On February 12, 1912, Empress Longyu, who was known as the Lin dynasty, promulgated the Edict of abdication of the Qing Emperor in place of the young Xuantong Emperor Puyi, which officially ended the imperial era that lasted for more than 2100 years. However, although Emperor Xuantong has announced his abdication and is no longer the emperor of the Qing Dynasty, according to the agreement previously reached between the Qing Dynasty imperial family and Nanjing, Emperor Xuantong can still continue to live in the imperial palace and continue to enjoy the honorific title of "emperor".
As the last feudal dynasty in history, the Qing Dynasty ruled the world for 276 years, and not everyone was willing to accept the influence of new ideas. Therefore, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, there are still a considerable number of ministers who are willing to continue to follow the Xuantong Emperor, and these Qing Dynasty widows, who are mainly composed of clan ministers and eight banner nobles, still go to the Forbidden City to pay homage to the emperor every day as in the previous early dynasty. Although Emperor Xuantong was young, with the assistance of Empress Longyu, he still called himself a lonely widow in the Forbidden City, gave officials and titles, and continued to maintain the imperial style, forming a situation of confrontation with Nanjing, which was then called "The Small Imperial Court of Sunqing".
The demise of the Qing Dynasty is already an ironclad fact, although these qing dynasty widows and widows are unwilling to face reality and prefer to continue to immerse themselves in the beautiful fantasy of the "small court of the Qing Dynasty", but they certainly cannot live in the Forbidden City forever. Therefore, when the Second Zhifeng War broke out, General Feng Yuxiang sent Lu Zhonglin to lead troops into the Forbidden City on November 5, 1924, driving out Emperor Xuantong Puyi and a cadre of ministers. Although Puyi later attempted to create another "later Qing Dynasty small imperial court" with the support of the Qing Dynasty's widows and children, as well as Duan Qirui, Wu Peifu and others, he was eventually forced to leave Jinmen.
After Puyi left the palace in 1924, he took the opportunity to carry a large number of gold and silver treasures and celebrity calligraphy and paintings, and just relying on the precious antiques he carried out of the palace was enough to make him worry-free for a lifetime. Those ministers of the "Small Imperial Court of the Sunqing Dynasty" also took the opportunity to fish out a lot of treasures from the palace. These precious cultural relics that originally belonged to the Forbidden City have thus flowed into the people, and a considerable number of them have never been found since.
Puyi left the palace, whether it was himself or those clan ministers, it can be said that they were all full of pots and pans, and took the opportunity to carry many treasures out of the palace. Among those who originally lived in the Forbidden City, those who really had no food or clothing after leaving the palace were the palace women and eunuchs who were also expelled from the palace. Most of their encounters after leaving the palace were more tragic, and many of them ended up dying of despair, not even having a place to live.
In ancient times, the profession of eunuch has always existed with the existence of imperial power, and with the end of the feudal era and the end of imperial power, eunuchs naturally have no need to exist. After Puyi left the palace, the eunuchs who served him were also expelled from the palace, and they lived in the palace all their lives and could not adapt to the life of the outside world. Coupled with the lack of a source of livelihood for these people after leaving the palace, it is difficult to sustain three meals a day.
For example, the last eunuch Sun Yaoting, after leaving the palace, he returned to his hometown of Jinghai County, but he was originally from a peasant family, but he could no longer adapt to life in the countryside. The reason was simple, after spending most of his life in the palace, he could not do farm work at all, let alone serve the crops. Moreover, he did not have any land in his hometown, and he could only rely on his brothers to help him live. But the brothers' family was also very difficult, and Sun Yaoting, who could not stay in his hometown, had to return to Beijing and live with more than 40 other eunuchs at the Xinglong Temple, living a life of hunger and fullness, hugging each other for warmth.
Although Sun Yaoting and others had a difficult life after leaving the palace, they could still get some income by renting out the vacant houses of Xinglong Temple. However, these meager incomes only allowed them to eat two mixed grain meals a day, and later the difficult situation was that the house was not rented, and they had to live by picking up scrap cinder on the street. After Puyi left the palace in 1924, a large number of palace women who had served him were also dismissed, how did they spend the rest of their lives? Compared with Sun Yaoting and others, the ending of these palace women is even more emotional, even if they are willing to marry after leaving the palace, no one is willing to marry them.
They can be selected into the palace as errand boys, indicating that their appearance is not bad, why are they willing to marry after they leave the palace? This is mainly because they were very old when they left the palace, and most of the men in ancient times were married early, so naturally no one wanted to marry these older women. Moreover, they originally lived in the imperial palace, and ordinary people naturally did not dare to marry them because of the face of the Sunqing royal family.
These palace women lived in the Qing Palace for half a lifetime, and when they left the palace, most of their parents were dead, and the status of women in ancient times was low, and even if they returned home, they would not be accepted by their brothers and sisters-in-law. Because they have no place to stay, and because they have no source of livelihood, they can only become slaves of rich families again, which is the only job they are good at. There are even some people with a particularly bumpy life, who can only fall into the wind and dust after leaving the palace, living a life of insecurity, and their fate is also lamentable.
It was not until after liberation that the lives of these former Qing Dynasty palace eunuchs gradually improved, and they were able to live a normal life. The last eunuch, Sun Yaoting, lamented the experience in his own memoirs, when they not only received a living allowance of 16 yuan a month, but even had their own jobs and could support themselves with their hands. For example, Sun Yaoting, who has been a cashier for several years, has a salary of 35 yuan per month, which is completely enough for his own living needs, which he never dared to imagine before. It was also because of the great improvement in life that Sun Yaoting was able to enjoy a high life and died in 1996 at the age of 94.