01
For a feudal dynasty, the most serious problem is the heir issue, which is a major matter related to the foundation of a feudal dynasty, whether it can ensure the continuation of the dynasty, the transmission of the throne, all depends on the establishment of its next heir.
And the heir to the throne naturally must be selected from their own heirs, how to ensure that their heirs can be healthy birth, growth, has become the number one thing in every dynasty, so how did the Ming Dynasty do in this regard? Let's take a look.
02
During the Ming Dynasty, Chinese medicine has made great progress over the previous generation, and the great development of medical technology, especially the development of TCM obstetrics and gynecology, has led to the emergence of many female physicians with excellent medical skills in society, who not only diagnose and treat diseases for folk women, but also be summoned to the court to treat concubines in the harem. Of course, the doctors of the Tai Hospital will also be responsible for seeing patients, and these people will work together to promote the development of China's ancient maternity and education.
If you want to talk about midwifery in the Ming Dynasty, then you have to mention an institution - the confinement room. The confinement room, also known as the greenhouse, was a delivery room specially set up by the Ming Dynasty royal family for harem concubines.
03
As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, the royal family had the custom of setting up a delivery room for pregnant women
The Book of Rites records: "The wife will give birth to a child and the moon, and will live in the side room, and the husband will ask the man again on the day." And ask himself, but the wife does not dare to see it, so that he will dress and give birth to a son, and the husband will ask again every day. Fu Zhai, then no one side room door... The wife will give birth to a child and the moon, and the husband will ask him. At the end of the third month of the birth of the son, the gargling of the huan is seen in the inner bed, and the ceremony is like the room of the initiator. ”
During the Han Dynasty, inheriting the customs of the Zhou Dynasty, the custom of "giving birth to concubines" was further formed, which means that when a concubine is pregnant and about to give birth, she must leave her palace and go to the outside pavilion to wait for childbirth.
Why should the concubine leave her original palace to give birth outside? The reason is that the ancients regarded women's menstruation, menstruation, and blood during childbirth as "unclean things", and people who came into contact would have ominous signs.
Wang Chong, a famous philosopher of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in his book "On Balance": "Three days of keeping a woman's breast, thinking that it is unlucky." Those who will do auspicious things, enter the mountains and forests, travel far, and pass the river, will not communicate with them. The house of the milk, also jealous of evil, the hill tomb lu roadside, more than a month is a man, evil is also even worse. ”
This means that the woman must avoid the mother and the baby for three days after giving birth, thinking that this is ominous, if you want to carry out auspicious things, people who need to travel far away will not interact with the mother and baby, and the baby's family will be very taboo and disgusted with him, if it is really in the hill cemetery house street, after a month will encounter more disgust, it can be seen that the treatment of maternity and newborn babies under feudal superstition at that time.
05
Of course, a status as honorable as the emperor was naturally even less able to come into contact with these "unclean things", so he would build a special annex for the production of concubines for their accommodation and offspring.
In addition to the emperor can not enter the delivery room, in order to ensure the smooth birth of the mother, successive dynasties have set up a special institution to manage the birth of pregnant concubines, for example, the Song Dynasty has "where there are servants in the palace, will and in July, the medical officer Shen Nei Dong Mensi and the local lifting official play the special performance of the door division, and then order the medical officer to designate the birth of the month, the door to play the schedule of delivery", and when the pregnant woman is nearly seven months pregnant, a special delivery room will be arranged in advance to prepare for the pregnant woman to give birth.
In the "History of the Yuan", it is recorded: "All the concubines who are pregnant and will be married to the moon will move to the outer felt tent." If a prince is born, the Xi Hundred Officials will use gold and silver colored satin, which is called the withdrawal of the sea. and Mizuki, return to the inner bed. His accounting room was awarded to the courtiers. On the basis of the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty combined Han folk customs and built a confinement room in the imperial palace, which was specifically responsible for managing the production of harem concubines.
06
And what kind of institution is the confinement room? The harem system of the Ming Dynasty was specified by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty.
In the fifth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang set up a harem system, "set up as six divisions and one bureau." Bureau Shanggong, Shangyi, Shangfu, Shangshou, Shangjiao, Shanggong. Si Yue Gong Zheng. "There are sub-agencies under the six bureaus, and the departments related to medicine belong to the shang food bureau, "the shang food bureau, the two people who still eat food, the number of food and shyness. Whoever eats and drinks into the imperial court, and tastes them first. Leader Four: Si Shan, Si Shan four people, Dian Shan four people, Palm Meal four people, Female Shi four people, Palm Cutting Cooking and Cooking and Things. Si Shu, Si Shu two, Dian Shu two, Palm Two, Female Shi two, Palm Wine, Drunk. Si Yao, Si Yao two, Dian Yao two, Palm Medicine two, Female Shi four, in charge of the prescription drug. Si Bao. Two people who are in charge, two people who are in charge, two people who are in charge of food, and two people who are in charge of the charcoal. "These six bureaus and one division are uniformly managed by the superintendent of ceremonies, and when there is a problem, they are transferred to each other.
07
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the famous eunuch Liu Ruoyu, who was good at literature, wrote the "Zhi Zhongzhi" as follows: "The ceremonial room is in charge of a marriage ceremony that should be chosen. Every year, in the fourth month of the year, the milk is selected, ten males are born, ten are born, and the monthly food is given, and they live in the milk house. Where there is joy in the palace, the confinement room is laid, and the birth of the prince is given birth to a female milk, and the imperial daughter is used to give birth to a male milk. It is detailed that every year the palace will select twenty nurses, ten nurses who give birth to boys, ten nurses who give birth to girls, and live in the "milk house" specially set up for them, and if there are concubines in the palace who are pregnant, they will set up a "confinement room", and then give the birth of the crown princess and queen to the nurses to feed.
Although it is explained that the production of concubines does not need to leave the palace, but only in the "confinement room" in the palace, in view of the fact that women's menstrual blood and even the dirty blood during childbirth are "unclean things", and in order to ensure the quietness of the production site and do not affect the normal production of concubines, the "confinement room" is set in the most remote and quiet place in the palace, a bit like the "cold palace" that everyone often sees in TV series.
08
The "History of the Ming Palace" records: "Where there is joy in the palace, the moon room is laid, and one or two boys and two girls are born, and they live in a small room outside the Wenhua Hall northwest of the river." Although the confinement room is a permanent institution in the palace, the main personnel of their institution are temporarily drawn from various departments according to the production needs of the concubines, and the rules of the Ming Court are strict, even if there are concubines in the palace who are sick, doctors are not allowed to enter, only let the concubines explain their symptoms of illness and feedback to the Hospital, "Where there is a disease in the palace, it is not allowed to summon a doctor to enter, but it is said that the evidence is taken", I am very afraid that others will wear a green hat for the emperor, resulting in impure royal blood.
The department responsible for the medicine of the confinement room is mainly composed of several departments such as the Tai Hospital, the Royal Pharmacy, the Shang Food Bureau, and the Ceremonial Room, which belong to the Ceremonial Department and the Ceremonial Supervisor, which are the supervision and control of the Ming Dynasty Royal Maternity Room and play an important role in the production of pregnant women in the harem.
09
The staffing of the confinement room is also very important, for the maternity production, the personnel setting in the confinement room is the first layer of guarantee for their production, because the harem concubines are fortunate to be fortunate is a daily situation, in order to avoid the shortage of manpower, the celebrant often recruits "three wives" and "mothers" in various places in case of emergency.
The Ming Dynasty system stipulates that if a concubine is pregnant, the situation must be verified first, and then the relevant departments will register the year, month and day, "after the concubines are in the junshou, the book is the month and day", to ensure that it is the royal bloodline and then tell the emperor, the emperor then arranges for the concubine to be responsible for its production, and the specific matters are planned by the ceremonial supervisor and the ceremonial department.
10
The Ming Dynasty Shen Bang recorded in detail in the "Miscellaneous Records of the Wanjue" the "Three Wives" who specialized in serving the royal childbirth and childbirth, "those who are not allowed to enter the forbidden women..... But the three wives are there from time to time." The so-called "three wives" refer to: doctors, midwives, and nurses.
The doctor woman, also known as the doctor woman, is to select women who are proficient in medicine from all over the world to be summoned to the Great Interior to see the concubines, and the women are proud of being selected. The inductees, women are honored". In ancient feudal dynasties, men and women were very serious, and the palace concubines paid special attention to these, and they could not contact men, and the famous doctor Min Qiling once mentioned, "I hope to hear three things that can be applied to husbands and babies, and every poor woman and woman." "But the doctor and woman have a gender advantage, they can enter and leave the palace at ease, and enter the confinement room to diagnose the concubines, which is what the male doctors of the Hospital cannot provide, which also provides a certain degree of medical protection for the mother."
11
The midwife is what we often call "stable wife", the so-called "that is, among the civil midwives, the pre-selected name is in the official, but the internal use .... The nipple is used to equal the thickness of the milk, and there is no hidden disease. If there is joy in the inner court, then the old people who are in the matter of the old pre-gathering in advance will stay directly, and the day and night will wait, and the matter will be decided. "Ordinary people may not be very picky when choosing a stable wife, but the stable women in the harem are carefully selected, and they must be stable wives with many years of experience in delivering babies, so as to ensure the smooth output of babies, so "all who use stable wives must choose the old and loyal." ”
As for the grandmother, it is needless to say, naturally it is what we often call "nursing mother", these nursing mothers are waiting for recruitment in the ceremonial room outside the Dong'an Gate of the Imperial City, "There is a ceremonial room outside the Dong'an Gate, which is a place to choose a milk mouth to wait for the inner court to be called." One Day Tits House.... Each season, select the milk mouth within forty to raise, sit in the season milk mouth every day, do not choose eighty nationals from the official, the day point to the milk mouth, waiting for the season of the mother or other reasons, that is, to make up for it and take advantage of it. The end of the season is even more so."
12
Every year, the royal selection of grandmothers is the most stringent, the ceremonial room is equipped with the milkmaids selected by the two counties of Daxing and Wanping in the capital and the yamen of various places all year round, the age must be more than fifteen, under twenty, the children are complete, and the good-looking good family women, and the birth of the third child is only three months, can be selected, but also through the stable mother test there is no hidden disease, in order to enter the palace to serve. The birth of the prince with the milk mouth of the child, the birth of the queen of the woman with the mouth of the birth of the man, this is from the Han folk "open milk" custom, according to legend, feeding in this way, can make the baby thrive, to avoid premature death.
As an important institution for the production, raising of princes and imperial daughters in the imperial palace, the confinement room is also equipped with a perfect system and personnel to ensure the vigorous growth of every prince and imperial daughter of the Ming Dynasty and the continuation of the life of the Ming Dynasty.