Holy forbidden city, I must have missed this lecture in the Chinese History class I took my sophomore year that was taught by a archetypal college professor who wore tweed blazers and would puff on a tobacco pipe during class:
"The emperor chose his night companion from nameplates presented to him by a eunuch," says Yuan. A high-ranking eunuch, the Chief of the Imperial Bedchamber, would remove the woman's clothes to ensure that she carried no weapons or poisons, roll her up in a quilt and carry her on his back through the courtyards to the emperor.[...]
Passions and ambitions stewed in this world within a world. In Chinese lore, more than 200 concubines died on the orders of the 16th-century emperor Shizong. Seeking to end their misery, 16 members of his harem stole into his bedchamber one night to strangle him with a silken cord and stab him with a hairpin. The emperor lost an eye in the struggle, but the empress saved his life. Court executioners then tore the limbs from the concubines and displayed their severed heads on poles.
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