My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 558 Harem
Empress Dowager Dou's summons to Emperor Liu Rong naturally attracted great attention both inside and outside the court.

However, since the reign of Emperor Xiaojing, the Changle Palace, under the control of Empress Dowager Dou, has always been a forbidden place that no one could touch.

Even the Embroidered Uniform Guard, whom the late emperor relied on as his "eyes" and "ears," never managed to successfully infiltrate Chang Le Palace.

Therefore, both inside and outside the court were completely unaware of what happened and what was said inside the Changxin Hall of Changle Palace.

As time went by, Liu Rong's attitude towards the eldest prince gradually made people inside and outside the court realize what was going on.

Liu Rong named his eldest son Liu Xuan.

He also personally gave a relatively negative interpretation of the word "mysterious"—at least it had nothing to do with "lofty expectations".

In addition, Consort Cao, the mother of the eldest prince, was not promoted to the highest rank below the empress as was customary. Instead, she was only promoted to the rank of Beauty.

According to the explicit provisions of the "Han Dynasty Official System: Imperial Harem", the women in the emperor's harem were divided into eight ranks.

The first rank, naturally, is that of the empress, the emperor's principal wife and the head of the harem.

As everyone knows, there can only be one empress.

In the Han Dynasty, the empress resided permanently in the Jiaofang Palace.

The second category consisted of wives who served as concubines to the emperor.

His status was second only to the Empress, and he feared no other woman in the harem except for the Empress.

The third category is beauty.

Although both "Madam" and "Lady" were concubines, the difference between them can be subtly discerned from their titles.

"Madam" is clearly more formal and solemn, and it sounds like a legitimate concubine being taken in.

The word "beauty" sounds rather frivolous, and at first glance, it sounds more like a concubine who was bought from a less respectable place and brought in.

that's the truth.

In the past, in the Han Dynasty's imperial harem, apart from the fixed empress, all other women aimed for the positions of Lady or Beauty.

Those who aspire to become wives are mostly from respectable families and were selected through the imperial concubine selection process.

Those who targeted beautiful women were mostly women whom the emperor had favored outside the palace and then brought back to the palace; these were women of dubious origin or of questionable birth.

Or perhaps they were concubines, palace maids, or relatives of the imperial concubines.

Consorts like the eldest and youngest Wang during the reign of the late emperor were not selected for the palace through normal channels.

The Queen Consort Wang Zhi first abandoned her original husband, and then bribed the officials in charge of selecting concubines to enter the palace as a "good girl," but in reality she was not from a good family.

Wang Erju, also known as Xiao Wang Meiren, was a concubine brought into the palace from outside by her elder sister, Wang Zhi, to keep the benefits within the family and place her in the late emperor's bedchamber.

Therefore, after giving birth to imperial heirs, the two sisters became beauties one after the other.

Moreover, only Wang Zhi, the "Beauty of the King," was promoted to the rank of Lady, and this was only because the original wife, Jin Wangsun, caused a public outcry, and the late emperor did so to quell the public opinion.

Even though Consort Wang gave birth to three sons, she was unable to obtain the title of Lady during the late Emperor's lifetime.

The fourth class is a good man.

For daughters of good families who entered the palace through the imperial selection process, entering the palace meant starting with the rank of a "good lady".

Even the title of 'Liangren' originated from the fact that those who held this position were mostly from respectable families who entered the palace for the imperial concubine selection.

Starting from this fourth rank of "Liangren," they were no longer simply "the emperor's women," but began to possess certain characteristics of female officials.

To put it nicely, they were female officials; to put it bluntly, they were palace maids.

Of course, this does not mean that the women selected to enter the palace through the imperial concubine selection process were no different from ordinary palace maids.

Rather, it means that starting from the fourth-rank concubine, some of the work that belonged to palace maids was also taken on by these lower-ranking concubines.

The fourth-class good man would probably be responsible for tasks such as mending clothes.

The fifth-ranked eight sons and the sixth-ranked seven sons were responsible for tasks such as picking and washing vegetables.

The seventh-rank chief maid and the eighth-rank junior maid were the real palace maids. The dirty and hard work that palace maids had to do was done by women of these two ranks.

In fact, there was no clear dividing line between the concubines and palace maids in the Han Dynasty's harem, and they shared the same system of ranks and titles.

After all, the women in the palace were potential concubines of the emperor, and potential consorts who might bear imperial offspring.

Therefore, even the lowest-ranking palace maid, the eighth-rank servant, harbored the ambition to be favored by the emperor and become the mother of the imperial heir.

This system of eight ranks for women in the imperial harem was divided with the fourth rank, Liangren, as the dividing line.

—The concubines were either those who had been favored by the emperor and thus promoted to the rank of eighth or seventh concubine, or senior or junior concubines, who had become the emperor's women in a real sense;
Alternatively, they could enter the palace through a selection process, becoming respectable women in the emperor's harem and potential concubines, destined to become the emperor's women sooner or later.

Under normal circumstances, if a woman successfully passed the imperial concubine selection, the emperor would still favor her once or twice, no matter how much he disliked or hated her.

Below the rank of Liangren, even those in the fifth rank of the Eighth Class, who were only one step away from Liangren, were women whom the emperor had never touched.

In short, from the fifth-rank Eighth Prince down to the eighth-rank Junior Attendant, as long as the emperor had slept with them and there was no farce like 'the emperor was unhappy during the sleep,' they could be promoted to the rank of Good Lady.

Starting from the fourth-class concubine and moving up to the second-class lady, each step represents a significant hurdle.

The essential condition for a woman to be promoted to the fourth rank of "Good Lady" was to conceive an imperial heir.

If a woman who entered the palace through a non-selection process gave birth to a child, or if a woman who entered the palace through a selection process gave birth to a princess, she would be promoted to the rank of Beauty.

Of course, most of the women who entered the palace through the proper selection process were unwilling to be promoted to the rank of "Beauty".

Therefore, after giving birth to a princess, most women would choose to decline the promotion, hoping to give birth to a prince in the future and thus be promoted to the rank of second-class lady.

As for a third-class beauty, it would be much more difficult to be promoted to a second-class lady.

After all, most third-class beauties did not have a clean and respectable background or family history, nor did they have a proper way of entering the palace.

Therefore, it is not permissible for a third-class beauty to be promoted to a second-class lady in principle—even if she gives birth to a prince.

Unless a woman from a respectable family was selected to enter the palace through the imperial concubine selection process and was promoted to the rank of Beauty for giving birth to a princess, she could only be promoted to the rank of Lady after giving birth to a prince. In a sense, a respectable fourth-rank Lady had a much greater chance of being promoted to the rank of Lady than a third-rank Beauty who was born into a less respectable family.

Of course, since it is 'not allowed in principle', it is not hard to know that there are exceptions.

—For example, the Queen Consort Wang Zhi during the reign of the late emperor was actually born into an improper family, but on the surface she appeared to be from a respectable family;
Moreover, the late emperor's favor towards Wang Zhi was enough to make him break this precedent and he did not care at all about Wang Zhi's 'not very respectable' background.

Only under such circumstances could a third-class beauty be directly promoted to a second-class lady by the imperial power.

As for the first-rank empress, she was clearly a special case.

In principle, the empress of the Han dynasty could not be selected from among the second-class ladies, third-class beauties, and fourth-class ladies in the palace.

Instead, the emperor should be married off with proper ceremony, and a proper wife should be brought back from outside the palace.

Unlike other women in the seventh rank of the imperial harem, the rank promotion of the empress, which was similar to a 'promotion', was a legitimate political activity.

Specifically, from the eighth-rank junior servant to the fifth-rank eight sons, those who were promoted to the fourth-rank good person due to being favored by the emperor usually only needed to be announced verbally by the eunuch and registered.

For a woman of the fourth rank or a woman of the third rank to be promoted to the rank of Lady, she needed an imperial edict to bestow the title—usually in the form of a verbal decree.

The appointment of an empress is the same as the appointment of a crown prince, and even the enthronement of the emperor!
It requires the Empress Dowager of the Eastern Palace to issue an imperial edict, using both the Empress Dowager's seal and the Emperor's seal, and to hold ancestral rites to announce it to the world!

Even in extremely rare cases—such as when Emperor Taizong bestowed the title of Empress upon Lady Dou, and Emperor Xiaojing bestowed the title of Empress upon Lady Wang Zhi—the entire process of a formal marriage by the emperor still had to be followed.

It can only be said that in this system of eight ranks of women in the imperial harem, the Empress is absolutely in a class of her own.

After all, the empress falls under the category of 'wife'.

From second-class ladies to fourth-class ladies, all were considered concubines. The only difference was their birth status and whether they had given birth to children, and whether those children were male or female.

As for the fifth-rank Eighth Rank and all the way down to the eighth-rank Junior Servant, they clearly belong to the category of 'maids'.

If you're lucky, your master might sleep with you for one night, and if you sleep comfortably, he might grant you the status of a concubine.
If you are fortunate enough to give birth to a child, you may even be made a high-ranking concubine who doesn't have to do housework.

But a concubine is still a concubine.

The difference between a wife and a concubine is far greater than the difference between a concubine and a maid.

After all, to some extent, a concubine is just a slightly higher-ranking maid; and a maid is just a slightly lower-ranking concubine.

Once you understand these points, it's not hard to see the implications of Liu Rong's bestowal of honors upon the eldest son, Liu Xuan, and his mother.

As the saying goes, even the prime minister's doorman is a seventh-rank official.

As a relative of Empress Cao Shu, even though she was just a concubine accompanying the emperor, Cao, the birth mother of the eldest son Liu Xuan, still received the rank of Liangren (a concubine rank) the moment she entered the palace, before she had even been favored by Liu Rong.

Their status and position were on par with those who entered the palace through the proper channels of the imperial concubine selection, and who, like them, had not been favored by the emperor—or perhaps had been favored but had not yet become pregnant!

This was certainly Liu Rong's way of showing respect to his principal wife, Empress Cao Shu.

However, such a high starting point makes Liu Rong's current attitude towards the eldest son Liu Xuan and his mother seem somewhat harsh and ungrateful.

—Before even receiving the emperor's favor, she was granted the title of a fourth-class concubine upon entering the palace—this is the proper path for a daughter of a respectable family!
After becoming pregnant, women from respectable families could usually be unconditionally promoted to the rank of Third-Class Beauty. If they gave birth to a prince, they could even be promoted to the rank of Second-Class Lady!

Furthermore, the merit of giving birth to the eldest son or princess, and the level of reward one can receive, will be raised one rank above the existing level.

—A beauty of questionable birth cannot, in principle, be promoted to the rank of Lady, but she can if she gives birth to the eldest son or princess of the emperor!

Palace maids of the fifth rank and below, who belonged to the category of 'maids', could in principle only become 'good women' (ladies of the palace), and because of their extremely lowly birth, they were almost never allowed to bear imperial offspring.

But it is permissible to conceive the eldest prince or princess!

As long as she can give birth smoothly—giving birth to the eldest prince—she can still become a second-class lady, be promoted to princess, and also become a third-class beauty!

It is not hard to see from this that the three words "eldest son of the emperor" were almost as important to the women in the harem as the supreme bone in later fantasy novels.

Whether you are of noble or humble birth, whether you are exceptionally talented or mediocre;
Once you obtain the Supreme Bone, you will be a trendsetter of this era!
Similarly, even the lowest-ranking eighth-grade servant was allowed to become pregnant as long as the emperor did not yet have children!

Even if the emperor already had a princess but no prince, he still allowed a low-ranking maid to become pregnant.

As long as she gives birth to the eldest son of the emperor, it is not a dream for an eighth-rank clerk to rise to the rank of second-rank lady!
Of course, it won't be a six-level upgrade all at once.

It will probably be: the pregnancy is promoted to the seventh grade of the rank of Changshi, the fetal development is stable and it is classified as the sixth grade of the rank of the seventh son, and if there is no miscarriage in the fourth or fifth month, it will be classified as the fifth grade of the rank of the eighth son;

She was about to give birth, and under the pretext of 'appeasement,' she was promoted to the rank of Fourth-Class Good Lady;
Once the baby is born, the decision will be made based on whether it is a boy or a girl, and whether she will be promoted to a third-class beauty or directly to a second-class lady.

Against this backdrop, Cao, the birth mother of the eldest prince Liu Xuan, was granted the title of a fourth-class concubine as soon as she entered the palace, which basically meant that as long as she was pregnant, she was guaranteed to be a beauty.

As long as the delivery goes smoothly—even if the child is not the eldest son of the emperor, or even a princess but a prince, she will have the opportunity to become a second-class lady.

After all, the fact that Lady Cao was able to become a concubine immediately after entering the palace was because Emperor Liu Rong gave her face to Empress Cao Shu.

Since that's the case, it would be only reasonable to consider Empress Cao's feelings once again, after Cao has conceived an heir.

But the actual situation was that Lady Cao gave birth to a prince.

And he's the eldest son of the emperor!
A junior envoy of the eighth rank who gives birth to the emperor’s eldest son should be promoted to a second-rank lady!
Originally a fourth-class concubine, Cao, who was personally given to Liu Rong by the Empress, was only promoted to a third-class beauty after giving birth to the eldest son of the Emperor.

To put it bluntly, this was Emperor Liu Rong slapping Empress Cao Shu in the face.

You have to consider the owner before you beat a dog, right?
However, judging from Empress Cao Shu's reaction of only regret and not resentment, it is not difficult to see from both inside and outside the court that Liu Rong's move was at least not intended to embarrass Cao Shu, but was simply out of consideration for the special political status of the 'eldest son of the emperor'.

Why is the eldest son of the emperor so special?
During the reign of the late emperor, why was Liu Rong, who was only the eldest son of the emperor, able to become the only one among his brothers who was not ignored or looked down upon by the court and the public?
Because the title of "eldest son of the emperor" itself is a qualification card for competing for the position of crown prince!
From the day of his birth, the eldest son of the emperor will inevitably be the focus of everyone's attention and will become the first crown prince candidate to receive attention among the emperor's heirs.

There were no outstanding examples to follow.

On the contrary, every prince after that—even the eldest son of the emperor—would be subconsciously compared to the eldest son by the officials and nobles both inside and outside the court.

Such a special political status required the emperor to make a decision immediately upon the child's birth.

—Or, explicitly express the intention to groom him, in order to intimidate the harem and thus protect the eldest prince!

Alternatively, like Liu Rong, they could explicitly exclude him from the list of potential heirs, thus dashing everyone's hopes.

There is absolutely no other way to handle this.

(End of this chapter)