The internal arrangements of the court are modelled somewhat after those of the Boards, the general supervision being under the direction of the Nui-wu fu, composed of a president and six assessors, under whom are seven subordinate departments. It is the duty of these officers to attend upon the Emperor and Empress at sacrifices, and conduct the ladies of the harem to and from the palace; they oversee the households of the sons of the Emperor, and direct, under his Majesty, everything belonging to the palace and whatever appertains to its supplies and the care of the imperial guard. The seven departments are arranged so as to bear no little resemblance to a miniature state: one supplies food and raiment; a second is for defence, to regulate the body-guard when the Emperor travels; the third attends to the etiquette the members of this great family must observe toward each other, and brings forward the inmates of the harem when the Emperor, seated in the inner hall of audience, receives their homage, led by the Empress herself; a fourth department selects ladies to fill the harem, and collects the revenue from crown lands; a fifth superintends all repairs necessary in the palace, and sees that the streets of the city be cleared whenever the Emperor, Empress, or any of the women or children in the palace wish to go out; a sixth department has in charge the herds and flocks of the Emperor; and the last is a court for punishing the crimes of soldiers, eunuchs, and others attached to the palace.
The Emperor ought to have three thousand eunuchs, but the actual number is rather less than two thousand, who perform the work of the household. His sons and grandsons are allowed from thirty down to four, while the iron-crown princes and imperial sons-in-law have twenty or thirty; all these nobles are constrained to employ some eunuchs in their establishments, if not able to maintain the full quota, for show. Most of this class are compelled to submit to mutilation by their parents before the age of eight (and not always from poverty), as it usually insures a livelihood. Some take to this condition from motives of laziness and the high duties falling to their share if they behave themselves. From very ancient times certain criminals have been punished by castration. There is a separate control for the due efficiency of these servants of the court, who are divided into forty-eight classes; during the present dynasty they have never caused trouble. The highest pay any of them receive is twelve taels a month.
POSITION OF THE EMPRESS AND LADIES.
The number of females attached to the harem is not accurately known; all of them are under the nominal direction of the Empress. Every third year his Majesty reviews the daughters of the Manchu officers over twelve years of age, and chooses such as he pleases for concubines; there are only seven legal concubines, but an unlimited number of illegal. The latter are restored to liberty when they reach the age of twenty-five, unless they have borne children to his Majesty. It is generally considered an advantage to a family to have a daughter in the harem, especially by the Manchus, who endeavor to rise by this backstairs influence.[226] To the poor women themselves it is a monotonous, weary life of intriguing unrest. As soon as one enters the palace she bids final adieu to all her male relatives, and rarely sees her female friends; the eunuchs who take care of her are her chief channels of communication with the outer world. It may be added, however, that the comforts and influence of her condition are vastly superior to those of Hindu females.
In the forty-eighth volume of the Hwui Tien, from which work most of the details in this chapter are obtained, is an account of the supplies furnished his Majesty and the court. There should daily be placed before the Emperor thirty pounds of meat in a basin and seven pounds boiled into soup; hog’s fat and butter, of each one and one-third pound; two sheep, two fowls, and two ducks, the milk of eighty cows, and seventy-five parcels of tea. Her Majesty receives twenty-one pounds of meat in platters and thirteen pounds boiled with vegetables; one fowl, one duck, twelve pitchers of water, the milk of twenty-five cows, and ten parcels of tea. Her maids and the concubines receive their rations according to a regular fare.
The Empress-dowager is the most important subject within the palace, and his Majesty does homage at frequent intervals, by making the highest ceremony of nine prostrations before her. When the widow of Kiaking reached the age of sixty in 1836, many honors were conferred by the Emperor. An extract from the ordinance issued on this festival will exhibit the regard paid her by the sovereign:
“Our extensive dominions have enjoyed the utmost prosperity under the shelter of a glorious and enduring state of felicity. Our exalted race has become most illustrious under the protection of that honored relative to whom the whole court looks up. To her happiness, already unalloyed, the highest degree of felicity has been superadded, causing joy and gladness to every inmate of the Six Palaces. The grand ceremonies of the occasion shall exceed in splendor the utmost requirements of the ancients in regard to the human relations, calling forth the gratulation of the whole Empire. It is indispensable that the observances of the occasion should be of an exceedingly unusual nature, in order that our reverence for our august parent and care of her may both be equally and gloriously displayed.... In the first month of the present winter occurs the sixtieth anniversary of her Majesty’s sacred natal day. At the opening of the happy period, the sun and moon shed their united genial influences on it. When commencing anew the revolution of the sexagenary cycle, the honor thereof adds increase to her felicity. Looking upward and beholding her glory, we repeat our gratulations, and announce the event to Heaven, to Earth, to our ancestors, and to the patron gods of the Empire. On the nineteenth day of the tenth moon in the fifteenth year of Taukwang, we will conduct the princes, the nobles, and all the high officers, both civil and military, into the presence of the great Empress, benign and dignified, universally placid, thoroughly virtuous, tranquil and self-collected, in favors unbounded; and we will then present our congratulations on the glad occasion, the anniversary of her natal day. The occasion yields a happiness equal to what is enjoyed by goddesses in heaven; and while announcing it to the gods and to our people, we will tender to her blessings unbounded.”
Besides the usual tokens of favor, such as rations to soldiers, pardons, promotions, advances in official rank, etc., it was ordered in the eleventh article, “That every perfectly filial son or obedient grandson, every upright husband or chaste wife, upon proofs being brought forward, shall have a monument erected, with an inscription in his or her honor.” Soldiers who had reached the age of ninety or one hundred received money to erect an honorary portal, and tombs, temples, bridges, and roads were ordered to be repaired; but how many of these “exceedingly great and special favors” were actually carried into effect cannot be stated.[227]
EMPEROR’S GUARD AND DIVISIONS OF THE PEOPLE.
For the defence and escort of the Emperor and his palaces there are select bodies of troops, which are stationed within the Hwang-ching and the capital and at the various cantonments near the city. The Bannermen form three separate corps, each containing the hereditary troops of Manchu, Mongol, and enrolled Chinese, organized at the beginning of the dynasty under eight standards. Their flags are triangular, a plain yellow, white, red, and blue for troops in the left wing, and the same bordered with a narrow stripe of another color for troops in the right wing. All the families of these soldiers remain in the corps into which they were born.