the operation, you usually have to pay the operation fee, medical fee and nursing fee. Many people can't afford to pay in advance, so they have to make a written evidence, find a good guarantor, and pay back the monthly salary after entering the palace.

Children sometimes account for a larger proportion of those who enter the palace. These innocent children were sent by their father, who pinned the hope of this poor family on them, and they themselves had no veto power over their father's life.

So when they grow up to be eunuchs, they hate their father very much. Some children were trafficked by traffickers to clean workshops, and these children lost contact with their families.

The eunuch profession is more attractive to the poor and hooligans, and even makes people crazy. Some people are married and have children. As soon as they heard how powerful eunuchs are, they thought about becoming eunuchs and soon resolutely embarked on this road.

There is also a rogue who can't get along in the shopping mall, so he threw himself into the palace and became a eunuch. For example, Wei Zhongxian, the most arrogant eunuch in the late Ming Dynasty, was a gambler. Because he couldn't pay his debts, he was forced to be ashamed and annoyed by his creditors, so he changed his name and surname and became a eunuch in the palace. Li's situation is similar to that of Wei Zhongxian.

How did the imperial court treat these imperial concubine? The attitude of the imperial court is negative. The imperial court of the Ming dynasty strictly prohibited self-palace.

There were not many job seekers in the palace in the early Ming Dynasty. During the reign of Renzong in the Ming Dynasty, he ordered those who wanted to be eunuchs from the palace to be sent to toe garrison. During the reign of Xuanzong, nine people from Shanxi entered the Jin Palace. When Xuanzong heard about it, he ordered the Ministry of Justice to arrest them. During the Jingtai period, the court accepted a group of palace ladies, and thousands of palace ladies poured in.

Ming Xianzong once again ordered a ban on entering the palace, and those who were sent back to their places of origin were not allowed to live in Wang Fu's house, on pain of death. A few years later, four or five hundred people gathered outside the palace, clamoring for the court to accept it. Xianzong was furious and wrote: "This generation of rebellion is self-defeating, making a scene, and should be punished as a felony. However, in the case of forgiveness, the Royal Guard held it with a staff of 50 people each and escorted it to the family department as an example. If there are recidivists, they will be executed by themselves and the whole family will be exiled. " The Ministry of Life and Rites was ordered to announce this ban in various places.

Pity those dreamers who ruined their lives, ran away from home for wealth, got sticks and death threats.

During the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of the Ming Dynasty, the legal provisions prohibiting self-palace were incorporated into the Ming Hui Dian. It is stipulated that those who have been to the palace are unfilial. Filial piety means that you can't damage your body and hair. If you are damaged by your parents' body and hair, it is unfilial, so the ancients cherish hair very much. Mencius' famous saying "there are three unfilial things, and there is no great future" is the most important theorem of filial piety. Then those who commit palace crimes are the most serious unfilial crimes. Therefore, the law stipulates that the person confined in the palace should be given the heaviest criminal law-the great monarch.

However, in fact, no one who has been to the palace has been executed. The emperor's imperial edicts always deal with those who are locked in the palace as law. In the imperial edict, the emperor should denounce the unfilial trip, and then explain that he could not bear to be brought to justice to show his kindness.

So since the imperial secretary or mass production, wave after wave. The concubines in the harem believe that as long as the harem needs eunuchs, it is possible to enter the palace, and the emperor will not shut them out. However, whether you can be selected into the palace depends on your luck. Every few years, the Ming Palace will select a group of new eunuchs, the number is about 2,000 to 3,000, but there are tens of thousands of candidates, and only one or two out of ten people can be selected.

Those who were not selected by the court were in an awkward position.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, * * * chose three eunuchs, adding up to tens of thousands. Those who were not selected were scattered in Buddhist temples with halls outside the imperial city, and were called "nameless self" by the people.

During the Wanli period, people who were not elected to the palace wandered around the capital to rob the road for a living. Shen Defu, the author of Wanli Wild Collection, saw dozens of empresses hiding in the ruins and horses and chariots coming and going. The weaker concubines come forward to beg, and those with a little strength will bridle the carriage and force them to ask for it.

In the wilderness, when two or three cyclists meet, they suddenly rein in their horses, pull off their saddles, seize each other's key points, take away all valuable and useful things between their waist and abdomen, and then disperse in a hubbub.

The number of eunuchs in Ming Dynasty reached the highest level in history. When combing the palace expenses in the early Qing dynasty, it was found that there were 654.38+ten thousand eunuchs in the late Ming dynasty, which was 10 times more than that of maids. When the Ming Dynasty fell, 70,000 eunuchs fled the palace. However, the number of eunuchs in the Qing Dynasty was strictly limited. There were more than 2,000 eunuchs inside and outside the Qing court, while there were only 700 in Kangxi period.

Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty abolished the criminal law of those who planned to fight from the palace, fearing that the poor would be forced to castrate their sons for their livelihood.

In fact, the father is the master, castrating his son, it is impossible to sentence his son to unfilial crime. The imperial court no longer regarded entering the palace as a crime, which undoubtedly opened the door to entering the palace, and it was impossible to hire a large number of them when entering the palace. Therefore, it had to increase the places where eunuchs were held and allow aristocratic houses outside the court to accept eunuchs.

It is a matter of course that the vassal's household eunuch. The court allowed ministers at or above the first level to use eunuchs. In fact, all the middle and high-level officials used eunuchs, and Manchu used more. Obviously, the slave-holding custom brought by Manchu from outside the customs still plays an important role.

In the 19th year of Kangxi, the minister acted as a minister, demanding that the responsible princes buy off eunuchs. Emperor Kangxi said: "Officials with more than three qualities should not be banned, but many unauthorized castrations are harmful to the people, so they should be discussed by the Ministry."

Those who apply to enter the palace from the palace must register with the Ministry of Rites and accept inspection. According to the regulations of Qing Dynasty, after the people who entered the palace were registered in the Ritual Department, the heads of the accounting department and etiquette department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs sent the old eunuchs of the Etiquette Department to examine them, and then handed them over to the palace supervisor. The head of the palace supervisor took them to the emperor, who chose those who wanted to stay and distributed the rest to the palaces.

After entering the palace, you need to recognize the master first, and the master is the adoptive father. This regulation began in the Tang Dynasty.

Entering the palace as a eunuch and starting another life has changed a lot, which is reflected in taking Master as the father and some taking the adoptive father as the surname. For example, Gao Lishi's real name was Feng, and his great-grandfather Feng Ang was an official in Lingnan during the Sui Dynasty. After Lux entered the palace, he worshipped Gao Yanfu as his adoptive father, hence his surname Gao.

Before Gao Lishi, the great eunuch Yang Sixu, whose real name was Su, was adopted by eunuch Yang, hence the name Yang. Ju Wenzhen followed his adoptive father's surname, also known as Liu.

Almost all eunuchs in the Song Dynasty took the adoptive father as their surname, and in biographies, they must take the name of "father". Every eunuch can adopt a son after middle age and pass it on from generation to generation.

Pay equal attention to ethical needs and personal attachment needs. Eunuchs in the Ming dynasty entered the palace, and they had to cast a big name called XXX. For example, after Cao Jixiang entered the palace, he voted for Wang Zhen's name.

The master-apprentice relationship is the relationship between master and slave. The big eunuch is a slave in front of the imperial palace master and a master in front of the little eunuch. Therefore, eunuchs who have just entered the palace should be slaves of slaves first, and maybe they can only be slaves of slaves all their lives.