Li Xin sighed: "Who said it wasn't? Those big families in the capital are big enough to make more money, lose some money, and hide the past, but those poor people are miserable, knowing that they are pushing their daughters into the fire pit, but some ordinary people still send their daughters! ”

Li Junwen said: "Don't they know that this is to send them to death? ”

Li Xin said: "How could you not know? ”

Li Junwen said angrily: "Then send it back!" ”

Li Xin said: "What can be done?" In addition to barely feeding the stomachs of his family every day, which family has so much spare money to give to those who are officials? ”

Li Junwen said: "If you don't have money, do you want to send your daughter to the funeral?" ”

Li Xin was silent.

Li Rulong suddenly said: "I just asked the old man, what is the relationship between Hong Bangru's emperor election?" ”

Li Junwen suddenly said: "Yes, yes, Daddy, on the way, we ran into the elders of the Hong Gang arresting Miss Keyun, and her mother was killed by an elder named Miao Qingquan!" ”

Li Xin's face changed slightly, and he said, "Hong Gang, have you met?" ”

Li Rulong saw Li Xin's face change suddenly, and knew in his heart that this matter was not so simple, although he couldn't bear to tell it, he still nodded and said, "It's done!" ”

Li Junwen saw his father's face change suddenly, and said suspiciously: "Daddy, what's the matter, is the Hong Gang very strong?" ”

The system of burial of the living in China has existed since ancient times, and Confucius said that "the one who started the martyrdom has no aftermath" is a criticism and curse of this kind of phenomenon. After entering the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was relatively rare, but in the Ming Dynasty, this tragic practice actually revived. "Daming Huidian" recorded: "There are 40 concubines in Xiaoling, but the two concubines are buried in the mausoleum, and the rest are buried; Changling 16 concubines are buried in the rest of the world; 7 concubines were sacrificed, 3 were buried in Jinshan, and the rest were buried; Jingling 8 concubines, one buried in Jinshan, and the rest of the cong buried". "History of the Ming Dynasty" also said, "Ancestors have been born, benevolence and propaganda are also martyred."

What was it like at the time of the burial? North Korean information provides us with this information: according to the Joseon State "Records of King Sejong Joheon", after the collapse of Ming Chengzu, "the emperor collapsed, and more than 30 people were buried in the harem. On the day of death, they are all paid in court. Salary withdrawal, all lead to promotion. The cry shook the palace. There are large and small beds on top of the hall, so that they can stand on them. The lanyard is looped on the top, and the head is in the loop. Then they went to their beds, and they all died by pheasants. When Han was dying, he said to Jin Hei: "Mother, I'll go!" Mother, I'll go! Before the words were finished, a eunuch went to bed, but he died with Cui's family. At the beginning of the deceased, the deceased was also promoted, and Renzong personally resigned. Han wept and said that Renzong said: "My mother is old and willing to rule my country." 'Renzong agreed. "The golden black is the nurse of the Han family, and she came from North Korea with the young Han family. According to the Ming dynasty Wang Shizhen's "Yishan Hall Collection", Han was at most twelve or thirteen years old when he came to China, and he was twenty-two or three years old when he was buried. After Han's death, Jin Hei lived in China for another twenty or thirty years, and later returned to China, and the above record is her memories after returning to China.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, not only the emperor's concubines were martyred, but also the vassal kings. In March of the 28th year of Hongwu, Taizu's second son, Zhu Zhang, the king of Qin, died, and the two princesses were martyred.

As for the specific burial place of the martyred concubine, it is difficult to find a trace in the official information of the Ming Dynasty. Contemporary scholars have proposed through the investigation and ranking of the burial tombs in the Tianshou Mountain Mausoleum area: the funeral palace concubines of the three dynasties of Chengzu, Renzong and Xuanzong were buried in the left and right side halls of the Emperor's Xuangong. Judging from the archaeological excavations of the Ming Ding Mausoleum, the left and right side halls of the Imperial Tomb Xuangong are empty? This has to mention the "change of civil engineering" Ming Yingzong, when he was 13 years old after his accession to the throne, his brother Zhou Wang Zhu Youyou, Yingzong wrote a letter to another brother Zhu Youyi, asking not to let the living be buried, unfortunately Zhu Youstew's concubines Gong, Mrs. Shi, Ou, Chen, Zhang, Han, and Li were all martyred. Finally, before Yingzong died, he made it clear in the form of a testament: "Martyrdom is not an ancient ceremony, and the benevolent cannot bear it, so the concubines should not be martyred." At this point, the cruel human martyrdom system of the Ming Dynasty was officially abolished. Therefore, now we naturally can't see the phenomenon of human martyrdom from the tomb of Shenzong after Yingzong, and the left and right side halls have been retained as the old system, without making changes, and they are all empty.

However, this edict of Yingzong did not make the burial of the living absolutely forbidden. In his notes, Wang Shizhen also gave several examples of people who were still buried thereafter. In the fourth year of Chenghua, the king of Liao wrote to the emperor, saying that his son was dead, and he hoped to let his son's wife and concubine be martyred. But in the 22nd year of Chenghua, after the death of King Ninghe, several of his wives were still required to be buried.

Most of the concubines who were martyred in the Ming Dynasty were not of high status, and some were even crowned concubines after their deaths. Yingzong posthumously crowned the 10 martyrs of the emperor's concubines as concubines, and his book said: "I am committed to righteousness, follow the dragon to control the guests, it is advisable to recommend the micro name, and use the Zhangjie line." And those emperors' wives and concubines who were not martyred and were able to live for a long time, except for the empress, generally had royal children or descendants of the old ones. "Wanli Ye Won the Compilation" records that "two months before the collapse of the Shang, he once named Zhang as a concubine, the grandson of King Rongguo Zhongxian, and the daughter of the British Gongfu of the current Taishi.

In fact, in the Qing Dynasty, the martyrdom system also existed in the beginning, and after the death of Taizu Nurhachi, the queen Nala and the two concubines Azigen and Daiinza were martyred. After the death of Shunzhi, the first emperor of the Qing Dynasty, more than 30 concubines were martyred. But the difference is that the emperors of the Qing Dynasty before the Kangxi Dynasty all practiced cremation. In the Kangxi period, it was proposed to prepare for the burial of 40 palace maids. However, because Emperor Kangxi hated the burial of the living, he ordered it to be banned. Kangxi died in 1662, that is, the cruel and barbaric habit of Chinese emperors to bury living people did not really end until the 17th century AD.

Source: "Baidu" Most of the selected concubines of the Ming Dynasty not only had to endure the pain of loneliness, but also had to face a more cruel reality of martyrdom! Whenever the emperor died, the palace was full of weeping, not mourning the dead emperor, but fearing that they were about to die for the dead emperor. As soon as the emperor died, the eunuchs drove the concubines who had no children to a small side hall. There was a row of small stools on the ground, and on the beams above hung white silk one after another, which were prepared for the concubines to hang.

According to the record of volume 3 of "A Little History of the Ming Dynasty", after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, "all the people who served the palace were martyred", and all the more than 40 concubines who served him were buried in the filial piety tomb. Subsequently, Chengzu's Changling also had more than 30 concubines from the martyrdom, Renzong's dedication tomb had 7 concubines to accompany the burial, and Xuanzong's Jingling was "martyred from the burial" by 10 palace people. When the concubine was buried, her condition was very miserable. After the death of Ming Chengzu, more than 30 people were martyred in the palace, and all of them were forced to hang themselves. Among the 10 palace concubines who died for Ming Xuanzong, there is a person named Guo Ai, who entered the palace for less than a month, and may not even have seen the face of the emperor, but he had to be martyred for the emperor who had just died. Life is like a dream, and death is also a feeling. I am the first to return to the family, and I am ashamed to lose my filial piety. The heart is sad and unavoidable, and if it is, it can be mourned. and he was forced to be a martyr. ”

The main ways of burial of the concubines were self-hanging and hunger strikes, which are rarely recorded in the official history of China. However, the Korean "Records of the Li Dynasty" recorded in detail the process of the collective "suicide" of the concubines who were martyred for Ming Chengzu. On the afternoon of October 22 in Yongle of the Ming Dynasty, more than 30 concubines who were selected to be martyred first dined outside the palace, and then were brought to the palace. There were more than 30 "small wooden beds" in the hall, and these dying concubines were ordered to stand on the wooden beds, and above their heads were ropes that had been prepared to hang themselves. ”

Among the more than 30 people, two are women from North Korea, one is the palace maid Han; One is Cui's, titled "Beauty". Near the moment of self-hanging, Han suddenly knelt on the ground and begged Mingrenzong, who had "resigned" with them, begging Renzong to let her return to China to support her old mother, but Renzong was unmoved, and in the end, the two North Korean women could only return to Huangquan in a foreign land. When Han was dying, he said goodbye to her nurse, and Han turned back to her and shouted, "Mother, I'll go!" Mother, I'll go! Before he could finish speaking, the small wooden bed under his feet was pulled off. In the blink of an eye, more than thirty women were hanged alive.

When these martyred concubines died, the next emperor would most likely give them and their relatives some benefits. The most common is to posthumously give a nickname in recognition of his deeds. According to the "Biography of the Concubines of the Ming Dynasty": "Taizu collapsed, and most of the palace people were from the dead. Jianwen and Yongle were successively compensated. For example, Zhang Feng, Li Heng, Zhao Fu, Zhang Bi, and Wang Bin are all hereditary Jinyi and thousands of households, and they are called 'Taizu Chaotian Female Households'. The two sects of Chengcheng, Ren and Xuan are all the same. ”

Among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Yingzong Zhu Qizhen did not make any achievements, but was controlled by others all his life. He ascended the throne at the age of nine and died at the age of thirty-eight. But before he died, he issued an edict saying: "I can't bear to bury people, this matter will stop by itself, and future generations will not repeat it." In this way, the cruel and inhumane system of human martyrdom was finally abolished.

The reason for this is, on the one hand, that Ming Yingzong ascended to the pole at an early age and said goodbye to the palace people who were martyred for his father Ming Xuanzong, which gave his young heart a deep stimulation and terrible memories. On the other hand, this has a certain relationship with Zhou Xianwang Zhu Youstew. Zhu Youstew, the king of Zhou Xian, was the son of Zhu Hu, the fifth son of Taizu, who died in the fourth year of orthodoxy and had no children when he died. Before he died, Shang Qin Zhen said that he would be thrifty and save the people's strength, so Ming Yingzong specially ordered that "the concubine and the lady do not have to die, and those who have parents when they are young will be repatriated" who did not wait for the holy decree to arrive, and the princess Gong and Shi and other 6 ladies had been martyred on the same day. Yingzong had no choice but to commend them for their "chastity" and "chastity".