The month of the delicate and pretty girl draft

The female draft in Qing Dynasty is very complicated. Sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, involving the yamen and the household department of each flag.

From the time of Shunzhi, it was stipulated in the Qing Dynasty that all women aged 13 to 16 from the Eight Banners family must participate in the emperor's draft every three years. Those who are chosen must stay in the palace and become the concubines of the emperor, or be blessed by the royal family. Those who have not participated in the draft are not allowed to get married. When reading the selection, according to the order of the Eight Banners, usually seven or eight people stand in a row and are selected by the emperor and the empress dowager. Write down the names of the selected women on each line and keep them in the palace for filing. This list is called "Showing Women's Volleyball List" in the document.

The harem of the Qing dynasty, from the queen to the maid-in-waiting, was selected from the women of the flag bearer. The flag bearer is unique to the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, the system of selecting the makeup of the harem from the women with banners was also unique in the Qing Dynasty.

In the process of unifying Nuzhen, Nuerhachi, the Qing emperor, founded the Eight Banners system, which was established on the basis of the original hunting organization of Nuzhen. It is a military and political system with administrative, military and production functions. Marked by yellow, white, red and blue flags, it consists of eight colors: yellow, white, red, blue, yellow, white, red and blue.

Flag. After the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, the flag bearer was different from the Eight Banners and the Three Banners painted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Eight Banners, including Manchu Eight Banners, Mongolian Eight Banners, Han Eight Banners and * * * Twenty-four Banners, were the main pillars on which the Qing regime depended. The coated three flags of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are all slaves of the Qing royal family, and their political status is different. Therefore, although the women of the Eight Banners and Three Banners in the early Qing Dynasty were called female teachers, their selection methods and status in the palace were also different. The Eight Banners women's school is selected once every three years, presided over by the Ministry of Housing, and can prepare for the selection of empresses or marry an imperial clan (that is, within three generations, with close blood relationship); Three Banners are selected once a year and presided over by the Ministry of the Interior. Although some of them were eventually promoted to concubines, all the girls who took charge of harem chores were painted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the woman who wanted to choose the Three Banners was no longer called a woman xiu, but when choosing a maid-in-waiting, she explicitly said "introduce the maid-in-waiting of the Three Banners". Therefore, it is the Eight Banners female xiu who can become the empresses of the Qing court.

The purpose of choosing female practitioners is not only to enrich the emperor's harem, but also for the marriage of royal descendants, or the marriage of princes, county kings and their sons. The importance is self-evident. For female practitioners, it is not so simple to walk into the high palace walls of the Forbidden City. They must go through a series of inspections.

First of all, it is necessary to strictly examine the flag genus and age. Those who are not in the flag want to participate in the draft, and the potential is higher than the sky; Those who want to escape from the draft in the flag are asking for it. According to the Shunzhi Dynasty, all women who were officers of the Eight Banners of the Manchu, Mongolian and Han armies from 14 to 16 years old, non-commissioned officers of other families and idle young men had to participate in the triennial alternating show, and women over 17 years old no longer participated. The fifth year of Qianlong (1740) further stipulates that flag-bearer women who fail to participate in the reading and selection for various reasons within the specified time will still participate in the reading and selection next time. Women who have not been selected for study are not allowed to get married privately even in their twenties. If there is any violation, the chief executive of her flag will be investigated and punished. However, in the second year after the release of this regulation, Depei, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, played on it and asked Emperor Qianlong to allow his son Zhi Heng, who was seventeen years old, to marry the daughter of Matai, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. However, Martai's daughter did not participate in the draft. Emperor Qianlong was very angry about this matter and ordered Depei to go to Beijing immediately to give a face-to-face lecture. At the same time, he stressed: "I made rules in North Korea, and I chose to allow me to get married after reading it. Anyone who is a standard bearer should be respected and obeyed. Recently, there are still things that have not been chosen to hire Xu Zi, ministers and other responsible people. Although they are grateful to me, it has nothing to do with the system. Choose to watch the Eight Banners Female Xiu. It turned out that Wang and his brother chose Fujin. If you made a promise before you were elected, it's not because you abandoned the old system, you are afraid of those who are not responsible for playing, or those who dare not play, and your daughter who has made a promise, because I don't know, I mean others. Besides, the Eight Banners nun went to see it when she was thirteen or fourteen, and she was not afraid of delay. "Here, Emperor Qianlong plausibly said three reasons: First, the three-year draft woman is to choose a wife for the princes, not to enrich the harem for herself; Second, once someone's marriage is broken up because of the draft, it is also because it does not abide by "I am customized". It is not the responsibility of the royal family to break the law first; Third, even if you wait for a three-year or two-year draft, the woman who wants to draft is only 16 or 17 years old, and will not delay her life. Finally, Emperor Qianlong ordered that "the Eight Banners were passed by the Ministry of Housing, and all young women who were not elected were not allowed to get married without permission. They must abide by the rules and get married after being selected. "After twenty years of Qianlong (1755), another item was added. If a scholar who should be studying married the royal family without permission before being studied, her mother's family photo would hide her case. As for the age of participation, according to the records of the Qing Dynasty, the youngest is eleven years old and the oldest is twenty years old.

Every time I prepare to choose a female practitioner, I will report the situation form to the emperor first, and then write it to the Eight Banners Governor's Office immediately after the order is issued. Grass-roots officers at all levels in the Eight Banners reported the roster of school-age women step by step, summarized it in the Eight Banners command yamen, and finally reported it to the emperor by the household registration book, and the emperor decided the reading date. Those who really can't be selected because of illness, disability, ugly appearance, etc., must also take an oath at different levels and state their reasons. The Ministry of Finance will inform the emperor that they can be exempted from the obligation to be selected and obey their own marriage after obtaining permission.

Female practitioners selected by each flag should be sent to Beijing by mule cart in advance. Because many women have different family backgrounds, the government still has vehicles, while the military can only rent a car to ride. Therefore, when Qianlong was in power, it was stipulated: "Anyone who visits a woman, regardless of the size of an official, a soldier or a woman, will be rewarded with one or two taels of silver to meet the needs of hiring a car. ..... this kind of silver, ... moves the user's vault. " After the girls arrived in Beijing, the day before they entered the palace, they sat on mule cars, and the order was arranged by the participation and urging of this flag, which was called "queuing cars", according to the order of Manchu, Mongolian and Han. At the forefront are the relatives of the concubines in the palace, followed by the women who were selected to leave a sign for inspection this time, and finally the newly elected female monk, arranged in order of age, with the double lights on the car and the tree, with the sign of "the daughter of a certain flag and a certain leader" on it. Set out at sunset, enter the Di 'anmen at night, wait for the palace gate to open outside the Shenwu Gate, get off the bus, and enter Shunzhen Gate in turn under the guidance of the eunuch in the palace. The mule car that the female xiu took went east and south from the Shenwumen passage, went out of Donghuamen, went north from Chongwenmen Street, passed through Beijie Town, and then came outside Shenwumen via Di 'anmen. It was noon the next day. After the primary election, the girls boarded the mule carts they came in in turn outside the Shenwu Gate and returned to their respective homes. This method of orderly arranging cars was invented by a man named Danba Dozzi during Jiaqing period.

When the young women to be selected get off the mule car outside the Shenwu Gate, the officials of the housing department first maintain order, and then the eunuchs lead them into the palace. The Imperial Garden, Sports Temple, Beijing and Yi Xuan were once places for reading and draft. Generally, only two flags are read every day, according to the number of girls participating in the program. Usually there are five or six people in a row for the emperor or queen mother to choose from, but sometimes there are three or four people in a row, or even one person in a row. If you have a fancy, leave her a famous brand, which is called leaving a brand; If you don't select it, you will discard the flag. Then, women who leave the brand will be re-examined regularly, and those who don't stay after re-examination are also called abandoned cards. A woman who is re-elected after re-election has two fates: one is to give it to the prince or the royal family; One is to stay in the palace, accompany the emperor and become a candidate for empresses. If you become a candidate for empresses, the procedure will be more complicated. After the first "reading", you will repeatedly "review" and have a "registered name", which is selected to leave a brand; There is a "registered name", which is a brand left by the emperor himself. Finally, we have to go through the inspection of staying in the palace, select a certain number of female practitioners who stay in the palace for accommodation, and brand all the rest.

When the word "female xiu" comes into people's sight, people's intuition is that female xiu should look like a drowned fish. However, is beautiful appearance the main criterion for being elected as a female student? Here is a photo of a woman who should be a conscript in the late Qing Dynasty. It seems difficult to associate these faces with any words that express beauty. Moreover, the nature of girls' love for beauty has become an idiotic dream. It was clearly stipulated in the Qing Dynasty that women must wear flag clothes when studying the Eight Banners, and fashion is strictly prohibited. Moreover, according to China's traditional concept, "lewdness" is also extremely disreputable, and "beauty brings disaster to the country and the people" has always been the amulet for the emperor and his ministers to have sex, so this standard is always at arm's length and kept secret. In the forty-third year of Qianlong (1778), a county student stopped the royal carriage and begged Emperor Qianlong to punish himself for cutting off the funeral of Queen Urnala, which made Yan Long furious. But he still didn't forget to declare that after Narala's book, "I didn't choose love to follow the color" and later fell out of favor, but I also "overreached, not because of the color decline". In short, I will never admit myself. The rulers of the Qing dynasty made public two standards, one is moral character and the other is family status. In the Qing Dynasty, we often see magnanimity, filial piety, gentleness, prudence, "noble family" and "Zhongxiang Fahua" in the titles of queens, concubines and concubines. Among them, family status plays a more important role. As we all know, Yulong, the queen of Guangxu Emperor, is ugly, but she is the niece of Empress Dowager Cixi, so she became the queen. When Zhen Fei, who was regarded as a confidante by Emperor Guangxu, was selected, her father was assistant minister Chang Xu, her grandfather was former governor Yu Tai, and her uncle was Guangzhou general Chang Shan, who was also the son-in-law of a university student and the brother-in-law of Prince Gong Yixin, so he and his sisters were selected as Zhen and Jin Erqi.

In the Qing Dynasty, from Shunzhi to Guangxu Nine Dynasties, women were selected for more than 80 times. According to the statistics of empresses buried in the mausoleum, there were 2 14, and their fates were different.