What are the special conditions for choosing a queen in the Ming Dynasty?

Empresses of the Ming Dynasty were all selected according to the standard conditions after passing the qualification examination. Its way is mainly "gradual screening and elimination method".

Namely: the first step is "sea election". When the emperor was preparing to get married, the palace sent many eunuchs to all parts of the country to select 5000 girls aged 13 to 16, and then gathered together for the primary election.

The second step is "primary election". In this round of selection, eunuchs will arrange a larger venue, arrange girls from all over the world in a row every 100 people, sort by age, and visually eliminate girls who are too tall and too thin first, and control the elimination ratio to about one fifth.

The third step is "careful selection". On the second day after the primary election, eunuchs entered the third round of selection. They still carefully examined everyone's facial features, hair, skin, timbre and manners as they queued up the day before. If any of them fail, they will be eliminated. This round will eliminate the remaining half.

The fourth step is "selection". By this time, about 2000 people will enter the fourth round of selection. This round no longer relies on visual inspection, but eunuchs not only carefully measure the girl's hands and feet hypertrophy with a ruler, but also examine the girl's posture and charm, and eliminated the bottom 1000 girls. The remaining 65,438+0,000 beauties will be called into the palace for further selection.

The fifth step is "palace election". All women who pass the first four levels can become maids, but whether they can become empresses needs further observation and investigation. After they enter the palace, the maids who are specially arranged to engage in "recruitment" will introduce them into the secret room to "explore their breasts, smell their armpits, inquire about their texture and examine their chastity", requiring them to have no scars and delicate skin, and then recommend 300 people from 1000 people to be promoted to the top of the maids.

Step 6 "Choose a concubine". The emperor sent a special person to observe closely for a month, and judged whether their characters were gentle and virtuous through the temperament words of these 300 beautiful women who stayed in the palace. According to the performance and appraisal, 250 people were screened out, and the remaining 50 people were automatically promoted to concubines.

The seventh step is "selection". The imperial concubine or the imperial concubine was the main examiner, leading a group of people or making up their minds, and selecting three backup candidates from 50 people for the emperor to appoint the queen, which was called "selecting three" at that time.

The eighth step is "imperial edict". At this moment. The emperor can personally appoint a queen according to the beauty he recommended for the "three elections". Of course, for the other two beautiful women who failed in the "three-choice" stage, they will generally not be mistreated, and they will all be named empresses, but there are precedents for being given gold and silver coins to return to China.