The earliest record of the titles of female officials in ancient China begins in "The Rites of Zhou·Tianguan".
“The Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty established six palaces, three concubines, nine concubines, twenty-seven concubines, and eighty-one imperial wives... Within them were nine concubines, concubines, female imperial concubines, female concubines, and female historians to serve in the palace.
There are also matters such as the work of dian women, dian silk, and dian chanzhang female workers; inside there are ministers' clothes, sewing people are in charge of the queen's clothes, and outside there are people who are married to men, chasing teachers, and clothes provided by concubines. They are all put under the supervision of Tianguan Tomb.
"
In the outer court, "the emperor established six palaces, three princes, nine ministers, twenty-seven officials, and eighty-one scholars to govern the world outside and to guide the men in the world." The nine concubines and below are both concubines and concubines.
A female official.
The women of the world are in charge of sacrifices, guests, and funerals; the palace of handsome women is in charge of cleaning; the women of the palace are in charge of the palace of the king of Xu, and she performs female merits at the age of the year, and are the assistants of the women in various rituals; the women of the palace are in charge of sacrifices in the harem, writing of poems, and other related matters
The affairs of ghosts and gods; the ceremonial position of the female historian is in charge of the queen, and she is the assistant and secretary of the queen's internal governance. At the lower level, there are female wine, female wine, female salt, etc. under the leadership of the eunuch.
The system of female officials existed during the Qin and Han Dynasties, but the historical records are unclear, and it is generally ignored. Taking into account the Zhou rites, the system of female officials was naturally inherited.
During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the order of female officials was opposite to that of external officials. The highest leader was the internal secretary, and the official was the minister, followed by the secretary, the eunuch, the female maid, and the second rank. The eunuch, the female minister, the beauty, the female history, the female official
A sage, a female scholar, a scholar, a little scholar, a third-rank official. A middle-class scholar, a servant, a middle envoy, a talented girl, a respectful envoy to the palace, a fourth-rank official. Tsing Yi, female wine, female salary, female food
, Xiguan female slave, the official is compared to the fifth rank.
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Six Shang, Six Divisions, and Six Codes were in charge of each other. Later, it was directly changed to the Six Shang Bureau in charge of twenty-four divisions, forming a customization.
The regulation of female officials in the Ming Dynasty was most complete in the late Hongwu period. Its organizational structure was "six bureaus and one division", which governed a total of 24 divisions and 25 branches of Tongshi. The total number of female officials was about 300. They were in charge of the etiquette of the inner palace.
, commandments, seals, pictures, books, money and silk, feather banners, food and clothing supplies and many other palace affairs.
Therefore, the system of female officials in the inner court was not the invention of Li Zicheng, Li Guo and Li Laiheng, but something that existed in history. Female officials in the Ming Dynasty were mostly called Shang Gong. When the Shun soldiers escorted the female officials from Jiangnan to the north to Kaifeng, they were naturally called Shang Gong.
Shang Gong called Lin Maomao and others.
The heyday of the female official system was during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Beginning with Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, with the increasing scale of palace life, the quality of life of a large number of concubines and nobles was increasingly emphasized. In order to facilitate management, the inner court followed the example of the previous dynasty and began to set up six bureaus, which were served by female officials, namely the Shang Palace.
There are three people in each position of Shang Yi, Shang Fu, Shang Food, Shang Sleep, and Shang Gong. The positions are low, equivalent to starting from the ninth rank. It was greatly expanded until the era of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty. According to the official positions of foreign dynasties, twenty-four divisions were set up.
And the inner palace bureau, which was subordinate to the outer court in the former dynasty at that time, was expanded into the inner palace province, which was used to govern the female officials of the six bureaus.
In the Tang Dynasty, the development reached its peak period. The highest position of female officials in the Tang Dynasty could be as high as the third rank. For example, the famous Shangguan Wan'er had been in charge of the imperial court for many years and had power over the government and the public, no less than the prime minister.
In the Ming Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism further developed. In order to curb the power of female officials, Zhu Yuanzhang greatly changed the Tang and Song Dynasty's Six Shang and Twenty-Four Division systems, setting the highest female official level as the fourth rank, and abolishing the position of the Six Shang Manager.
Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang did the same for the eunuch system, and also set the highest level as the fourth rank.
But starting from Zhu Di, successive emperors of the Ming Dynasty continued to destroy this "ancestral law." Although the imperial power of the Ming Dynasty was powerful, only a super energetic strongman like Zhu Yuanzhang could hold all the imperial power in the hands of one emperor.
Most emperors of the Ming Dynasty, whether for the purpose of checking the civil servants and generals, or for the purpose of controlling imperial power, had to deploy eunuchs as their avatars and extensions of imperial power.
Since Li Zicheng, Taizu of Dashun, has announced the complete abolition of the eunuch system, burying this inhumane system in history. Neither Li Guo nor Li Laiheng believed that there was any need to violate or destroy the "Dashun ancestral system".
——
Even though some newly promoted officials in the imperial court claimed in every possible way that the eunuch system cannot be abolished, as long as someone cites Taizu's legacy, in the situation where Dashun was not long established and Taizu's body was still cold, any objection to Taizu's legacy is unacceptable.
accepted.
Since the eunuch system has completely ceased to exist, no matter how much the current Kaifeng officials object to Li Laiheng's restoration of the female official system in the Tang Dynasty, it is difficult to raise strong objections.
Li Laiheng gave only two choices: the first was to disobey Taizu's instructions and restore the eunuch system; the second was to restore the female eunuch system in the prosperous Tang Dynasty to make up for the lack of the twelve eunuchs.
You must know that Niu Jinxing, the first Pingzhang political official of the Shun Dynasty, committed suicide after the Tianniu Incident, but Li Laiheng only announced that Niu Jinxing was worried about dying of illness due to the defeat of the Shun army in the Battle of Huolu. Niu Jinxing's son Niu Quan also served as
With the important position of Henan Jiedushi, many disciples and former officials of Niu Jinxing still occupied important positions in the six governments of Shun Dynasty.
In the "Yongchang Yi Notes" written by Niu Xiang himself, it is clearly stated: "All notes on the official system, clothing replacement, court etiquette, and official exchanges, etiquette, etc., all comply with the Tang system."
Although the three sages of the Shun Dynasty, no one has ever said that the Li Zicheng family or the Li Laiheng family has any blood connection with the Li Tang royal family that existed in history.
However, among the people in Dashun's ruling area, as well as most of the newly appointed Shun Dynasty civil servants and generals, the view that the Three Saints were all descended from Li and Tang has actually become a common unspoken understanding.
Therefore, in the Shun Dynasty, although from the victory of Xuzhou to the present, there was not much time for civil servants to calmly resume the pre-Ming style and attack each other in the court. However, there were many admonishment officials and direct commanders - that is, the Ming Dynasty's Kedao
The officials have quickly mastered the language skills. Generally speaking, if His Highness the Supervisor reveals that he wants to reform the old legal system, he can be greatly satisfied by referring to the precedents of the Tang Dynasty.
During the Shun Dynasty, restoring the Tang Dynasty quickly became an absolutely politically correct stance.
Its accuracy is no less than that of the Ming Dynasty's main battle, Qingliu Feng.
But smart officials should learn from Grand Master Fang. The Tang system was very correct, but the purpose of supervising the country was even more correct.
For example, "Liu Dian of the Tang Dynasty" clearly stipulates that the concubines in the harem are part of the female officials, and the maids are also part of the female officials.
However, His Highness Jian Guo has issued decrees several times requiring that when local governments submit submissions to select female officials, appearance should not be used as the selection criterion. Initially, some officials who were demoted in the Ming Dynasty thought that this was His Highness trying to gain fame, so they secretly submitted a large number of beautiful and gorgeous women.
When young girls entered the palace, they were all demoted to the first rank.
Only then did everyone realize that the Supervisory State actually wanted to use female officials to completely replace the twelve supervisory institutions of the eunuchs.
The Jianguo not only distinguishes the concubines in the Emperor Guangzhong and the Queen Mother's palace from ordinary female officials. But even the palace maids, whether they are the palace maids who manage the daily affairs of the palace, or the senior palace servants with official positions and status, are not exempt from this.
Belongs to the list of female officials in the inner court.
Generally, palace maids with official positions are renamed palace officials.
The original female officials in the Ming Dynasty who were inherited by Dashun were all changed to palace officials.
In Li Laiheng's plan, female officials will completely replace the eunuch system in the future, so the powerful status of many senior female officials is bound to reach an extremely high status just like those powerful eunuchs in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
In order to prevent these senior female officials from colluding with the foreign court - complete prevention is absolutely impossible, but since Li Laiheng is planning to use the female official group as a tool to check and balance civil servants, military generals and nobles, at least at the institutional level, more
The possibility of female officials joining other official groups.
Similarly, in order to avoid the chaos caused by the harem's interference in politics, it is also necessary to completely separate the harem and the inner court in the system. It must be ensured that the emperors of the shun dynasty will never serve as female officials in the future, and they will never be included in the harem.
Lin Maomao returned to the house, and night had fallen. She closed her eyes and remembered what Mr. Li, the Longyi Guard's Jinling Town Fusi, once said when she was taking the selection exam in Jinling.
"After passing the selection, all of your names will disappear from your respective genealogy forever, and you will be separated from all the original clans."
Lin Maomao lost her father before she got married. The folk customs in Fujian are conservative. With her condition, if she returned to her hometown and followed the clan's arrangement to marry someone else, it would be difficult for her to be qualified to be listed in the family tree.
Therefore, for orphans like Lin Maomao and other girls with prosperous clans, depriving them of their clan connections is not as unacceptable as depriving a man of his clan connections.
Lin Maomao covered his head with a quilt and couldn't help laughing:
"The clans in the village are already disgusting. Even if you are lucky enough to marry into a good family, after you die, you will only be included in the family tree of your husband's family. If you really don't listen to the chief minister of the Zhenfu Division and become a female official in the palace, your future will be ruined.
The name will definitely remain in the palace register."