Are the maids of the Qing Dynasty Manchu or Han?
Eight Banners women mainly participate in the draft to become concubines or refer to marrying princes, and the closest imperial clan is concubines. Most of those who didn't get elected went home to get married, and fewer of them became maids. The coating of the next five flags is usually provided in the royal residence of the subway. Therefore, the source of maid-in-waiting is mainly the coating of the three flags of the Ministry of the Interior. The coatings of the three flags of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are mostly Manchu, Mongolian, Han and Korean, among which the Han nationality is the majority. We can see that many Wang Sun's mothers are mostly Han Chinese. Wang Jiao, Pu Yi's wet nurse, whose maiden name is Jiao, married to the Wangs, whose surname is Wang Jiao. Many married women in ancient times were like this.
Women who hold the three flags of the Ministry of Internal Affairs must also attend the women's recruitment meeting sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (unlike the women's recruitment meeting where the emperor chooses concubines, it is sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs). The selected female practitioners, except a few lucky ones, can be favored by the emperor and become concubines or even queens (the filial piety queen of Qianlong comes from the coating of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), and all the others become maids. Moreover, the status and fate of these maids in the palace are not the same. Mainly depends on the status and goodwill of the owner he serves.
In addition to being concubines, these painted women are also fortunate to be the mothers of princes and even emperors. Before entering the Qing palace, there was a system of wet nurses nursing princes and princesses. For example, Shunzhi's wet nurse is park geun-hye's, Ye's and Angel Li's.
The prince's wet nurse is usually a woman selected from the family under the coat of the Ministry of Internal Affairs or under the Three Flags. The condition of a wet nurse is that she is young and healthy, good-looking, gentle-natured, with a husband and a son, rich and thick milk, not long after delivery, not the first child. Although the matriarchal line of these princes comes from their own coating, the husbands of wet nurses are often not low-ranking handymen, but middle-level officials or royal guards who hold certain positions. Because the wet nurse doesn't need to be educated, but she should be gentle and kind, obey the rules and understand the etiquette, and not be too vulgar and fierce, so as not to have a bad influence on Tian Jia's precious son.
It is a very glorious position that these coats and women can become the wet nurses and male nurses of the emperor's grandson. Most of them will get generous rewards, because the babies they feed will grow up to be knighted and live among dignitaries.
All these wet nurses in the palace have their own children who are still nursing. It is impossible for them to breast-feed the prince and their children at the same time. Therefore, once elected as the wet nurse of the prince, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will give money (eighty taels of Shunzhi) and then buy his family a wet nurse's baby as compensation. During her life in the palace, the wet nurse also enjoyed the corresponding benefits such as money and food, especially the daily diet, which directly affected the quality of milk.
These princes who grew up eating wet nurse's milk will also make corresponding returns to wet nurse's family after they inherit the throne or become princes. These phoenix dragons and grandchildren don't treat wet nurses as ordinary serfs, but treat them as elders. Either support the family in their own residence, or provide superior living conditions for the wet nurse family with power and financial resources. It is more common to seek well-paid positions for husbands and sons. Manchu people call their father "grandma" and their wet nurse's husband "wet nurse", which shows the different identities. The most typical ones are Kangxi and Cao Jia (Cao Xueqin family). Cao Xueqin's family came from Zhengbaiqi, the interior office, and his great-grandmother Sun Shi entered the palace in the eleventh year of Shunzhi and became Kangxi's wet nurse. After Kangxi ascended the throne, Sun Shi's husband was appointed as Jiangning Weaving. This position is not only in charge of a lot of money, but also has a special mission, which is to secretly report the performance, political situation and customs of local officials to the emperor. Jiangning is the capital of the south, and the position of the governor of Liangjiang is particularly important. Throughout the Kangxi dynasty, Jiangning weaving was almost inherited by Cao Jiabao. Sun Wencheng and Xu Li, who later served as Hangzhou Weaving and Suzhou Weaving, also came from the son's family of Kangxi (a prince had multiple wet nurses).
Long-term self-support, self-service, deep feelings of the mother died, the emperor will also be sealed with the title of "Lady" (this title can only be obtained by the wives of senior officials in the Qing Dynasty), and sometimes her husband will be chased by posthumous title, Shitie, and even their graves will be built near the emperor's mausoleum. Outside the Feng Shui wall of Zunhua Qing Dongling, there are four mother's tombs, namely the emperor shunzhi's nurse Park (Mrs. Sheng Feng, Mrs. Nanfu Hara, who gave her the title of "Gong Xiang" and a second-class captain arrived without pomp), Li Jiashi (Mrs. You Sheng, who was given the title of "Liang Nuo" by the Nanfu, and Li Jiashi).