The ancient emperors of China had three palaces and six courtyards, and many wives and concubines. When he wants to have sex with his queens, it becomes a headache to choose who to sleep with. The sexual life of ancient emperors in China was very casual, but it was a great event to have a concubine, because it was related to the orthodoxy of royal blood. For this reason, emperors of past dynasties "invented" many methods, and some even gave birth to many interesting romantic stories.
The emperor chose one of his numerous empresses to have sex with him, which is a kind of kindness and favor to the selected woman, so it is called "lucky", "lucky" and "showing kindness" ... from the angle of empresses, it is "auspicious orientation". The favor of the emperor's empresses is an important event in the palace, and we must not be careless. According to records, in the Zhou dynasty, there were officials in charge of the affairs of the emperor's harem, called "Yin Ling"; The Han dynasty set up a court order to record who was responsible for sleeping that night every evening; After the Eastern Han Dynasty, eunuchs were responsible for this kind of thing. From then on, there must be a memorandum in the palace of each dynasty to record the good and bad luck of the emperor, in case there are beautiful women in the harem, and whoever is lucky every day will sometimes become a headache for the emperor, especially those emperors with large harem teams.
The size of the harem in Sima Yan in the Western Jin Dynasty exceeded 10,000. In order to solve the problem of sleeping and lodging, he invented the method of "sheep cart choosing attendants": sitting on the road leading to the harem and strolling in front of whose house the sheep cart stayed, he would choose the person who accompanied him that night. In the Southern Dynasties, Song Wendi also adopted the method invented by Emperor Wu of Jin to select attendants. Of course, the concubines want the sheep cart to stop in front of their own house. There was a clever concubine named Pan, who sprinkled salt juice on the road where the sheep cart passed and lured the sheep to lick it all the way to the door. Because sheep always stop in front of Pan Shufei, Wendi sighed, "Sheep are all for you, let alone people?"
It is said that the romantic emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty had as many as 40,000 concubines in the harem during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao years. I wonder how lucky they are. Thanks to his many ideas in this regard, he finally came up with a way: to convene a group of palace funerals every day and let them lose their bones to decide whether to win or lose. The final winner was the escort that night. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty ordered harem women to plant flowers in front of their own houses, and they followed butterflies leisurely. That night, when the butterfly stopped on the flower branch in front of anyone, the emperor stayed there. This method is also nicknamed "butterfly luck".
The Ming Dynasty established a strict system to manage the emperor's sexual life. The emperor lost the right to choose his concubine freely to a great extent, and of course he lost many romantic stories. In the Ming Dynasty, a sacrificial room was set up in the Forbidden City to take charge of the emperor's nightlife. The manager of the worship room is called the eunuch of the worship room. His main task is to arrange and record the relationship between the emperor and his empresses, and to record where the emperor sleeps with whom every night. At the same time, Tong, a female official in the palace, is responsible for recording the appearance of concubines every night. In contrast, once someone in the harem is pregnant and gives birth, it is necessary to immediately check the date of conception and identify the identity of the newborn.
In the Ming Dynasty, except for the empress, all the concubines of the emperor were equipped with green-headed cards, that is, green-headed brand names. When the emperor was having dinner, the eunuch in the imperial room put dozens of green-headed cards on a silver plate, brought them to the emperor, and knelt down to listen to his instructions. If the emperor chooses a concubine to share a room with her, he will turn over the famous brand of this concubine and put it back in the silver plate; If the emperor is not interested in sex on this day, just say "go". After the eunuch retired, he handed over the princess brand name selected by the emperor to his eunuch, and the eunuch informed the selected concubine to take a bath in Lantang to prepare for "blessing". At night, red gauze lanterns were hung in front of the palace where the funeral lived, and the lanterns in front of Princess Chengxing's womb were removed, indicating that the emperor chose the place to sleep that night. The eunuch in charge of patrolling the street saw the signal and ordered the other maids to turn off the lights and go to bed. According to the usual practice, the funeral place of the imperial concubine is to burn incense, and the aroma is abnormal. The purpose of burning incense is just like a palace saying: "The nose is unclear and the pulse is charming." The traces of rain clouds are easy to pull, not light or bright. "In layman's terms, it is an aphrodisiac. If it is the first time that the emperor is lucky, he will "lay the palace", that is, the eunuch will decorate the room.
This system in the Ming Dynasty continued until the Qing Dynasty. The emperor shunzhi believes that this system is very useful to ensure the purity of the emperor's children, and it can also limit the indulgence of future emperors.